The ne’er day walk didn’t go quite as well as planned.
Initially we were going to go to the Botanics – I’ve not been there for ages and it’s a easy walk for the girls, yet feels sufficiently unfamiliar for an outing – but by the time we’d got ourselves lunched, dressed, all the dog things found etc, it was getting kind of late. Oh yeah, and we had to double back to get my hiking boots…
Thinking on our feet, we decided on Queen’s Park. Not too far (ie we’d get there before darkness fell) yet big enough to give us a decent stretch. We thought. We parked a few minutes away and strolled along.
It started fairly innocuously. The dog ran around excitedly. The children ran around excitedly. We adults strolled decorously.
The dog found a giant muddy puddle. The big girl found a smaller muddy puddle. The little girl found a slightly smaller muddy puddle and waded in. She had her wellies on, it would have been fine.
EXCEPT somehow there was a massive dip in the puddle.
I was halfway up the hill with M, and all we saw was F disappear into the water up to her middle. I raced down the hill, while husband fished her out. She was screaming her wee head off. The water was completely freezing. We stripped her wet stuff off, wrapped her in my cardi and returned to the car.
We were home within an hour of our setting off.
