Today was the last day of school for Wee Daftie before the Easter holidays so I didn’t want to plan anything too ambitious for us to do today as she may have been tired and excited all bundled into one daft ball. So we had the idea of repeating our walk from Tuesday, just with a small stop at Inverleith Park for a picnic first.
With this in mind, after I dropped her to school, I went for my (hopefully turning into) usual Friday morning run, did a few chores and headed back to get her at 12.20pm.
This picnic plan would have been ideal if it weren’t for two things. One, the day’s weather didn’t echo the bright and sunny forecast at all. And two, Wee Daftie had her castle art and craft project to bring home. It’s a fab motte and bailey structure, all gloriously crafted from cardboard, paper mache and paint. It is brilliant. It’s also not what you would describe as “portable”.
So we did what we Daft girls do best. We improvise!
Part of our planned walk included Wee Daftie picking some flowers for Saoirse. Every now and then, she’ll find a nice twig or sprig on the ground and put it on the shelf where we have Saoirse’s scatter jar. It’s super cute and I love that she wants to take care of her little sister.
Seeing that we now had to drop off her castle project at home before heading out for our walk, we decided to get a bus to a local shopping precinct, have a wee cafe lunch and then walk home, searching for wild flowers on the way.
We are so fortunate in Edinburgh to have a network of walking and cycling paths around the city, all the way from Leith to Balerno. You can walk all of it, some of it, smalls bits the run alongside the water, other bits that connect over road bridges. Since having Wee Daftie in 2016 and living on the northside of Edinburgh, we have enjoyed the paths all year round, in all the weather. Sometimes all in the same day. They are green and quiet, even when busy. They are one of my very places to get lost in, even though I know them as well as I know myself.
We played an ABC animal game as we walked and Wee Daftie found a lush patch of wild daffodils and chose the best 4; one for each member of our family, as she said herself. When we got home, she carefully added them to my Mother’s Day roses. Aren’t they perfect?
Another day well done, thanks to a running session, a wandering expedition and a whole lot of chattering. We have some fun walks planned for the next couple of weeks and I have plenty more to talk about.
Looking forward to walking with you soon.
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Travels With My Daftie 