Plodding like an elephant

Now before I begin this post, I must attribute the details to a recent entry written by Bury Blue, author of the Running in Suffolk blog, whose photos of the suffolk scenery are really stunning (and he covers a fair few miles as well, thanks to his running schedule).

I'm certainly no runner, or even a mild jogger at that. In fact today, apart from a couple of jobs that had to be tackled with gusto, all I could do was just plod...plod...plod...right through to the evening. My physical stamina had just diminished. After trying to make a couple of work calls to the sound of the 21st C Kids destroying the freshly cleaned house, followed by their own rampage of self-destruction, my mental stamina had virtually gone and left home, leaving a rather vacant and disheveled 21st C M behind in its dusty trail.

I couldn't even find my internal social and gregarious switch to call in a local playmate for an emergency playdate - how anti-social was that! It was just one of those long days where you feel at the mercy of two little people who are at least 33 years younger and who seem to have the upper hand. It was a day where really I just wanted to hide.

Then...ping...like a lightbulb switching on...I remembered Bury Blue's post about the huge topiary elephants in a nearby village. That was the miracle I'd been seeking all day...

After strapping the kids into their car seats, 10 minutes later we found ourselves driving through the village of Pakenham (behind the odd tractor) on an elephant safari. Yes an elephant safari! It was strangely enhanced by the fact that I hadn't even bothered to look for directions, so we all had to keep our eyes peeled.

Then my youngest shouted very excitedly, "there they are...there" and quite right, just before we reached Pakenham's beautiful watermill, the herd of elephants, that Bury Blue had previously spotted, could be seen looking magnificent in a huge open field to our right.

It didn't matter that the rest of the day was just an ordinary time hanging about at home full of constant frustrations, because that very short excursion to seek out the elephants was just magical.
So thanks Bury Blue for your inspiration. You don't know how much you helped the day go by!