What a fab afternoon! Up in the woods with sons D and C, cousin K and Grandad. It was unbelievably beautiful, so many different colours, plenty of leaves left all diffusing the bright sunlight, happy rosy cheeked children and Grandad who was having the best time of all.

Grandad, poor old Grandad, he has 2 daughters; myself and Tawny, neither of us went in much for den building etc as kids so he never got to do 'boy' things. Even when his first grandchild came along, he got another girl, beautiful as she is, she is a girly girl, so Grandad became once again a champion Barbie hair stylist. Grandad can plait a My Little Pony tail in about 3 seconds. But today my boys came of age as boys who want to do 'Boy' things.

D had come home with homework carrying on a theme from school, he was tasked with building a den: we could have gone for a basic under the kitchen table affair, or a bunk bed extravaganza but the weather was good so we asked Grandad to take us up to the woods and cousin K wanted to come too. We splashed through the woods, crunching leaves as we went and marvelling at the trees in all their autumn glory, to the designated den building area. The forest managers have filled a pine clearing with tons of fallen sticks, branches and twigs and you can go there and build stuff. We started off and built a frame then kept collecting branches to fill the gaps. Grandad was so proud of the den, as was I. It was really solid and the kids loved playing in it. Then off to the cafe for a drink and some chocolate. D even donated 50pence of his pocket money to buy the drinks as a Thank You to us for helping him with his homework.

After the drinks we stopped at the playpark and had a good run round, I love the woods, it is a lovely place to spend time in, it is well organised with parks, private little glades, signposted walks, toilets, and a nice cafe. There is tons to do and all it costs is a couple of pounds for parking. We are so lucky as all this is within 5 miles of our house.

Hope you like our den!!