A White Weekend

For once the snow was perfectly timed.  It started after 9.00am on Friday and continued throughout the day.  Those of you with school age children will know the significance of 9 o 'clock. It meant that the school was open on Friday.  The school did, in fact, ask for children to be picked up early so that those staff with long journeys could arrive home safely.  So the weekend started early for my son and many others.  Fantastic -  we were able to spend it in the local playground sampling the delights of the first snow of the year. 

Snow ball fights and sledging were on the agenda.  Yesterday there was a BBC programme highlighting the 60th anniversary of the great winter of 1963.  It included footage of children sledging and snowballing.  Really good to see that some things have not changes in the all that time.

On Friday we also attempted to build a snowman, but for some reason the snow was not sticky enough. Perhaps it needs a night on the ground to settle in. Usually when it snows in London it very quickly does a disappearing trick - often it simply does not live up to expectations.  So the pressure is on to get and and enjoy as quick as possible.  This weekend knowing that more snow was forecast meant we could wander out, as and when, we wanted.  No pressure.

 

Saturday turned out to be a snowman day.  Actually it is a snow penguin.  Now comes my admission of parent fail. My son has just turned eight and we had never built a snowman with him.  OK I have an excuse for the first couple of years of his life as there was no snow.  Not sure how this happened, but it is all now rectified.  Snowman with organic carrot duly built in the  local park on Saturday.

 

 

Sunday we had light snow all day.  We all trotted off to Richmond Park with the sledge, or shield if you are using it to protect yourself in a snowball fight.  The runs near the entrances to the Park were busy.  However if you, like we did, wandered into the Park just a little the people thinned out and you had you own winter wonderland. Perfection.  I even managed to take some shots of the deer.

If ever there was a winter weekend to get outside and play it was this weekend.

Missing the Mistletoe

It was a rather drab, grey and damp day when we started a December walk before a late lunch.  To add a bit of interest I proposed that we went on a search for mistletoe.  ‘What’s mistletoe?’ queried my seven year old.  ‘Well it grows high up in the trees, has white funny shaped berries and forms in a large ball rather like an overgrown bird’s nest.’ was my rather inadequate reply. ‘Look upwards and keep your eyes peeled we are bound to see some.’

 

  

 

As we pottered along a slight nagging started in my mind.  I could only remember actually seeing mistletoe growing a couple of times in my life (I’m sure there must have been more).  Once was in an old orchard where every apple tree seemed to be host to a large bundle.  I’d also seen some earlier in the year in a snowdrop garden, again in an apple tree.  Perhaps they only grew on fruit trees.  We had seen an apple tree devoid of mistletoe at the beginning of our walk, but we were unlikely to see any more fruit trees.  So holly and Ivy were added to our find and seek festive list.  I was pretty certain that we would be able to tick these off.

We saw a lovely cascade of old man’s beard, high in one tree – a seed head usually found scrambling amongst the hedgerows. We also spotted several large birds’ nests, easily seen in the bare branches this time of year. Our hopes were raised that mistletoe might be close by when we saw what could have been a Mistle thrush at the top of tree.  Its favourite food is mistletoe. Alas its lunch was not in sight. We wondered what was named first the plant or the bird. Can anyone help?

 

 

 

 

 

Tipping your head back and looking towards the sky does bring a different perspective to a ramble. Sure enough we saw many trees covered in ivy and a large bush of holly still holding some of it berries. We were surprised what a lovely shade of plum the berries on the ivy were. They were almost more stunning than those on the holly.

 

 

 

 

Linear walks always work well because you always see vistas on the return journey you missed on the way out.  And yes, yes in the distance on our way back a large ball of vegetation was spotted in a faraway tree.  At last we could cross mistletoe off our list, but by then my son was busy using the dried stem of a cow parsley as a blow gun. His interest in our Christmas hunt was over.

 

On our return home my research confirmed that the main host plants for mistletoe are apple, hawthorn, lime and poplar trees. Mistletoe is apparently much more common in gardens, orchards and parks than in the general countryside.  At least I was able to show everyone my photos of mistletoe from the snowdrop garden.

We may have another go at this game with some of our walks over Christmas, when the location will be more carefully planned. By adding some more types of berries, such as rosehips, perhaps pine cones and, of course a Xmas tree, and we will have a full blown Xmas hunt to have fun with.

I am linking up this post with Learning for Life and Countrykids where you can find out what other families have been up to outdoors.