Osterley Park

Now that we've renewed our membership of the National Trust it's a whole lot of fun to go out to one of their parks and let the kids run wild. Somewhere that we've visited a couple of times before is Osterley Park and the reason behind this is very simple; it's not too far away and there are 357 acres of parkland to explore! So we nipped over after lunch with the idea of playing in the autumnal leaves a bit and perhaps having a bite to eat in the cafe (always a priority for the Cannon family). On the first point then I can report total success:

Anyone else for leaf angels?

Of course this innocent fun quickly generated into a spate of leaf-throwing and general running about but what can you do? It was all good, clean (mostly) fun and it seemed that there was always another tree to climb or dog to pet for Joshua and Christina. Hence we slowly made our way round the park and enjoyed the crisp winter weather; lovely in the sun but just a little chilly in the shade. We were far from alone though and along the way the children convinced another daddy to give them some stale bread for feeding the ducks, then they commandeered a ball-thrower so that they could play at making the dog swim in the lake and finally they ended up getting a bit scared by a couple of very large hounds messing about in the woods. Exciting stuff.

Happy to be out and about

I have to admit though that I had half a mind turned towards the cafe and shop in the stables; having spotted some unusual blackcurrant curd I didn't want to miss the opportunity to obtain a jar or two. Who can say when I'll see its like again? Fortunately we were in luck and we didn't even have to hurry; there was plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere and feel genuinely relaxed. The only thing that we didn't do was take a tour of the house and to be honest that's a mixed pleasure when you have little ones in tow; too much risk of breaking something irreplaceable!