Day Out With The Kids

It was more of an afternoon, by the time we’d managed to tear the children away from their tech and fashion them into something approaching respectable for venturing out. The idea being that once children were out of the house, Beloved could tidy and prepare for entertaining my family on Christmas Day. In spite of it being only a few days before Christmas, due to the mild weather, we agreed on a picnic lunch in the woods and cycling for the first part of the outing. Master H can be seen here, after our ride around Highwoods in Colchester, standing near to the play area where his sisters were climbing and swinging. He did a good job of joining in on the play equipment designed for children from toddlers to mid teens, but of course he was most insistent that the only place he would be happy was the highest point in the park. Naturally I disagreed and a mini-tantrum ensued (but I soon recovered haha).

For the second part of the outing, we ventured to Manningtree to complete a couple of chores and Miss I suggested it would be good to search the shop windows for eight baby Jesus stones, placed there by the local church. A small prize had been promised to those finding all eight stones, to be presented at the crib service on Christmas eve. Although our search was quite comprehensive, we found only seven of the eight stones. It was time to head home and to organize dinner, so I attempted to console those disappointed spirits by leaving by the Christmas lights in Victoria Crescent. A local resident puts them up each year, in aid of the air ambulance. I left a donation with a photo we headed home with some rather non-plussed children.