Mud Pie

When we were young my Grandad and Dad worked as Foresters for the London Corporation and we had the pleasure of not only staying with my Nan and Grandad when they lived in a Keepers House near the Wake Arms but also living there for a few years after my Grandad retired.
We had as much Forest to play in as kids need, with 'Torture Trees', 'The Forgotten Well' (which only my Grandad could find), the 'Holly Bush', 'Animal Graveyard', 'Bamboo Trampoline' the 'Log Shed', the 'Pump House' amongst other things.
On various occasions my brothers would try and set Epping Forest on fire but failed miserably. There was a tree that was always full of caterpillars that we would collect and put in a jar but always forget to set free (sorry!!).
My Nan had a huge pantry that we would sneak into with a teaspoon and eat mouthfulls of Malt Extract (bloomin gorgeous stuff!!) and while she slept we would try and pull her 'whiskers' out!! We would have competitions to see who could remove my Grandads fag butt that had stuck onto his lip while he slept without waking him!
One of my other fond memories was making mud pies in a drain cover outside the kitchen window. We used to spend hours mixing the water and mud to the right consistency and then baking them in the sun.
Whenever Honor and Jude get the water and mud out ready to make a pie I get floods of memories come back and hope that they will have as much fun as we did.