I just took my Number One Daughter’s abandoned bike out wearing my Number One Son’s bike helmet. Oh my god, I am just trembling now, from a combination of exaustion and excitement.

The thing is, I haven’t been on a bike in, oh, thirty years and when I did last ride a bike it was a one speed, back-pedal brake bike, which gives you an idea of how long ago and low tech it was.

I wonder how you change gears on a bike and how much difference it makes? I have no idea.

I went once around the block. On hills I wheeled. Downhills I mean. It was both a lot of effort going up those hills and almost frightening how little effort it was on the level. It had a tendency to go much, much faster than I liked. I wobbled all over the road, particularly when starting, when each foot’s first pedel sent me veering two feet to either side. I guess I can ride a bike still. Scared me, though.

It was most enjoyable!

I must have had the neighbours in stitches. 4 years ago

Yesterday night an brisk exercise walk around the lake devolved happily into a play session. Number Two Daughter and I took a side excursion to the playground and swang, stopped to watch the deer feeding on the side of the road, climbed to the waterfall and did some running on the last hill.

She was beautiful running, a coltish fourteen with her long hair flapping, still uncivilized enough to want to run because there is a long sward of open grass.

We came home an hour late. Coming home late is one of the hallmarks of a satisfactory play session. If we had also come home grubby it would have counted as an ideal play session but the ground is still barely thawing so we didn’t do any sprawling in the grass.

On my way up the stairs yesterday evening I noticed that I was tired. It was not the oh-god-keep-going tiredness that adulthood and especially parenting is prone to. It was the ready to drop bonelessly, relaxed from a good workout tiredness that was once so familiar when I was a kid.

This was a good play session. I’m happy.

One more play session to go and I have acheived this goal. 4 years ago

It’s getting warm enough to go out again! It was actually above freezing for awhile today. Of course there were no sidewalks yet but so nice for me to be coaxed into taking a walk by the blissfully warm weather!

Soon! I’m thinking about how nice it would be to take a ball outside and play with that. The snow and sheet ice on the field was only about four inches thick because they had ploughed it this winter. That means within another three or four weeks we might have soggy wet grass! Oooh! I’m excited. And only two weeks after that we might have ground hard enough to run on and crocuses coming out.

Spring begins in a week. The thaw will be hard on its heels. 4 years ago

Rotten sheet ice!

Every time the sidewalks start to clear a bit we get a thaw and they become skating rinks. There is now a five inch thick layer of ice on our path from the front porch to the door. It is basically level with the porch. The sidewalks are no better. It is going to take a lot of melting to clear this little lot away. I doubt I will see pavement again before March.

But at least there are sidewalks so I don’t have to play chicken with the cars in the narrow gorges between snowbanks which pass for roads around here. 4 years ago

It’s not that I mind the cold – I don’t. Nor that I don’t like playing in the snow. It’s the blasted sidewalks. Everwhere I go is just sheet ice, with a layer of powder snow on top of that. All I can do is mince along carefully…

My husband’s bus couldn’t get up the hill on Friday because of the ice on the road so he arrived uptown too late to make his connection and had to walk five blocks to work. He fell down twice.

I kinda feel like I’m not getting any exercise when I get out if it takes me ten minutes to walk a single block, and it’s not so much fun either. 4 years ago

Today I went to the library. Round about three o’clock I glanced at the clock, and spur of the moment decided I would do so. The weather was gorgeous out, only about four degrees below freezing and squirrels running across the road on overhead wires since they probably couldn’t safely navigate over the snow banks on either side of the road which make ramparts around here in the winter.

I moseyed around the library until I had collected an armload of books and then I wandered home, hurrying because my stomach was making hopeful gurgles and I was starting to fantasize about fried vegetables and brown-rice-n-beans.

This was definitely not a play outside session. It was an errand, really, albeit one whose primary purpose was self-indulgence. However it had the feel of a good play session. No worry about the time, no sense that if I didn’t make it out Thursday afternoon I wouldn’t be able to go at all. It was nice having time so unstructured. 4 years ago

Should I count crossing the lake or not? Last weekend I went out for my walks dutifully, although it was -27* and -29* (degrees below zero). I bundled up well with long winter underwear and was quite cozy trudging along. The only part of me that didn’t have double layers were my nose and mouth and eyes. I couldn’t cover my eyes at all or I couldn’t see, and I couldn’t cover my nose and mouth or my glasses fogged up and I was blind.

Anyway, Lily Lake was frozen hard, with skaters on it, and I decided instead of walking around the lake I would walk across it and then around the bottom and back retracing the way I started, which made my route longer.

