Do you work 40 hours a week? Do your children go to school Mon-Fri? Do you even work some weekends? How can you manage to do all of that and still have time for the outdoors in between?
We started walking as a hobby when our youngest child was 2 and we couldn’t sit around being able to get paid to take surveys at home anymore. There had been a few outings here and there but the bug really started after a walk up to one of our local hills; The Wrekin. After a busy work week, long school-days and just general life, it was nice to take a break from home. To step out into the autumn air and feel the fresh air in our lungs.
In my teens, I used to walk to get away from a not-so-nice home life. It was my escape. I never ventured far, but the endorphins would give my emotions a break and the physical removal of myself from the family home helped too.
Now, I use the outdoors as an escape, but a good one. As a family, we can step away from the hustle and bustle and feel free to chat and discuss things. We have no distractions leading us away from conversation. The kids chatter away to us about worries, friends, and what they want for Christmas! We laugh, bond and sometimes argue too. It’s not always roses, I will admit, but it works out a good day all the same.
As time wound on, and we realised how good the outdoors can be for us, we researched more places to go. More interesting things to see and do. Now, I like to incorporate learning into our hikes. I research the history of the area we are going to. Little snippets and interesting facts. The kids like to go to caves or castles, so once a month we will try and visit one.
The UK is truly a beautiful place to live. We are lucky that we live right in the middle of the UK in the West Midlands. An hours drive in any direction will take us to entirely different places. The Peak District is one of our go-to places, as its only an hour away, and you can find many of our walks on our website.
We try and incorporate little adventures in all areas of our life. Sundays are our family days, where we will take on bigger hikes, such as Snowdon. School holidays are when I will take the kids to local places (without Dad) and meet up with other families too. And our family holidays usually involve a walk along a coast or up a mountain!
We document our hiking journey on Instagram and found an amazing community there. But we felt like it lacked something for the up and coming hikers of the world. So we set up HIKERKIDZ. A community for hiking families, with little ones who are fantastically resilient, puddle jumpers galore, and general outdoorsy humans. Pre COVID, we arranged meet ups so the kids could all get together and egg each other on going up the hills, then roll down them afterwards. There’s nothing better to see than the green hills covered in happy red faced children, squealing with laughter.
I am hopeful that 2021 will see the meet-ups start again, as the restrictions are a bit too confusing to work with at the moment. We became champions for Ordnance Survey in 2020 which is such an honour, so I hope to continue to encourage others to enjoy the outdoors as much as we do.
If you would like to follow along with us:
Instagram is https://www.instagram.com/anordinaryfamilyof5/
Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/anordinaryfamilyof5/
Or you can have a look at the website for up and coming HIKERKIDZ information at
https://www.anordinaryfamilyof5.com/