Mid-year review

Brew of the Day: Well, I’ve been on a juice fast this week so it is only appropriate that I offer you a freshly made apple juice with mint (straight from my herb garden). Divine!

Summer Solstice

There always seems something rather magical about a solstice or equinox, don’t you think? I’d planned to go for a picnic with the girls at our local druid’s stone circle, Long Meg, but Britain turned on the gales and rain (for the summer solstice??? ~ YES) so I opted to pack up the latest issue of The Mother magazine instead! (hopefully through your door by now ~ the UK ones anyway). Phoned my mum in Tasmania who was lazing in bed on the morning of their winter solstice. Another friend in Tassie wrote to say she’d been on a magical lantern walk and how beautiful the faces of the little children were. They walked through a forest and finished off the evening with soup. The one thing I really do miss about Australia is the scent of eucalyptus after it has rained. It’s intoxicating. I often try and relive it by sniffing on my little bottle of Essential Oil of Eucalyptus! The perfect car deodoriser, should you need one.

I used the solstice for a mid-year review which seemed somewhat strange as it doesn’t feel like the year has truly ‘begun’ yet. My overriding feeling is that of peace and how vastly different the energy of this year is to 2005 ~ a year I’d rather like to wipe from my memory banks! My current gratitude journal reflects this too ~ joys from simple things.

In 1998 we left New Zealand and lived in Australia for six months before coming to the UK. We’d had bad immigration advice and ended up in Australia with Paul not being allowed to work…with me breastfeeding a two year old and a 6 month old there was NO way I was going out to work so we ‘existed’ on a payment from the government which was abysmal and didn’t help us to meet our daily expenses. It truly was horrendous and we relied on food coupons to feed ourselves. They didn’t provide things like fruit and vegetables but white bread. EUK. Yet, when I look back at my gratitude journal of those months you’d think they were the best times of my life. Each day my job was to find three things I was truly grateful for. Despite the flies, relentless humidity, no transport so walking EVERYWHERE, doing shopping with two kids, and white bread etc, my journal reflects a life of ‘plenty’.

The abundance particularly came through a woman who lived in a flat in the same complex. She (and her family) became the light of our lives. They would bring us boxes of fruit!!!!!!!!!!!! She had a tiny baby when we met and asked me if I could make fresh juices for her and in return she’d bring me boxes of mouth watering tropical fruit. BRILLIANT BARGAIN TO ME. She’d take us all to the beach. She’d welcome us into her air-conditioned flat.

This lady, who still is like gold in my heart, is one of the many ‘angels’ who’ve passed through my life. It’s interesting though, isn’t it, that we often associate our guides, teachers and helpers with those who we enjoy, and put those who piss us off into some other category. And yet it is the latter who often bring us just as many gifts even if it takes us a lifetime or longer to recognise it! I don’t always find it easy to ask ‘what gift has s/he brought me?’ when every button has been pressed.

Juice Fast

Decided to amp up my weight loss regime and have been thoroughly enjoying a juice fast this week. The girls (voluntarily) joined me just for the first day and have asked when they can do it again. We might make it a weekly ‘treat’ to juice fast together on a Sunday. My girls are brill at eating their fruit and veg by the bucket load anyway ( I never fear that they’re not getting their five a day!), but juicing is a terrific way to really get the cells of the body jumping with vitality. It is the most efficient way to clean the organs while bringing live enzymes and nutrients into the body. Most people have never had ‘fresh’ juice but rather the pasteurised (heat-treated) and/or concentrated stuff found in cartons in a supermarket. There is NO comparison.

I’m pleased to say that, combined with eating all raw for a few weeks, I’ve now lost 13lb ~ such a relief after months of the scales not budging at all. Feeling right pleased with myself!

My mint plant doesn’t know what’s hit it as I collect her leaves several times a day and my herb garden which has gone into jungle mode these past few weeks is now being ‘tamed’ through parsley, fennel, sage and thyme being added to my carrot and home-grown spinach juices.

I’ve not felt any sense of hunger and have even coped with making the family’s meals, no sweat. There was one moment when I would quite have liked to taste the vibrantly red, local tomatoes and fresh basil I was chopping into the family’s salad…but I knew I could get more at next week’s organic farmers’ market!

It has made me realise how much I ‘pick’ at foods while I’m preparing a meal. The number of times I’ve gone to put something in my mouth and then realised I wasn’t ‘eating’ but drinking. Just yesterday I excitedly found our first two peas in the garden and picked them to share with the girls. I broke one in half to share with Bethany and as soon as the gorgeous juice of it touched my tongue I ‘remembered’ and had to yank it out before I started chewing!

Most people experience detox symptoms (such as headaches or dizziness) by day 3 or 4 of their juice fast as the body uses the opportunity to get rid of years of toxins. My only ‘symptom’ was a lonely pimple on my chin. I can live with that!

It’s felt like an important rite of passage to let go of ‘food’ as such for a bit. I love eating and even when I have what some might call a ‘restricted’ food lifestyle, I truly enjoy every mouthful! I guess the next thing for me to do is to not talk for a week! Might have to wait till the girls leave home before I do that one.

The only thing about being on a juice fast is that my whole body is in another zone (it’s SINGING!!) and it would be quite nice to be on a secluded island on my own and not ‘disturbed’ by incessant chatter, ringing phones and loads of emails…Last night my neighbour had ‘family’ around for a birthday party…they’re not the quietest bunch when they get together…bbq smells, visiting dog in non-stop barking mode, drunken yells…. “I’m on a juice fast, get me out of here!!”

Vocal about local

The little village we live in, Glassonby, is home to about 100 people. Years ago it had a post office, school, butcher, pub and the village hall held dances on a Saturday night. The village hall is now condemned and the only businesses here are home-based ones like The Mother magazine; Jacquie’s Bridal Designs across the road and a couple of holiday cottages which don’t exactly serve the immediate local community! Oh, and there is a grass field aerodrome for microlights owned by wealthy people from further afield! The owner also has a raspberry farm and sells pine trees for Christmas. People travel from far and wide to buy these. A mile out of the village is Pine Trees Nursery where I pick up flowers and bits and pieces for the garden. They sell their plants at local markets during the week. Other than that everyone else drives elsewhere for work. There are still a few farmers around but things changed dramatically with foot and mouth disease about five years ago.

Last year a committee was formed with the idea of rebuilding a vibrant space constructed of strawbales ~ an eco-village hall. A friend on the committee was even going to make stained glass windows to put into it… but alas, there wasn’t enough energy or enthusiasm by the locals. Too much hard work to apply for grants/funding. Rather symptomatic of the attitude many people have towards resurrecting local living.

One farmer tells me that when he was a lad this whole valley was organic and that all the crops were tilled by hand to get rid of the weeds. No one was unemployed! No such sight these days. Tractors dominate the roads and the weeds are knocked off with toxic chemicals. Monocultures exist. Fertilisers of dubious extraction (poultry from a local place where they use all parts of the bird to make fertiliser, which is nauseating [vomit inducing] to say the least). That’s the price of cheap food! I often hear people mutter about the cost of organic produce and yet these same people appear to have NO IDEA why other food is so cheap. Only we know it isn’t, is it? It’s costing us big time ~ both in terms of human health and environmental health. We are PAYING FOR IT.

What has happened to this village isn’t unusual. Our society’s reliance on supermarkets has turned many a place into a ghost town. In the UK more than 7000 independent shops closed down in the past five years due to the take over of supermarkets.

We all need to learn to spend our money locally, which doesn’t mean spending it in a supermarket! It’s a rare place which doesn’t have a weekly farmers’ market now. All other household goods can be purchased at wholesale rates (30 – 35% less than you pay in a supermarket) through co-operatives like Suma or Infinity Wholefoods. Anything you really need from overseas can be bought as fairly traded/organic.

When the oil wells run dry we won’t be able to pop out to the supermarket! The trucks won’t be rolling in there with our every whim being catered for. It is NOW, not in five or ten years, that we have to make changes. We need to recreate community ~ socially and professionally. And as for local food, there really is no better, fresher and nutritious local food than that which you can grow yourself.

Despite living in the far north of England and being a bit slow to get my garden going this year, our vege garden has peas, beans, pumpkins, spinach, rocket, courgettes, lettuces, celery, Florence fennel, potatoes, radish, sweetcorn, carrots, rhubarb and beetroot. The herb garden contains catnip, fennel, lavender, thyme, lemon thyme, flat leaf parsley, rosemary, chamomile, tarragon, borage, bay leaf, garlic and sage. We have a cherry tree, peaches, pears, plums and apple. Also a couple of gooseberry bushes, blackcurrant bushes, elderflower, strawberries and blueberries add to our fruit supply. Our garden isn’t huge but it is capable of becoming a biodynamic, permacultural paradise ~ if I’m around long enough to give it plenty of TLC. If I can do it here, then most people with a garden can provide their family with great local food. Go on then, get off the computer and get growing! Feed your family vibrant, alive and lovingly grown food. Have a fabulous week!
~ Veronika ~

Drugs and the demise of childhood

Not a day goes by where I’m not grateful for this beautiful valley we live in. My morning walks take me about an hour (3 miles) and I get to thoroughly enjoy the views of the Pennines and the lush, green fields around me. The morning birdsong and the sun rising over the hills is incredibly glorious and never fails to delight me. I especially enjoy it if I’m walking early before the farmers are up and about in their noisy, smelly tractors. It always feels luxurious to get this time to myself if I manage to get a walk in before Paul and the girls wake up. More often than not, I do this walk again after the night time meal, girls in tow, lots of chattering going on which makes the walk an entirely different experience! The daily walk is one of the highlights of my life ~ a chance to truly absorb the beauty of this rural piece of England.

