A walk in the park...

A couple of weeks ago Dandy over at Spontaneous Clapping (click to link over to her lovely blog) posted about her wonderful stroll through the park. I was reminded instantly of how gorgeous the parks are in the US: paved paths, trimmed grass, landscaped gardens really! Now I'm not saying we dont have those here, as we do, but they are mainly in central London. Out in the suburbs our parks are more wild. Very different. So I promised we'd walk. Take pictures. Post about.

The park at the end of our walk

A mixture of sleet, snow, rain, cold, wind and winter blues have meant that we haven't done it. We've avoided. We've stayed in hibernation. If we HAD groundhogs, they wouldn't even have shown face.

Dog with ADD - hadn't been walked in weeks. 

Yesterday, however, the sun came out to play. I thought of going for a walk, then thought better of it, until a friend messaged me and said "lets walk!". How could I say no? How could I deprive my kids (and my near senile dog) from a dose of vitamin D and some fresh country air. So we set off - I capitulated.

My friends little boy

I hauled out my camera, complete with its broken LCD, dug out the kids walking pram, packed cinnamon buns and headed out. 

Running FREE! 

 Once we were there I realised I had nearly NO pictures of my boys over the past couple of months.

Asher, 14 months

My beautiful baby - cant believe he is running!

Another friend joined us with her gorgeous little girl. She and Levi were due on the same day! It was wonderful to be pregnant with someone I knew, although it seemed grossly unfair that I got to have my baby for a full three weeks before Judy got to have K. Judy was late, I was early!

Girls make me broody. 

The thing that I love most about these picture is that all of them were spontaneous. The kids went where they wanted, and played as they wanted. This did mean that they were always backlit, as they never wanted to face the sun!

 They all seemed to have a really good time, even though it was FREEZING.

My boys decided to play a little game of hide and seek on the bench, which completely melted me. They have only just started to play together - this is the first photographic evidence I have to prove it happens.

I would never have forgiven myself for missing this had I not had my camera!

It was cold but they were so joyful! It makes me long for another sunny afternoon to savour. It also makes me long for decent photo editing software. And for my LCD display to be fixed.

Levi found a body shaped hole, and proceeded to sit in it for half an hour.

He even pretended to sleep in it. Complete with fake snoring and everything. "Video!" you jeer. Yes, actually, I have one. I just have to get it off my phone - eventually.

I hope this inspires you to get out in cold, like Dandy inspired me! Its so worth it - they slept like logs last night! And we got some sweet pictures :-)