We're going on a Scarecrow Hunt!

Last Saturday, H & I set off on a walkabout of a local village for their annual scarecrow hunt. E & L were both at birthday parties, A was at work and J had declined our invitation to come along, so the two of us bought our £2.50 trail map at the village shop and headed off on our search.

This year's theme was "nursery rhymes", as they were celebrating the village nursery school's 30th birthday. There are prizes drawn at the end of the week-long event, one for children and another for adults, and the money raised all goes to the village school & nursery. We bought some supplies from the shop to keep us going while we were on the trail, and set off with pencil & map in hand to see if we could find and guess them all.

The trail took us the scenic route around the village, through little walk ways and the school, across a field and past the nursery. Despite living nearby I think I have only ever visited this village a handful of times, I didn't realise quite how pretty it was, and how quiet! It was a really lovely stroll, and it was nice to spend some quality time with H.

 

 

 

We managed to nearly miss two of the scarecrows and had to retrace our steps to find them. Some of them were easy but a couple of others were more tricky and we had to sit and have a think about what the answer could be. I tried to encourage H to guess the answers rather than me just telling him all of them, and I gave him clues if he wasn't sure just from the scarecrow itself. Halfway through the trail is a little park which would have been ideal for a picnic had I realised - at least I'll know for next year! We stopped a few times for drinks and so H could eat some of the snacks I bought at the shop, rest stops are of course very important!

One of them raised a giggle from H, at first I didn't realised what he was laughing at until it dawned on me that he is 8 years old and "d i c k i e  birds" is obviously hilarious. I've included pictures of almost all of the scarecrows, can you have a guess at what any or all of them are?

 

 

 

The trail took us about an hour and a half to get all the way around, and next year as I said we'll definitely take a picnic if we are lucky enough to have fine weather again and make it last a little bit longer. And next year I definitely won't be wearing my flip flops, navigating the muddier field areas was an experience I'd rather not repeat!

 

 

We had really good fun & H really enjoyed it, there were several scarecrow trails in the local area in recent weeks and hopefully we'll be able to get to a couple more of them next year. For only £2.50 & the price of some snacks & drinks, the two of us had a lovely afternoon wandering around a beautiful village, and helped raise some money for a local school at the same time.

We enjoyed it so much that we went again the very next day, but this time with E and the Mister, too. You can read all about it here at the fantastic MuddyPuddles.com, as it is my very first guest post for them in my new role as a Muddy Mum! If you're thinking of getting out and about, then Muddy Puddles "equips children with everything they need for everyday outdoor adventures all year round", such as their fab waterproof PuddlePac jacket, so be sure to check out their fantastic range before you go on your own adventures in nature.