"It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped."

Have you ever decided to do something and then half way through said activity wish you hadn't have been so stupid? Well that was me yesterday.... What an idiot, More from that later in the post though.
 

Seth has another life away from us and sometimes that can be quite difficult. We really miss him when he's not with us and sometimes its just not the same when we are doing things without him. This weekend Seth had a choice of where he wanted to be (which doesn't happen very often) and being the very caring and grown up boy that he is he decided to split his time equally so that he could spend his time with everyone.

We asked Seth what it was he wanted to do yesterday and he told us that he wanted to go somewhere where he could put his wellies on and go splashing in a stream. No problem i thought although on Friday night as we were heading to pick Mrs M up from work i was about to tell Seth that he was in charge of making sure the wellies were packed when i realised i hadn't picked up his wellies from school, Oops. Seth's idea... Break in to the school and retrieve them! As i didn't want to wind up on next weeks school news letter i thought i better not. Instead i quickly popped to the shops to get him a new pair (and that's why they call me super Dad).

We reached our destination and put the blanket down on the grass, it was lunch time and i was marvin. Unfortunately the great British weather had other ideas and although I'm happy sitting in a bit of rain Mrs M ran back to the car locking me and the boys out. What a sweetie. Thankfully it didn't last too long and after having a party in our tummies (Opeie's favourite phrase), we changed in to our boots and headed to the nearest water for adventure.

Seth was having a great time looking for wildlife and Opeie... well he had found the magic of Moss and was really investigating it.

After  a little more stream adventuring Opeie made it clear that the nap he should have had on the journey there was due now and as the sun was out and it was warm we all sat on the grass and Opeie drifted off to sleep. Seth dragged me back in to the water and was desperately looking for fish, unfortunately all we found were rocks. so after half an hours disappointing fishing we headed back to sleeping beauty who was still fast asleep. Mrs M had sat down opposite a huge hill and as we all sat there staring at it i said those stupid words 'I reckon i could climb that no problem' what an idiot! 'go on then' Mrs M replied, so thinking i now had something to prove i jumped to my feet and trotted off confidently over the stream and to the bottom of the hill (i wanted to put 'mountain' here but i think that may have been a slight over exaggeration). I looked up and thought 'easy' and i began to climb the hill. Using a lot of energy to sprint up the first part wasn't a great idea and as my legs started to ache my motivation was the next thing to go. Who did i think i was, I'm not a fit person!

I managed 3/4 of the way before realising what a fool i had been and going any further wasn't an option. It was a lot higher than i had thought while looking up it and it was really windy. I sat down and had a little bit of a panic, i couldn't see Mrs M or the boys now and i knew if i didn't head back down soon Mrs M would freak out and probably do something crazy like call mountain rescue (are they on 999 too?)

 Can you spot me???

I'd love to say that i came down gracefully but the wind was blowing me all over, i slipped on some wet animal muck, tripped on a vine and sat on a prickly bush leaving spikes in my bum which wasn't pleasant, cut my ankle and my hand and almost sprained my other ankle. By the time i reached the bottom i was a bit of a wreck and every muscle in my legs seemed to be aching. Ive never been more happy to see my three favourite people. There was no rest for poor daddy though as i had to carry the little prince on my shoulders back to the car.

A valuable lesson was learnt that day, lets just say i wont be running up any valley hills any time soon, the boys seemed impressed though and as they are unaware of my panicking up there ill take that as a win. Soon after that it was obvious that Opeie had had his fill of watery excitement and his entertaining moss so we headed home (i was thankful of the sit down even if i was driving).

“Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey."

Today has been day two of our long weekend of walking, we had such a great time at Carding Mill valley yesterday that we decided to go valley walking again today. The sun was glorious and it was a lot warmer than yesterday, we still needed to wrap up though. Opeie was loving being out in the sunshine and it was a really nice relaxing afternoon. 

It probably sounds daft to most people but one of the things that i love most about having a good old wander about it getting to hold Mrs M's hand, we don't seem to get a chance to do it much as we've always got our hands full with the boys, but having Opeie up on my shoulders gave me the perfect excuse for a bit of cuteness.

We got to climb up the hills and walk through streams and everything was beautiful, peaceful and very relaxing. I love being able to spend quality time with my favourite people but we were all missing Seth, it's rubbish that he doesn't get to be with us all the time.

I could have walked about for hours and i know Mrs M felt the same but Opeie hadn't had a nap and all the walking was clearly tiring him out so we headed back to the car. The walk back down was a lot easier although there was still a fair bit of snow and Mrs M was slipping all over the place, So while I'm looking for wellies for myself i think I'll also be looking for sensible walking boots for Mrs M.

I wonder where we'll be going out walking tomorrow??