My rural bliss was dampened this week somewhat.

Last week I shared my discomfort around unruly and disrespectful behaviour at our local swimming pool. Imagine my dismay this week when I realised five of the teenage boys had been snorting (cocaine) within fifty metres of where my daughters were swimming! OK, let me be clear about this and say that I didn’t SEE them do it, but I’d bet my life on it that that’s what happened.

There is one boy in particular who always catches my eye because he reminds me of a boy I had a crush on at school, oh about 25 years ago. He’s tall, cute, well tanned and really ‘cool’. Always wearing sunglasses so as to create an aura of ‘mystery’. He’s probably a real Babe Magnet at school. You know the type…

Anyway, it has become part of my ‘people watching’ time to observe him from the perspective of a woman-seeing-40-at-the-back-end-of-next-year, rather than how I would have seen him as a teen.

On Monday I noticed one of the other boys *slyly* put something into his hand when he arrived at the pool. My first thought was ‘what are they hiding here?’ Had I not witnessed this moment I’d not have given a second thought to what followed later and probably wouldn’t have kept watching.

Babe Magnet put ‘it’ into his pocket and then went off behind the bushes to where a small stream runs. A few minutes later one of the other lads followed…and a few more minutes later, another boy followed and so on until all five of them had gone.

After about 20 minutes when they returned, one by one, they all sat on the bench just a metre from where I was sitting on the grass and then spent about five minutes rubbing their noses. All of them doing the same thing? All of them needing to dislodge some irritation in their nasal passages?

What would your conclusion be?

I mentioned it to one of the mums on the swimming pool committee and she said, “No, not those boys! No, absolutely not!” And then she walked away from me. Clearly it was just not something which could be taken on board. She absolutely refused to believe it was even possible.

Paul went into the local police station, not to dob anyone in, but to find out what the likelihood of it was. Sadly, the policeman said cocaine is rife in the local schools and able to be bought very cheaply.

We live in a culture of denial. No one wants to think ‘nice’, young teenage lads (or girls) are snorting coke. What’s happening to our kids that drug use in schools is something like 1 in 5 kids? It’s probably fair to say that the rates of drug abuse among home-educated teenagers probably doesn’t even register a percentage…though I’m sure it does happen.

Cocaine helps kids get through the school day. It puts a smile on their face…they can look at their science teacher and feel good. They can head on over to maths and still feel good. But why on Earth would anyone ‘need’ it at the swimming pool for goodness sake??!! More than likely it’s because they’re addicted. They need the ‘ecstatic’ rush and ‘feel good’ factor that it gives them even if it is only for about 39 minutes. But what have we done to our kids that their lives feel so bland as to need drugs like this? What have we done!!??

The most important question really relates to where the ‘need to be addicted’ started…was it lack of oral comfort as a child? Was it lack of parent time in infancy? Too many hours in a car seat or pram rather than mother’s arms? Too much time in front of Bob the Builder rather than playing in the sandpit? Too much synthetic ‘food’ in lieu of nutritious food?

Taking cocaine (or any drug) as a teenager is a symptom NOT a cause and to heal the situation, personally and culturally, we have to take an honest step back to get a clearer view.

I have complete faith that my own children won’t even try drugs when they’re teenagers or adults. How can I be so sure? Well, despite many people pointing their finger at my parenting style in the lead up and wake of the documentary on full-term breastfeeding (thinking my kids would grow up psychologically screwed up), I feel my kids have had their needs met (and continue to have them met). The whole being greater than the parts, so to speak, the reasons are many and include:

*They love life! The pleasure they receive from the simple things, such as a flower coming into blossom or a dog bounding up to them, is priceless and innocent in a culture that is deadened and desensitised. Daily they witness parents who too take delight in such things ~ parents who never miss the opportunity to appreciate a sunset or the smile of a stranger.

*They’ve grown up in a way as to explore their imagination. No tv, for example. They’re just starting to use the internet, albeit minimally. Yesterday they looked up ‘kitten photos’ and the pros and cons of school.

*I’ve always endeavoured to feed them high-quality, nutritious plant-based foods so their body is able to digest it easily and save valuable energy for developing a strong immune system and healthy brain.

*We talk to them! Now that’s a novel idea in our culture ~ parents actually talking to their children. There isn’t such a thing as a generation gap but a communication gap.

*We eat meals together.

*They're taught about 'creating their own reality' rather than being brought up to believe they're victims.

*We spend lots of time together in nature whether that be out walking or in the garden. Being in tune with Mother Nature and the cycle of the seasons and moon times brings out latent spirituality. When we feel good about ourselves we have no need to ‘add’ something else to the mixture or to experience stimulants.

This morning Paul, the girls and I went to a local café. There just happened to be an article in The Times (Body and Soul section, I think) about a common drug out and it gave before and after photos of people who were taking it and to see how dramatically and drastically these people had changed in the course of one to two years was absolutely painful to see. It was a perfect illustration to show my children in light of our discussions this week about drugs and the damage they cause.

Addictions are all around us but because they’re so ingrained in our culture most people don’t see them as addictions but as necessities.

For example,

television (it is a rare person in the UK with a tv who isn’t hooked on Big Brother, for example)

caffeine (in all its various forms)


smoking

alcohol (it all starts with that drink after work that you *need* to relax…but can you actually live without it?)


retail therapy (where would you be if you had your credit cards taken away?)

processed foods (yes, it is an addiction ~ try living for a week without processing your food in any way, which includes cooking, the most common processing).

We need to tackle all addictions within our home and society. We need to raise our kids whole, happy and healthy...happy with who they are and NOT what they do.

My initial sadness at realising those teenage lads were wasting their vibrant youth in this way, has been replaced by a greater confidence in how I’m raising my family.

I’ve experienced even more joy than usual this week as the girls have helped plant vegetable seeds and pot up marigolds and scabious. Each day we create a stronger foundation for them to lead healthy lives right through adulthood. As we sit in the evening sunshine eating our meal together, I give silent thanks that my daughters truly enjoy life. I give thanks that they don’t live with a daily NEED for Barbie, Nike or Coca Cola, computer games or a desperation to ‘text’ someone.

If enough of us parent consciously and wholeheartedly maybe we’ll set off a chain reaction (100th monkey syndrome) and reverse the current culture which is ending the innocence of childhood? It all starts with saying NO to outside forces which don’t promote well-being and saying YES to our intuition regardless of what others may say, do or think.

Have a fabulous week and be inspired and grateful for all the amazing things in your life! :-)

~ Veronika ~

Wee Willie Winky!

Brew of the day: Chamomile ~ to soothe away life’s little irritations…
A life lived with integrity - even if it lacks the trappings of fame and fortune is a shining star in whose light others may follow in the years to come.
Denis Waitley


The girls and I have spent a lot of time at the local pool this week, what with all this fabulous weather! Expecting about 28C today…perfect for this little hot-house plant but strangely not hot enough for me to actually get into the pool. This morning Paul is having his turn there with the girls and I’ll go finish tidying up the garden.

Our nearest pool is in the next village about 2 miles from here so usually the girls ride their bikes and I walk briskly. I was actually really enjoying going there in the late afternoons and having our salad dinner there…but a few things have happened this week to suggest to me that it probably isn’t the best time of the day to be there!

As it is a community venture it appears to me that no-one is really in charge. Volunteers come in the evening to clean the changing room and collect money from the honesty box, but as for supervisors and lifeguards, it’s a no-go zone.

Some may think I’m a ‘contradiction’ in that I believe in freedom (free range kids, for example) but also I am quite clear on boundaries and installing rules if need be.

At Hunsonby Swimming Pool, which serves several nearby villages, there appear to be no rules of any sort to keep kids safe. There is one sign saying ‘no diving’ but that is clearly ignored by both the children and the parents who attend with them.

What’s concerned me is that all the teenage boys who dive-bomb seem to have no awareness for the different skill levels of the kids that they jump in next to. Not all kids have the ability to cope with being dunked. And all the kids seem to run full speed along the wet cement. Often the dive bombing is very close to the edge of the pool. Call me a control freak, but there is a fatality waiting to happen. But it seems I’m the only one sitting on the edge of my seat (well, grass actually) when all this happens or when little kids who stand next to the edge of the pool are pushed in by surprise. I KNOW it is all meant in good fun but there just seems to be no awareness for safety.

Bethany ended up having her nose thwacked during a dive bomb incident and screaming somewhat with her nosebleed.

Now, being an Aussie girl, I can’t say that I don’t swear, however the boys at that pool make me look positively saintly! Truth is I don’t want my young daughters thinking it is ‘normal’ for people to go around calling each other ‘you f***** c**t’. This is public area and something as basic as not swearing should be enforced.

To top it all off was when a thickly-set boy of maybe 7 or 8 years old (at the most) recognised Eliza from the documentary and started thumping her in the back; dive bombing her and yelling at her that he was going to kill her ~ that she ‘was dead’.

