Reflections from childhood

So this is the view I woke up to everyday of my childhood!!!
Our home was a 40 acre smallholding where, over the years, we were lucky enough to keep a selection of 🐷 🦃 🐴 🐑 the odd 🐐 🐓 🐈 🐕 🐇& 🐹 ... all called either Bob or Bernard for some unknown reason... the hamsters that is!
A  trip up to Derbyshire once prompted me to ask myself 2 questions:


1. What did being brought up in this environment give to me?
2. What can I learn from my younger self?


In answer to the first question undoubtedly it gave me

• a love & need for freedom & independence. As a young kid of about 4 I would walk behind my older siblings, who were on their thelwell type ponies, up onto the moors above the house & they would hide me in the bracken whilst they went for a hoon around. I was perfectly happy & they grudgingly collected me when they’d finished!
• a good grounding in responsibility & a hardy work ethic. Living with the menagerie that we did we all had to muck in.
• a strong connection to where my food comes from.  I have been a vegetarian since the age of 13 having come to the realisation that I couldn’t disassociate the animal in the field from the meat on my plate... Mum cutting the pigs up on the kitchen table didn’t help, nor did the story of one of our 🐷 falling out of the horse box on the way to market & running all the way home!!!
• an absolute love & appreciation of nature & it’s rawness. It feels like every winter we had 6 foot drifts that stopped us being able to get cars up the mile long drive. We used to park the cars in the village down in the valley & walk up. This meant we sledged down again in the morning in our school uniforms, often seeing evidence of where Dad had crashed into the bushes at 5.30am whilst sledging down in his suit & with his briefcase off to work!
• fun & the ability to see joy in everything! Living in quite an isolated spot meant that we became adept at making our own fun.

Life can fly past us if we’re not careful, so I’m taking this opportunity to do a bit of recalibration by pondering the second question too. If you’ve got the inclination reflecting on those questions can be a great exercise in gratitude as well as reconnecting with our authentic self 😁