The thing about crossing the lake on the ice is that it frightened me witless. If the ice broke and I had fallen through I would have probably been dead within a couple of minutes. You really don’t last long. And as I walked along I had to step on the cracks in the ice and every now and again there was a deep low animal groaning from the heaving sheets as they ground against each other…

I was bloody terrified, so I did it twice.

Oh, and I am a most practical person, you know. Yeah, there were cracks and it was groaning, but they had also driven a pick-up truck with a snow plough on it all over it to clear the snow for the skating. I knew darn well that there was no danger, but my poor terrifed tummy didn’t believe it at all.

Does this count as playing outside? Almost. But no. All I did was trudge, frosting the (acrylic) fur on my hood with white ice from my breath. I walked. And walking, despite it being somewhere new and a foolishly hair-raising experience, does not count as playing outside.

I still have to come up with two more playing sessions. This is going to be hard. Our sled was swiped (turned out not to be in the cellar) and I can no longer budget for a trip to the pool.

Good news: I should have time for the playing sessions easily in a week or so. If only I had snow pants like I did when I was a kid. Then I could go sledding without the sled. 4 years ago

I really want to get outside with our 4 year old and play in the snow more, but it has been ridiculously cold lately. I don’t know if I’ll be able to work on this goal anytime soon… 4 years ago

I need to have two more play sessions to consider this goal complete. One of them, I hope will involve sledding but I may have to buy a new toboggan to do that. The toboggan is apparently in the cellar and the cellar door is frozen shut.

Another thing I would really like to do is go swimming. But that is a huge endeavour and a big break in my routine. I have a swimsuit, if the spandex in it hasn’t perished. I think I know where my padlock and key is, for the locker room. But… that is as far as I have got on this possible goal. I am still thinking about it. I am not sure if going to the pool would be more stressful than it would be fun. It would certainly be expensive. Just one dip in the pool costs as much as going out to the movies, and I never do that any more because the cost is so high.

If I do go to the pool I would have to plan it carefully the evening before. I was thinking a Tuesday, but not next Tuesday because that is slated for a grocery run. 4 years ago

It started as my usual brisk half hour walk around the lower lake. But Number Two Daughter was with me and she wanted to follow the brook up into the woods by the mossy hollow under the cliff. Then she wanted to know where the brook originated and wasn’t contented with me telling her, so we had to follow it willy nilly through brush, half frozen mud, slippery rocks and interesting boggy bits. I only got my sneakers sodden when a log I was attempting to use to cross the water disintegrated underneath me and one of my sneakers wasn’t completely wet because part of the heel stayed on the bank.

Once the source of the creek was discovered – the upper lake, just as I had told her- we went on to the playground where I swung for a little bit. I had brought my skipping rope so we tried that out too and proved that we were both very poor skippers. I managed six in a row when I was jumping with both feet at the same time, so you see I am not exaggerating with the word “poor” in this context!

And then we ambled our way back down to the lower lake and home again. The lake had cat ice on it and she took great pleasure in alarming me by breaking it with her feet and sitting on the dock and leaning in so she could see how strong it was before she broke it, but of course it was only me who got my feet soaked.

The last bit of playing we did was when I got her to climb onto the gate at the park entrance and I swung it open and closed with her as a passenger.

So that was my latest and sixth play session. 4 years ago

My fifth play session today was in the first real snowfall of the season. We’d just gotten between three or four inches of snow and I joined the UU Youth group scrambling through the park looking for Geo-caches. W was the most eager to find them and she did indeed find our first cache but she was one of the parents. I think the grown-ups had more fun with the actual sport than the kids did, but the kids enjoyed sparring and wrestling and bantering.

It was smaller than I expected, but I shouldn’t have expected anything bigger as it must be hard to hide the big things. There was really just junk in it, but that was okay too. The fun part was scrambling around, climbing steep slopes and going across country in a small mob of excited people in the winter forest. I stuck around for two searches, the first one that was successful and the second one which was not, probably because it was somewhere over the slope which was a tricky place to search in the snow.

It would be fun going geo-caching again. This was a game well worth playing. 4 years ago

I started out just planning my routine brisk walk around the lower lake. But it was grey and mizzley and moist and still, so I was inspired to break routine a little. The first thing I did was unblock a storm drain that was clogged with leaves. Then I entered the park at a completely different angle, climbing a knoll where the blueberrries grow in summer, and clambering up and down the rocks.

Having started well I explored every little bit of a path that caught my eye. They are mostly deer paths so don’t go very far and just meander. Finally I rejoined the road and found they had put in new stone steps to the lake side so I tried those out.

On the way back I watched the ducks landing and the seagulls winging low over the water. You can tell what type of bird they are from a distance because of the way they fly. I was entranced when a flock of pigeons took fright and began flying in low swooping circles, around and around above my head. They were so dark against the grey of the sky.

