"I'm inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age."

I love scooting!!! but despite all the amazing fun I have with Opeie and his friends I have been longing for another slightly unhinged parent who like me has no shame at all to go whizzing around with. When me and Opeie are out together scooting about there is a mixture of reactions we get from passers by, mainly a lot of "awwwww...", and rightly so, we must be the cutest scooting duo around. Occasionally though I can see people mumbling 'look at that idiot' or words to that effect. Honestly I couldn't care less as the only thing I care about is the huge smile on my child's face and I needed another parent to share that with.

We planned yesterday to meet up with our friends Emma and Matthew from Another Last Story. Matthew is the proud owner of a brand spanking new Mini Micro in celebration of his fourth year on the planet and we hadn't yet been out burning up the streets with him so we couldn't wait to get to the park and see what he could do. I still had my Micro black in the shed and it was a great chance to load it in to the back of the car so that Emma could scoot too.

The first 5 minutes of our scooting adventure was a little hairy when Matthew decided to tackle a hill despite not quite mastering the use of the brake. As we all watched him pick up speed and fly towards a brick wall I thought a hospital visit would be taking up the bulk of our afternoon but luckily those brown cords he was wearing slowed him down and the smile on his face as he looked back said 'don't worry, everything is okay!'

As always for a midweek afternoon play date we had the playground to ourselves, which gave the boys plenty of space to run about and for me and Emma to act like imbeciles. There was a moment where I covered Emma in a handful of dead leaves and was trying to use my phone so that she could use it as a mirror to clean herself off. Sadly the excitement was too much for me and as she looked at me like a mental case I realised instead of turning the phone around I had just flicked the screen and was looking at myself!!

Our scooting venture out soon turned in to an autumnal leaf fight and of course I got buried in leaves for the greater good of two smiling children. I love this time of year, cool weather and colourful leaves everywhere. I'm not sure why but Ive always loved that point where you need a coat or warm jumper, I think I just love that cosy feeling over being a sweaty summer mess.

It seemed that even after scooting, the playground and the leaf battle, the boys were still brimming with testosterone and there was some serious energy to burn off so we hit the park gym hard. It was time to go for burn...

Then it was time to jump back on our trusty scooters and do one last lap of the park before heading home. I'm so glad that Opeie has someone to talk Micro-Scooters with now and having an extra grown up (I use the term loosely) to scoot around with really made the day for me. I'm still thinking that a Shropshire Micro-Scoot meet needs to be taking place.

I had been looking for someone worthy to give my Micro black a new home, rather than it be left in our shed to only come out occasionally and Emma definitely looked like she was enjoying being a part of the action, so the scooter went home with her and Matthew ready for their own scooting adventures and hopefully many more wheeled adventures with us. 

Welcome to the team guys x

(great shot by Opeie i thought!)

"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....

Searching for bugs and wildlife at Attingham park.

I try and write about things as soon as they happen, sometimes though i half write posts and then get wrapped up in other things, my bad. Last week we all had a morning out at Attingham park, our friend Chris had stopped at ours the night before and we managed to kidnap him for the morning and took him along with us which the boys were very excited about. Mrs M had been before but even though its not far from ours I had not been. We managed to get out of the house at a reasonable time, even if Chris did have a lie in (lie ins are unheard of in our house).

We arrived at our destination and after flashing our new National trust memberships we headed on to our adventure. The grounds were beautiful and although there was a chill in the air and Mrs M needed my shirt to keep warm, the sun was shining and was desperately trying to warm the place up. The boys were in their usual excited mood, laughing and running about.

There was a 'searching for bugs and insects' activity on which the boys couldn't wait to join in with so armed with a magnifying glass, tray and sheets with pictures of wildlife to search for, off we went turning over rocks, rummaging through bushes and checking the skies.

It wasn't long before we made it to the orchard which I think was what kicked off the last two weeks of apple scrumping (which I will write about very soon). The walled garden around the fruit and veg being grown was like Mrs M's personal heaven and she walked round in awe of all the crops and was even more excited when she saw the beehives (one day we'll have that self sustaining life that she dreams of).

The flowers there were stunning too...

Seth was desperate to get to the play area and I was parched so we headed there next. Clearly the boys had even more energy to burn off and who were we to deny them that. The play area was great, lots of climbing things handcrafted from wood and long dark tunnels built into hills, great fun for any inquisitive child, although the tunnels were slightly to small for grown ups and me and Chris ended up with neck cramp.

And then it was time to head back for lunch and i suppose we needed to let our hostage go back to his wife. So we headed back to the car. It was a great way to spend a couple of hours before Lunch the adventure got me wondering where our next National Trust adventure will be, any ideas?