Cultivating a sense of Adventure in the next generation.

As a young boy my life was filled with adventures. When I wasn’t playing outside or exploring in the large park next to where we lived, my family used to go on Mini Adventure trips.

My parents, the dog and I would climb into our 1960s VW camper van. Quite often one of my friends would join or several of my cousins would tag along.

These would always be referred to by my father as “Magical Mystery Tours” (in homage to The Beatles album)

To this day I believe that the majority of the time my father did not know where we would go when we started off. Countless memories of him mid-trip coming up with a new destination. Whether heading to a walk spot, to the beach, to a pub or just driving around country lanes we really didn’t know where the adventure would take us.

Fast forward 30 years and this weekend I found myself doing the Oslo equivalent, but on foot.

My partner had decided to go for a Sunday morning yoga class. I loaded the two kids into the double buggy, put on my waterproofs as there was quite a rainstorm outside, got Minttu ready and off we went for a suburban adventure.

Clearly the adventure was enthralling as my 11-month-old was asleep within four minutes.

As both Minttu and I were already thoroughly soaked, I thought I should re-enact the Magical Mystery Tour.

I lent over and asked my son what he would like to see. Unsurprisingly I was told that he wanted to see a tractor.

So with our mission now firmly established we went off in search of a tractor.

To ensure maximal family participation I insisted that at every street junction my son would decide which way we would head. Needless to say that we went around the same block a few times more than was necessary to establish there was no tractor there.

Soon however he directed me down towards where the Bus stop and the Metro station are. The array of public transport seemed to keep him satisfied in the short term.

I tried to suggest that I knew where there was a digger we could look at. This was not satisfactory. I had to respect that he was sticking to his principles.

Another 40 minutes of walking around the suburbs in the driving rain and we came upon another construction site.

Suddenly my son got rather excited and started pointing at a bulldozer.

“Tractor, tractor, tractor” he exclaimed with joy.

I certainly was not going to correct him and ruin his moment. Our Magical Mystery Tour had delivered the result for one happy 3 year old. The sense of Adventure was alive!

Sidenote: do be warned that if you go on far too many adventures with your child(ren), when the Career’s Person at their school asks what they would like to do in life, they might just respond “explorer or treasure hunter”. I’m not sure she had heard that answer from a 17 year old before I came along.

However I do feel that i am an Explorer with a merry band of Dogs joining me twice daily, sticking true to the core of the Magical Mystery Tour

Doggies: Sonja, Henie, Gabby and Arya