All the parents just turned a blind eye to this. One girl came up to me and said ‘he’s a bully, you just have to ignore him’. I mentioned this boy to a couple of the mums there and their attitude was the same ~ he’s a bully, just ignore him. But no-one is prepared to actually create a safe place for the 30 – 40 other kids who go to the pool. Is this the way of society? That we let our kids become even more cruel and nasty lest we infringe on ‘their rights’? I can see where it is heading.

I kept telling my girls to stay away from him but the Little Thug was like a bee to honey.

Eventually I asked who was the mother of this boy and when she appeared, fag in hand, black teeth, she more or less dismissed me and said she was taking him home anyway. She was soooooooooo not interested in hearing me ‘assertively’ say he was ruining it for other kids and that his behaviour was unacceptable.

Little Thug was NOT going to be taken home and kept running back into the pool. He knew she was powerless. She wasn’t getting in the water so he used this opportunity to do some more thumping (of my daughter). By this stage I was ready to jump in, clothes and all!! Tolerance level now at zero. Growl.

A teenage boy helped to get him out and while the thug kept yelling to Eliza ‘you’re dead’, his mother yanked his arm out of his socket and dragged him to a seat. When she had him sitting down he started eating a chocolate bar ~ and this is the really strange (dysfunctionally SAD) bit, he kept eating while she continuously slapped him around the head with one hand and yanking one arm with her other hand. Clearly he was ‘used’ to it and it probably explains why he didn’t flinch or respond to any of her ‘discipline’. As pissed off as I was with him, I can’t help feeling sad that he and so many other kids grow up with this sort of treatment every day.

If we look to the Yequanna (as written about in Jean Leidloff’s wonderful book The Continuum Concept) I believe we find a model of ideal society. It is rare that anyone in their society acts like Little Thug, but if they do they are separated from everyone else until they are ready to be part of the harmony which exists. I believe this boy would learn very quickly about co-existence if we applied the Yequanna ideals.

When I recounted the story to Paul he asked me who the boy reminded me of.

Geoffrey Purdham!

I’ll write about Geoffrey in another blog. In a nutshell, he’s a farmer in the next village who farmed land adjacent to an orchard we had. He’s a bully known for miles around who met his match with me…As Paul so ‘kindly’ tells people when introducing me, ‘this is Veronika and she doesn’t take s*** from anyone!’.

Well, after a childhood of bullying, I make no apologies for knowing what is acceptable and what isn’t.

Meanwhile back at the pool, at a different time of day, there were just a bunch of toddlers (with mums of course!). Talk about good contraception. Toddlers are so busy, aren’t they!?? Beats me how I ever got through life with two toddlers. Sheesh.

Anyway, one of the mums was telling her boy it was time to go and to come and dry his WINKIE.

What is it with women in this country giving their boys a name for their penis which will do nothing for the self-esteem or respect for that part of their anatomy? I’ve heard all sorts of names over the years and they all seem to represent something weak and insipid!

Widgi, willie, todger, winkle, tiddler, wormy, winkie…

Sorry, but I can’t say I’d want a winkie or a wormy near me!

All the good mums at the pool liberally use suntan lotion on their kids’ skin. They’re GOOD mums, unlike me!

Yesterday on local radio, our esteemed announcer very kindly and ever-so-caringly begged his listeners to put on sunscreen when they went out that afternoon.

So when I emailed to tell him off for encouraging ‘poisoning’ he was quick to stick me in THAT basket…you know, the one where you put the Veronikas of the world…the people who say things which cut straight through all the propaganda and other bullshit subsidised by various industries.

So here’s something straight from the scientists (rather than from me). Fish all around the world are changing gender and it most often happens near sewage outlets. Why? Because the huge quantities of the chemical oxybenzone found in sunscreens are washed off bodies in showers and pass through the sewage into the sea. There are alarmingly high levels of octocrylene and 4 methylbenzylidene camphor (in sunscreens and lip balms) in gender-bent fish. And not only are you putting this crap on your skin, but if you eat fish you’re receiving these chemicals again!

The skin is our largest organ. We should never put anything on it that we aren’t prepared to eat. Use a cold or stone pressed-oil if you want to lubricate your skin but NEVER sunscreen lotion.

When coming out of the winter months, build your resistance to the sun slowly. Use common sense, that's why we were given a brain! If you’re fair haired and skinned, then use a wide brimmed hat and cool, loose, long clothing. Make use of the shade.

Norwegian researches have shown a dramatic increase in skin cancers despite no increase in the ozone layer there in the last 30 years. The increase in sunscreen products, however, is huge. See any link?

Finally, I would also say that our nutrition plays a huge role in our susceptibility to skin cancer. We need to eat chlorophyll-rich plants which helps to protect from ultra violet radiation.

Studies show that a diet high in cooked fat and processed foods leads to skin cancer. When the body is polluted with waste, it pushes toxins out through the skin. If it doesn’t get eliminated then it gets FRIED and it mutates when exposed to the sun’s rays. (read this again)

It’s time we all woke up and realised that skin cancer isn’t CAUSED by the sun but by what we ingest…whether that ingestion is via the skin through sunscreen poisons or internally via processed foods and OUT of the skin.

So, stick me in that fruitcake basket if you like Mr DJ. I’ll stick to my dark green leafy vegetables and lack of sunscreen and enjoy this gorgeous, glorious weather knowing it will nourish me and that Nature’s gift of Vitamin D will allow my body to metabolise calcium and phosphorus and to convert dietary calcium into bone.

Right, my garden awaits!

See you next week, same time, same channel :-)))))

~ Veronika ~

"In matters of style, flow with the current, in matters of principle, stand like a rock," said Thomas Jefferson.

Celebrating lives

Brew of the day: Egyptian Liquorice


The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time.What do you get in the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards.You should die first, you know, start out dead, get it out of the way. You wake up in an old age home feeling better every day.You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, then, when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirementYou drink alcohol, you party,you're generally promiscuous (hey, you've only got a few years left, what's the big deal?)

And you get ready for High School. Then you go to primary school, you become a kid, you get toys, you play, you have no responsibilities,and finally, you become a baby. The last step ~ you spend your last 9 months floating peacefully with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, larger quarters everyday, and then…you finish off as an orgasm


Just had to share that…arrived in my inbox a couple of days ago and I’ve not stopped thinking about it since! ‘Tis brilliant, me thinks.


I picked up a copy of a colour glossy this week ~ OK! (celebrity magazine). Have to be completely honest here and say I don’t normally read magz like this. My bedside reading includes Utne, Mothering, Compleat Mother, Nexus, Permaculture, The Ecologist, Mother Earth News, Green Health News, The Miracle Worker (ACIM), The Mountain Astrologer…you get my drift.

So, let’s just say I was doing a little ‘research’. Don’t ask!

Anyway, it got me thinking about how ‘unreal’ it must be to have your life under a microscope like the day to day lives of many celebrities. Clearly the word celebrity comes from ‘celebrate’. We celebrate these people for….oh, I’m coming unstuck. Why ARE they celebrated?

Originally celebrities were people we looked up to…Royalty; well-known politicians; famous sportspeople; brilliant singers/musicians. At one stage we didn’t know anything about them or their private lives and intimate side. Due to the way the media has changed these days we even know what colour underwear they wear (or don’t).

People were famous for doing something spectacular or courageous rather than just being someone (with the possible exception of Royalty and the aristocracy, because they were born into it). But now, in most cases, even Royalty has been reduced to the commonplace. They have no more celebrity than people who’ve been on TV or in newspapers.

We still have celebrities we can look up to, but now there are a lot of people who are celebrities just because their faces (or other body parts) are well-known. A lot of them don’t actually do anything that requires talent, skill or training.

Why are we interested in them and their lives? Is it because we enjoy their failures, the criticism of them? Do we feel better than them in some way because even though they’re well-known, they’re not actually as talented or accomplished as we are? Or perhaps for some people it is a matter of identifying with the celebrities because they’re ‘just like us’ and there they are on television. Does it prove that you don’t have to be special to be ‘special’?
When we place people on a pedestal it is inevitable that at some point they’ll slip off. After all, every human being has feet of clay, else they wouldn’t be here!

Because of the all-pervasiveness of the media, if you’re a celebrity/in the public eye, you can’t afford to have any skeletons in the cupboard because, sooner or later, they will regain their flesh and come back to haunt you. The only alternative to being squeaky clean is to come clean...that is, to be completely transparent. To make a virtue of your lack of virtue, so to speak.

Two celebs I admire are Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon ~ beautiful, charming, charismatic women with wealth beyond belief who manage to live ‘normal’ lives with both feet firmly on the ground.

Oprah always practices Random Acts of Kindness. People don’t know these acts were performed by her ~ she just does them. And despite her huge success she continues to ‘work’ doing her chat show, not because she needs the money, but because she knows how many people are employed because of her. She is very generous to her staff (and their families) with medical insurance, annual holidays and so on.

Reese Witherspoon is now the highest paid actress in the world. She doesn’t have a nanny. She only takes an acting job if her husband is able to stay home with the children ~ they have a pact that the children will always have at least one parent to be with them. I love that!! She helps out at the school and she cooks her family’s meals.

There is such pressure on celebrities (is it by us the observers, or by the media on our behalf?) to be ‘perfect’. But have you ever noticed that the perfection *we’re* seeking is ridiculous and almost always based on physical appearances rather than on character or soul development? I’m often intrigued by the front covers of the glossy magz which lined shelf after shelf screaming out for attention. One week they crucify celebs for having too many veins in their hands and this week their thighs are too big! Who’d be a celeb?

