I was really pleased with my #SilentSunday post this week, but as there was a bit of a story behind the photo, and some other good ones that I took at the same time, I thought I would indulge myself and share more with you today.

We were walking back home from our local park where we had attended the grand opening of the (fabulous) new toddler play area when we saw a squirrel next to a tree near the path. I did what I normally do in these circumstances and got all excited with the geekdaughter – “look darling, a squirrel!” The geekdaughter stopped alongside me, and we watched. And as we watched, we realised it was not one, not two, but three squirrels, all playing together around the tree trunk.

The next thing that happened was that they saw us. And rather than running away, they started running towards us. I told the geekdaughter to stand very still and just watch. And I grabbed my iPhone from my pocket in order to get a shot.

At about this point, I started thinking I might be able to get a #SilentSunday shot. Maybe I could even crop in nice and tight to get a cute picture of the three squirrels. Something like this perhaps:

No, that wasn’t going to work. But then, to my surprise, they just carried on running towards us:

The leader was so brave that he came up and stood on the geekdaughter’s foot (I was stage-whispering to her to stand very still at this point, which, bless her, she did!)

I was even more surprised when one of them came dashing over to me as well:

The geekdaughter even managed to touch one of them, although I did tell her to stop right away as I didn’t want her to get bitten. This was the first contender for my #SilentSunday post:

I just couldn’t get over how tame this little guy was being. Again, this was another possible choice for my #SilentSunday picture:

And let’s not forget that by this point I’ve been joined by another one, which makes two squirrels sitting under the geekson’s pushchair:

But in the end, I chose my #SilentSunday picture because it managed to capture several different things – the tame squirrel, my gorgeous girl, and the fallen Autumn leaves she’d been collecting to make a picture with when we got home:

I love squirrels, and this was the most amazing interaction! I kept telling the geekdaughter how usual it was to be able to get close to wild animals like this, but I don’t know if she appreciated that or not.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of the “also-rans” this week!