On Friday, I was out walking with two friends. It was a five mile country ramble which we
know well.
Being women of a certain age, we have noted the most discreet
place to visit the bushes should the need arise. On this particular walk,
there’s only really one opportunity - where the footpath skirts a wood, there’s
a gap in the hedge, and a private path into the wood. This has provided us with a useful
convenience many times in the past.
On Friday, as we approached the wood, however, there was
already something there. Parked just in
front of our gap was a tractor. Behind
the tractor was a substantial trailer. Sitting on hay bales in the trailer were
the children of a nursery school, accompanied by an almost equal number of
adults.
As we watched, the farmer let down the flap at the back of
the trailer and the people climbed down and made their way into the wood, by
the very path we would normally take.
‘They must be doing a nature trail!’
‘Just think though, what if it had happened in the other
order?’
‘You mean if we’d got there first?’
‘…and were having a wee when an entire class of children
arrived?’
‘Can you imagine? – “Mummy, what’s that lady doing???”’
We concluded that it would have still been an educational experience
for them, just in a very different way.
