ESTHER JONES

According to a Gallup poll published in 2017, 85% of adults worldwide hate their jobs. What a depressing statistic! All those years of school, exams and hard work, only to end up hating what you do. There's something up with our system, and stats like these make me happy that we're trying a different path here. Happiness is never guaranteed, of course, but there's no harm in learning from what certainly doesn't work. The trick to being happy in what we do is, the experts tell

People sometimes wonder how children who don't go to school will make it in 'real' life. That's an odd notion, that school is preparation for 'real' life, whereas 'real' life is not preparation for 'real' life. Hm, that makes my head spin a little. It's possible that they are saying that school is filled with unpleasant things and so is life, so better get used to it and not complain. I hope it's not that cynical though. I imagine the logic is more that school teaches you how

Today it felt like early summer. This is our first springtime here on the hill and it's fascinating to see the different flowers and blossoms in the garden. We were lured outside early by the sunshine and spent most of the morning aimlessly busy. We watered the new grass seeds. For this part of Spain, our garden in enviably green, but we thought we'd fill in a few dusty patches. Whilst watering, we noticed that long lines of ants were dutifully marching the seeds one-by-one a