Flatford Mill

Back in the summer I went to Constable Country on my own and had a lovely walk. On Sunday The Missus wanted some peace and quiet to do some work, so I thought I'd take the terrible trio there for an artistic amble. Here is the bridge (and Bridge Cottage). The river was much fuller than the last time.

I couldn't get the kids much interested in Constable's paintings in the exhibition. "I don't want to be an artist", protested Little Miss. That's funny. She seems to spend all her time filling the house with her drawings! They did like the ducks and geese on the River Stour, though, and agreed to pose sitting on the wall.

"It's just as well The Missus isn't here", I thought. She wouldn't have let them sit there in case they toppled over backwards into the river, got swept away and drowned.

Anyway, we went on a walk. Just the short National Trust one. And Little W managed to lose his hat, so we had to go back round the route again in reverse to find where he had dropped it. Predictably, it was quite close to the start! So it wasn't just Dad who was a bit grumpy. Anyway, here they are, offending hat recovered and in hand, if not on head.

Nowton Park Fairy Trail

It was half-term. That meant there was a trail to follow in Nowton Park. You get the answers sheet (and a pencil) from the rangers' hut by the car park. The idea is that you search around the park to find the questions and fill in the answers as you go. Here's the answer sheet.

As you can see, the theme this time was "Fairies", and all the questions are related to that theme. The questions are pinned up on trees, benches, fences - whatever. Here's one we found on the ground which had escaped.

It was all good reading practice for Little Miss. Here she is with the Missus working one out.

They made it really simple this time by putting them sequentially along the paths. I think it's much better when you really have to hunt for them, but maybe people had complained that it was too hard to find them all. We did spot that 2 had gone missing, and I think we should have got some "brownie" points for finding this...

The invisible clue was revealed only by its drawing pins! Despite being unable to answer the invisible question (I knew we should have let Little W bring his sonic screwdriver) we got a prize for completing the trail. Yippee!

Board Meeting

The company has been paid! I dragged the Missus out of bed to see the evidence via Internet Banking. "We need to hold a board meeting", I told her. "Well let's have it in bed, then - it's warmer there", she answered. So we did!

Knettishall Heath Winter Walk

It was a frosty weekend. The first really proper frosty weather at a weekend this year. Nothing like as cold as Bern last year, but a perfect opportunity for a crunchy winter walk. One where you have to wrap up warm and see your breath when you breathe out. And, miraculously, I managed to persuade the tribe that it would be a good thing to get up early on a Sunday to experience the frostiness. Now we hadn't been to Knettishall Heath country park (near Thetford) since early summer, but that was the perfect spot. We were out of the house by 8:20 am and on our walk before 9.

We did a combination of the green heath walk and blue riverside walk. It was foggy as well as frosty, which made things even more atmospheric. On the riverside walk we found this stream frozen over.

Alongside the Peddar's Way, which runs along the western edge of the park, we saw these ponies.

After a bit of coaxing we got them to come over to the fence to eat some proferred clumps of juicy grass.

Now you might wonder what these three are doing here...

They had found some mud that was completely solid. They could stomp on it as much as they liked, the mud wasn't going to stick to their boots and end up in my car boot!

I love to see leaves all frosty. Here are some in close-up.

We had an excellent long walk for about 2 1/2 hours and were back home in time to put the chicken in the oven.

You can see more pictures from our walk here in Flickr