In this instance we all wanted to go and look for frogs and froggy places. My Sprocket because he loves frogs and toads, believing them to be beautiful and his dearest friends, and myself as I am intent on soaking up the atmosphere of green mossy places for research for my Work-In-Progress - The Toad Lord.
Walking with my kids also has the benefit of introducing me to things I might otherwise forego. Searching for a beloved, and miniature, lost toy in a mud puddle (which is where we actually spent most of our time: take the kids to a national park and they spend most of the time paddling in... you got it, one little mud puddle). I felt the almost decadent smoothness of the mud. Silky. Sliding. Studded with the roughness of rocks. I'm unsure I would have done that on my own.
My eyes are keener as I walk with the kids, searching for things to interest them - a flitting bird, movement that might betray an echidna or wallaby, the red of a rosella on a distant, burnt stump. The kids walk slowly and will stop for minutes to observe an ant, a slug, a misshaped leaf.
O happy (muddy!) confluence!
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