Home

Home: it is a word that describes many feelings.  Is it where you grew up? Is it where you live now? Does it conjure memories that you want to bask in for ever or does it make you want to forget the past?

Does it remind you of a scent that when you smell it again you are instantly thrown back into the warm embrace of your family or does it make you want to run and hide?

For me HOME is a safe haven from the rigours of day to day living. It embraces me with the warmth that I need after a hard day of kid duties. Its mine.

My childhood home was a haven as well.  Sure there were days it was a drag to get out of bed and face the world but I never once felt I did not belong. Evenings in front of the open fire snuggled with one of many pets, hot soup and "Young Talent time' on the TV..all these things represent home to me.
But now I have my own HOME...one made of mud sourced from our land, ( we did not build it tho) It is quirky and the closest I will probably get to living the hippy life style that has always intrigued me.

My HOME is  warm and inviting.  It is one of those places you will either like or not but to me it was love at first sight.  Ok, so we moved in during winter and found it leaked, had rats living inside, no insulation and  I think I cried for the first few weeks thinking what on earth have we done dragging 2 small children into this freezing filthy place.  The rose coloured glasses came off pretty fast I can assure you, but I knew it had potential..lots of potential.

Hub is handy..very handy.  I don't really think there is much he can not do when it comes to renovating so we began with gusto.
Slowly it began to take shape.  No longer was it freezing, no longer did I have to take the boys to their grandparents to bathe as I could not bear putting them in the previous bathroom.  There was light at the end of the tunnel.

The garden was and is my refuge.  I planted and dug and mulched to create something I hoped in the spring would bring life into the barren soil.  Spring did bring the first glimmers of what was ahead and it renewed my desire to continue.
So here I am 5 years later, older, wiser (I hope) and still finding little things within this place to make me smile. Even the bats that enter our home and gently brush our faces at night as they circle the room bring me that feeling of  ahhhhh.

So I hope my curly haired boy and my blonde weed boy ( yes he is a bit of a weed..needs to grow) have the same feelings as they continue their lives.  This is their HOME as much as mine and I truly believe they will have the same warm fuzzy feelings as I have. 
Home IS where your heart is.
                     Cheers Dilly xx

Cotton Wool

A few days ago my wonderful mum looked after my kids while I went to work.  They both love going to Grandma and Papas.  My parents do what grandparents are supposed to do....spoil them with love.  The boys dont know how lucky they are.


 Grandma took them down to the creek which is below their place to see what they could find and much to the delight of the curly haired boy they saw a platypus !! So of course he fell in trying to get a good look and came out dripping with water and happiness.  Mum said to me that she was sorry he fell in and that she was watching him and that got me thinking.
I grew up playing in that creek.  Tiddly fishing, trying to surf down it when in a raging flood, exploring it with my sister and cousins decked out in gumboots.  Using our imagination to fill our days in the best way we knew how.
Getting up really early on cold frosty mornings and saddling up the horses while their nostrils blew hot steam that would would warm our faces , and then take off for the day riding wherever the mood took us.  We would return home hours later filthy, exhaused and totally drunk on the happiness of being a kid growing up in a safe place.


I now think of what kids do today and the restrictions that we as parents put on them 'just incase' something happens.
My parents never watched us at the creek.  Never even knew half the time that we had dissapeared so early to go riding and rarely knew what we were up to, BUT they trusted us and trusted the society that we lived in.

They still live in my childhood home, a place where the magic of my youth still haunts but now things have changed.  Society has caught up.  They or I would think twice about letting the boys wander off down the street alone to get a midnight feast of lollies as we did.  Think twice about letting them dissapear for hours on end to do what ever they feel like. We would worry about who they were talking to and who said what to whom.  Where has the care free childhood gone?

With my kids I truely try not to wrap them in cotton wool..I really do !!  I want them to go exploring, get covered in mud, fall off bikes and even break a few bones if it means they are being kids.
I want them to not be afraid of the world as it has become but to learn to trust their own instincts..even if some lessons will be learnt the hard way.


So I like to think I cover my kids with life..warts and all.  Of course they still love to play those computer games and totally manage to whip my butt every time , but its a matter of finding balance.
Its a hard job being a parent, often thankless, but I will always protect my kids and I solomly promise to let them be themselves and to keep the COTTON WOOL for dabbing their broken bodies as they explore life.
What do you think?
                                        Cheers   Dilly xx