Sunday.

My sister and 2 beautiful nieces arrived safely this afternoon AND all the housework was finished in time too!! No thanks to me! Phil, William and Grace all worked hard and got all the important bits done and let me have a restful morning. The girls always put on singing and dancing shows for us; we've had 2 already this afternoon.
Dinner was a joint effort again. Our first attempt at toad in the hole,(still can't believe I have never made this before now.)

I never thought it would be this good!! The lovely yellow colour is thanks to our local free range eggs!! We had mashed potato with parsley, green beans, carrots and red onion gravy! It has all gone! What more can I say!
 This is the last of the food photos for now. We have a lovely menu of mostly vegetarian or fish dishes this week. We need it after this weeks meat fest!!
There is a small bit of painting left to do in our new room, and I know it would have been done by now had Phil not had to do half of my jobs aswell. Its so nearly there.....won't be long before the big reveal!
Beauty sleep beckons. Phil has offered to have all the children for the morning so that my sister and I can go out together! I'm such a lucky girl!

Pilates and Pilaf!!

I shall not tell a lie.....today has been a pretty tough day. I have recently been diagnosed with a spinal condition that cannot be cured, but, not wanting to be maudlin about it, can hopefully be alleviated somewhat with a whole new regime of torture exercises!! My physio put me through my paces yesterday with some pilates type routines, and obviously I know it will take time for this regime to take effect, but today.......OUCH!!
I haven't been myself, physically, since I lost the twins, and have been desperate for doctors to find out what is wrong. I felt that just having a name for all my symptoms would mean at least I would know what I was dealing with and could then start to move forward and know my limits etc. But finding out has kind of made me feel a little bit down about it for the last few days....just shock I think. I know this feeling will pass and my focus throughout is my children. It is quite easy when we are at home doing our own thing, to be able to still be involved and enjoy time together, while taking a rest at the same time. I need and want their home education to be a fulfilling one and the difficult bit can be when we join our local groups for outings and meet ups. Standing and walking are the main problem with my condition, and I can only do them in short bursts. I just don't want the children to miss out because I may need to stop/go home early. I will never give up on home ed. I KNOW it is what is right for them both; and so that is my motivation to do what I must, to not let this "thing" get the better of me!
Those who have read my first blog post will know what "keep it natural", means to me. And I hold fast to that with this new situation that I face. I have been told about several natural methods for helping this condition, some sound quite relaxing and enjoyable, so I shall be looking into those and talking to the physio about them too.
We are a good, close, strong family and have been through quite alot together and always come out the other side, still strong, still loving. I know it will be the same now. I actually feel a little better already for sharing how I feel. Being 'ill' is a tiresome, frustrating thing. It's not always easy to talk about it, for fear of boring people! Sometimes people may feel you are not being positive about it. But if this is what is real life to someone, then sometimes the reality needs to be shared. It's not necessarily being negative about it, maybe just a case of needing to get it off your chest, to ease the burden that illness or pain can give to the sufferer, and to quote a cliche: A problem shared is a problem halved! I am thankful for the understanding and support of my friends and family.

Back to today! I am meant to have completed a lot of housework in preparation for my sister and her children, who arrive tomorrow........I haven't!!! I did manage to plan next weeks meals and drag the whole family out shopping for it all!! They were extremely helpful and we were pretty quick, but I was very tired and achy when we got back.
I had a quick sit down and printed off the new recipe for tonights dinner. We saw this recipe on a new BBC series called "The Good Cook". Phil helped me cook again tonight, and we really enjoyed making this dish together. We were very much looking forward to it........BUT........it wasn't that great! Phil really liked it, but then his nickname at the dinner table is "La poubelle de table".
I found it had too much lemon zest which overpowered the other more delicate flavours and was a little too dry for me. I think we will try it it again, maybe a few tweaks here and there. I just need to think of something to make it less dry, maybe some sort of accompaniment. SO, now you know that not everything in our kitchen is rosy!!! Haha! Infact both children took one look and in perfect unison said "YUK"!!! They were lucky there was pie left from last night!!



Smoked Haddock Pilaf

 Now I shall away to me bed! (Still got that housework to do tomorrow, grrrrr!) Goodnight all.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Friday.

