New year wanderings

Happy New Year!

Went on a Walk today. Not sure what possessed us to, to be honest. But we did. Amazingly we were only 15 minutes late leaving the house.

We'd watched John Bishop last night and his words haunted us as we packed everything we might possibly need for a walk with children, including the microwave and the fridge....

It was bitterly cold, gale-force windy, and muddy. On the swamp we waded through at the beginning: "it wasn't anything like this when we did the recce two weeks ago!" Glad we'd decided to bring both the wrap AND the meitai, as Ben was not feeling up to walking anyway and he would not have made it even across the first bit of the walk (the swamp) otherwise. He got very very cold halfway through and went into meltdown at exactly the same moment that Charley woke up and wanted his lunch NOW MUMMY NOW.... so we huddled behind a wall to try and get some respite from the biting wind and eventually gave up with lunch, swapped the boys over so Charley was on Steve and Ben on me (both on our fronts this time) and pushed on through the wind. Ben fell asleep, verging on hypothermia despite being dressed very warmly, and very distressed, wanting to go home. We took a shortcut to get back to the pub where we'd started from but even that wasn't short enough and so stopped and huddled in a sheltered bit behind a wall with my dad while Steve raced the last bit to get the car to come fetch us. Once back at the pub however, and having relaxed a bit with his cuddle from me, Ben was a different person! Chips and hot chocolate and a sausage roll and being SO glad of being warm again and he made friends with the group we'd been walking with and we couldn't shut him up!! Then Charley discovered that if he hit himself on the head with his hands, he could get other people to copy him and of course he found this hilarious...

Back home early so Steve could get ready to go out with some old friends, snuggles with my boys. Nobody really wanted to cook or could decide what they wanted to eat so mum did my request of cabbage and gravy! Pudding was mince tart with cream, washed down with white wine. Proper bonkers meal to see in the new year really :D Steve was back early but the boys were not interested in bed yet having slept in the car on the way home so we kept them company playing with lego again and had another glass of wine instead...