Green Girl Gardener

I was up early today because my car was in for its annual service. I have to say, I could quite happily have snuggled back down and stayed in bed for another couple of hours, but needs must and all that. Not so for Tinkerbell who couldn’t be bothered to get up so I had to make the bed around her. Lazy puss!

Car duly dropped at the garage I skipped off down the road to Sutton Park with the aim of getting my step count in for the day (smashed it – 12036 steps and not even lunchtime). We are so lucky to have this park practically on our doorstep, yet I realise that we don’t use or appreciate it nearly enough. Close to 2500 acres of green open land, with seven lakes, gifted to the people of Sutton Coldfield by King Henry VIII in 1528, it’s been around as a royal park since the 9th century.

Isn’t it beautiful? It was quite quiet today. Probably too early for children on their summer holiday and most other people are at work I guess. There were a few cyclists and dog walkers on the main routes but as soon as I veered off into the woodland areas I was blissfully alone. All I could hear was birds, crickets and my own footfall.

There are markers dotted around giving you information on the history and landmarks of the park.

The park is full of wildlife of all kinds, big and small. I’m sure some of the smaller inhabitants have taken a quick drink of my blood so I’m not so keen on those, but there are rabbits galore – I didn’t manage to get a picture of one because no soon have you spotted one than it’s hopped on off into the undergrowth with its little white cottontail bobbing along behind it.

There are apparently ponies but I’ve never seen one, there are deer, foxes, toads, birds and various crawlies of the creepy variety. You can hear things rustling alongside you as you ramble on, and for those prone to high imagination such as myself, you wouldn’t be surprised were you to round a corner and find a bear taking tea or a unicorn preening itself. There’s magic in imagination.

I definitely didn’t imagine the cows though. There are a lot of them, roaming free and they’re B I G!! I’m sure they weren’t the least bit concerned with this itty bitty human, but I felt inordinately brave as I inched slowly closer to get some piccies.

These two are zoomed in …….

…… but these aren’t. Pretty close huh?

Has anyone ever died by cow trampling? Those cows could’ve decided I wasn’t capturing their best side and trampled over me! Hmmmm ….. they seemed far more concerned with the grass than photographer trampling (luckily for me!)

I felt ridiculously downhearted when I realised that the traffic I could hear meant that I was nearing the edge of the park bringing my little adventure to an end so I decided to go off-road, so to speak, and hiked my way through the (sometimes thick) foliage, all the while hugging the perimeter road so I didn’t get lost (that has happened before, and in that situation you don’t imagine bears taking tea, you imagine grizzly bears feasting on you for days!)

I happened upon this fantastic fungi before I was brought sharply out of my woodland wonderland reverie by the garage ringing to say my car was ready.