A twin brother, hopefully the better one but I shouldn’t be judging .I was brought up by my father while he remained with my mother until her death some two years ago. His life must have been rampant with extremism ,eccentricity,new age latitude ,freedom expermintation,violence,nature in the Darwinian sense. His mother lived on the long acre, and would have considered herself to be the matriarch thereof since the early sixties. This mysterious mother of ours was an educated beatnik dropout .she was fluent in Irish, Latin, and French. She had degrees in Chemistry, Botany Anatomy, Had studied Acupuncture in Shanghi ,China, Ayurvedic Medicine, and Vedic Astrology in India .She rose every day before dawn, spent and hour in meditation, practised Hatha Yoga doing her stretches ,her asanas, her salutations to the sun. She would then make her porridge (her samba as she called it) which would be freshly crushed oats, with a multitude of wild seeds and spices. The teas would be made from the leaves of plants and trees growing in the close proximity to the camp. Horses and goats would be tended and the bantam hens would be chuckled from the trees .Her ephemeris would be consulted and the day would be planned in accordance with the season, the stars, the tides. Patience and wry amusement predominated all controversy in her vicinity for she smiled from within herself, spreading a certainty of good will and common sense. Her voice was low while her tone conveyed an almost special confidentiality for each and every recipient regardless of their age race breeding or social status. A calm serenity, a certainty prevailed, emanating from her while her bearing shone an ancient aura of previous regal unquestionable power in such an effortless fashion that her wishes were invariably granted without fuss or friction.