As I do most Sundays, I'm sharing some Shan family snaps, and this week I'm featuring my daughter Gaia.

The first photo was taken a few weeks back, before she had properly started walking but was able to stand up with the support of some nearby furniture. I don't know why she's so happy with her slice of plastic toast -- all I can guess is that, like me, she loves bread, and made the mistake of thinking this was the real deal, before she bit in...

In the second photo, she's communing with the crows in our back field. Yeah, I said communing and I mean it! Rather than stick our leftovers in a recycling bin or compost heap, we throw them out the back for our local birds -- mostly crows. They make short work of the scraps, although they never move in to feed until we've withdrawn and closed the back door. That isn't the case weith Gaia. They happily swoop in while she stands there, humming and crying out wordlessly to them. I think she's a witch in the making, and the crows will be her familiars. Watch this space...