So – my previous post describes how I uncovered a huge affinity to my Wiccan sisters. So the next step was to open an account with Amazon.com and begin to buy everything I could find on ‘The Craft’. Much of what I read spoke deeply to my soul. I loved the lack of rules, the lack of hierarchy. I loved the feminine essence of this religion. I still have huge respect for the craft and still feel a lot of that connection. But somehow going sky clad and making potions and spells didn’t quite sit with me. And so having educated myself fairly well on the old ways, I took back to the road again. The road to find myself and to inner peace… and as walked, I could hear some giggling in the heavens. God really thinks it’s funny when I get lost and confused!

Then daughter number three arrived… 6 weeks early and with little warning. She was a very lardy 8lbs 12ozs which I assumed was great for her. But, apparently not. She was a very sick little baby for the first two weeks of her life. The experience shook me to my core. The thought that I might lose my little baby shone a very bright spotlight on my life. As I made deals with God (she had stopped laughing by the way), I promised to give up work in order to be at home with my little ones, regardless of what sacrifices I might have to make along the way. I held in my heart and in my head the vision of me and him along with our other daughters in our lounge at home with our new baby in her moses basket in the corner. I held tight to this vision and willed it into being. And two weeks after her traumatic arrival I took her home. And as we all sat in the lounge that evening I thanked God for the normality and simplicity of it all! I think God was smiling, a big beamy smile!

And so the journey that began in earnest with the arrival of daughter number two on Halloween in 1998, took a massive leap forward in late 2000 as youngest daughter settled into life at home. I finally fulfilled the promise I made to God in the hospital and retired from the world of paid work in late 2001 and took up my position as stay at home mum and home maker and general dogsbody without pay or status! Initially me and him planned that this would be just for a year. I was sure that by then, I would be champing at the bit to get back into the world of paid work.

Boy – was I ever wrong?