*This post was originally published on my old site on April 2nd, 2017*

Hooray for our first weekend family outing this year not wearing woolly hats! Plus also look, our coats are not done up!  These photos were taken the weekend before last. It’s taken me a while to publish this post as my mind has been elsewhere what with Ethan being ill again. 

Gedling Country Park was an old colliery and was officially opened after paths were installed for walking and cycling in 2015.  The playground was added in autumn last year and the boys love it.  There is a large area for toddlers with a sand pit, floor trampoline, swings, slide and a roundabout and then another large area for older children with swings, two slides and a climbing frame among other things.  The boys favourite is the zip wire.  There are also picnic benches so you can take food to eat.  We can’t wait for the visitor’s centre and cafe to open later this year so that we can go and have a hot drink and a cake while looking out over the park and watching the boys play.  We’ll definitely be back soon to play and maybe I’ll convince the boys to take their bikes at some point so we can walk all the way round one of the paths. 

You can see some older photos of the boys playing here from January at the very bottom of this post.

The boys love climbing, I have so many photos already of them climbing on this frame, after only four visits.  Ethan is a bit more fearless and strong but Oliver follows and tries to trace Ethan’s steps as much as he can.

We also went a walk up the path and back, the boys didn’t want to bring their bikes this time.  Whenever we go to a park at the moment Oliver in particular always asks why there have to be dogs around.  Both boys are still scared of dogs and nothing we can say is changing that right now.  You may have seen the photo below where they are hiding behind Daddy because a big dog was coming up the path on my Instagram.  In a way I think it’s good for them to be cautious with dogs but on the other hand I know it’s very rare for dogs to be dangerous and unfriendly, especially when they’re on a lead so being controlled by their owners.  Almost all the dogs we see when we’re out are not interested in us at all.

I absolutely love this photo I look of Oliver bouncing on the floor trampoline in January:

And here’s another of the boys on the seesaw:

You can see more photos of ours from Gedling Country Park (including one in the newly opened cafe) in our post Me & Mine Project July.

To head over to the Days Out Now site for more ideas on days out in Nottingham and the rest of the UK click here.