This is just about my favorite childhood photo. It was taken around 55 years ago, in a hazel forest near our home in the south of England. That’s my mom in the foreground, holding my red squirrel stuffed animal and looking kinda fed up.

That’s me in the background, running away, into the woods like a little changeling child trying to get back to the fae. Evidently I did this at every available opportunity, and I’ve gotta say that I freakin’ love that about little me. Sadly, I was always captured and forced back into ‘civilized human’ society.

This morning I realized I get to tell that little version of me that we finally made it. We live in the woods now and we can be as feral as we like. No one’s gonna grab us by the scruff, grumble at the twigs in our hair and make us do maths. How I’d love to see her eyes light up at that!

(Guess I could just go look in the mirror. ☺️)