Mary was our childminder for our 3 children for around 5 years, for my eldest son from age 3 until he started school, for my middle son from 6 months until he went to school and my youngest daughter from a baby until she was three,when we left Bristol and moved to Devon. I was very upset to leave Mary then! I can only reiterate the comments above, in that Mary is an excellent childminder, and became a good family friend whom we still keep in touch with after 2 1/2 years since we left Bristol.

All my children loved going to hers for the day, they did lots of fun activities together from nature walks in the woods, visits to the park, picnics etc. I think what all my children loved the most was playing at Mary's house with her youngest daughter (and the elder ones when they were home) and the wide variety of toys, playmobile being the most popular! They would more often than not be out in the garden when I arrived to collect them, and have arm fulls of art and craft things they had completed earlier in the day. Mary provided a safe, secure, caring environment where they all had fun, it would always take me quite a while to extract my children as they never wanted to leave!

I think the best comment I can make for you, if you are looking at Mary as a potential childminder for your children, is that my daughter, who was only just over 3 when we left Bristol and is now nearly 6, still talks about Mary and her youngest daughter a lot. Whenever we do any baking or cooking she wants to ring Mary up to tell her all about it, (especially when it's mince pies!) and knows all about how to grow potatoes 'because we did that with Mary'!

I was always 100% confident my children were getting the best care and attention all throughout the day.