At the time of year when everyone eats too much and spends too much on gifts we wanted to do something a little different this year.

Obviously we did the whole Christmas thing, but on a much lower level than usual. Family weren’t in the country, our friends were busy and we didn’t really have to go anywhere for the whole Christmas period. But we did anyway.

Our Christmas pretty much started as most other peoples will have. Finishing work, buying food for your Christmas dinner and finalising the Christmas wrapping of presents ready for the big day. However, this year we scaled things back. We’d usually have family round for present opening, or we’d have people round for Christmas dinner. This year was different though as we didn’t. Family were out of the country or doing their own thing so we just Facetimed them instead for presents and we just had a nice meal to ourselves with some locally ‘farmed’ pheasant.

Present hauls are never big in our house. We follow (to a degree) the 5 present rule so as not to end up trying to find homes for items that you don’t really want or need. There’s too much wastage in society and we don’t like to add to it. This year we went for practicality. A new MTB for the youngest because she’d grown out of hers along with things to help her focus, draw and create. We treated each other to items that invoked our imaginations, for me (Dan) that included an amazing book about brutalist architecture around the world (Ruin and Redemption in Architecture - Phaidon Press), a reading book (The Living Mountain - Nan Shepherd) and some lovely new tees from Lost and Found. Jess got some adjustable hiking sticks, compass and fire starting kit for while we’re away to help us navigate with maps and keep us warm and fed.

It was a modest haul, but one we feel proud of for limiting ourselves to, as we try to do it every year and generally fail hideously and end up stuffing a load of ‘junk’ into stockings or wrapping paper making quantity rather than quality.

Sherwood Pines

With Christmas out of the way, we wanted to shake off the stir crazy and get out into the wilderness. The Sunday before Christmas we heading up to Mansfield for a walk around Sherwood Pines. Another site run by Forestry England (we’re noticing a bit of a theme here), it’s like a smaller version of Cannock Chase with fewer walks and broader, more small person friendly cycling trails.

We’d never been before so didn’t really know what to expect, we just wanted somewhere relatively local we could visit to walk the dog and enjoy being outside for a few hours. It fit the bill perfectly and we enjoyed walking both the walking trails while there. A longer one at 3 miles and a shorter 1 miler.

One nice little feature there is the ‘trenches’ display. A dug out section of WW1/2 trenches mocked up to befit their purpose. Interesting history questions and facts can be found around the display which was a nice way to immerse yourself in a bit of history while there.

Rough distance covered: 5 miles.

Memorial Park

With new bikes in the house it made sense to give them a trial run locally. We’d had a bit of a nightmare with deciding what kind of bike carrier to get for the car and with it being the first time it was fitted it was nice to not drive too far as I had little confidence in how it had gone onto the bootlid.

Eliot wanted to go to the Memorial Park, one of Coventry’s little diamond spots. It has a nice set of pathways that are wide enough for cyclists and pedestrians to use without killing each other and has a few hills to get your legs pumping.

I expected us to be there for an hour or so, with Eliot getting bored after a circuit of the park but I was wrong. She was loving her new Orbea MX20 and the freedom that the larger bike gave her thanks to the front suspension, gears and bigger wheels. She just wanted to keep on going.

With a couple of stops for toilet breaks and a bite to eat we were there for around 4hrs in total. Numerous loops of the park and a bit of a play on the playground meant we covered a rather respectable 5.6 miles. I was very impressed at her for managing to do that much first time out (technically second time, but the first was just round to the park to try it out).

Distance covered: 5.6 miles

Sutton Park

New Years’ Eve is never a big thing that we ‘celebrate’. We tend to veg out in front of the TV, watch Jools Holland and most likely fall asleep before the midnight chimes. This year Jess was working so we weren’t going to get to spend the evening together so instead we went out during the day for a walk around Sutton Park.

About 30 minutes away from the house, this parkland is huge. REALLY HUGE! a mixture of different landscapes and terrain make it an interesting place to go for a dog walk. The very top end of the park has a circular walk loop around a lake which (if you start there) ends up with you being back at a restaurant/pub.

We expected it to be muddy as the weather hadn’t been amazing, but it was surprisingly dry. The peaty soil around the lake (it was once farmed from there apparently) obviously did a good job of filtering it through to ground water. Obviously there were a few areas that weren’t dry, but with walking boots on it really didn’t matter.

We did the usual lake loop but wanted to carry on so turned round and walked back half way round the loop again. There’s an access road that crosses the railway which we followed. We hadn’t been that way previously so didn’t really know what to expect on the other side. Once we’d crossed the railway we worked our way down the path and out into a tundra type field which makes up a large expanse of land. With it being so open there wasn’t really much to do as WIlbur has a habit of just running round like a crazy person following his nose in circles.

We skirted along the edge of the field hugging the tree line which separated us from the railway line. We guesstimated at the point where we’d need to cut back into the woods to rejoin the path and get to the second railway bridge and our route back to the car. Unfortunately we took the wrong fork in the path, but it was (as Bob Ross would say) a happy accident as it lead us further into the woods but still vaguely in the right direction.

At the bottom of the hill we took a left which brought us through a clearing and back towards the railway line that cuts the park in two. Another left along the line delivered us to a tunnel under the railway line. The path on the other side took us back to the car park we’d parked in.

There are many wonderful things about Sutton Park. One of our favourites being the wild Exmoor Ponies that frequent the top side of our lake loop. They’re beautiful to watch, gracefully making their way between the lake for a drink and up into the woodland for feeding or hiding away from the eyes of the public. There is also cattle that live there, but we’ve only ever seen them once, and that was blocking the roadway on our way into the park… very weird sight!

Distance covered: 3.7 miles

So with New Year not even out of the way yet we’d worked our way through 14 miles instead of sitting around eating mince pies and watching junk on TV. Not too shabby.