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family

family

On being a good ancestor

July 10, 2021

This amazing mama turned twenty five yesterday. Here’s my daughter Rhi, with her daughter Hilda. So much love for this woman for having the strength to walk her own path. My heart is so big with love. Ancestry is the strangest thing – something I’ve always considered as being on the receiving end of, not the one who is the actual ancestor ?. It’s the most bizarre and wonderful experience that maybe stretches your vision quite a bit, like a…

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creating family feature food vanlife

Give me…

July 1, 2021

Give me filthy-faced grandchildren slurping fat cherries with thick dirt slicked beneath fingernails.  Give me time spooling generously out across a long summer evening of push-bike races & hen chases & lazy hounds’s sleepy faces.  Give me bowls of fragrant lemon & fresh coriander rice, earth-dark kidney beans spiced with the stomach-deep-warmth of cumin & paprika; lip-smacking bursts of tiny-fresh tomatoes with diced, sharp-tongued red onion & a bright cider vinegar tumbled into bowls along with juicy-sweet pan-charred peppers demanding…

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family feminism Mental Health

Herstory

June 24, 2021

There’s a long herstory of emotional neglect and abuse running throughout my matrilineal ancestry. It’s not something that was acknowledged or even understood when I was a child. You just grow up thinking that whatever circumstances you’re born into are completely normal because you don’t know any different. Reaching middle years has been a huge turning point, like I’ve climbed that ancestral massif and, turning to view the ascent, I clearly see the carnage strewn across the landscapes of past…

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family vanhounds

Still working on the reactivity

June 18, 2021

I’m so proud of this hound. Otherwise know as: Bonnie, Bonnie-boo, Bonneroo, Bonners, Bonnington-bean, princess-Bonbon-of-the-waves, Madame Bonnington, beanie-boo, string-bean, baby-boo and also Bon-Bon, but sometimes Bonnieeeeee! She’s doing so well with her positive reinforcement training. It’s changing her every day. And although we’re not the most diligent with learning all the new tricks, we’ve got so good with this when Bonnie sees a new hound. Our biggest problem these days tends to be other dog owners whose dogs aren’t on…

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family Wales

A celebration of life

May 28, 2021

We didn’t want to wear black for dad’s service today – it felt too somber, too sad when a celebration of his life is what we had planned.  We had a non-religious gathering and a wonderful celebrant who took great care to share dad’s life and triumphs.  We played songs by Fleetwood Mac and the Welsh Male Voice Choir, as well as Imagine by John Lennon. My sister Faye spoke with great heart about dad’s ability to be ‘the rising…

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family Wales

The cycle of family continues

May 26, 2021

The cycle of family continues – people pass on and we miss them, mourn them, celebrate every beautiful thing they taught us. Then we turn around and the next generation are shining bright beside us. On Friday we will celebrate my father’s life as the family gathers to say goodbye, and today was the first time we hugged our new granddaughter, Hilda since she was born five months ago. Taking grandson Arthur for a spin on the bike we bought…

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family feature

In memory of my father

May 9, 2021

My father passed away earlier this week.He was a truly wonderful man – taught me to ride a bike, swim, and always do my best for others. He was a brilliant gymnast and high-board diver. By the age of ten I could dive off the 10meter board in the local pool (couldn’t do it now tho). He once dived into a river and saved a woman from drowning whose car veered in and landed upside down.As a teacher, he worked…

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family Mental Health vanlife

The truth of a successful life

May 4, 2021

We met on MayDay seventeen years ago. It’s the strangest thing, colliding with one person who changes the entire trajectory of your life. These past 3yrs in the van, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a successful life. Previously, I’d chased all those things I was told would make me successful, while working to help others achieve success. Until I began to ask the question ‘what does success mean?’. Ah. Epiphany. Much of what I learned about success…

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