"The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism."

I love getting out and about adventuring with the boys and we've found some pretty great hidden things to do in Shropshire. Ive recently started running again and last week while i was running through a woodland area I spotted a huge piece of tarpaulin that looked high up in the trees well off the footpath. My sense of intrigue quickly kicked in and I found myself climbing over branches and walking through wet mud to find out what was going on. When I arrived I wasn't disappointed and I knew that I had to show Opeie what I had stumbled across, the find was going to be perfect for some Home ed fun.

What I had found was what looked like a landslide that had unearthed a huge tree and the tree had fallen across the other side of a mini valley with the off shoot of a stream below. Above, someone had built large decking supported by the tree with a tarpaulin roof, pretty amazing. Below, further down the tree was what looked like a cliff tent hanging from the tree like a cocoon, so we're not sure if someone is living there. There was no one about when we arrived so me and my little side kick made the most of the very cool structure.

We had a great conversation about how the decking was being supported and then we started an afternoon of painting, home education at is best. At the start of the summer holiday, after Opeie had been making mini dinosaur footprints in his Play-Doh me and the boys had drawn dinosaur feet, cut them out of cardboard and my good friend Steve had very kindly cut them out of wood for us. We are planning on making dinosaur feet to attach to our shoes for stomping in the mud but first we needed to paint them and the towering structure in the woods was the perfect spot for creating.

I love painting with Opeie but sitting in silent woodland was really relaxing and really added to the experience. We talked about all sorts while we were using our creative flair. Its this sort of thing that really pushed us towards home education, Opeie not being confined to a classroom and instead, sitting outdoors with fresh air taking in the beautiful surroundings.

We spent a good couple of hours on the new woodland base and painted one side of our dinosaur feet. The plan is to visit again this week and paint the remaining side. Opeie had had his fill of painting and wanted to move on to something different...

... a game he simply called dinosaurs in the mud. We got to run around pretending to be different kinds of dinosaurs while Opeie told me lots of facts about his favourite topic at the moment. When we were both shattered and sweaty we lay on the leaf covered ground and played with his dinosaur toys and counted the flowers, awesome. 

All that was left to do after all our forest fun was head home to go and wash our hands. It pays to investigate, get out there! there may be all kinds of fun on your doorstep too.