Muddy puddle secrets

I've always lived in this town (apart from of course six years on the other side of the world) but don't really know the area we have moved to now. Our road is a horseshoe shape, and the house is at the bottom of the 'u'. You turn into the road from one end, so we have never really explored the other half.

So we decided to go for a walk the other day and see what we could find. There was a short alley which opened out onto a playing field, adjacent to the railway line. I knew there was some more fields on the other side of the line, and to cross it there was a pedestrian crossing. 

It just so happened that a train was coming just as we arrived at the small gate. Big Girl and Little Boy thought it was wow amazing that you could stand right by the gate and almost reach out and touch the train as it hurtled past. Even more awesome was that the train driver waved at them 😃

We all had wellies on as it had been raining the day before, and good job we did as there were lots of puddles in amongst the grass. I hadn't realised that such a vast expanse of open land lay just a stones throw from our house. It must be dog walkers' paradise as the fields just go on and on, we could have walked for ages. Big Girl found a rather large puddle and we left her to it and walked on to find some smaller ones, as Little Boy's wellies are only short. After a short while she came running over excitedly to tell us that there were tadpoles in it, and could we take some home and grow pet frogs! When I said yes she could, there was lots of fussing and worrying over how to get them home. 

I suggested finding some rubbish, an empty can or bottle, or even a carrier bag, as there is always rubbish lying around everywhere isn't there. Well would you believe it, there wasn't any. After much searching we eventually found a solitary brown glass bottle hidden in the undergrowth, and she took it over to the stream to give it a rinse. 

And so this is what came home with us....

 

The bottle was emptied into one of my vases, but we couldn't leave them in there as she had collected rather a lot and the vase was only small. So we piled into the car and took a trip up town to get a small plastic fish tank. Thank goodness for Wilkos, as it only cost me £6 from there (well a bit more than that, as a few dahlia bulbs may have fallen into my trolley too. At only 75p a bag how could I refuse!). 

So this is what we have now, around 150 tadpoles, swimming around happily in their new 'des res', munching boiled lettuce on our kitchen table! Well it gives us a topic of conversation whilst we are eating our dinner 😀

Speak soon

Xx