I grew up in a small village in Oxfordshire, which turns out to be the place where the first dinosaur was discovered. In the whole world!
When I was growing up, my mother, who is an amazing woman, and I spent hours and hours outdoors, walking and exploring the countryside. I developed a life-long love of nature and the natural world. I thought every kid was growing up in a place where you could trawl across newly-ploughed fields and pick up handfulls of amazing fossilised corals, shells, marine molluscs and small creatures dating from millions of years ago... not to mention Roman pottery, as the village is near a Roman villa, and on one of the most famous Roman roads in England.
When my son was small, I moved back to this village, and unsurprisingly, he found the same delight and excitement in finding these treasures. We have now initiated my husband and his daughter in the art, as well as many of his schoolfriends and his next-door-neighbours and my son has built up a fabulous collection of fossils in his bedroom. I imagine them one day sitting on a dusty shelf in his university room, surrounded by dirty clothes and beer cans - but maybe still reminding him of happy times combing the fields with his old Mum and Step dad!
When thinking about this the other day, I realised how often in life you could use this analogy. How often are we living in a place which we take completely for granted? How often are we sitting on treasure, that may not be exciting to anyone but us? As a child, I thought everyone grew up like this. It was a shock to find out, much later, how lucky I was. My son doesn't yet realise it. He thinks every kid grows up with fossils, love and friendship.
Anyway, this post got serious, must be the hormone injections. Far from the effects so far being the terrible mood swings everyone warned me about, I have found a strangely unfamiliar sense of peace! Typical that I'd do this all the wrong way around! Regardless of whether it works or not please, PLEASE can it work...), I am considering buying these hormones on the internet and injecting forever! !
So, wherever you are in the world, I hope you can look out of your window, or walk up your street, and feel some sense of belonging, and contentment in the place you have chosen to be your home. I cannot wish you fossils - I now know we're not all that lucky - but I do wish you love and friendship!
When I was growing up, my mother, who is an amazing woman, and I spent hours and hours outdoors, walking and exploring the countryside. I developed a life-long love of nature and the natural world. I thought every kid was growing up in a place where you could trawl across newly-ploughed fields and pick up handfulls of amazing fossilised corals, shells, marine molluscs and small creatures dating from millions of years ago... not to mention Roman pottery, as the village is near a Roman villa, and on one of the most famous Roman roads in England.
When my son was small, I moved back to this village, and unsurprisingly, he found the same delight and excitement in finding these treasures. We have now initiated my husband and his daughter in the art, as well as many of his schoolfriends and his next-door-neighbours and my son has built up a fabulous collection of fossils in his bedroom. I imagine them one day sitting on a dusty shelf in his university room, surrounded by dirty clothes and beer cans - but maybe still reminding him of happy times combing the fields with his old Mum and Step dad!
When thinking about this the other day, I realised how often in life you could use this analogy. How often are we living in a place which we take completely for granted? How often are we sitting on treasure, that may not be exciting to anyone but us? As a child, I thought everyone grew up like this. It was a shock to find out, much later, how lucky I was. My son doesn't yet realise it. He thinks every kid grows up with fossils, love and friendship.
Anyway, this post got serious, must be the hormone injections. Far from the effects so far being the terrible mood swings everyone warned me about, I have found a strangely unfamiliar sense of peace! Typical that I'd do this all the wrong way around! Regardless of whether it works or not please, PLEASE can it work...), I am considering buying these hormones on the internet and injecting forever! !
So, wherever you are in the world, I hope you can look out of your window, or walk up your street, and feel some sense of belonging, and contentment in the place you have chosen to be your home. I cannot wish you fossils - I now know we're not all that lucky - but I do wish you love and friendship!
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