I am feeling so low right now. So anxious. I feel close to tears all the time with what my little boy is about to go through, what he’s already been through, what needs to be done.

Today my son and I went for a little walk. This area is very run down. It was a coal mining area, and since they shut the mines down in the eighties, the local community has been impoverished and angry. The local river, the Gaunless, has “sewage runoff” signs along its bank, and there is a disused open cast mine up its sides. About twenty years ago it flooded the whole town, running contaminants across people’s homes. A dam was built to “contain” the waters. It has been labeled a “wildlife dam”, but there is no sign of the wild.

Or so I thought.

I suddenly saw rabbit runs through the fence and my heart leapt; the wild creatures are still here and finding a way. My son and I made the RadJoy Bird out of the few things we found here. Making the bird was so important to me, as it helped me turn back around and walk home with him and not see just the mess and the rubbish and the broken windows and the dirty traffic. I felt a hope. I felt something had shifted that I need to hold onto. Of course I feel anxious. That’s part of this. All of this is how it is.”