“The Gruffalo said that no gruffalo should. Ever set foot in the deep dark wood.”

Ever since our Super worm trail a week ago at Wyre forest Opeie has been craving some more woodland adventures. He loves being outside pottering around in the sun and I'm game for anything that takes me away from the mundane tasks of household chores.  The weather has been so lovely over the last few days and after dropping Seth off at school we made our way to Cannock Chase in search of another Gruffalo. Opeie made it quite clear that he would again be in full control of getting us to our destination.

 

As soon as Opeie had stepped out of the car and his feet were firmly on the ground he made a bee line for the first Julia Donaldson picture he could find, he was a four year old on a mission. I happily trailed behind while he rushed off shouting "come on daddy, run!".

I do love visiting Wyre Forest but i definitely prefer Birches Valley forest as it is filled with all manner of weird and wonderful sculptures and random things for Opeie to climb on. Opeie seemed a little confused by the giant wooden carving of a trainer though.  

The great thing about Birches Valley too is the area of forest set out for the hardcore forest adventurers. A huge area that has lots of fun dens made from large branches. The boys love making bases in the woods wherever we go and there is no end to the amount of den making material available. The branches here are the best we've found for making a bow and arrow too. so as Opeie ran through the woods pretending he was Hawkeye i added to a few more branches to some partially built bases.

Like i said... Weird and Wonderful!

Our Superworm trail went a little off course at this point and our attentions were on another of Julia Donaldson's creations. The little brown mouse took us away from our super adventure and before we knew it we were surrounded by all those less friendly animals.

And then in the distance there he was, the monster of the hour. With those knobbly knees and turned out toes and the poisonous wart on the end of his nose. There he was in all his glory...

 And then it was lunch time so we found a hill to sit on in perfect view of the Gruffalo and tucked in. We were also in perfect view of a school trip of a class of children which must have been a reception class. Watching all the children run about excited was lovely but what i didn't like was the lack of patience the teachers/helpers had and the tone of voice some of them were using with the children. Opeie said 'Dad can i just stay at Daddy nursery?', he's such a cutie.

Before heading out on our forest adventure we had popped in to Smyths to pick up some LEGO for Opeie's great behaviour and for the fact that he is now sleeping really well. Its made a massive difference to his energy through the day and has had a great impact on myself and Mrs M too so it definitely needed to be rewarded. So as we sat eating our lunch we built a bit of LEGO too, a perfect afternoon.

Maybe a little too perfect as while Opeie was building a Superworm from rocks he could find lying about i decided to check my phone, which i hadn't done for a few hours and realised it was almost 4. we were 45 minutes drive from Mrs M's work and we needed to be picking her up for 4:30, Oops. We were having so much fun i had completely lost track of time.

As we rushed back to the car we spotted a Hare and a Tortoise so i told Opeie the story as we made our way back. It was a fun afternoon of woodland adventuring and he's already asked to go back again this week, I'm thinking we go looking for a new Gruffalo at one of the other great Foresty Commission sites. Stay tuned for more adventures.