At this point, I really feel like justifying why it was a good decision to skip Turkish study and take an afternoon off, and offer reassurances that we do use our time wisely, but I'm going to resist that temptation and you'll have to take my word for it.
Anyway, the combination of spending some time together, a beautiful, unbelievably unseasonably warm day and getting out to the forest was pretty unbeatable. J loved exploring off the beaten (paved) path and was over the moon to find a giant pinecone, like he'd seen in his book, and to see lots and lots (and lots) of leaves. He was also thrilled to see a cement mixer on the road next to the forest. Hmm.
The autumn trees at the arboretum were beautiful. We could almost have been in an English wood - apart from when we went to see the geese and a swan in one of the ponds, we also spotted a small turtle swimming about.
The only slight issue was that when I got to the metro station (where we were going to meet L, as he had come straight from language school) I discovered that S was only wearing one sock. Oops. I had a blanket and it was warm enough that it wasn't going to be an issue, but if going sockless in summer here can cause comments, a one-socked baby in November would cause serious consternation. We mostly managed to hide his bare foot under the blanket but even then I did have several people spot it and ask if I had realised.
