local adventures

home safe and sound

 Fortunately, Anna's most recent local adventure has a happy ending. Every once in a while, she decides to go for a walk...but neglects to take a grown-up along. Friday was one of those days. Thomas was drawing, Iain was looking at a book, and I was about to sit back down at the dining room table, where Anna and I had been coloring a few minutes earlier. But it was oddly quiet, and I sensed mischief, so I headed upstairs to look for her. Immediately upon reaching the top of the stairs, I thought, no--she's gone out the door.

And so she had. If she had shut it, I would have heard her go; since she didn't, I was certain she'd gone. I called to the boys, and we had our shoes and jackets on in seconds and were out the door. Unfortunately, because Anna had been asking to go for a walk to the ruin (what remains of a late-medieval retreat house, about 20 minutes' walk away), I guessed she must have gone in that direction. So we headed that way, and I asked Lewis, who was by then on his way home to join the search, to drive into the village just in case she'd gone that way.

We walked to the ruin. We looked in the woods. We asked everyone we passed if they'd seen Anna. We met up with Lewis, who had looked in the village. We had a couple of graduate students round, one of whom scoured the area around the terrace. We asked some neighbors, as we walked up the back of the terrace, on our way home empty-handed, whether they'd seen Anna. They hadn't, but took up the search in the woods immediately behind the terrace.

Still no sign of Anna; Lewis started going door-to-door in the village, and soon found her, wrapped up in someone's coat, eating chocolate--and looking a bit shocked. If I had guessed right, we probably would have caught up with her immediately, as she didn't get far.

Thomas and Iain dressing up at Housesteads

So you can bet that the next day, when the boys went to Hadrian's Wall, I made certain that Anna was under a watchful eye. And today we ALL took a walk to the ruin.