An autumn walk at Chiltern Open Air Museum

As winter edges closer, our favourite places are now closing for the winter. A beautiful autumn day gave us the perfect opportunity to have one last day out at Chiltern Open Air Museum before the end of the season. Our previous visits have mostly focused on the houses around the green – this time we decided to explore parts of the museum we hadn’t visited before.

The girls were snugly dressed in their waterproofs and wellies. The waterproof outfits have been fabulous – we bought them well over a year ago and they’ve been perfect for getting out and about in all sorts of weather. Admittedly they were a little on the large side a year ago but they still fit well now.

It was just as well that they were wearing them for this visit as the muddy puddles proved to be irresistible. Jessica and Sophie were having a wonderful time, running through them, jumping up and down and generally splashing about. A moment of pure childhood pleasure.

Which was brilliant fun until the inevitable happened and one of them fell over…

Thank goodness for the waterproofs! A quick trip to the nearby toilet block to clean up the worst of the mess and we were ready for more adventures. We headed into the woods, where the girls had a wonderful time running through the leaves – Jessica often running ahead for a moment or two, before turning back to take her little sister’s hand.

These are the moments when I really see the beauty of the bond between my two girls; moments that bring me so much joy. Jessica encouraging Sophie to explore with her; the girls looking at things together, innocent and carefree. This is when I see childhood at its best – the wide-eyed wonder at the changing colours of the leaves, the excitement over a stick or a stone or spotting a creepy-crawly. One of the most wonderful things about parenthood is seeing the world through my children’s eyes and realising what a beautiful place it is.

Our path through the woods led us to the Iron Age hut and whilst the girls were happy to wander up to it and peer in, they weren’t quite so keen to go in as it was very dark inside and so we headed back to the Village Green.

Thame Vicarage Room on the green is one of the girls’ favourite buildings in the museum – mainly because of the big chest of toys and games.

On the other side of the green, the Henton Mission Room still had its decorations and display from the Harvest Festival which had taken place a couple of weeks’ earlier.

Both girls were completely worn out from all their explorations and fell asleep almost before I’d even pulled out of the museum car park. It felt a little sad to be saying goodbye for the winter, but we’ve made good use of our annual passes this year and created a lot of happy memories from our days out to look back on.