Can’t seem to shake this fug at the moment. It’s the strangest thing. Even as I know it will pass, it doesn’t seem to be waning. There are always highlights to the day though and today’s was this apple delivery right to the van door from our grandson. Collected fresh from his orchard. What a ray of light he is. He eats the entire apple – top to bottom, core and all – amazing.…
Here we are stationary after managing to avoid the worst of lockdown or restrictions all year. It’s been a strange six weeks with two of them in quarantine in a house (house life is NOT for me anymore no matter how beautiful) and then a week stationary in the van as she failed the MOT. One of the things vanlife teaches is how to let go of expectation, that as soon as we begin to make Big Plans the universe…
I was so inspired by all the responses to yesterday’s post about us being multifaceted. ‘ I am large, I contain multitudes’ wrote Walt Whitman and he wasn’t just talking about himself. I wanted to continue with this theme of ‘and’. ‘And’ is my favourite word. This love affair began around a decade ago when I wrote an ampersand as the symbol for the universe (see below). This tiny, seemingly innocuous connecting symbol is what allows us to grow, to…
On May 1st, sixteen years ago I met @andyrgarside. We bonded over our disbelief that we’d been dragged to a terrible club night by mutual friends. We were both also single parents who were practical & not looking for love. He used to make me mixtapes, I’d make him home-cooked food; we took our kids (who were 8 & 10 at the time) on days trips & went out to gigs. Gradually we fell in love. It was honestly quite…
#MeAt20 has been trending on Instagram so I thought I’d share mine. In this photo my daughter Rhiannon is not even a week old. She was a bit jaundiced and stuck her tongue out for about the first three months. Everything in my life changed when I met her. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. This is a wierd photo because I’m so happy here, in my dad’s kitchen in Wrexham after getting back from the hospital,…
Living together in a small space is something we get asked about a LOT. The solution is being flexible & learning to ask for our space. Andy wants to shave – I’ll sit reading on the bed for longer. If one of us wants to cook, the other plans something that doesn’t interfere with that space. Headphones are the work of angels. All of our early arguments around space grew from a lack of communication. We didn’t tell each other…
Europe is our home now. Waking to the song of tree-filled finches feels so familiar. So many of these places echo with memories of Cymru; with the reminder of how much we have in common with people across the world. For this next week we’ve headed into the hills to avoid the wild winds hitting the coast and we`ll, probably stay in Portugal longer than originally planned to avoid any potential Corona virus drama. Wherever we are, this place is…
Headland hike with the furbabies. We get asked a lot how we manage in a van with two large sighthounds. The answer is pretty simple. It works only if you see yourselves as a family, a tiny travelling community. We all have varying needs and wants and nobody can have their own way all the time. Some people are horrified to learn that they sleep on our bed. But this came about through necessity more than anything else – our…
Returning to Portugal from my homeland of Cymru, still thinking of borders and cultures and what it means to belong. It is difficult to carve out a life that you don’t already see elsewhere – a life that celebrates family and community as much as expansive horizons and travel. I don’t believe the two are mutually exclusive, and so I work to knit the two tighter in my life’s work. Yesterday, feeling ill but ridiculously happy, I sat on the…
Yesterday evening we took our boards to the Atlantic and surfed with the sunset. He said, this is the most perfect moment. Laughing in the salt spray of the cold winter ocean, I felt it. The white light of the day gave herself over to panoramic orange skies as I tumbled again and again in love with him. Love you @andyrgarside ????…