Back

Out and back - a good long walk in the mud | Day 215 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Aug 4, 2023· 2 minutes

The longest walk we managed to do within the five days we spent with my friend and her sons was around Stocks Reservoir. We all had the feeling we were walking in the Shire. Beauty unfolds all the time, new angles, new hills, new beautiful horizons and small details, flowers and totes, and sheep and cows and birds.

In the bird observatory, we saw an eagle hunting.

We walked on small paths between trees and along wide ones uphill and downhill. It is amazing how wet it all is. In my mind, water will run down and not be on top of hills, but it was just wet everywhere. In a beautiful way. Especially after I just gave up on shoes and walked barefoot through streams, wet grass, mud, on stone, and along paths.

We had a good lunch break halfway and laughed at the sign explaining it was forbidden to swim because cold water can make you exhausted, and as it is also deep, there is a risk of drowning. Being Scandinavians, we know the deep cold lakes in Sweden and found it a bit fun. Especially because on the sign, at the end of the explanation, it said, “So no swimming, sorry.”

 Only in England, there will be added the word sorry, after the explanation of a rule. We laughed a lot.

Later on, another sign gave the real explanation: Underwater machinery that controls the artificial dam can create sudden changes in the water currents, even ones that will pull you down; therefore, don’t swim.

 Makes total sense.

Well. This was fun.

And the walk was long; there was no rain, and we all enjoyed it very much and were very tired when we came back to cook, play games, share favorite youtube videos and laugh some more.



Happy days. With very dirty feet.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our life like this, and we get very happy when we get your feedback. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 


See more images on Facebook

Fear and doubt in unschooling—where they come from, how they spread, and how to move through them without defaulting to school-based thinking= Read more
Thoughts on how to stay clear, while the devices keep coming at us with new distractions. Read more
What if we abandoned the question “How do we know they’re learning?” and trusted that learning is happening? This episode examines the anxieties that…Read more
Cecilie, Sandra, and Sue examine the widespread belief that children can’t learn math without formal instruction — and explain why that belief doesn’…Read more
A funky morning of poetry, light and thoughts just outside of Berlin. Read more
Is the smartphone really ruining the lives of tweens and teens? Do we need to protect them by keeping them away from the tool? The movement out there…Read more
Dinner tables, car rides, bedtime chats, café corners—this episode dives into the real places where unschooling lives and grows. Cecilie Conrad, Sand…Read more
A morning reflection from Budapest on trusting life’s intensity, receiving what we need, and surrendering to the beauty hidden in challenges. Read more
What’s the value of doing the same thing more than once? In this episode, Cecilie Conrad talks with Sandra Dodd and Sue Elvis about repetition in lea…Read more