It’s the Easter Holidays for the kids. Emily has been working very hard revising for her GCSE’s and George has been doing “stuff”. Everyone has been working very hard, so today we all had a fun time together. Hatchlands Park is only about a 30 minute drive from our house, that is unless the traffic is awful, which it was so it took us about 45 minutes instead. When we arrived we changed into our wellies, which if you’re going on any sort of walk with my 2, they’re essential. My 2 seem to get drawn towards mud and puddles. We were given a map, so we didn’t get lost, well, a little more on that later on. The house is closed on a Friday, which was a bit of a shame, but all the grounds were open so we went for a wonderful wander about.

Hatchlands Park House. Take a note how clean their wellies are.

When we arrived it was lunch time, so we found a lovely place to sit and eat. I have to admit, I cheated on packed lunch today and we stopped at Sainsbury’s on the way to buy stuff, or “ainsbury’s” as ours is now know as. The “S” has fallen off! When we’d finished our lunch Emily and George wanted to go and play in the little wooded area, where a new tree house has been built. I told them not to scare the smaller children and they were very good. I sat on a bench and watched the world go by. Suddenly a little girl shouted “Daddy I need a wee!” Daddy came running and then she said “Shall I do it behind a tree?” Well I’m sure the tree wouldn’t have minded and when you’ve got to go, well…. As we left George said “I want a tree house, but we need a massive garden and a big tree first”.

This has to be the coolest treehouse I’ve ever seen.

We then decided to cut across the field where a load of bulls were. We were allowed to, and we were hoping to then rejoin the path on the other side. Well I’m not sure what happened, but we ended up outside the Hatchlands Park boundary on a very wet and muddy path. George wasn’t worried, but I think Emily was, but we were heading in the right direction to get back to the entrance so that was ok. We’d eventually arrive!

This is a path, but just flooded from the neighbouring field, and very muddy. Lucky we wore our wellies!

Suddenly we could hear traffic, and saw houses, and the muddy path ended and we’d arrived somewhere. At first I wasn’t sure where, but then noticed West Clandon church (I’ve rung there before, very loud and some what lumpy bells). There was a workman putting bits on his truck so I asked him for direction. He didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, but I realised that we needed to go the opposite way to the church, so we walked down the road, and soon saw a sign for Hatchlands Park. I get lost with or without a map, but as our family motto is “We’re not lost, we’re exploring” then we’re never truly lost. Once we arrived back again at Hatchlands Park, I bought the kids and ice cream and I had a decaf coffee. It has to be decaf, otherwise I’m like a Meerkat for the next couple of hours!

A well deserved ice cream for the kids and a coffee for me.

As we were walking back to the car George spotted a huge puddle. And George being George had to walk through it. It was deep, about 8 inches in fact, there was no getting away from that. But he walked from one end to the other without getting any water in his wellies. I was very impressed and surprised. As he neared the other side he noticed that some little children had lost a flying plastic circle toy in the puddle and it was floating on the water. They were trying to reach it with a stick but couldn’t. So George came to the rescue and returned their toy to them. He was their little hero in dark blue wellies.

George to the rescue!!

We’re home now, and all enjoyed our little adventure. Now where to go next week?