I really feel for Victoria Beckham. She can’t have enjoyed a PROPER meal for years to fit into jeans that my 8 & 10 year old certainly wouldn’t fit into.

Anyone can be a celeb these days…it doesn’t take skill, talent and what I believe to be the most important attribute, charisma. Imagine the changes we could make in the world if celebs did possess these? Wouldn’t we all sit up taking notice? With celebrity almost always come power and money. In this world these two things tend to have a mighty sway.

My mother asked me once what I’d rather have ~ wealth or power. “What’s the most important to you?” she asked during one of our deep and meaningful conversations.
I said to her that actually the most important thing for me was neither of those but communication. I need clarity in communication and am challenged when people don’t listen, or don’t remember what was communicated. For me, clear communication is far more valuable than any amount of money or power. And that perhaps power is inherent in honest and authentic communication.

What can we learn from the life of celebs? Mostly, that we don’t need to be in the spotlight to be a shining example to others. Our daily actions, however apparently small and insignificant, have ripple effects which go out into the world and impact on others in ways we could never imagine. The smile, the moment when we REALLY listened to another (instead of letting our own script run through our head at the same time)….these are what give people that *special something*.

Random acts of kindness never end with the person (or plant or animal) to which they were directed. It’s impossible. Our whole world is one wide web, much like the internet. We’re all connected (whether we like it or not!).

This week I learned of the death of a very special man whose life really does deserve celebrating. I don’t expect anyone reading this to have heard of him. For the past four years that I’ve been producing The Mother, whenever we’ve met he’s made me feel like the most important person in the world. And there were times, I can assure you, that I ‘expected’ him to say “Bugger off Mrs Robinson!!!” But no, not once did he do that. He always greeted me with such joy and made me feel special. It’s a rare gift when someone can do that. I’ll remember Malcolm, and his actions and kindness, for as long as I live.

You see, Malcolm was the manager of the printing firm where I have The Mother printed. There have been times, especially in the early days, where I’ve struggled to pay the printing bill because people have taken so long in re-subscribing or wholesalers haven’t paid their bill for 3 – 6 months. I’ve not ever had a loan or overdraft to run this business so rely on money ‘moving’ and flowing as it is designed to. Any other printing firm would have refused to publish any further issues till the balance was paid. Not Malcolm. He never once turned me away. His attitude was always one of complete trust in me. Malcolm would smile and tell me to ignore the accountant’s ‘note’ on the invoices.

Yesterday when I went to the printers to collect my ‘proofs’ for the summer issue, I got rather wobbly (to say the least) expressing my sympathy, but more importantly my immense gratitude about Malcolm, to the new manager and receptionist. They both said that everybody had said the same things about Malcolm. That he really made people feel special.

The strange thing is (perhaps not so strange really), when Malcolm was first diagnosed with cancer I assumed he was just off work with a cold. When I’d asked to see him for a quote on printing some brochures the receptionist said he was off sick. The next week when I arrived at the printers with a magazine for printing, I got out of the car and was suddenly sick in the stomach. “He’s not got a cold, he’s got cancer.” I heard these words in my head.

When I went in and was going over my proofs I asked my ‘main man’ if Malcolm was ok. He looked at me sadly and said he had cancer.

Since then I’ve had about three dreams of Malcolm. I don’t think it is necessarily me being exceptionally intuitive but more to do with the impact he’s had on my life and us ‘connecting’ at a level which goes beyond human understanding.

A man like Malcolm is, sadly, rather rare ~ not just in the business world but in other sectors too. But it is lives like that of Malcolm Warwick which the world should be celebrating!

My life has been touched by him in ways that will go on to benefit other people. And if so many other people have felt touched by his kindness over the forty odd years he spent in business (not to mention his family life), then imagine all that love rippling out into the world. Kind of puts Big Brother ‘celebrity’ into perspective, doesn’t it? Good-bye Malcolm and thank you for everything. Your warm smile will be missed ever so much.

fat people, food miles, vegetarian week....

Brew of the day: Nettle Tea…great for weight loss.

Happy Birthday Mum

Raising my cuppa this morning to my absolutely gorgeous, one-of-a-kind mum! Happy Birthday Angelika!! Don’t fret, I won’t tell the world how young you are…. even though you made me drink fresh nettle tea as a kid.

Hide your fat kids ~ Nanny Blair wants them!

The UK’s Department of Health will be measuring your kids at ages four and ten to check them for ‘fatness’. You’ll then be told the results of these ‘tests’ and WARNED of the implications of obesity. The government, you see, aren’t actually ‘concerned’ for your children...they’re concerned for their NHS bill when your kids become adults and have all sorts of health issues.

There are a few things that concern me about Nanny Blair’s testing of children for weight. First and foremost is the bullying by the children who aren’t overweight. Secondly, it again assumes the government is the expert on children, rather than parents. I believe that parents are fully responsible for their children’s diets.
Mostly, though, it seems to me there is a misunderstanding of weight.

Our weight at any given time is a reflection of our ‘wholeness’. It isn’t a separate issue to the rest of us and therefore shouldn’t be treated in isolation. We need to look at weight as being symptomatic of imbalances within the body. This might be in the form of liver disease, thyroid problems, emotions, glandular, elimination system, skin, lungs, poor sleep patterns, colon, blood or many other things.

For example, in my own life, I’m four stone heavier than I was in 2000. (glad I’ve got photos of back then to remind me!) At the time I ate an exclusively vegan raw food diet so it was inevitable I’d not be ‘chunky’ around the bones. The only other time when I’ve been that slim was when I’d lived in a really humid place where I drank a lot of water and didn’t have a car so walked ‘everywhere’.

In 2005 I rapidly put on weight through a combination of ‘comfort’ eating well after my evening meal, and sitting for hours on the computer each night to do the magazine.

Once we got that crappy old year over and done with and I decided to consciously ‘lose weight’, I was shocked that it refused to budge (not even an insy tinsy tiny weeny nano-quarter of a pound)...despite brisk walking, daily rebounding, changes in night-time eating, etc. With the diet we eat there really is no excuse to be overweight. I truly couldn’t understand why the ‘rolls’ were clinging so desperately to me...while my 'thin' friends could eat chocolate by the crate.

And then, bit by bit, I realised that my liver was not functioning adequately and this manifested in various ‘symptoms’ ~

* stubborn weight

* horrid PMT (I assumed because my periods were as regular as the moon that my hormones were fine, but alas, for the past year *Monster Woman* emerged about week three of every cycle.) In all my years of 'cycling' I'd never experienced any menstrual 'symptoms' or PMT. Anyone who has experienced PMT (or PMS in the States) will know how debilitating it is to have a second personality ‘come through’ like this. Let me assure you girls, there is hope!! (See below for my new-found friend Maca)

* a rash of pimples around my chin each month ( for a girl who didn’t even get pimples as a teenager and who doesn’t eat ‘sweets’ or live off chocolate bars and sugar, this was all a bit of a shock)

* life-deadening fatigue where I spent about three days in bed recently, unable to get up and put one foot in front of the other.

Once I’d made the *connection* (a light bulb moment) I was able to do something positive about it. All the pointers were to my liver, but given I haven't drunk alcohol to any degree for about two decades, I kept dismissing it.

My liver, bless it, was overtaxed from rather industrial strengths of painkillers I’d taken for all those years of back pain (when the doctor said there was ‘nothing’ wrong with my back). Had a feeling it might catch up with me in some form. After all, you can’t keep taking double strength pain killers indefinitely.

Fortunately the liver is very forgiving and can be nourished back to health. Did you know you can cut away 80% of the liver and it will re-grow? And that the cells of the liver completely replace themselves every six weeks?

Now I’m free of back pain through chiropractic care, I hope to not ever need pain relief again. I am now free of any PMT grumpiness (and pimples!!) thanks to Maca…a natural product which I’m taking daily in my morning smoothy.

It is rich in calcium, magnesium, phosphorous and iron, and contains trace minerals, including zinc, iodine, copper, selenium, bismuth, manganese and silica, as well as B vitamins. It also contains four alkaloids proven in scientific investigation to nourish the endocrine glands, including the reproductive system of men and women. Maca is a member of the radish family (cruciferae).

I order mine from www.detoxyourworld.com. It’s worth its weight in gold, is completely natural and has no side effects. Also considered nature’s Viagra, should you need it. (for men and women!!)

I also take a tincture of milk thistle, artichoke and dandelion to nourish, cleanse and heal my liver…so I’m trusting now that my body will find its natural weight again. My energy levels have upped and I feel great. This week I went back to an all raw (vegan) diet and the weight is starting to drop off. I’m also spontaneously waking up a couple of hours earlier and, unheard of, actually getting out of bed before Paul. Seems rather weird to see him ‘sleeping in’. Lazy git!

Inevitably I’ve been thinking about livers a lot. Mostly in relation to all the shit we pump into kids today in the name of ‘good medicine’ aka vaccinations, antibiotics, Calpol every time a baby cuts a tooth. The body has to put it somewhere doesn’t it? The liver is the obvious place. And what about kids who drink poison, like Coke, each day? Sure as heck the liver is choking on it....

Many people have been raised by parents with no knowledge of nutrition other than the outdated and defunct ‘four food groups’. And most people certainly won’t know what’s below the iceberg of their weight ‘symptoms’. If we’re honest, most doctors have no more knowledge of nutrition than the average person on the street. I’ve heard of people going to the doctor because of weight problems and coming away with a prescription for an anti-depressant. Nothing like a band-aid that’s gonna give a doctor a little earner.

