FRS??

Being Home Alone with the lads has made me branch out into the Free Range parenting world this week - so much so that my 7 year old proudly told me that all the responsibility he had yesterday made him feel like a "nine or ten year old." Oddly enough, I've not had time for some years now to read the link and any of the (very many) articles I receive into my inbox, but the gist of it still stands for me. MPLST and I often hark back to the days where we were lost to our parents between meals.

Of course, the beauty of living in the middle of nowhere is that a) you can keep a reasonable eye on your little'uns without them actually realising, and b) the inhabitants of every house within walking distance knows who they are and where they come from. Lots of eyes in such a little space is very re-assuring.

This boring pre-amble is just a little of what's gone on. As usual, the only reason I'm blogging is for Her Ladyship. Any day this week, the pictures could have been the same, because pretty much all it feels like we have done is walk, walk some more and then walk a bit further....

After rugby today (where R scored a try!), and eats in the café (complete with mucky knees - but I wasn't disturbing the mutt just to get them clean breeks), we went for a walk down behind the post office in the village. It was a glorious afternoon, but it was blowing a hoolie as they say...

One of the better efforts of your hound



C has a real tendency to find the most difficult route around trees, despite the path. Makes a walk in the woods last a loooooooong time...

But trees do have their uses...



Maybe we should all take a break? Anybody got a Kitkat?



See how much easier it is on the path son?



There was obvious delight in getting down to this wee shore as access was backwards down a rusty old metal step.



Getting one good picture of 3 children together is one of life's new challenges...



Coming up was much easier...



Side on, you don't get the Monster Munch look...



Shame that the youngest looks stoned in this one. I was all set to get a good picture, but this was the very last one your card would take. Hey ho...



As Sunday's go, or even weekends for that matter, it's not been bad. I think they've averaged a minimum of 2 miles a day walking since the holidays started. Big boy must have covered 4 today alone. After all of that, they came home and played outside until 6 o clock.

Guess what tomorrow holds...more walking. The camera ain't coming though. 

Productive Days...

There are times when one must ask oneself if it is purely co-incidence that the most productive days are those when the wife is offshore?

We awoke to a glorious spring day, so after breakfast we ventured on a new walk. Junior photographer R took his camera and let me borrow it for the top and bottom pics. The wee boy did fantastically well, we must have trekked a couple of miles, and he didn't complain once. More importantly, he didn't fill his pants either....



The afternoon was eventful enough. O gave himself a nasty friction burn sliding down the pole on the basketball hoop. It looked sore - he's had dads tough love approach and appears to have manned up suitably. In fact, whilst I was weeding under the kitchen window later, I heard R shout that the dog had a rabbit and wouldn't let go of it. I turned around to see him holding her by the collar, so I said I'd be there in a minute. By the time I creaked by bones to the upright position, O was marching toward me proudly holding half a rabbit in his bare mitts, asking me what he should do with it whilst informing me that its eye was bleeding. Country living clearly isn't doing him any harm.

Compare that to his brother who found a "creepy crawly" in his bedroom nearer tea time. When pressed what it was, maybe a caterpillar or a millipede came the reply. It was neither, but between us we got rid of it, but O would have been so disappointed in us if he had witnessed our cack handedness! I can only assume R is destined for a job in the city, and it's not running pipes and cables through other peoples attics!

I suspect big boy is gearing up for a request soon too...but what for, I'm yet to find out. I got help in the garden today, he weeded the veggie patch off his own back. He then tidied his room without prompt. And to put the cherry on top.....he gave up screen time to walk the dog whilst dad finished the ironing (that's how you get it done, dear!)

His reward so far? We've also spent a little one on one time teaching him to tie his shoe laces, which he now seems to have grasped.

All I have to do now is get their bikes is tip top condition as they've been asking me for days. I'm on it...