During the first lockdown we made sure that we made time to explore our local area a bit more. We had lived here for 7 years and didn’t even know about some of the fantastic places that were just around the corner. Since Erin started school and was back at swimming lessons for a while we just didn’t have much time at the weekend and this meant not getting out and about for a while.
Now that the government has put into a lockdown again until the beginning of December I cannot spend that time being stuck in the house. I go a bit stir crazy if I stay at home too much and usually I would get this out of my system by going for a coffee with friends, getting my nails done etc. As this isn’t possible I’m trying to make sure we get out with Erin on at least 1 day of the weekend and our local (small) woods are the perfect place for us.
Saddler’s Wood is only about a 15 minute walk from home, less if Erin wasn’t with us but as a non-driving family it means somewhere we can actually get to. Erin isn’t the best walker though and we do have to really urge her to keep going sometimes but we get there in the end.
We only found this place earlier in the year so it’s the first time we’ve been in autumn and it was absolutely beautiful. We went on a fairly warm day and Erin and I found that as soon as we were within the trees that we were too warm and needed to get rid of our coats. We really lucked out with the weather.
We spent a good couple of hours out at the woods. There is really only one route you can take once you’re in there as it is quite small but Erin loves to walk quite slowly and look at everything. The leaves were not only all over the ground but they were slowly falling from the trees as we walked around as well.
We can never get through a walk in the woods without a sit down and a break for Erin. She always wants a snack half way through and luckily for us there’s a cool bench that we always sit on and Erin always asks for a family picture.
On this particular trip to the woods we tried to follow a scavenger hunt, found loads of cool types of fungi and Erin learned how to throw leaves up in the air. I know we only have a couple of weeks left in lockdown left and the weather might not be on our side soon but for now at least we have somewhere to go.