and another winter's walk

When your kids are little the space that they inhabit is just a smidgen in your home...then one day they are bigger - much bigger than you and they take up all the space or so it seems. Yes they have their own rooms (all five of them) but they all mostly congregate downstairs and when they are all there it is like hosting a convention of boundless energetic random thought processors (if you get my drift!). So we plan to get outside (where obviously there is more space) except that we don't quite plan enough because they haven't eaten for at least 20 minutes and now need lunch and the boots that fitted two days ago no longer do so and someone needs the loo and the walk we decide on is when we actually set to leave we realise is a good 90 minutes drive away and too long to finish before sunset and so it goes on.

Luckily we live where there are endless walks to explore although after 16 years of parenting there are less and less that we have left to discover in some depth but we do find one, a familiar one but from a new angle and it has all we need - a steep incline for the exercise and a view for the mind. It is great. As is the conversation from the 7 year old who talked endlessly about what she would do if she had all the super powers in the world (includes making snow so she could sledge whenever she wants) and then a capture at the top of the kids 'jumping for joy'!

Now we are going to sit down and watch for the first time about 700 of the 'best' images from our summer family trip to Italy...lovely having the time to do this...