Today i sit in blissful ignorance of the ever changing world around me, trying to recapture all the best of what i loved, home growing veg for the family, spending quality time with my girls (2yrs and 4mths) and trying to distance myself from the rat-race! My lovely wife and i have not had a television since we have been married and spend our evenings instead playing with the children, reading and listening to music.
I have been married previously and worked my way up the employment ladder only to find out that i was scared of heights, and not able to climb safely down i instead jumped, ending my career, and marriage. Some might say i had a mid life crisis, but what did happen was i thought long and hard about my lifes direction and sought to change it with perhaps reckless abandon!!
I am now blissfully happy once more, life is still a mystery and i am still not sure of my place in the world, but i now have a soul mate and a burgeoning family to help me fill my new life

From my window i see the changing hues of autumn, stubble fields being replaced with fields of fresh green shoots and the majestic oaks shedding their thick coats of resplendent green.
I have a wonderful view, uninterrupted field and hedgerow leading softly down to a large hornbeam wood. As a child i remember my numerous sorties down to the wood to collect leaves and nuts, filling my pockets to the brim with chestnuts to roast on the edge of my grandparents open fire, the sweet taste still lingers strongly in my memory.
Every school holiday was an adventure on my grandparents farm, fishing in the numerous pits, playing in the wood and stacking the straw bales in readiness to be pitched on to the straw cart. I would always help around the house too, chopping sticks for the fires and filling up the wood boxes and coal and coke scuttles, and as my grandmother was an excellent home baker, there was always a bowl to clean out and enjoy. I loved all the food in their diet, from shortcakes in the morning to a rusk with my cocoa at bedtime, the bed warmed with a large metal framed warmer housing a large red bulb, and the bed as soft as cotton wool. Halcyon days!
Sadly my grandmother is no longer with us, but my grandad at 90 is still living in the house, albeit with the loving help of his daughter and son-in-law. I worked along side grandad for 15 years and loved every day of that time. He could plough the straightest furrow with the least effort of anyone i have ever known, his combine gave the cleanest sample of any combine locally and i learnt much more from him, than i ever did at agricultural college.