Last year I read something on a forum about choosing a one word theme for the year. The person talking about it said that it was easier to keep than a resolution, or that you could add in other things as the year went along, or something like that. It seems to be a popular concept in simple living circles (the original place I saw it was a simple living forum).

I do think that it helped me stay focused during 2017, so I decided to choose a different theme for 2018. I decided that my family needs to get out into nature more, we want to go camping, and take our children on outside adventures. One of them loves adventures, and the other is a natural born city dweller who hates animals and places without street lights, so we’ll see how we go. My first thought for the one word was Nature, then I decided simply on Outside – sometimes we’re not in the natural world, but we’re still outside.

It was with this in mind that we decided to go for a walk this morning.

Oh the whining. I’m not sure if he was afraid of being eaten by a wild animals (perhaps I shouldn’t have said the day before that foxes probably live in the forest), or just didn’t want to be away from ABC iView for that long, but there was a lot of whining.

Halfway around I saw these rocks by the side of the path. “Let’s jump from rock to rock!” I said, inspired by images that I see on the Nature Play website. “Muuuum those are the same rocks you got us to jump on last time!” Oh well, at least I am consistent even if I am repetitive.

So welcome to 2018. It’s going to be a big year for us in many ways, and we’re going to be outside more.