January blues and a Forest of Dean adventure

Urgh! It’s been a funny old month.

We are both self employed and always leave everything to the last minute so we have been wildly getting our tax returns done, cursing our procrastinating ways whilst simultaneously getting distracted from the task in hand.

Our returns are done…and the house has never been so organised! What is it about having to do the most boring paperwork in the world that gives you a sudden urge to empty the kitchen cupboards to clean them all, scrub the grouting in the bathroom and sort through the ‘odd sock basket’?

That being said with the cold wet weather, tax returns looming

and work piling up adventures have been few and far between! The lack of excitement and exploring has been taking it’s toll on us so we decided it was high time for another one. We decided to start small and close to home. One of the top attractions billed in the Forest of Dean is the Sculpture Trail and embarrassingly although we have lived in the Forest for nearly 6 years we have never actually been! Well today was the day and we decided to finally visit and see what it’s all about!

The trail starts and ends at Beechenhurst (https://www.forestryengland.uk/beechenhurst) a

Forestry England site. You do need to pay to park there, the machines take card as well as cash. There is also toilets, a cafe and a playground for the wee ones to enjoy. The trail itself is one of many walking and cycle paths that span out into the forest. It is approximately 4.8 miles of easy paths through the Forest with 16 permanent sculptures and some extra temporary ones. There are some slopes but they are easy to walk and the paths are well signed. As for accessibility for wheelchairs and pushchairs they have a dedicated page about this on their website here https://www.accessibilityguides.org/content/beechenhurst .

There isn’t much signal in the forest so I would definitely recommend downloading or taking a screenshot of the guide map and descriptions of sculptures https://www.forestryengland.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2722.1%20FoD%20Sculpture%20Trail%20Leaflet_0.pdf . I love reading and I was so glad I had downloaded the guide leaflet as there is no signage at the sculptures. Without it we would not have known the artist or their inspiration behind the piece which would have bugged me!

We had a really great time and Pumpkin loved bounding down the paths and splashing through the puddles. I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to get out and explore the Forest of Dean and learn about it’s past.

As an added bonus once we were home and had hosed off a filthy Pumpkin pup we cooked one hell of a banging roast dinner!