Vogrie Country Park

Although the pond had a light crust of ice, we enjoyed the day very much.

Yes, only frantically watching my son bend over the edge to touch the ice and hover my hands over him in case he slipped and fell in - I didn't feel like swimming today I thought.

The minute we've arrived, kids were excited and headed down the path in their wellies wobbling on their feet. It felt relaxing letting them loose like that here, not like other times when it usually meant trouble. Also the air didn't feel as cold and the grounds weren't frozen anymore. Until the moment the boys reached another group with kids and golden retriever and joined forces running down the stone patch towards the manor, well they really headed for the playground. I had my heart on my tongue when my two year old was bouncing down the trail, clearly behind the other kids, waiting for him to fall and scream. I managed to make my feet move again although still a bit numb with fear and grab a handful of his jacket before he fell. Seriously, where is the self-preservation instinct?

Playground was fun. Puddles of mud were more fun than swings and slides in the end though. And then there was the damned pond which was my initial brag to get them away from the playground before they were too tired to walk back to the car. So once I managed to get them away from it I took unfamiliar path right down to another pond. Which, I told them, didn't have any ice and they believed me. Phew! We admired the beautiful old trees, swirling their branches down to the ground covered in jade green. We pretended there's a princess sleeping in the tree and my older son sang her Twinkle Twinkle to wake her.
Then he pretended to be a werewolf in the silver spruce forest. There were couple of spruces lying on the ground, presumably pulled out during the wind storm because their roots were sticking out of the ground. He made a house in the crown of the fallen tree, filling it with pine cones and peaking out to scare off anyone who'd like to come in. My younger son was holding tight onto my hand, maybe a bit scared and wobbly too as the roots didn't make it easier for him to walk either. In the end we were leaving the park with a scream initially and then broken resignation after I promised a sweetie when he gets quietly in the car.

It seems like a lot of trouble to go through for hour and half but made it so much easier at the bedtime!