So I slipped up on following my menu plan yesterday, but all for a very worthwhile reason. We spent the day with some lovely friends on the other side of Dartmoor. There was a sick Teddy, with a mechanical problem, and my husband was the man to fix him! It was a very tense procedure; a little boy's happiness depended on this operation! The mechanics were mended and Teddy's fur carefully stitched back together by me. Teddy was handed back to his hopeful, loving owner.......I am not kidding when I say that we all held our breath for a few moments.......until joy of joys, Teddy's eyes opened.....and closed......and opened, and the biggest brightest smile spread across our little friend's face!!! We stayed and played, and chatted, and ate, (Thank you to my friend for sharing such a wonderful feast.) But we had a long drive home with a detour to make that would put a smile on my boy's face! My back pain was playing up again, and by the time we reached home, I just couldn't face putting a pie together plus accompaniments. As I said, we had eaten very well at lunch time and had also been given some food to bring home, so we were all happy with just a sandwich for dinner, then 'up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire'!

Thankfully no food was harmed (wasted) in the making of that story! My dear husband and I made the pie together this evening. Again it is my own recipe, which has been repeatedly requested for the past couple of years by lots of family and friends. It is chicken, leek and bacon pie, which was served tonight with mashed potato and lots of green beans.

Dinner was much appreciated after a good play with friends at the beach this evening, and has already been requested along with the roast chicken and potato salad, by my sister and nieces, who will be staying with us next week. We so love when they come to stay. It makes me so happy that all the cousins have such close relationships. I feel very blessed when this home of ours is full of children. I shall look forward to the usual fun and frolics!
If anyone would like any of my recipes, I am more than happy to share, just leave a comment; maybe I could create a recipe section on The Liberty Tree. x

Wednesday.

Just a very short post tonight. I enjoyed a much needed lazy day today. I think we all needed it. We did pop over to see lovely friends for a short while and I think the children might have been really pleased to see their friends. They tend to "only" see them 3 or 4 times a week!! ;)

We are currently decorating a room in our house that has been a bit of a dumping ground since we moved here nearly 8 years ago. All that is left to do is paint the floorboards and then fill the room with all our books, learning resources and crafting stuff! (This is my favourite bit!!) Our floor paint was delivered today so by the end of the week I hope to be able to post about our NEW room! I am very excited! Phil has worked really hard on this room and I am very grateful to him. He is quite a perfectionist, so I know it will be worth the wait!

Still managing to stick to our meal plan. Tonight was burgers, homemade potato wedges (for the children) and salad.

Tuesday!

It was an early start for ballet again today. I then had what is quite a rare thing for a home educating Mum......time out with no children! I don't ever really crave time alone because I really do cherish our time together day by day, but I had a great morning out, just me and my Mum! We went for a coffee and a natter at Staverton Bridge Nursery.

Phil and I took the children to Cockington Country Park again this evening and this time remembered to put the card in the camera. We wanted to see the finished piece of land art called Hazel Cloud, that I featured in an earlier post.
The hazel sticks have now been painted with red earth. I'm no expert at photography, I just point and shoot really. Here are a few photos of Hazel Cloud.

The red is stunning! We really love this piece of natural earth art! The artist told us yesterday that there are quite a few who don't like it, or who feel it shouldn't have been allowed at the country park. I'm glad it has! My children have been several times now and it has been a catalyst for much fun and conversation . We think it is truly beautiful.

Dinner was quite late tonight as we were really enjoying our walk this evening. But I did stick to my planned menu and we had roast chicken, roasted veg bulgar wheat salad and my own new potato salad recipe. I added a little extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice &  freshly ground black pepper to some locally made free range mayonnaise. I quartered some baby potatoes (leaving the skin on) steamed them and allowed to cool to room temperature. Meanwhile I finely chopped some homegrown parsley and chives, finely sliced a red onion and fried a small amount of chopped bacon (as we had one slice left that needed to be used). When the potatoes had cooled enough I mixed all the ingredients together gently........and then we scoffed it! I made more than we needed so that my brother can try it when he comes to stay tomorrow. I will show you a couple of photos of dinner but I have to just tell you that food is one of the most difficult things to photograph!!
William and Grace have watched a program about what happens to food when being photographed for advertising.....for example; A roast chicken will be stuffed with dog food to plump it up, they also smear marmite over the skin to make it look brown and shiny! I don't know about you, but I have always thought that roast chicken in adverts looks horrible, their plan doesn't really work for me! So please remember that even though my photos may not be perfect, I think my food looks better because its naturally good and plates were emptied tonight! Happy days!

What did you have for dinner tonight?

Food, Glorious Food!