So where does Joe Blow get reliable, honest and accurate information from? God help us if it is from the government!

What I do know is that you can’t find health in processed foods or a sedentary lifestyle. In our rich and affluent first world, we suffer from malnutrition. Yes, you read that right! Our food is EMPTY food. It may be high in energy or calories but rarely is it high in nutrition. How do we expect to prevent disease when we routinely eat ‘empty food’?

A while back the government introduced the Five A Day promotion. It turns out most people aren’t taking a blind bit of notice. One in five people refuse to eat any fruit and vegetables at all. For the 74% who are trying to eat more, the average consumption is 3.7 portions. Of the £34 a week people spend on food (per person), only £1.82 is spent on fruit and vegetables. The mind boggles. What the hell are people eating then?

What we need:

We don’t need Nanny Blair weighing our kids and we certainly don’t need the ‘fat’ ones pulled out of class to be weighed. What on earth will that do for their self-esteem? And we certainly don’t need them being sent home with ‘test results’. One more judgement to batter them over the heads with.

What we need is a total ban on junk food advertising and real education about living foods. The following website encourages ads on TV telling kids to take a fruit break.

http://www.takeafruitbreak.com/index.html

The You are what you eat TV programme is highlighting the obese in our country, but the trouble is that it sensationalises the fat people and what their poos look like. It doesn’t actually show people how to prepare healthy, life-giving food. I don’t think it really excites people to make full-on lifestyle changes.

We really need someone bright, wonderful and vibrant and bubbling with enthusiasm (sorry, Gillian M doesn’t look that vibrant to me) on the television showing families how to make scrumptious life-affirming meals using LIVING foods, and then telling them how to use that new found energy into finding enjoyable exercise. People need to know that natural healthy foods not only look great but taste great. They need to be MOVED off their seats and completely inspired.

In a country of meat and three veg (no doubt including memories of boiled-to-death cabbage) it is no wonder people are scared of vegetables. I love cabbage best when finely shredded and marinated for half an hour in a drizzle of olive oil, sea salt and black pepper. Simple, but incredibly satisfying. Eliza, at eight, adores this and we fight over who’ll get the most from the salad bowl. My girls LOVE broccoli and Brussel sprouts. They beg me to buy them...right up there alongside iceberg lettuce. Why should this be unusual?

What always strikes me is that kids will eat what they’re routinely given. We, as parents, set up the habits. Raise them on crap and that’s what they’ll expect. I’m often intrigued when at friends’ houses to see the processed stuff their kids are ‘allowed’ to eat as a main meal. To be honest, most kids will eat crisps etc., if they’re given to them. If you want healthy kids, you’ve got to give them healthy options. Healthy food doesn’t have to mean deprivation or starvation. It is about education and re-adjusting taste buds if they’ve been conditioned to excessive fat, salt and sugar. I was at a friend’s house the other day and was shocked to hear her kids NEVER drink water. You simply don’t get hydrated or nourish your cells from cow’s milk, cordial or Nestle’s chocolate drinks.

This week the girls and I made assorted ‘dehydrated’ crackers using various seeds. We use ground up seeds with lemon or orange juice and vegetables/spices, depending on if they were sweet or savoury, and then ‘dried’ them at a low temperature in a dehydrator. They love them. They don’t feel deprived. Bethany and Eliza are as happy eating dried fruit or olives as other kids are eating chocolate.

They KNOW which food choices are good for them and which aren’t. They also know that they don’t have to follow my food choices now they’re older, either, and yet they continue to because they’ve been well educated.

***

Did we have obese kids before the advent of junk food and television? Rarely. But back then we didn’t usually have ‘working mums’ either, did we? Mums were home to cook the family meal. They were there to socialise with their kids. Today our government (and society) encourages us to go out to work. Of course, when we do that we are too tired to come home and make a proper meal; to sit down and eat as a family and to take exercise together. Mums are exhausted. No wonder they pick up a pizza and everyone blobs in front of telly. Who can blame them? It’s easier!

If you are looking for an inspiring story of holistic weight loss you’ll find loads if you type ‘raw food’ into google. Here’s one to start you off www.rawreform.com
This beautiful lady was 20 stone and is now 9 stone 9lb. Bless her!

Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine And Thy Medicine Be Thy Food
-- Hippocrates, Father of Medicine 460-377 BC

National Vegetarian Week

Apparently, it is sexy to eat your greens now. Never mind that my husband and I have been eating this way for more than thirty years! All credit to the vegetarian groups though for using celebs to promote the cause. Whatever works, hey?

In a celeb focussed society, people tend to take notice of what they have to say.

Although vegetarianism isn’t seen as so radical and cranky as when I was growing up, it is unfortunate that many vegetarians simply replace their meat, fish and poultry with cheese and eggs. Ethics aside, these are still full of animal fat, and it isn’t the path to good health. It’s tempting when breaking away from the meat habit to look to meat substitutes. Trouble is, health isn’t found there, tasty as they might be.

I’ve met vegans who don’t even touch fruit and vegetables, but instead live off coke (sugar is from a plant isn’t it?) and donuts (Flour = wheat, jam = fruit)…plant based, hey?

One of the many benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, is that of our planet’s ecology.
By giving up animal based foods ONE person can save a million gallons of water a year. That is a phenomenal amount of water saving. Imagine a country of sixty million people cutting out animal products? And did you know that a single hamburger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles and enough water for 17 showers. One bloody hamburger! In the mouth for maybe two minutes maximum …and they say humans are intelligent?!

Eighty-seven percent of agricultural land use in the USA is for raising animals for meat for human consumption. In order to create space for raising animals our rainforests (which supply 60-80% of the world’s oxygen) are destroyed at a rate of 125 000 square miles per year. Your quarter-pound fast food burger requires 55 square feet of rainforest land to be cleared. A typical pig factory farm generates a quantity of raw waste equal to that of a city of 12 000 people!

It isn’t not rocket-science to see that animal-based diets are not sustainable.

Some chap in the UK is starting a crocodile farm as a ‘sustainable’ alternative to other meats. Dead proud of himself, this chap. Have I missed something? Since when are crocodiles native to the UK? How much is it going to cost to keep these little fellas warm? Heating crocodiles is NOT sustainable. It requires electricity. And when a radio announcer asked him what the crocs eat, he said ‘leftovers’ from abattoirs and ‘fillers’ etc. Mad Crocodile Disease...coming to a menu near you!

Food Miles

The trouble with raising your children with conscience is that everything that passes your lips is scrutinised to the last mouthful. The girls won’t let me buy rice now…and our beloved rice milk is about to be replaced by a DIY oat milk…once we find a locally grown source of oats we’ll be soaking, then sieving! Thanks girls. Clearly, in their eyes, I don’t have enough to do in the kitchen ~ or in my life.

Food miles are simply everywhere in the kitchen aren’t they? Even when I get as much organic locally grown veg as I can, there is still the spice shelf to induce guilt; the olive oil and various other tasty treats to have me constantly questioning every meal. Bit by bit we’re making changes and choices but clearly I’m living in the wrong country for my dietary preferences.

Often someone may think that they are buying local potatoes or milk, for example, not realising that it may have been packed and transported many miles away at a central depot and then brought back to be sold as ‘local’ food.
When we buy ‘processed’ foods with a number of ingredients, we forget that each ingredient will have travelled from factory to factory before getting into the final processed product and then being transported again to the shops.
An astonishing 95% of the fruit and 50% of the vegetables in the UK are imported. Enough to make an eco-caring girl lose her appetite.
**********

I received the following letter during the week…if you’re interested, give Amanda a call/email.

Meanwhile, have a fabulous week! I intend to. ~ Veronika ~


Dear Veronika -

Please allow me to introduce myself. I work for Michael Hoff Productions, an award winning television production company based in the San Francisco area here in the US. We are currently producing a program for a national television network, profiling the stories of extraordinary parents and their families. This is an entirely positive, non-sensationalizing series offering loving parents an opportunity to say in their own words why they believe deeply in the lifestyle-health-wellbeing choices they are making, as well as a chance to show their very positive family dynamics in action, right in the home. It is NOT a program intended to expose child abuse, negative parenting or neglect of any kind.

Your dedication to the health and parent-child bonding benefits of breastfeeding and allowing children to wean themselves was brought to my attention. I understand from your wonderful website that both your girls have at this point weaned, but I was wondering if you perhaps knew of any other happy, healthy families who might be interested in participating in our program. We would be interested in profiling parents with children over the age of six or higher whose child has not yet initiated the weaning process. Again, I cannot reiterate enough the network's wish to showcase exceptional families-lifestyle choices in the most respectful way imaginable.

I am grateful for any suggestions you might have, as well as any appropriate contact information you might be able to provide. In addition, please feel free to contact me at the office listed below. For more information on my company, please also visit our website, mhptv.com.

Thank you so much for your consideration - I am truly grateful for your help in reaching out to your community.

Sincerely,

Amanda
Amanda Gronich
Development
Michael Hoff Productions
5900 Hollis Street / Ste. O
Emeryville, CA 94608
(510) 597-9645
agronich@mhptv.com

Breastfeeding Awareness Week; Home Births; Green Parents

Brew of the day:
Dandelion Tea…good for detoxing the liver. Dandelions are out in abundance in the Eden Valley at the moment. I’m in bliss when out walking alongside fields of golden yellow. Such a sight!

