One day this Winter...

This Winter has been so unusually warm. I think the past 7 or so days are the only ones where i have noticed frost outside, and every other day has just been cool rather than cold. There is only one day i can think of where we definitely needed our gloves. We haven't had red noses or chattering teeth, i haven't worried that D is too cold now that i cant bundle him up with blankets in the pushchair, and there certainly hasn't been any snow. I'm hoping that Winter proper is still to come, for i love this time of year but fear that we are running out of time for some good ice and snow and traditional Winter sparkle. The Winter of 2010 was most definitely cold and white and i just looked back at my blog posts from then and that is just what I'm longing for. (Here, here, and here.)

At the start of this month me and my mum took D to the city farm and then to the park after. The farm is small but its a nice way to spend an hour, or longer in the summer when you can sit and eat a picnic outside. The hens, turkeys and ducks can walk around the farm and are often scratching around the vegetable garden; at closing time they all follow one another in a line into their safe stable block for the night.

A couple of times I've spotted this stumpy magpie, I'm not sure if its a young bird or if it just has an unusual posture. It always seems to be with the goats, standing on watch whilst visitors pass by.

We sometimes buy pellets to feed to the goats and sheep and D isn't afraid of them at all, I'm always trying to boost his confidence and so far alhamdulillah he seems very self assured. 

I love how this sheep (in the photo below) is looking at me whilst the others are watching D and some other children with their sheep pellets. You can see D's arm there, pushed through the fence trying to pet one of the sheep (and sprinkle its back with grass) whilst it sticks its muzzle through the wire.

We always visit the play area last whenever we go out as i like to keep the nature walks and animals the centre stage of our days out.

When we went to the park afterwards we first of all went to the large lake in the middle to feed the ducks, geese and gulls.

Then we walked across the old bridge which is built over the Grand Central Canal (the same canal that we visited last weekend) so that we could head to pets corner and give some vegetable scraps to the bunnies and guinea pigs. 

We saw more birds at pets corner and stroked the goats...

By which time the moon was visible in the sky and it was time to head home.