we found her...eventually....but I have never, in my life, had such a fright
ds has footie on a Sat morning - he played and we saw a family friend on the other side of the field (lovely recreation grounds that back onto the river). Dd (5) said she wanted to see the boats (end of the field is fenced so the river can't be accessed) so while I went over and said hello, I told her to wait by a tree where I could see her. She was about 20-30 foot from where I was standing. I said hello (took a few mins), could still see her but when I turned around again, she had gone .
I didn't panic and thought she could have been round the other side but when I got closer, I could see she wasn't there. Ran down to the end of the field/river (full of trees) - couldn't see her. Was starting to panic, ds was in tears - even though there are trees, you can see for miles and it was clear there was no child there. Another family came up and tried to help me but by now, she had been gone for 5-10 minutes. A whole group of people came to help and someone suggested calling the lifeboats just in case she had managed to scale the fence and had fallen in the river . I didn't call (because in my mind, there's no way she could have managed it but you start to doubt everything you ever knew) and then thought, where would she have gone (she is norm so sensible). So I headed back to the car - quite a walk and along a busy road with no pavement . Thought if she is not there, I will have to call the police and RNLI.
As I was walking towards the car, a mum from school came towards me with her. Dd had been cowering by our car and watching which adults came past and when she recognised this woman, had jumped out screaming mummy .
She had lost sight of us when standing by the tree and thought we must have gone without her. She managed to get to the road (she would have had to walk through a busy car park from where she had been) and once on the road, she couldn't be seen (because there's a line of bushes between the road/field). It was quite a walk for her. She must have walked through the car park while ds and I had run in the opposite direction (towards the river - I think you run towards the 'worst case scenario').
I still can't quite believe it. She is the most sensible child normally and is used to waiting around and playing where I can see her while ds is playing football. Most of all, I am so relieved - when I stood by the river and could see for miles and couldn't see her, I thought I would never see her again.