Welcome to Saturday Morning Cuppa. I awoke this morning to my luxurious Saturday morning lie-in being disturbed by a racket from the girls’ bedroom that went on and on and on. Being too lazy to get out of bed and investigate, I waited till they came to our room to find out what the ‘problem’ was about. No problem, apparently, just doing Shakespeare!

Breastfeeding Awareness Week

Little Angels and The Way Nature Intended took a petition to no. 10 Downing Street to support David Kidney MP’s bill campaigning for the right for women to breastfeed in public. Baby Milk Action had hoped the photo they were taking of Stella Onions breastfeeding outside no. 10 would be great for their report of the Bill and also for their popular breastfeeding calendar. The photo they got was of a police officer asking her to stop breastfeeding. So much for the government saying they support breastfeeding! Says a lot really, doesn’t it?

I don’t think I can stomach one more conversation (or interview question) based on the ridiculously stupid “Should a woman be allowed to breastfeed in public? ”It isn’t about women’s rights, it’s about children’s rights!

SHOULD A BABY BE ALLOWED TO EAT WHEN HE/SHE IS HUNGRY? (no matter when or where)

If not, then we have some serious human rights issues going on here. At the very least it is a case of child abuse. Hunger to a child reliant on breastmilk is excruciatingly painful and NO child should ever be forced to go through this experience. How many people would actually stand up and reveal their abusive instincts by saying a baby/toddler shouldn’t be allowed to meet a basic need such as hunger?

During a local radio interview the broadcaster suggested to me that a baby breastfeeding in public was a bit like a man urinating in the street! You know, a scary bodily fluid leaking out!! Clearly we need a scientist to come forward to explain to middle-aged men that their stinking urine (stinking because of too much alcohol or coffee and not enough water!) is a WASTE product and that sweet-smelling breastmilk is a living FOOD. Clearly this man was playing Devil’s Advocate, but his words echoed that of a lot of people!

I seem to be seeing a lot of bottle fed babies around lately. The last time I saw a breastfed baby (who didn’t belong to a friend) was at least six months ago. But then again, Cumbria doesn’t seem to have many Black or other ethnic people either, so breastfeeding is going to be just another prejudice to add to the collective Cumbrian belt.

Also in the media this week….

Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills announced the end of their marriage this week. A counselor from Relate said that it was because of their age gap and that only emotionally healthy people could survive an age gap like that. As a woman married to a man 19 years older than me, I read her comments with interest.

ANY relationship will only survive well if both the people are emotionally and mentally healthy ~ such health isn’t the preserve of those of us who are attracted to a different generation! We can honestly say that in our 11 year relationship the age difference has never posed a problem.

When we met Paul asked me where I’d been all his life.
“In nappies!” was my reply.

Home births

Homebirths hit the news this week with the plan to make home births an option for every woman in the UK who wants one. You’d wonder how humanity survived this long wouldn’t you? What did we do before hospitals? Heaven help Aboriginals giving birth to generation after generation in the Outback! Though I suppose if you’ve never heard of gas or epidurals you just get on with it, don’t you?

Paul heard a Radio 5 live interview where one woman (clearly anti home birth) said that birth was painful so what difference were a few cushions and a cup of tea going to make? Her condescending attitude is typical of the ignorance that keeps women locked into situations that really don’t have their best interests at heart.

Regardless of your career path, when you give birth your brain cares not about your CV...instead, the brain does what it has done for women since humanity began. It seeks a way to give birth as befitting a mammal. A woman requires darkness, safety and quiet.
As someone who has birthed in home and hospital I have first hand experience of how much they differ: a peaceful, gentle waterbirth in our bedroom by candlelight, Mozart playing softly, my lover catching our baby versus the harsh florescent lights and the panic of medical staff who don’t believe in ‘birth’ and handle a baby like a piece of meat in a butcher’s shop, injecting all sorts of foreign chemicals and viruses without permission. Trust me, the conditions are light years apart and I’d take a homebirth any day.

The same hormones used when we make love are the same ones which come into play during birth. Would you make love under florescent lights with some Doctor you’ve never met standing guard, groping between your legs and a few student midwives having a peep? Would you want someone monitoring your breathing and blood pressure every little while? And what about when things are really spicing up, would you want to be told that if you don’t climax in the next little while they’ll have to operate? (Dr. has a golf game to get to, you know!!) Of course you wouldn’t make love under those conditions! Yet we expect women to do this all the time.

The sooner women take back what they ‘need’ to give birth, the sooner we’ll see an end to the overwhelming number of medically (mis)managed births. I believe it was Binnie Dansby who said, “Birth is as safe as life gets.” Very sadly, babies die in hospitals too, and people seem to forget that when they tout that hospital births are safer for babies. An incoming soul has a destiny of its own that none of us who are already Earthside can ever know. If a baby’s soul has chosen to visit this planet for a short time, no amount of medical intervention will change that.

As for birth being painful, well let’s get some truth into the equation. Yes, women can have painful births, but no, they don’t have to be painful. Sometimes a baby gets into a position that causes discomfort for the mother, but the actual process of labour does not need to hurt. We confuse intense ‘labour/work’ with pain. Women need to learn that fear is guaranteed to cause stress which leads to pain which leads to more fear and here we go round the loop again. It becomes a vicious circle.

Even if she opts for a dry birth, every woman should have access to a birthing pool for labour to provide her with warmth and comfort and also a sense of her own ‘space’. The biggest mistake women make in using birth pools is that of getting in too early and thereby slowing labour right down. It’s best to make sure labour is well under way before soaking in a tub, ideally after about 5 cm dilation. More than anything, a birthing woman needs privacy, NOT an audience. An audience is never conducive to an easy birthing.

Sleeping with parents till five years of age

Another thing mums have been doing since women first walked the planet is to sleep with their babies. Of course, those of us in this thing called ‘civilised’ culture who have slept with our kids, have always been at the butt of jokes and condemned for making our kids too dependent on us. Apparent experts have been telling us for years how dangerous it is to sleep with our babies ~ funny how suffocation didn’t kill off our species before we got all wised up!

This week, lo and behold, a professor (a leading childcare expert) has come out and said children should be allowed to sleep in the same bed as their parents till about five. Her view is based on ‘scientific’ studies. Prof. Margot Sunderland believes Health Visitors should be given ‘fact sheets’ to help educate parents about the benefits of so called co-sleeping. Can you just see it now? Surely not the same HVs who are telling women left, right and centre to put baby on a bottle and get him into a routine and to leave him with a babysitter so you can have a night out with your husband!?

How sad that parents are still not considered the experts on their children. All praise to Professor Sunderland though, who says that training babies to sleep alone is HARMFUL as separation from parents increases the production of stress hormones in the child. This same professor has previously warned that letting children cry can create problems later in life, such as depression or digestive disorders.

In another’s eyes…

I was hanging out in our local market on Tuesday having bought my organic fruit and vegetables and was just waiting for Paul to meet up with us. Bethany and Eliza had gone off to another stall to examine a wooden DIY kit for doll house furniture.
A man and woman, who weren’t anyone I recognised, came strolling by. He was telling her that you can tell so much about a person by the way they look. Ever the eavesdropper, and completely intrigued, I stayed tuned in to their conversation. He went on to tell her about two beautiful girls he’d just seen. “They were really lovely and you should have seen the excitement when they were looking at these things they wanted to buy.”

How sweet, I thought, and then I realised it was my girls he was talking about as there aren’t any other kids about during the day (apart from babies). He had no idea that I was connected to them and it really made my day. Made me realise how easy it is to take for granted the things beneath our noses. I mean, how often do we think about the colour of our children’s eyes? Or wonder what they’re daydreaming about?

My girls love to sew and knit and do cross stitch. I really dislike it. However, I always support them in their enthusiasm. Yesterday they popped into the sewing shop to get some fabric. The man who works there is always struck by how excited they get by all the fabrics, cottons, buttons, etc. After they’d bought a picture-panel of a cat to make a cushion, he gave them another two panels of geese flying. I was so touched by his generosity but also that he always takes the time to treat them with care and as much respect as his adult customers (who probably spend more than £2!)

It was rather special to see my children through another’s eyes this week.

Job Vacant: Full-time Mother

What do you reckon they pay for that job? Here’s my job description:

Morning Cuddle Monster ~ can last from 5 seconds if we’ve slept in and have to get out the door to 50 minutes!! It is an obligatory start to the day.

Chief meal preparer ~ (nutritious, wholesome, organic, plant-based food with high raw content which means lots of chopping, slicing and grating and popping out to the herb garden for bits and pieces)..This job requires approximately 1-2 hours a day in the kitchen not counting time to make smoothies. And you need a good memory to make sure everyone’s drinking their two litres of water a day!

Storyteller and book reader ~ must be prepared to risk getting a hoarse throat when a book can’t be put down.

Friend ~ involves sitting on the bed laughing at silly jokes or playing mud pies or spending a lazy Saturday afternoon in a café.

Umpire ~ takes special skill to know when to break up an argument or to let the sibs negotiate without disturbing the whole village. Unfortunately this requires even further skill if you only have your eyes to give instructions with, for example, during a business call!

Gardener ~ at the bare minimum, herbs and leafy greens plus pumpkins have to be grown to supply the family with home made soup for Autumn and Winter.

