“The Gruffalo said that no gruffalo should. Ever set foot in the deep dark wood.”

Ever since our Super worm trail a week ago at Wyre forest Opeie has been craving some more woodland adventures. He loves being outside pottering around in the sun and I'm game for anything that takes me away from the mundane tasks of household chores.  The weather has been so lovely over the last few days and after dropping Seth off at school we made our way to Cannock Chase in search of another Gruffalo. Opeie made it quite clear that he would again be in full control of getting us to our destination.

 

As soon as Opeie had stepped out of the car and his feet were firmly on the ground he made a bee line for the first Julia Donaldson picture he could find, he was a four year old on a mission. I happily trailed behind while he rushed off shouting "come on daddy, run!".

I do love visiting Wyre Forest but i definitely prefer Birches Valley forest as it is filled with all manner of weird and wonderful sculptures and random things for Opeie to climb on. Opeie seemed a little confused by the giant wooden carving of a trainer though.  

The great thing about Birches Valley too is the area of forest set out for the hardcore forest adventurers. A huge area that has lots of fun dens made from large branches. The boys love making bases in the woods wherever we go and there is no end to the amount of den making material available. The branches here are the best we've found for making a bow and arrow too. so as Opeie ran through the woods pretending he was Hawkeye i added to a few more branches to some partially built bases.

Like i said... Weird and Wonderful!

Our Superworm trail went a little off course at this point and our attentions were on another of Julia Donaldson's creations. The little brown mouse took us away from our super adventure and before we knew it we were surrounded by all those less friendly animals.

And then in the distance there he was, the monster of the hour. With those knobbly knees and turned out toes and the poisonous wart on the end of his nose. There he was in all his glory...

 And then it was lunch time so we found a hill to sit on in perfect view of the Gruffalo and tucked in. We were also in perfect view of a school trip of a class of children which must have been a reception class. Watching all the children run about excited was lovely but what i didn't like was the lack of patience the teachers/helpers had and the tone of voice some of them were using with the children. Opeie said 'Dad can i just stay at Daddy nursery?', he's such a cutie.

Before heading out on our forest adventure we had popped in to Smyths to pick up some LEGO for Opeie's great behaviour and for the fact that he is now sleeping really well. Its made a massive difference to his energy through the day and has had a great impact on myself and Mrs M too so it definitely needed to be rewarded. So as we sat eating our lunch we built a bit of LEGO too, a perfect afternoon.

Maybe a little too perfect as while Opeie was building a Superworm from rocks he could find lying about i decided to check my phone, which i hadn't done for a few hours and realised it was almost 4. we were 45 minutes drive from Mrs M's work and we needed to be picking her up for 4:30, Oops. We were having so much fun i had completely lost track of time.

As we rushed back to the car we spotted a Hare and a Tortoise so i told Opeie the story as we made our way back. It was a fun afternoon of woodland adventuring and he's already asked to go back again this week, I'm thinking we go looking for a new Gruffalo at one of the other great Foresty Commission sites. Stay tuned for more adventures.

"He has knobbly knees, and turned-out toes, And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose."

The weather has been glorious today and we made the most of the sunshine this morning by searching for that elusive mythical beast the Gruffalo. They have been popping up all over the country at Foresty commission sites in celebration of the books 15th Birthday.

We were house sitting for our bestie Chris this weekend and before heading out to his place, his sister Stephanie posted a picture online of a Gruffalo not far from where we were staying so we knew we had to go. So while Mrs M did some work related things this morning I took the boys adventuring, searching for one of their favourite book characters.

The Gruffalo was hiding somewhere at Birches Valley Forest Centre. We had never been before so we were looking forward to adventuring somewhere new. The place is beautiful and was perfect for a hot sunny day as the really tall well looked after trees were the perfect cover stopping me from burning my head. Well we took that walk through the deep dark work but the first thing to grab the boys attention was the playground which was lots of fun, timber climbing frames that were asthetically pleasing and fit well in to the forest surroundings.

There was so much to look at as we walked along the paths looking for our friend with his orange eyes and purple prickles all over his back. Lots of lovely wooden carvings and art pieces kept us entertained along the route and the boys wanted their pictures taken with all of them.

Opeie spotted the back of the Gruffalo from quite a way back but then he does have the best spot perched on daddies shoulders. Before heading over to see those knobbly knees and turned out toes we had to walk through Fernley Thickett, which was a magical mini area of the forest with cute hand carved tree trunks with miniature doors where the fairies live. Opeie was hooked and before leaving that day we must have visited that area at least five times, I wish we had had our minifigures of us, it would have been great for LEGO photo's.

And then there he was, with his terrible claws and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. As expected though there was nothing terrible about this very lovely looking beast and Opeie (with no fear of splinters) couldn't wait to give him a big squeeze. I would absolutely love one of these for our pack garden, it would look amazing.

I was busy taking a selfie of me and Opeie when i heard Seth shout 'Bases!". Stephanie had let us know about an area of the forest that had lots of huge branches for making dens and it was great to see so many built, the forest looked like so much fun so we made our way in and started adding branches to the dens. Seth surprisingly had other ideas and started looking for certain branches that we could take home as he has an idea of something he wants to make. More on this to follow.

It wasn't long before the Gruffalo hunters started to get hungry, I offered them 'Roasted fox' and "Scrambled Snake" followed by "Gruffalo crumble" with a side helping of "Owl ice cream" but as expected they wanted mommies lunch as she makes the best meals according to Seth. So we headed back to Chris' for a bite to eat. I loved walking around Birches Valley and its got me now thinking of visiting the other Forestry Commission sites harbouring that lovable beast.

Also the trip to Fernley Thickett and a picture in Chris' bedroom has given me a great idea for a new weekly feature on the blog so stay tuned.

Until next time adventurers....