A Playground At Home!

When I was growing up I had the most enormous garden to play in. Gardening and having outdoor space was super important to my Mum and her garden was, and still is, like a magic garden full of wonder. I dreamed a million games outside at my family home, sunbathed as a teenager, laughed around the fire pit in the summer with my pals well into my twenties and then I left home and found myself landed in London with NO garden. No outside space at all actually…

I loved living in London but a lack of a back door and some grass really played nonsense with me and I never quite got used to it. ‘But you have the Wanstead flats over the road’ my friends would say or ‘Epping Forest is around the corner and there’s so many parks in London’ but you know what, that never cut it with me either. I longed for a garden to call my own, perhaps not one as big as my Mum’s but a space where I could sit in the sun, entertain friends with a Barbeque and most importantly, get the paddling pool out and lots of play equipment for the kiddos. I wanted them to have what I’d had and moving to Norfolk they finally got it!

Our garden isn’t huge but frankly I wouldn’t know what to do with one if it were (I think a lawnmower is my limit) however, it is nicely formed with an area for decking, a patio, another smaller patio, a shed come playhouse and a patch of grass easily big enough for a ball to be kicked around and some soliel worshiping to take place. It is a south facing garden and slowly but surely we are getting there making it the perfect playground for the children as well as ourselves!

My cousin made me a fire pit and we toast marshmallows around it. We have a herb garden and some planters for carrots and potatoes. We also grew tomatoes last year and the year before and if there’s one way to get children to eat veg then it’s very definitely getting them to grow it first! It’s lovely and I adore watching the children play in the playhouse and with the mud kitchen. They really relish being outdoors and sometimes it’s just lovely to take a load off, stay at home but still get some of that fresh air feeling by playing outside!

Now, all they really need is a swing or a climbing frame and we’d be all set!

I’ve been looking around and I have to say, I rather fancy and Wickey swing and slide set, perhaps something a little along the lines of this one!

Isn’t it beautiful! I think the children would never want to leave the garden again and I can see why. Wickey has such a good reputation, they build their equipment really beautifully to fit in with the garden and not be garish and the price is something else! The TinyWave that I have my eye on is currently on offer at £269.95 – I actually am shocked by that, what a price!

I think for me the idea of the children playing outside whenever possible is a real draw because it totally wears them out but in a good way. Ruddy cheeks with muddy knees make bed time a dream; I think that’s all we ever really want isn’t it, for them to have loads of fun outside in the day and then to sleep really well so that they can get up and do it all again tomorrow. Slowly but surely schools are catching up to this way of thinking too and coupling outdoor play with learning which can only be a good thing, an extension of being in one’s own garden but while learning. The philosophy of teaching children at Forest School means they are outside for the majority of the teaching and I love this. A childhood is meant to be lived outside doing as much as they can, running, jumping, slipping on mud and doing it all with great big grins on their faces!

Collaboration.