Chaffeur ~ escorting to music lessons, library, friends, market day, bookshop and chiropractor regardless of mood or weather.

Exercise manager ~ walking around the ‘block’ (3 miles)

Education ‘facilitator’

Housekeeper

It takes 12 000 bee hours to make a jar of honey. If bees charged an hourly rate of £5.30 that would mean one jar should cost around £63 600. This is a perfect illustration of how wrong our society has it…of how detached we really are to everything!

Motherhood is rather like honey-making. We work countless hours and because we don’t get a ‘salary’ for it, somehow our society doesn’t give it value. Women who stay home with their children still insist on saying ‘I’m just a mother’. JUST a mother?!! For goodness sake girls, take pride in this job. There’s one reason and one reason only that we don’t get a wage ~ because the government couldn’t afford us! It is cheaper to send us out to work.

It is fair to say I put in a 13 – 14 hour day with my children,.some days more, some days less. At £5 an hour, 7 days a week, I could comfortably live off this income! Imagine what I’d have earnt in the early attachment parenting days when sleep was non-existent! Don’t suppose I could have claimed ‘double’ time for all those years of tandem nursing?

Seriously though, if, as stay at home mums, we earnt say, £50 000, imagine the respect we’d be shown. We’d be on lecture circuits for goodness sake! But you know what? We don’t need to earn anything to have self respect for a job that is vital to the well being of society. Society’s ills almost always come back down to two things:
1.) violent birth (see the Californian Crime Commission’s report)
2.) inattentiveness by the main caregivers in the formative years.


The Great Tooth Fairy Fraud

Egg on my face this week. Couldn’t have been a blog or two ago when I waxed about lying and here I am caught out by my ten year old. OUCH!! OK, I’ll come clean.Bethany lost another milk tooth this week…a few hours later she looked me in the eye and said,
“I don’t need any money for this.”

GULP “What do you mean?” I asked, knowing full well that she’d figured the whole sham out.“Well, Eliza and I have been a bit suspicious. Don’t get me wrong Mum, I still believe in fairies, but I think you and Dad have been leaving us money.” “Oh.” Shame written all over my face….

“Tell me the truth Mum,” her eyes raking through every cell of my body looking for shreds of deceit and betrayal.

Heavy sigh. And so I ‘fessed up. Thank God I didn’t lie because she then told me how she’d found a little container full of teeth that I’d kept up high! “How can I ever trust you again Mum?” she demanded to know.

Despite the guilt I knew exactly how she felt and it’s the very reason I never went down the bloomin’ ho ho ho Santa Claus trip. At five, I had caught my dad putting out presents under the Christmas tree and I was devastated beyond belief. I’m sure that sense of distrust has stayed with me for life. When Bethany was three she already thought people must be silly believing in Santa Claus because there was no way he could fit down the chimney.

Not sure how I’ll ever make it up to Bethany. As for Eliza, she’s dead keen to keep earning a pound for each lost tooth…tooth fairy or no tooth fairy! Bloody Tooth Fairies ~ rob you blind and then when the sh** hits the fan you don’t see ‘em for sneaker smoke.

Being a green parent

This week one of my girls asked me what it means to be a green parent. To me it means limiting my eco-footprint and the best way to do this is resisting consumerism. I’m noticing more and more though, how even ‘green’ parents are encouraged to buy the latest of everything…and to do the keeping up with the Jones’s thing by doing everything organically. It really is missing the point.

In raising my children to be conscious about their choices, we’re finding that all around us is a culture that was and is created on taking advantage of others and it reeks of a frantic desperation for more, more, more.

Tempting and lush as it is to buy organic cotton and hemp everything, true ethics includes recycling and re-using as much as possible. When was the last time you saw an advert suggesting you can save the Earth and be a green parent by purchasing second-hand clothes from charity?

Just say NO to consumerism and live simply so that others may simply live.

Definitely some very un-eco parents around here...the latest trend for taking the dog for a walk is to drive your SUV and let your pooch race along beside you! Lazy dog owners!

Gratitude

Sometimes in my desperation to move to a location where more like-minded people exist, I have a temporary amnesia about how darn lucky I am. I live in the beautifully lush and fertile Eden Valley and from my cottage I have views that stretch up to the Pennines.

From my back garden I look over into green fields rather than houses. If I sit in my back garden all I can hear is the sound of birdsong. When I lie in bed at night, I don’t hear anything but the sound of silence...ok, that is till about 2 am when the cockerels over the road think dawn is approaching (the little rotters!). Our cat then takes that as her cue to start yowling for company outside the bedroom door. And she’s learnt that if she does it loud enough, for long enough, Paul will get out of bed and let her in. A few months back I spent a night in the centre of London in an apparently ‘quiet’ hotel. I didn’t get a wink of sleep with the constant noise of, well, everything!. Funny how conditioned we get to things.


The Last Supper!

Hotmail has been chomping up my emails like it is the last supper!. If you’ve not heard from me it is either because I didn’t get your email or you didn’t get mine. Sorry! The downside of modern technology….

My new mantra

And finally, this week I heard what were probably the wisest words I’ve ever heard. They were from the vibrant Rev. Rhonda Gola, who was our celebrant when we were married in New Zealand. She said that “the only thing we ever owe anyone is Divine Love.”

With this as our mantra, how can our world ever be anything but a place of wonder, joy, peace and beauty?
Have a wonderful week!

Namaste ~ Veronika

The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centred.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

me and my girls

What's your poison?

Brew of the day: Lemon tea

We’re such funny creatures, us humans. Despite inhabiting a living and potentially vibrant vehicle, most us manage to inject or absorb toxic matter and expect to keep thriving. If we did this to lab rats we wouldn’t be surprised to see them wither away.

Be honest, how do you start your day? Do you turn on the radio for the latest news? Do you then drown the murder of a baby or a politician’s sex scandal or increased bank rates with ‘real’ coffee? And what about when you step into the shower? Does your shampoo contain SLSs? What about your partner or children? Do you treat them as Royalty or yell at them as if they’re the enemy? And how do you LET them treat you? What poisons are you putting into your body? Poison wears various disguises and can affect us on many different levels.

This week Cumbria had two glorious days of what is more than likely bound to be our British summer! I’m a little undisciplined when it comes to the sun...just can’t get enough of the warmth and gloriously light feeling that comes with being outside for hours on end. After months of being mostly indoors and wearing head to toe clothing, it is somewhat of a shock for my bare, anemic-looking skin to see daylight. I ask my girls to wear hats or bandanas and to alternate between being in the sun and in the shade. They build up their tolerance to the sun on a daily level in a safe, natural way. THE SUN IS NOT BAD FOR US.

I don’t ever put sunscreen on them even the so called ‘natural’ ones (gasp!!! Cries of “BAD MOTHER”). If people were honest though, they’d realise we don’t have a sunscreen deficiency and therefore don’t need to ‘cure’ our skin with such poisons. I believe that sunscreens are contributing greatly to skin cancer rates. Ever read the ingredients?
Years ago, I never left home without a pair of sunglasses. They were a mandatory accessory. Once I began a conscious, holistic journey (which began before I had children) I left behind my sunglasses. It was about as hard as giving up my 12 cups a day of coffee!

Sunglasses, by their very nature, stop light getting to our eyes. The way our skin reacts to sunlight is determined by the brain receiving messages from our eyes! When the eyes give a false reading, so to speak, the body isn’t able to ‘accommodate’ the sunshine on the skin in the same way. It simply can’t tell you when you’ve been in the sun too long. So, if you’ve got a pair of ‘cute’ sunglasses for your child, designed to make him/her look like a celebrity, you might like to think again. And don’t forget to wean yourself from them too!

Didn’t think there would be a blog today as I’ve had such a quiet week, despite finishing the first proofs of the summer issue of The Mother magazine. At night I snuggle up with the girls in bed, their pillows sprinkled with essential oil of Lavender, and read them a chapter or two from a book. They’re brilliant readers and don’t ‘need’ me to read at all but seem to love having the time and attention last thing at night. By about lunch time each day they’re asking if I’ll be reading at bed time. These moments are so, so precious and nourish me as much as them.

By day, my greatest pleasures this week have involved watching the girls playing at the bottom of the garden. Mud pies to feed the world! They gather up little flowers from in the grasses and set a vase on the table under the shade of the plum trees. So long Bethany and Eliza are topped up with real food every few hours, this sort of play goes on all day. A few times this week, when they’ve migrated to the front garden, which is the size of a postage stamp but a great sun trap, people wandering through the village have said to them, “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Hasn’t anyone heard of home education?

It must be so threatening to adults when they see children of this age (10 & 8) sitting down painting pictures in the sunshine or playing hopscotch. I mean, heaven forbid, we need to CONTROL kids…control their body functions, eating times, the way they think, how much FUN they're allowed to have. What will become of them if they don’t have this external ‘discipline’ enforced?

“There’s a perfectly good school in the next village, why can’t they go there?” I have statements like this hissed at me by people living rather close by. It strikes me that the majority of people have been so ‘poisoned’ by the idea of free thinking and free living that when they see it being lived out by others it challenges every idea they have and their only response is to, er, spit!

I heard that there is now a tv channel dedicated to children between the ages of 6 months and three years of age..how wonderful, now mummy doesn't even have to be constrained with her little one!! Some of the compliments about this new station came from mums saying that it means they can put their baby down to watch 'educational' television while they go and do the housework. Educational television? Poison, more like. Still, better to get them used to toxins early so they're prepared for the onslaught later on.