Food is definitely the way to all hearts in our house! It's not just about sustaining life and health. We all enjoy it for many different reasons; for sharing together, socialising, relaxing, destressing, celebrating, learning and experimenting. When things have been tough, and even when money has been tight, we have always made sure that we will enjoy our food, and preparing it!
Of course there are times when we don't feel like cooking, or things are so busy that perhaps we end up having the same few menus. But when Phil is on holiday in the summer, and at Christmas, we get so revived and renewed and so do our menus! We love to cook together and, Phil and I make a good team! Phil is very confident about trying new and old methods, and especially loves to do things the old fashioned way, unlike me, who loves GADGETS!!

I feel most at home cooking savoury dishes, Grace loves to bake, and is very good at it thankfully! Phil is the fish and seafood expert, bakes all our bread (by hand) and also makes pasta from scratch. William likes to have a go at a little bit of everything and has learnt how to prepare a crab! He also feels that one of the best jobs for him is quality control!!Even Sam, (who has his own kitchen now) rings me up for my recipes, even the ones that he used to refuse to eat!

Where our food comes from is also very important to us, but not always easy to sustain! We will only buy organic meat from Riverford Farm Shop which is fairly local, (we try to plan our trips there to stock up so that we don't waste petrol). It is more expensive, but we choose to eat meat less often and make what we buy go further; for example: a chicken will tend to cost me approx £11.00. From this, we will get a roast, a pie, possibly a few sandwiches and homemade stock; not bad for 4 people. I am totally aware that some would still not be able to afford this, it is just a choice that we have made and I do not judge what others choose. We used to get a veg box delivered from the same farm, but we cannot afford this anymore and now buy most of our fruit and veg from the supermarket. We only have a small back yard, yet have managed to grow a few veg and herbs ourselves. We are currently getting rid of a lot of the concrete out there and will hopefully have some new raised beds for growing more next year!

Recently we went with friends to a Pick Your Own farm. We picked strawberries, blackcurrants and raspberries. The strawberries were simply eaten! We decided to have a go at making Blackcurrant Cordial, very successfully and very easy too! and the raspberries are still in the freezer awaiting a pavlova to be made!

Here is a link to the recipe I found by Skye Gyngell for Blackcurrant Cordial. It can be found about halfway down the page and has been titled Blackberry Cordial for some reason!
Blackcurrant season is July and August in the UK, although we picked ours in June this year as most fruit and veg have come on a bit early due to the weather. It really did taste wonderful. Go on.....have a go!!

Most weeks we try to do a menu plan, and then I try to stick to it!! It does help to save money and waste. I also look at what we have happening during the week and save the more complicated meals for quiet nights.
Here is our menu for this week. I write it on the board in the kitchen so the children know what we will be having.

I admit it is rather a meat laden week this week! Firstly we are trying to make some space in the freezer, and secondly we all got to choose something we'd really like to make. Unbelievably, I have never made toad in the hole. My dad used to make a great one when we were kids. I hope I can impress my children as much as my Dad impressed me. So as not to leave my Mum out, I would like to point out that alot of my best recipes are thanks to my Mum. She taught me more than any of my Home economics lessons did!
I will try to put up pictures of some of our new recipes, starting tomorrow! We've already eaten tonights, so no photo! We had pork escalopes with mashed potato, green beans and a brandy, cream and mushroom sauce. It was delicious!

"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God". 1 Corinthians 10 v 31.

Reasons to be Cheerful....1...2....3!

OK! So I'm not quite keeping up to date and I certainly still have a lot to learn about this blogging lark, like how to reply to comments on my posts without coming up as anonymous!! How can I be anonymous to my own Blog?? I am grateful for the lovely comments that have been left, so please don't think I'm ignoring you! I am fast learning that my skills in technology are few! Perhaps on the home ed menu next week, we should have my children helping me learn some up to date I.T. I very much doubt that I shall be able to sustain daily updates, but I have come up with a few ideas of different ways to share what we get up to. I shall of course be saving these short cuts for lazy very busy weeks!

Back to what we got up to on Thursday. It was a very good day in many ways. The sun was unexpectedly shining for a start! Friends we haven't seen for a while had been trying to arrange a get together and it was decided we should make the most of this fair weather opportunity.
We hurriedly gathered together a picnic lunch of sorts, almost got Phil to work on time, and set off for Cockington Country Park.

