“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.

"Watch him wiggle! See him squirm! Hip, hip, hooray for SUPERWORM!"

The weather has been awful today and because of it its pretty much been a day in the house playing. To cheer myself up this evening though I've decided to catch up with a post about a sunnier part of this week. Opeie had been asking me for days if we could go on an adventure and visit the sleeping Gruffalo. If you are a regular reader of the blog you may remember that last year we went Gruffalo hunting thanks to the amazing sculptures dotted around the country at the forestry commission sites. They were due to be removed last year but we were emailed a while back to let us know that the Gruffalo was staying for now (i wouldn't want to try and move him either).

We packed up the car with important things like snacks, scooters, a mini Gruffalo and of course Rose the cat (Opeie's trusted companion). When we arrived Opeie's little face was all smiles when he noticed that the Gruffalo trail had been replaced by a Super worm trail, what an awesome surprise.

The great thing about the trails in Wyre forest is how easy it is for children to get around and find all the clues to get to the final destination. Opeie loves that he is in control too and was excited guiding me around.

So off we went...

...and with every clue found a fun activity to go with it.

Super hero? Opeie of course went for Flying, fighting skills and invisibility.

"Daddy! that grumpy tree looks just like you!" thanks Opeie.

"Dad that tree looks like a worm monster bursting out of the ground"

I love just pottering about in a forest, there's so much to look at and Opeie's imagination can run wild. The afternoon was filled with questions, who lives in that hole? whats that noise? How many different kinds of leaves are there?

The trail is great for kids and anything that gets Opeie excited and running about in the fresh air is great as far as I'm concerned. It would have been nice to take the scooters through the forest but i don't think the wheels would have dealt with the uneven ground. Anyway back to the trail...

 Opeie was getting very eager to find the Gruffalo and was doing a great job of getting us there by himself.

Eventually we spotted the sleeping monster in the distance and Opeie crept up very slow to make sure he didn't wake him. He was feeling a little tired from the walk and asked if he could have a sleep on the Gruffalo's nice warm tummy.

Then we sat against our sleeping friend and read books and ate our lunch, it was the perfect way to break up our forest adventure before continuing our Superworm trail.

We got talking again about rhyming words as we do most days and i told Opeie that we couldn't leave until we had found two things that Rhyme with Rose (Opeie's best friend). After a short deliberation Opeie came up with Nose and Toes, so off we went on our adventures.

We got round the trail in a couple of hours and i thought Opeie might be tired but no, we had to jump straight in the car and find somewhere to scoot for a couple of hours. It was a perfect afternoon of adventuring, reading and learning with the best company i could ask for.

Opeie may have been full of beans but after an early morning wake up i was feeling the strain. Until next time readers...

"His eyes are orange, his tongue is black, He has purple prickles all over his back."

After going on our Gruffalo hunt with the boys a couple of weeks ago i looked online at the other Forestry Commission areas that also had the Gruffalo sculptures. We had had such a great day that day and i was interested in finding out whether all the locations had the same sculptures or if each one was different. I was excited to find out that they are all different but also that one of the locations was in Shropshire and somewhere we had never been before. Wyre Forest is the other side of Shropshire from us and an hour drive but the pictures of the surrounding area looked beautiful and today we had no plans whatsoever.

As soon as we arrived and walked through the gate Opeie was drawn in by the play area, A series of wooden animals to climb on, and a few that can be found in his beloved Gruffalo book. I thought this was great as it was clearly something that was there all year round but tied in perfectly with the 15th year Birthday celebrations.

The great thing about the Gruffalo hunt and what made it more fun than the Cannock chase  adventure is that the Gruffalo this time was quite a distance away, yet Opeie managed to get us all the way there by himself just by following the arrows, i was quite impressed. To help us on our mission though just in case things had have gone wrong and we were left stranded, Opeie had brought little brown mouse (lets be honest that little chap knows where hes going).

So off we trecked stopping at every clue, wood carving and oddity along the way. We have so much fun together all the time but i haven't seen Opeie as excited as this for a long time. I think it was the warm sunny weather and being completely in control of the navigational side of our adventure, the trail was so clearly mapped out that i just left him to it and he did me proud...

We may have completely missed it on the Cannock Chase trail but we didn't see any of the other characters from the books or any Gruffalo directions so this for us was much more of a fun family experience. We spotted the little brown mouse, The fox, owl and snake as we combed the forest looking for those purple prickles and poisonous wart.

It was exciting running (or "joggling") from clue to clue knowing that each step was getting us closer to that big cuddley character we love so much. after about 45 minutes hunting we spied a familiar shape in the distance and Opeie's little face lit up. We weren't completely sure what it was so we were cautious and approached it slowly attempting not to make any loud noises. As we got closer we realised it was him, our beloved beast and he was fast asleep in a small wooded area surrounded by logs.

 

It was pretty close to lunch time so as it was such a lovely area with the sunlight shining through the trees we sat down for a bite to eat, before lying against the Gruffalo and reading his books that we have grown to love over the years. Opeie can pretty much recite The Gruffalo because of all the times we have read it to him since he was very young (it will always be a firm favourite).

While packing Opeie's books for the adventure i came across a Gruffalo activity book that hadn't been used so i packed that also. There was no one else about for a while and it was so lovely to lie on the ground next to the Gruffalo colouring with Opeie, It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere..

After a while a class of school children arrived and suddenly our peaceful, relaxing time in the forest colouring was no more so we headed back to the car. Opeie was looking shattered from the excitement of searching for his knobbly kneed friend. Now to work out where the next nearest Forestry Commission area is so we can start the adventure all over again...

...Until next time.