So I didn’t really make an exciting play session out of it, but I did leave the beaten track. 4 years ago

I went wandering around with a camera clicking pictures. I was on holiday of course, but that counts. I need to take holidays. I took lots of pictures of nice old buildings and trees and roamed around impulsively, deciding which direction I would go when I got to corners.

Also, while in Westmount at three different times I crossed through Westmount Park, paused at the cromlech, and as was our tradition some thirty-five years ago, I deposited money in the crown on the BC crest. Back in the old days we deposited pennies or maybe dimes at the most. This time I deposited a loonie the first time and quarters the second two times I was by. Somewhat to my amusement no one had taken the money out so it was up to $1.50 when I left. Hope some kid is very happy when they find it.

It was nice to have the time just to stroll around. I didn’t climb much, just one wall, but I did swing at dusk, which is one of the loveliest things there is. 4 years ago

Yesterday R and I went out to Rockwood Park and had a nice ramble. It wasn’t one of those serious by-the-clock walks that I take for my health. First we strolled up to the road that runs below the lookout and then we scrambled up the rocks, climbing in a couple of clefts where it was possible to get convenient hand holds.

Then we took the path along the top of the cliff.

Then we crossed by the duck pond to the path to the waterfall but we took it instead along the ridge to the path that leads to the very old lookout, the one that is so overgrown and forgotten. There is a magnificent view of the city.

This was mostly just walking and there was not any imaginative play but there was plenty of clambering on rocks and walls and things. It counts as an outdoor play session. 4 years ago

On the way back from a walk to the drug store we stopped in a park and I helped my daughter climb a tree. It was too high for either of us, but first I put my hands together for her to climb into and then I had her step onto my shoulders so she was able to get up into the lower branches.

It was harder to get her down because she wanted to stay up there, and she was more nervous, and she nearly knocked us both flat but it was good fun.

Then we went to the local elementary school yard where we found some metallic ribbon in the grass which we collected and tied to the schoolyard fence.

Then we went to blueberry hill, my first time ever, ate late wild blueberries and followed the paths over the rocks and into the woods where we found abandoned campsites before coming out on the other side of the hills.

This was fun, and hot and amusing, and I didn’t let myself hurry home early to be responsible. This counts definitely as session number one.

I plan to consider this goal reached when I have played outside eight times in total. 4 years ago

There’s a classic goal setting exercise where you envisage your own funeral and figure out what you’d like people to say at your eulogy, and then start living the life that they praise you for. So for example if you want them to tout you as having been a great athlete, then you start working the goal of being a great athlete. I have used the thought of what I’d like to accomplish before I die in order to help me set goals and make sure I’m on the right track, but I have a different way of doing things which works better for me.

If I had to go back into the past and live my childhood over, knowing what I do now, what would I do? Somethings I would change. I would keep a lot of distance from my mother, and I’d study harder and try to find a way to stay in school, and I’d learn music. But I’d also repeat some of the things I did then, like enjoying the closeness with my sisters, and enjoying all the kids fiction that made my life wonderful. And one of the things I would love about going back into the past would be the playtime.

When I was a kid I got out of school and freedom reigned. I could roam around for hours, in the parks and on the mountain, climbing trees and wading in the ponds, running, jumping. I could spontaneously go to the library or read a book outside. I could go to the swimming pool or explore strange neighborhoods I didn’t know. The evenings and the days seemed endless because I never thought about time until the light faded or my empty stomach brought me home.

Of course when I was a kid I usually had one of my sisters along, but that shouldn’t stop me now. I don’t need a playmate, and if I want one, I have two perfectly good kids of an age to go roaming with me.

So that is my new goal. It’s part physical and part mental health. Play outside. 4 years ago

Took little A outside this evening for about an hour…just picking up leaves & sticks and picking “flowers”-clover. Went out to look for the “bunny wabit.” He took off right away. A got some fresh air. 6 years ago

Drove out to Hammonasset State Park today to go running. It was lovely and the mist was nice and cool. I ran for 45 minutes and felt like crap at the end. But now I feel as if I’ve accomplished something. Hooray for me. But still, that doesn’t really count as PLAYING outside…I guess it’s kinda exploring, since I’ve never been there before…I need to do more fun, non-goal-oriented things. Hmmmm. 6 years ago

Climbed a mountain today. That DEFINITELY counts. It was gorgeous, I was sad to come back. I’ve also been running, although I hate running, so I don’t know if that counts towards fulfilling this goal, because usually I’m pretty miserable when I’m running, even if it’s outside. Nobody around here wants to play frisbee or anything- everyone is very stodgy. Oh well, I’ll make my own fun! :D 7 years ago

Today is a beautiful day. I was going to go running but am instead going sailing. That counts as playing outside, I think, even though it’s not like in the woods outside, it’s on the water outside. Ahoy! 7 years ago