No one else is going to say it, so I will. WHY BOTHER HAVING CHILDREN?

Had a little chuckle to myself during the week. I was out of rice milk so opted to pop down to our local Co-op for soya milk rather than drive 8 miles to town. The lady in the queue before me was undoubtedly a dairy farmer’s wife in her 60s. She pointed at the soya milk and gruffly asked me if someone in my family had an allergy. When I said no, she puffed her tall body up even more and very aggressively asked why we were drinking it then. I could have very happily gone into the fact that the milk from a cow was for her calf but knew that could have set off a cardiac arrest given her current state, so simply said we didn’t like the taste of cow’s milk. Her reaction wasn’t pretty. Ho hum!

I don’t honestly have great expectations of what I will offer my children on an academic level. That will just evolve when they are ready. What I do hope is to inspire both of them to honour and nurture their body, mind and soul. To learn that nothing can come from corn, but corn, and that nothing can come from nettles but nettles.

I’ve caught myself feeling gloomy and rather impotent at the state of the world lately…ready to dig my own grave. My natural state of being is one of positivity and optimism and in resurrecting this, I’m reminded, daily, to teach Bethany and Eliza about Building Castles alongside their mud pies! Our dreams are vital in life and we shouldn’t shrink away from aspiring to great things despite the situations we might find ourselves in at any given time.

Two men looked out from prison bars
One saw mud, one saw stars.

If I can, during the course of their childhood, show them, by word and example, that first thing in the morning and last thing at night, their minds are most impressionable and to use this time wisely (eg. for meditation or affirmations), I will have helped set them on a good course for the rest of their lives.

As a long term student of New Thought and metaphysics, I’ve learnt (especially through the painful times!) that each of us creates our world by our beliefs and feelings. When things go pear-shaped it is so easy to not want to take responsibility, so easy to cast blame. Self-denial is probably the worst poison of all as it doesn’t allow us to re-script our lives. Whatever shape and flavour this day holds is the result of what we have thought of in the past. Quite literally, we get what we think about all day long. If you’re the blushing sort, this can be quite embarrassing as your life is an out-picture of your internal thinking. Everyone can see what is going on inside!

There are many ways we can monitor our poison levels. A lot of it comes down to awareness and perhaps taking an inventory. Food, drink and environmental toxins are fairly obvious to pinpoint. And yet, things like negative news, the stress of rush hour traffic, negative people or destructive relationships are just as damning to the system. In order to live an authentic and holistic life, bit by bit we need to cleanse our system of poisons if we are to view our world through ‘clean’ glasses….or even better, without any glasses at all!

Have a truly wonderful and health-affirming week
~ Veronika ~

Masks and mistrust

Brew of the day: Raspberry Leaf Tea ~ go on grrrrls, get that uterus toned up!


Sometimes our values are so ingrained that we don’t realise how integral they are to our functioning and well-being until the polar opposite slaps us across the face.
This week I found out that a woman I’d recently grown to trust (and had openly hoped would become a friend) had been routinely *not telling me the truth* over the past couple of months. After the initial shock, my main question was why. Why did she do that? Has it come from her own dysfunction or it is just a reflection of the world we live in where this sort of behaviour is the expected norm? I take everyone at face value and oftentimes ‘forget’ that most people hide their true selves.

Although our society doesn’t exactly encourage *not telling the truth* (aka lying) it certainly doesn’t promote truth telling and honest conversation. My experience is that most people would rather hide or twist information (or lie by omission) than to confront a situation or issue even if the confrontation was peaceful and assertive rather than aggressive.

Confrontations (or explorations into truth as I’d prefer to call it!) always lead us into the unknown ~ for how are we to truly know where an honest dialogue will take us? We make assumptions as to how people will react and deny both them and ourselves the opportunity to explore, release and forgive. Forgiveness isn’t some hippy, new age virtue. It’s vital for everyone who wants peace. Spiritual evolution is impossible without it.

In this lady’s case, she has known me as a direct person and probably knew that I would very easily get to the core of the issue had she not lied (all the while smiling while she did so). The discomfort for her would have been too hard to handle for only one reason ~ the unknown. But surely honesty would have taken her relationship with me to a new level? What hope does any relationship have when it is based on deceit?

As a child I told ‘fibs’…for the sole reason of protecting my backside! On my journey through life I’ve learnt some very painful lessons about lying. It hurts. It hurts to lie and it hurts to be lied to. As an adult I aim to be as open and direct as I can (for better or worse and no matter how uncomfortable I might feel) even if it means holding my breath, then gulping, as I await an outcome. (None of us eagerly put ourselves into a situation where we might be rejected.)
I realise how discomforting and threatening this is for the vast majority of people yet I can’t dilute myself into nothingness and hide who I am in order to allow others to continue lying. When I do meet someone who is genuine and holds honesty as a core value, my heart truly sings! But they are rare finds indeed.

A good friend of mine recently had a brief affair. She said it didn’t mean anything as it was ‘just sexual’. By not telling her husband was she protecting him or herself? I’m not sitting here in judgment (and she knows that) just using it as an example of how we live our lives. It is inevitable that we lose any sense of the sacred within our relationships (sexual, platonic, intimate or acquaintance) by not being completely honest.

Perhaps I’ve been lucky in that I’ve sincerely not met any men in the past 11 or so years for whom I’d want to rip my clothes off and risk everything I hold dear in my marriage (ok, apart from Colin Firth and the ever so ruggedly handsome Martin Shaw ~ but they’re not real are they?) so Paul is at no risk of me straying. One thing I do know is that I would NOT (for even a nanosecond) be able to come home and look him in the eye if I had been with someone else. It would be an absolute impossibility for me. I’ve often said to Paul that if he met someone for whom he couldn’t resist to please have the KINDNESS to tell me at the outset so that I’m not in the dark and am in a position to make choices.

John Prescott, the UK deputy prime minister, when proverbially caught with his pants down said he ‘regretted’ the two year affair. I’ll bet the only thing he regretted was getting caught! It simply wouldn’t have lasted two years if he had ANY conscience. And did he regret lying? I find it hard to respect a man who has sex with a woman for two years and then says something like that. And the other side is that he withheld the truth to his wife (if only by omission though no less of a lie) for two years! Not one lie, not two lies but two years’ worth of lies.

So how do you go about functioning in a dysfunctional world where people don’t tell the truth, even to their lover? How do we get ‘real’ when there are no role models, guideposts and societal encouragement? It’s a personal risk into rarely explored territory and we go into it alone. It takes bravery and practice. Sometimes we’ll stumble and wonder if it is even worth it, especially when it means heartbreakingly editing a name from your address book.
I spent some time with a friend in our local independent bookshop a couple of days ago having a heart to heart about people. She looked at me right in the eye as if she had a ‘light-bulb’ moment and said I was the most honest person she knew (and Paul) and then said, “I don’t know how you do it. I even lie to myself.”

Most of us are in denial about one thing or another but her words have haunted me ever since. “I even lie to myself.” I loved that she recognised it and was so honest about that!
People withhold the truth to protect either themselves or the other person ~ though nearly always it is their own backside they’re covering. For me, lying equals betrayal. If a person’s words are used to wear a mask then how can you be on equal footing with them? You can’t! I’m just not prepared to play such games of Hide and Seek and to partake in superficial relationships. There’s no point.

It doesn’t mean I don’t forgive or indeed care about such people but it does mean I no longer choose to invest my heart and soul into potentially destructive relationships. Anything less than openness IS destructive. Perhaps that makes us both losers if I choose to move away. But to do anything else would always feel like looking at these people through very dusty, grimy windows.

Yesterday I was sitting in my front garden soaking up the sun when an 88 year old man from our village stopped by for a chat. The conversation turned to his education and that he still had his school report cards! Apparently he was a brilliant student and I could come and see them for myself if I wanted. Clearly to hang on to bits of paper for 7 or 8 decades shows how important it was to him.

At school I was unanimously voted by my teachers as the one kid who wouldn’t succeed in life. Too busy staring out the windows; NOT doing homework; rebelling; questioning EVERYTHING; choosing esoteric subjects like reincarnation to do for my projects (why couldn’t I do something sensible like gravitation or medicine or tractors?)

Our society values how many square feet your lifetime-chain-around-your-neck-mortgage can buy you or the school your kids go to or the colour of your car (trust me, I know people for whom this is a serious concern!) or where you take your annual holiday.

How do I measure my success? I have a marriage that money couldn’t buy and very healthy children. Maybe my school teachers were prophetic. Maybe they knew I couldn’t play ball in the ‘real world’ and wear the masks that get us through adult life. Success, for me, is an inner feeling not a measuring stick to throw at my neighbour.

The swallows have arrived. I can hear Eliza out in the village, full of the joys of Spring, yelling out to me in excitement that the first Cow Parsley is in flower. Better go and see! Ciao, Veronika

Winners vs Losers
A winner is always part of the answer. A loser is always part of the problem.
A winner always has a plan. A loser always has an excuse.
A winner says: "Let me do it for you."A loser says: "That is not my job."
A winner sees an answer for any problem. A loser sees a problem for any answer.
A winner says: "It may be difficult but it's possible."A loser says: "It may be possible but it's too difficult."
Author Unknown