If you go down to the woods today

Over the weekend, during a quick break from the rain, we went for a walk to Mullaghreelan woods. All through our childhood we walked here, spending hours and hours running up and down through this big forest, making camps, epic games and enjoying the wonderful, interesting walks along the trails and cross country, up and down the hills. In the summer, we brought old sacks to slide down the steep hill at the top, where you can see for miles and miles in every direction. It was, and is, glorious: a treasure of an amenity, right on our doorstep.

Our children love going here too, and now, all the more so; because as we walked up one of the trails, we spotted this:

Can you see it? Bottom left hand side of the photo!

A Fairy door! This was a very exciting find, and after looking and knocking to see if anyone was home, we started making little fences and gardens outside the door:

And the finished landscaping!:

When we finished beautifying that fairy’s garden, we continued along, though the woods, up to the top of the hill. Grace had run ahead… and found another door, and she was quickly creating fences and trees in the little garden outside this door.

And the new, improved fairy garden:

It started to rain heavily as we were finishing up here, so we had to run quickly back to the car (James slid a good way down the hill: the craic… and the muck!!)
The requests are in for another visit, soon, with added impetus to see whether the gardens are still there (and if not, plans afoot for new garden designs)
I just love that someone had such a great idea and sense of fun to add something so small, yet so brilliant and enjoyable for everyone who visits the woods. We are really hoping to find a few more the next time we are there, for, as everyone knows: where there’s one fairy, there are always a few more 🙂

• fairy,
• fairy door,
• mullaghreelan woods,
• walks