We've all seen the type I mean. Wearing a job lot of Regatta clothing, bobble hat, eating a Kendal Mint Cake because no one else will. They have children called Lottie and Nathaniel and a smelly medium sized black and white dog that chases sheep.
I think I own a bobble hat and I have a son that chases sheep, but aside from that, I am not that parent. In my head sometimes, I am.
'Come on kiddiewinkles, we are going for a super long outdoor walk.' In the car. But when we get there, we are going to walk miles and miles. Even if it rains.
Morning of said walk. Oh bugger, it's pouring it down. Let's go to the shopping mall and eat fast food and buy cookies on lolly sticks, it's peeing it down. We can be Lottie and Nathaniel another day.
The following weekend, it's not raining, but it is freezing. I've stopped caring what I look like post kids, so think nothing to layering up to the size of Big Hero 6. I can barely turn but I think I might be warm.
Equally 'fat', are the kids. I pack a snack bag as I do when we go anywhere, even if it's just down the road to be honest, we love our snacks. Then off we jolly well go. Off to be outdoorsy.
We arrive at the destination and I'm sure it's dropped 50 below zero. Brisk doesn't cover it. However, we are outdoorsy, and this is par for the course. It's what we sorts have hardened up to.
Only I'm faking it. So I'm fricking freezing and have no fingers already and we haven't even started this chuffing walk.
Anyway, we're here now.
Boy steps in a muddy puddle before we even get to the end of the road and I'm squelching in my boots and imagining the build up of mud that I'll have the joy of scraping off later.
Onwards March... Well more of a drag actually. I've already delved into the bag of snacks to line the route with because boy decides he's hungry already and girl wants crisps. We haven't even travelled a half mile by this point.
I try to be cool and at one with nature as we walk and eat, I start pointing out twigs that look like Julia Donaldsons 'Stickman', or I find interestingly shaped dog poos to amuse the kids with. We've collected pine cones for the fireplace in a nappy sack and I've been given weird pebbles that they want to clean up, stick googlie eyes onto and make into a freaky inanimate pet. (Think I'd rather buy them a gerbil)
Before you know it, we've travelled a whole 2 miles and I can see a cafe, so it's fuelling up time and onto the second leg of the Lottie and Nathaniel 'be at one with the elements' walk.
I forgot how late it was before we left the house in the first place so when we left the cafe it was getting quite low on light and the only way back to the car was through the rest of the wooded area by the water.
I've got quite a fertile imagination myself and had visions of being taken out by a crazed woodcutter or quite possibly a wolf in a dress. But I had to be brave because I was the grown up. I can't believe these kids trust me sometimes.
It reminds me of the day I brought the first one home from hospital and I looked at the bundle of blankets with a squashed face swaddled within, and thought 'holy shit, they are actually leaving me alone with this thing- I don't know what to do with it'
That feeling lessons with subsequent kids. You tend to think 'holy shit do I really have to keep all of them' and 'can't i just stay one more night in hospital because it's so much quieter than home and despite your food tasting like an Otters arse, (of which I regularly eat) at least someone else has cooked and will also wash up'
Anyway, we power walked the rest of the journey. Anything to avoid the yeti monsters and crazed serial killers that I'm sure were also taking a walk that day. It was even colder than before and I was the one moaning and whining for the final mile. I'm sure I heard one of the kids say 'will that old bag just shut up about her icicle fingers and just enjoy this breathtaking view'
I had no idea how I would manoeuvre baby from her baby sling to the car seat because I seriously had no fingers. They had fallen off mid walk.
I was also wet and disgustingly muddy and I could hardly move my face let alone talk. Whatever position my face had been in upon leaving the cafe, it was still in now and probably would be for the foreseeable future.
I was a human ice block.
Who's idea was this stupid walk.
Eventually after 10 years of being lost in the wilderness, we arrived back at the car. And I vowed that it was not going to be my resolution to encourage the kids to go hiking or walk trails until around May time. Possibly June.
Lottie and Nathaniel are complete twats anyway.
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