winter walks and Christmas trees

Busy busy day.  Managed to stay in bed until 0845 though!  11yod left for swim club at 0825 but 13yos's alarm didn't go off on time for him to do his paper round before swim club so he missed swim club!  Rick went off at 0830 for a run with his two pals so I got a lie in.  I had time to do a quick scoot round and tidy up before driving 11yod and 7yos to gymnastics, drive back, leave the car, and take the long walk round the village to pick them up so I could get a brisk walk in today.  11 yod, 7yos and I called at the shops once I collected them to pick up bacon and sausages for butties for lunch.
Meanwhile 23yos, his girlfriend, 13yos and Rick went into the forest to collect some more wood from our wood pile - and came home this week with an intact windscreen!!!!
After lunch we went for a lovely walk in the RSPB reserve about 4 miles up the road from us.  Beautiful crisp, icy and invigorating! We walked up past the waterfall and around through the tree line.  The waterfall was quite full

7yos, B, 11yod and 23yos halfway up the path

although down a lot on what it was a week ago.  

There is so much to see in a forest.  We noticed the patch where we picked billberries in the summer and added them to pancakes.  We saw where the river had flooded over and made a path through the autumn leaves.

23yos and B

Rick and 13yos with warning signs

When we got to the top of the hill where the path leads to a ruined cottage Rick was going to show us, the path was blocked off with tape and notices saying the it was a biosensitive site because a larch disease has been found in the area and they are trying to contain it.  So nothing about ash trees but larches are sick in our area!  This meant we couldn't go the way we wanted but the upside was that we followed a path we haven't followed before and found another way down.There are so many parts of this area I haven't visited and I really would be keen to run through this area.

The photo on the left is 7yos, B and 11yod watching as 23yos and 13yos climb down a gorge into a waterfall.  The water here was really bouncy and sparkling as it jumped over the narrow rocks.  We hadn't been on this path before so it was an unexpected surprise to find it.  When we got back down to the car park we took another short walk along to a viewing post over the river where you can sometimes see otters.  Didn't see any otters today but quite a bit of the river was frozen over.  As we walked to the viewing post we could see where the water had risen to in the floods last week, quite high up the bushes and all the grass had that washed look where the water had flown over it.  The frost hadn't cleared all day really.

Rick and 13yos walked to viewing point over frozen grass

We were glad to get home and have a coffee and now 23yos and B are making tea and 11yod is making pudding.   I am really rather well looked after!  After tea we are going to put the wood burner on in the lounge and put up the Christmas tree.  It is so hard to believe that it is nearly Christmas again - where does the time go!!!