Let me tell you about the secret to our children’s happiness. If many people knew about Lisa and Dave you would never get in there. Those who know, book their places before conception! Imagine dropping your very young child off at a place where you know they will have more fun, love and safety than they would have staying with you at home.

Lisa and Dave look after five or six children from 6 months to 4 years plus a few older ones after school who can’t stay away they love Lisa and Dave so much. It’s a perfect number for having friends and fun together. Lisa and Dave are magicians who know how to bend space and time. In terms of time I couldn’t fit into 3 days what they fit into every day. 3 meals, a trip to a museum, farm, zoo, lake, beach or park every day in the famous white minibus. Play time, learning, garden, cooking, and all effortless and fun.

In terms of bending space, it’s like the Tardis the way they fit so much fun and activities into such a little garden. There are bugs and snails and trees and houses and plants with tomatoes, strawberries and other fruits, a little play house, water play, sand, chairs and tunnels and all manner of things that become serendipitous sources of fun at a moment’s notice yet there’s no clutter just a feeling of space and plentiful time. When I'm lucky enough to stop in and stay a while, the garden feels like an oasis of calm, cut off from the anxieties of the world.

Like a perfectly balanced surfer on the wave, the children need barely the faintest nudge to all fall in behind the next activity. There is never a cross word, you never hear a raised voice, Lisa has a magical ability to translate any request for compliance with a rule or social behaviour from an obligation to something fun and interesting the child is enthusiastic to do. Lisa says it's easy once you have the older kids doing things right all the younger ones copy the older ones and each new generation’ falls in line. It looks effortless. The children find themselves gently and invisibly nudged into the next activity by Dave and Lisa’s special language of love and fun mixed with their passion for the present moments in the world about them.

Dave’s restless excitement means there is always another fun thing happening, and Lisa’s effortless structure and harmony makes sure it all goes smoothly and effortlessly.

And at the end of the day when we pick them up and get photos of what they’ve been up to and an account of what they ate and reports on anything important we find they have also learnt everything they should have in numbers, words, perfect manners, colours, social skills, safety on the roads or around water and imagination and inspiration about the natural world around them, all without even realising they were learning. The children come home magically stopping at roadsides, asking politely and doing thoughtful things without being asked.

We've had three children with Lisa and Dave, daily for almost ten years since that first moment we left our firstborn stay with a stranger for the first time.

It’s quite remarkable everything they do and are, and when I look at my life, finding my wife and finding Lisa and Dave for my children make me feel the happiest and luckiest man alive.

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