This first photo shows the beginnings of a piece of land art called Hazel Cloud by Mike Fletcher and over the next week, adults and children will add more hazel to create a 24m diameter 'cloud' with the branches being rubbed with the red soil that is so prevalent in our area. We are hoping to visit over the coming weeks at different times of the day to photograph the varying effects. Yesterday it provided a wonderful play space for the children and if you are interested in learning more about the sculpture you can find the information here.

We also managed to have a quick sneak peak at the newly built craft studios, including a very yummy looking chocolate shop, which didn't open til after we had left.......how inconsiderate!!!

It really was a lovely day; everyone was happy and relaxed. The children and I are so lucky to have made such great friends.
I had a wee rest when we returned home (been suffering with a bad back for some time now) and realised that I had been pain free all afternoon!! Another reason to be cheerful! It really did brighten my whole mood and so when Phil got back from work we took the children to play at the beach.

Today, Friday was Phil's last day at work for the summer.....HOORAH! We are all looking forward to lots of family time and maybe a camping trip or two.

Ballet, Bugs and Buccaneers!!

Every week I get to watch Grace's 2 ballet lessons. I really look forward to it as, although I am slightly biased, she is a beautiful little dancer. Grace recently decided she wanted to give up all her dancing, and we felt it was important that this was her decision and not influenced by us. After a 6 month break she wanted to start her ballet again and so has been having some private lessons to catch up before she rejoins the regular lessons next term.

The rest of the day was a much needed lazy one for us all. We read books, went on computers, (for gaming and research) and all had a bit of a siesta in the afternoon.
Grace also goes to Brownies with a couple of her home ed friends. It suits her down to the ground as she loves to be busy with a good variety of activities, and Brownies provides this in abundance!
This week they were having a Pirate themed party for the end of term, which was linking in with the activities for their Chief Commissioners Birthday Challenge Badge that they had completed the week before. Brownies could choose to go in Pirate costume, and as you can see from the pictures below Grace was very keen to get into the spirit of things!!

Comedy Pirate!

Yo! Pirate from the 'hood'!



Brownie Buccaneers.


On Wednesday we joined our christian home ed group on a trip to a nearby country park. It really isn't too far away from where we live, yet I have not visited since about 1993!! We were taken on a tour of all the different habitats of the park by one of the Rangers in the morning. She gave us so much interesting information, and we all learned a lot of new things. We saw a Bullfinch, some Nuthatches and several birds on the lake which we have yet to identify. I didn't get many photos unfortunately as it was quite a wet day, so we are all keen to return soon for a family day out. Preferably in the sunshine!
We managed to stay dry for our picnic lunch outdoors, and were due to continue with the Ranger for a mini bug hunt in the afternoon. Due to ill health on my part, we had to miss out on this activity and head for home. I will however do my very best to create our own bug hunt (despite my phobias!!) to make up for the disappointment I caused.

It was lovely to meet new families and catch up with so many others, and the rain really didn't spoil the visit. I think we shall return often to have a really good explore!

Our Home Educating Journey So Far!

We made the decision to Home educate our 2 youngest on Monday 27th February 2006. I say "we" but actually my husband had about 10 minutes to make his decision! It was the last day of his holiday and we were about to collect the chilren from school/nursery. William had been really struggling at school due to his learning difficulties and was always in tears when we collected him. Our eldest son Sam (also on the Autistic spectrum) had gone right through school, and it had always been a fight to try to get him the help he needed. I deeply regret forcing him to go through what must have been torture and vowed that I would never make the same mistake again. And so I suggested to Phil that we take William and Grace out of school and give them what they needed wrapped up in love and tenderness. If we were going to try this, even if temporarily, I needed Phil to make his decision quickly so that he would be by my side when we told the school. He said YES, again putting his trust in me!! We went to collect our children and we told their teachers they would be leaving at the end of the week, giving them a chance to say goodbye to friends. We were not really met with much opposition to be honest, their teachers didn't seem too bothered. We went home and tried to explain it to William and Grace, then aged 6 and 4. They weren't bothered about staying for the rest of the week, and so Tuesday 28th February 2006 became their last day at school and our Home educating journey began!


A Happy Snap of Home Ed 2006

 All of us relished our new found freedom and spent ALOT of time outdoors, exploring new ways of learning that did not involve a "classroom". It was hard for Phil still going off to work and missing all the fun, but we made sure that weekends just continued the adventure so that Phil would feel included in this new journey.
William's greatest struggle in school was writing, it affected him emotionally and physically caused him pain, so we very quickly took the pressure off him and didn't "make" him do it. Grace on the other hand couldn't wait to get started and would (and still does) constantly ask for written work.

