Today I am doing something a little bit more local and hopefully cheaper. I am taking Arthur to Hampden Park. We've been there before and I know there is a bit of woodland at the back and some ducks in the pond to feed bread to.

Arthur has some bacon and egg for breakfast (although doesn't eat much) and I pack the remaining bacon, toasted sourdough bread, cherry tomatoes and blueberries, as well as a big bottle of water, with us.

We get on a local bus (we live in Old Town in Eastbourne) and Arthur eats his blueberries as he is walking from the bus stop to the park entrance. Basically, as long as Arthur has some food and is generally well in himself and not cold, he will walk anywhere. And as Arthur is a kind of toddler who will pick one blueberry at a time, berries are a good choice.

The park looks particularly bleak as we enter it. Bare trees and an overcast day. I never check weather forecast, not for any lack of trust in it, I just don't like to know for some reason, it's a part of adventure for me to not know. Now I wonder if it is going to be a rather melancholic day for us two.

We get out some bread to feed the ducks and swans, although it is hard for them to compete against seagulls. I practice a very targeted throw so a duck can get to it before the seagull. Later I notice a sign “We would prefer you not to feed the birds as leftover food attracts rats”. It does make me feel bad but so hard to resist giving Arthur a chance to feed some ducks, he does love it so much and it engages him with wild life.. I love that this bit of park really feels like a wild nature reserve, there is an island on the lake where only birds can get to, so it provides them with a safe haven. On the way back we even see some herons flying over the island, so lovely!

As we approach the little bridge over the stream and the beautiful tree that firmly rooted itself by the pond, the sun comes out. Suddenly it feels like spring and I am so pleased we are out.

The little stream is a source of much amusement. Arthur loves getting the sticks out of water, pretending he is fishing and also playing with a mini waterfall on the other side of the bridge. I am sure he would happily stay here for hours if I didn't get bored eventually and suggested moving on.

We move on to the tree trunk sculpture on the other side of the pond. It is surrounded by sticky mud so we can get the 'covered in mud' bit out of the way straight on and not worry about it. We pretend we're on a motorbike going somewhere. I generally get to sit down whilst Arthur is driving me somewhere.

Eventually we go into the woodland bit, dinosaur hunting, and spend the next three hours in there. I am aware that it might sound really exhausting, all this role playing, but it really isn't so bad. The thing is, I am more in a listening and nodding position here and am loving the sense of sun coming through the trees and birds chirping away whilst Arthur is loving the complete immersion into role play and no boundaries. I am feeding him our food just to keep him going, one bite at a time from my hands :-)

We finally emerge from the woods, after we spent hours playing on the fallen trunks like they were out airplanes, digging dirt with sticks, looking for very specific sticks that have a fork at the end for lifting things, and re-enacting A LOT OF paw patrol episodes. We are also taking one thing back with us – an enormous gigantic stick. I am explaining to Arthur that the absolutely and only way to take it home is to walk all the way back as we can't get on the bus with it.

We finish our day with ice-creams at the park cafe (it is the choose-your-flavour delicious ice-cream, £2 per cone). And we then walk the whole way back. It takes us over an hour. At the end of it Arthur is stumbling like a drunkard from tiredness and is a bit wobbly in his walking but his resolution to bring that stick home with us overrules anything else. I am so very impressed with the will power a toddler can show when they really want something.

This stick now lives in our house and I hope that we will decorate it somehow one day, maybe with glitter and ribbons :-)