OK, this is serious...

Writing my own book is something that I have always wanted to do (like many people, I guess). And I have a good 9 chapters of it already well under way, but (like many other projects, I guess!) it has lain dormant for a few months while I attended to childcare, cooking, cleaning and the practical but certainly less interesting job of making a bit of money.

Now we are entering a new year, always a natural time for reflection and re-evaluation, and having had a read through those 9 chapters (and a good laugh), I feel energised and ready to carry on with my story.

The story begins when Mother and Father decide to leave the semi-suburbian and very respectable village of Prestbury where they both grew up, and make their home in a near-derelict farmhouse located on the edge of a firing range (and in the middle of MOD-owned farmland) in the Staffordshire Moorlands. They spend the next few years having their first three children, me, my sister Metia and brother Felix, and decide to educate us at home. Thus, the scene is set for a remarkable and unique upbringing for the three of us and the two little brothers who arrive a few years later.

I am going to write this blog hand-in-hand with writing the rest of the book, and hope to update it periodically as that task progresses. It is time (high time), I feel, that the project received the attention that it truly merits. And so I am setting out with enthusiasm and anticipation. With all this in mind, I am raising a glass (mug of coffee) to writing, to adventure, to home education, to freedom to think, do and be; and to us!

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Melandra, Metia and Felix, Christmas card design by Irene Bethell, circa 1978