We had our first visit from the Local Authority pretty quickly, I had no idea what to expect and was VERY nervous. Thankfully it was a relaxed and comfortable meeting and they were satisfied that the children were receiving an education.

Nature Trail 2007



Thrashing Grandad at Chess, aged 5, 2007.

 At the beginning of our journey, although alot of time was spent outdoors we also tried to follow some work, appropriate for their ages. But both of them are completely different and were not really fitting into those boxes. Grace was steaming ahead in areas where William, 2 years her senior, was struggling, and vice versa. Gradually over time I also realised that alot of the information that they retained and could recall was not from any of the more formal "sit down" learning I had provided. It was from trips out, books they had chosen to read themselves, and just general everyday life.




Occombe Farm 2008



I started to relax a little more and the events of April 2008, as explained in my first post, also helped to bring about alot of changes to our daily lives. I wanted the children to feel that they had the freedom to be who they really are, to follow the paths in life and learning that they enjoyed and that gave them happiness and contentment. I don't always get it right, and I frequently have moments of panic that they are not learning enough BUT they ARE!! They are just taking a different road for learning than most and one thats suits their individual personalities and needs.


Learning with Dad 2009




Sketching the view 2009

 One of the most frequent questions asked of Home Educators is "What about socialising?" Well we feel our children gain these skills with a huge variety of people of all ages. They are comfortable and confident around adults and equally happy to play with older or younger children, and even children of their own age! They see that everyone in their lives, young or old, has something different to give a friendship, always something new to learn.  For the first few years we did not join any groups. We hung out with all our old friends, but of course this had to be out of school hours. We came across a few other home ed families and also joined a free weekly computer lesson at our local library for children not in school. In 2010 we found out about a local group and I was invited to a Mums night out to meet everyone. I've never been very good at "group things" but I knew that the children needed it. We quickly went to several meet ups and felt so warmly welcomed by EVERYONE. The children fitted in just fine and with ease. And I found that actually I had needed it too. Some really good friendships have been made and I cherish that!

Rockpooling with home ed group 2010

So that brings us up to 2011. I wanted to give you a bit of background of how we got to the here and now. I think that for us, Home education has evolved gradually over time and although I feel I have found "the way" that works for us, I'm sure it will just keep on growing and changing. We look forward to it, and to sharing it with you.

Why we are called "The Liberty Tree".

