“A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2016.”

We had a bit of an impromptu adventure last Thursday.

We’d been supposed to go to a mums and kids exercise class, so had set off early to get the bus. We just missed one (of course), and then the next one didn’t come, but still we were vaguely on schedule. Until we got to pretty much the exact halfway point on our journey and ground to a halt in standstill traffic. There had been an accident – not a dreadful one, but it had involved a police car so they were letting no-one through.

I pondered for a few minutes, accepted that there was no way we were going to make our class, and decided that walking home would be a really great idea – via the coast path, and a couple of gorgeous little beaches that we very rarely get to visit. I thought it would be a bit of a mission, but actually wildly misjudged how long it would take. I’d forgotten just how windy the path was, and just how much of it traipsed up and down through woodlands. It was beautiful, but by the time we’d finally made it home my phone was telling me we’d walked for eleven kilometres.

And this one managed almost all of it, only taking a break in the sling for about twenty minutes in the run up to our (very overdue) break for lunch.

I was so proud of his stamina, and his determination to keep going. So many times when I’ve been wearing him over the past three years people have tutted and said he really should be walking, that by wearing him I wasn’t giving him the chance to build up his strength. I knew deep down that this was nonsense, that he was perfectly capable of walking but that didn’t mean that his little legs didn’t need a break from time to time.

The wonderful thing about the Connecta is that it’s so easy to stash in a bag as back up, leaving us free to go wherever the mood takes us. We might not have planned to go on this particular hike, but I am very very glad we did.

Linking up with Jodi at Practising Simplicity for The 52 Project.