Foraging

Went for a walk with the girls this afternoon to a nearby lake, it's only about 2.5kms around, but today we were gone nearly two and a half hours!  The girls each took a little book of 'things to spot in the countryside' type of thing and so I think we examined every plant and bug that we came across.  Anyway, seems we went at a very good time as we discovered all sorts of lovely edible things beginning to ripen up (or even already ready) - Bay, Brambles, Hazelnuts, Sloes, Rosehips, Elderberries, Hawthorns and possibly some horseradish, although it might have been dock leaves, I'm not too sure but I took some photos and I'll try to identify it.

Anyway, I have informed my dear hubby that once the girls are back at school, we'll be back down there gathering the elderberries, I think they'll be ripe first.  Then it'll be back again for the rosehips, the hawthorns and then the sloes.  Most of what we gather will go to making jellies, which hopefully I will sell a bit more of next year (to the guests) and of course are also good for pressies.  (And yes, we eat them too, incase you're wondering).  I would take the girls with me, but after a short while of gathering the wild harvest they get bored and start complaining about spiky things and stingy things and what have you, so it's not worth it - best to stick to the walks discovering it all and then moving swiftly on to keep their interest.

There are a couple of play areas around the lake so we stopped each time we got to them so that the girls could have a play and at the end, we reached the little man-made beach where you can swim in the summer, but the weather wasn't great, so I let them roll up their trousers and have a paddle.  Although they might as well have had a swim considering how wet they were when they came out. Had to get them to strip off before they got into the car.  When we got home, Georgie said to me, quite spontaneously 'we had a great time, Mummy' which was so lovely, because we really did have a great time.