Now I have entered this brave new world of blogging, I feel the best place to start is to share why I chose to call mine The Liberty Tree. It is not just about finding an appropriate title for my blog. It comes from a precious gift given but also taken away.
At the end of March 2008 at a routine scan, my husband and I discovered that both our twins had passed away. I was 17 weeks pregnant. Almost immediately I was asked to sign forms to allow the doctors to bring about a miscarriage. I will always be thankful that I decided to just go home. I was told I must return within a couple of days. On the silent journey home, a voice kept saying in my head, "keep it natural"! I didn't understand, but I didn't ignore it. After much research and many phone calls, I was led to visit a Herbalist who felt she could help me. I had informed the hospital that I wanted everything to come about naturally and they informed me that for my own safety they would allow me 2 weeks, but if nothing had happened by then, I would have to allow them their medical procedure. I met the Herbalist with only one day to go. We discussed thoroughly my medical history and while we waited, she made up a liquid mixture for me to take that would, she believed, bring on my labour naturally. We prayed so hard that night that it would work, and on waking on the 10th April 2008, (also our 9th wedding anniversary) my labour pains began. We made arrangements for the children and made our way to the hospital. We were taken to a 'special' room, but a brief conversation with the midwife made me feel unsure about being there. I was looking at Phil hoping he would have an answer, when the midwife added, "Oh dear, you don't know what you want, do you?" And at that moment I found myself telling her that I knew exactly what I wanted and that we were going back home. We headed back to the car and Phil was asking me what exactly was I going to do? I am eternally grateful that my loving husband just came with me and trusted me, even though I actually had no idea what I was doing. We sat in the car and I remembered that the Herbalist had told me that she had just trained as a Doula,(a support giver for a woman in labour and for her family too) I called her and asked if she would come to our home and help support us. None of my children have been born at home, so this was all new to me, yet I felt strangely confident about the whole thing. I made it up to our bedroom and Phil began to make it as homely, calm and peaceful as he could. As he lit some candles I delivered our first twin. I wasn't scared, it was just the two of us with our baby, tiny, but ours, born to us, belonging to our family. The midwife rang. She was very concerned and was sending 2 midwives to be with us. She asked if anything had happened yet, we told her nothing yet. We didn't want to share that moment with anyone. The Doula arrived first, bringing oils to massage me with, oils for the oil burner and beautiful wild flowers and herbs from her garden. She had thought we might want to lay them around the babies. She was wonderful and calm and looked after my pain so that Phil and I could just "BE" together. The 2 midwives arrived next. They too were wonderful. They were worried because they had never experienced a home delivery in this situation before. But they stayed back, they didn't interfere and as our second twin was delivered, they began to understand why I had wanted this, and so did I! Our first twin we named Otis Malakai; Otis because Phil just liked the name and Malakai being Hebrew for Angel. Our second beautiful twin we named Willow Malika; Willow meaning slender and graceful and also because Willow is one of the gifts for a 9th wedding anniversary, Malika being African for Angel. Our two together, born to us, born into our family. Even though they never drew breath, they are counted.
Our children returned home. They already knew about the twins and that they would be born but not live. We explained everything to them, then aged 6 & 8, and felt it right to give them the choice to see them. They both wanted to. We had laid them out with the flowers and the herbs and both William and Grace immediately loved their brother and sister. We made sure that positive things could come from this painful time for ALL of us, and it did. William and Grace were of course sad, and also felt the loss but will openly and happily talk about Otis and Willow frequently.
I know that this story has still not reached it's purpose and alot more happened that I shall leave out, purely for lack of relevance.
Once I had recovered, we had more decisions to make. Otis and Willow had to be taken to the mortuary at the hospital. We had already decided we did not want any tests performed on them as I believe that God had his purpose and it was for us to trust in that. "Keep it natural" was still relevant as far as we were concerned. We just wanted our babies to be back with us. We had looked into a woodland burial but could not afford it. I had felt they should be buried at home but we only have a small paved back yard. It was with some trepidation that I asked the chaplain if we were allowed to bury them under a tree.......but in a pot! She was a little taken aback but said she would find out for us. It was allowed. By law the babies would have to leave the mortuary in a closed casket and very kindly a local funeral parlour had already offered to do this for us free of charge. We brought them home and prepared for their burial. We didn't want to make a big thing of it but knew that some people may feel left out, so we sent out little gift tags and asked that people write their feelings or messages and send them back to us. We made a new casket from handmade paper for Otis and Willow. Grace put flowers in with them and the children said their goodbyes. My parents and our 2 best friends waited outside with William & Grace while Phil and I carefully covered our beautiful twins. That was the point when my heart broke into tiny pieces, knowing that we had to set them free, to say goodbye. We carried them to the garden and laid them gently to rest. We played some sweet songs, read bible verses, Grace had chosen and read a poem (coincidentally, she had chosen the poem that Sam, our eldest, had chosen and read at our wedding, very poignant!) And then Phil and I read them their bedtime story of our love and feelings for them. We planted their tree and hung all the little messages, that friends and family had sent, on the branches.My parents gave us a card that they had bought for us before the twins had died. It was a beautiful picture of 2 identical butterflies,. My friend Catherine had made lunch for us all and we had invited others to come for tea and cake in the afternoon, both midwives came too and that meant alot to me that they would take time out for us like that.
A couple of weeks later we all put our backs into making the rest of the garden look nice and tidy, we felt we owed that to Otis and Willow and their tree. Phil had to pop out and so I decided to take a break and sit in our now pretty garden. As I sat alone 2 identical butterflies appeared before me, they were dancing around each other by the Olive tree, like small children playing.Thankfully, Phil came home just in time and was able to see this little miracle for himself. Every year our Olive tree has produced just 2 olives. Otis and Willows short but precious coming will live in our hearts forever. It has changed me so completely, it has freed my heart from pain and allowed me to KEEP IT NATURAL  in all parts of our lives as a family. I was already home educating when they died but since then I have allowed this new found LIBERTY to wash over me and the way I look at raising our beautiful children, at how they learn. I know that I can and will trust in my own knowledge and ability to do what is best for my children. NOBODY else can ever KNOW them like I do or LOVE them like I do.

I will never forget you, dear Otis and Willow, you both came, our butterflies, you showed us it was right and good, that we set you free. Watching you dance and play together in your garden gave me comfort, it gave me peace. Thank you my precious children, my sweet butterflies! Thank you for that gift of Liberty, the fruit from your Tree. xx