The park is really waking up for spring: the bulbs have poked through and are starting to bloom, the birds are going crazy, and now, most excitingly of all, the frogs are spawning in the wildlife pond. We went, of course, to witness this spectacle. I personally had never seen so many frogs in one place - 20? 25? at least, climbing all over each other, blubbing up and down and all over the mass of frogspawn - neither the children nor the adults could believe their eyes. We lifted out some eggs in a jar and the children poked (some gingerly, some enthusiastically) at them.
Inspired by this, we went off to see what other wildlife we could find in the earth of the woods. We dug with spades and poked with sticks. We found earwigs, slugs, millipedes, tiny translucent snails, thousands of woodlice. An enormously long worm that didn't like being poked. The more craftily inclined among us made some creepy-crawlies of our own, using the time-honoured cutting-up-egg-boxes method.
On a sadder note, we have just discovered that our beloved cafe is to close in April. It will be sorely missed, especially on cold days. Anyone with any ideas to mark its passing and thank the staff for all they have done for us - let me know.
Our beloved Queen Victoria
We sometimes bow to her before we set off into the woods!
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