Just Humans Being...

  Our GP first introduced us to homeopathy in 1988, when our eldest offspring, Sal was born. Our family doctor was not only a general practitioner, but a midwife (or should that be mid-husband?) and a homeopath. He enthusiastically attended the home birth of our second born as an observer, along with our usual midwife and a student midwife. It was the first planned home birth in our town in 13 years, so there was much excitement and it was wonderful! As our little Rosie Matilda was born, her beautiful big eyes opened wide as we all sang happy birthday...much to the delight of her big sis, who was two at the time. Six years later, when our third born, Hugo came along – we were very happy to discover that the student nurse from Rose’s birth was to be our midwife and she was thrilled to be on duty that night - delivering not just another baby at home, but to be sharing another birth experience with us. The health system had changed though...the midwives were no longer attached to ...

  Six weeks have passed now since we moved into the cabin and we adore this little place. We have experienced quite a lot of stormy weather, with huge amounts of rain and some very blustery nights. We have held our breath on a couple of occasions, half expecting the roof to be ripped off, but have been pleasantly surprised and will be ever grateful to Scot, who built this amazingly resilient house. We also love our second-hand wood stove, which easily kicks in - warming the cabin, keeping our furry friends and us happy! We’ve even been through a little cold snap and while there was frost outside a couple of weeks ago – we were toasty and snug inside. There is an abundance of birds around us and when the mornings are calm and mild, the birdsong is absolutely wonderful. We are situated at the top of a beautiful wooded valley, so the climate is almost rainforest-like. We see the sun rising and setting, the clouds forming and moving across the sky, the rain coming in and the mi...

  We have been writing daily lists of gratitude for a few years and we both agree that it has transformed the way we live. We have noticed how much more observant we are of our surroundings; we see the beauty in each day and feel genuinely grateful for the love, warmth and support around us. We enjoy helping others and feel gratitude in our ability to do so. We are able to remain calm in difficult situations and try to find the good, even if it is just a tiny glimmer of hope. We are more forgiving and wish only love and happiness to people who can sometimes be challenging. At the end of our gratitude list we always add the names of 3 or more people who we feel need help – they may be going through a particularly tough time or are just plain rude...it doesn’t matter, anyone we think is in a bad place gets added to the list and we virtually send them our love and positivity. We take it in turns to write our list - some days we just do quick one liner entries and other days, w...

The natural rhythm of life for humans and many other creatures we share this planet with - is to be busy during daylight hours and to sleep at night. We think of sleep as recharging our batteries and it is when the nutrients in our body have a chance to replenish and our nerve cells regenerate. If we don’t get enough sleep, then we will gradually become deficient and then sick as our body struggles to recuperate.   By living simply and following nature’s lead – we should be waking at dawn, winding down again at twilight and going to sleep as soon as darkness falls, but instead most of us resist our natural rhythm and fill our evenings and nights with much stimulation...bright artificial lights, TVs, internet, gaming, music, processed food, alcohol and drugs. We often hear people saying they don’t need much sleep, but are they a picture of health? What about the folks who struggle to sleep? Or wake in the night for long periods? Has our dependence on electricity caused...

We believe that many of you dear readers may recall our quirky illumination device that we repurposed and installed at our old home, Meadowcroft – a 300 year old former farmhouse. It was a great place to live and we stayed for 12 years, but it had its faults and one was that it was very often dark inside – even on a summer’s day. The dining room was particularly gloomy. We can laugh about it now, but at the time; we injured ourselves on serrated knives, razor wire, drawing pins, chainsaw blades, stinging nettles and wood splinters almost on a daily basis. One dark evening, I tripped and fell heavily against the back of a solid farmhouse chair, not only breaking some ribs in the process, but I also dropped a full plate of hot food and catapulted a glass of red wine at the ceiling. My ribs, though painful took a few weeks to heal, but the red wine stain remained for years until we finally redecorated. We needed light and quickly and once the problem was solved, we saved a fortune on ...

There is real joy to be found when life takes you on interesting paths and you suddenly realise you are now doing that very thing you dreamed about. When you think back to those first ideas many moons ago, you had no way of knowing how to get there, so you either gave up or worked hard to make it happen. As most of you know...we don’t work hard! Striving for something doesn’t always seem healthy, it can become an obsession and will eventually separate you from the now...from connecting with life in the present moment. We prefer a much more pleasant journey, exploring the little winding lanes which lead us in different directions and make life more interesting...the destination is set in our minds and we know that we’ll get there eventually! This is how we live and travel - we always end up having little adventures on the way...it’s what life should be all about. Our dreams take shape from ideas and then long discussions (we can easily talk for hours and hours). We both get ...

This is our new friend Tiky, we agreed to become his guardians when we took on the cabin, but as usual with us...his name has morphed and over the weeks he has become known as Tickety Boo! This beautiful chap is such a sweet natured kitty, who has calmly put up with the upheavel of his family leaving, spent 2 weeks more or less living in the workshop and to top it all – these strangers move in and with another cat!!! We are so happy that he has accepted us all...he and Floober (our old boy, Flea) growled a couple of times at each other while eating and now are happy to be close and can even be left together in the cabin for many hours. It’s funny really, we had both decided a while ago that we would not be taking any more cats in...but we agreed to having Tiky without hesitation. Our unexpected bonus. How lucky we are to be sharing our lives with yet another gentle soul.   ♥♥♥