The home I live in is built on rock, on granite. In fact, some parts of it are actually hewn out of the rock. We do have some garden around the house, but there is also a far bit of decking because it’s a lot easier to build over the rock and add potted plants than it is to plant into the rock.

A few weeks into winter I noticed a plant growing up through a gap in between two planks on the deck – it surprised me because I know its rocky ground under there!

A while back a six-year-old I know was given a notebook with the words IDEAS printed boldly on the front of it. Straight away she had three ideas.

I’m the oldest child in my family. I got married young and we had our three children pretty much straight away, so my kids didn’t have any cousins until they were well into primary school. The cousins get on well even though they are always living life in different seasons to each other – or maybe because of that!

When my kids moved into the “get married and have kids” season of life there was much excitement and anticipation amongst the younger cousins. There were weddings to attend and flower girl dresses to be worn, and when our eldest daughter told the family she was expecting a baby there was great excitement among the primary aged and early teenaged cousins!

I know I am not handling the stresses of life well when I start to fantasise about going away! I’m not talking about planning for annual leave or the occasional mini break. These things are all good and well to think about. I’m talking about the out of the blue dreaming and scheming of an unscheduled break that suddenly seems like the only way I will ever manage to carry on with all that life demands. 

Recently my daughter sent me a text while I was in a meeting at work. She’d dropped her children to school that morning and had been horrified by a t-shirt another parent was wearing – it had a large photo of a barely dressed woman on it.