Monthly Archives:

February 2020

Europe family vanhounds vanlife

Hounds of love

February 28, 2020

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…

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Iris returns

February 26, 2020

This time last year on Crete I found the most beautiful flower. She is not a rare and delicate being, more she is feisty, tough, ubiquitous. A plant that has adapted so well that once I discovered her bright purple tri-petaled face existing in a sandy hollow, I found her everywhere in various guises: purple and lilac flowers rooted into seemingly inhospitable and rocky ground on Crete or Croatian clifftops, or as bright yellow flags next to ponds and lakes…

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feminism Mental Health

On radical self acceptance

February 24, 2020

I always hated my photo being taken, nevermind a selfie, but radical self-acceptance is proving to be a beautiful gift from me to me that shifts self-defeating thoughts like sanddunes. I’ve spent time in the company of some lovely women this week, we’ve talked writing, cooked food… Laughed. And perhaps these days have made me realise how, the more I accept all the facets of myself, the more I can sit with other women, hear their stories, and celebrate all…

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dailyconnectionwithnature nature vanlife

Dreaming the dream

February 19, 2020

I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of the view from our tiny home on wheels. The contrast between the permanence of our internal space and the ever-changing outdoors makes my heart sing every day. In the past, I’ve felt so detached from the earth, the weather, the tides, and the cycles of the moon, and wanted desperately to change that but couldn’t see a way. I think sometimes you just have to keep moving forward, even if you’re not…

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Cymraeg dailyconnectionwithnature feature field recordings politics Wales

on borders and ecosystems

February 17, 2020

 Sophie McKeandIn response to a week-long creative residency at the National Trust’s Chirk Castle, Jan/Feb 2020 To ascend the steep, tree-lined, bird-song-filled lane and face Chirk Castle’s imposing portcullis entrance, is to do no less than to hike through centuries of time. Multifaceted layers hang like bright linen sheets in the morning fog of these borderlands, of y ffîn, so that if you slow down for long enough you might feel a slight caress on the cheek, or a brush…

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dailyconnectionwithnature Europe family nature poetry

I bury my heart in the earth

February 6, 2020

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…

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creating dailyconnectionwithnature nature Wales

Everything grows in its own time

February 1, 2020

It takes time for anything to grow to maturity, and even then, it’ll keep evolving. In my old fast-paced life I’d often feel that creative ideas needed to come almost fully formed or they’d get squashed by my trampling feet, and the judgement of others, as we all stomped out time. Working on radical acceptance and self-love has meant a total reexamination of all the creative and emotional processes I go through, when writing, or connecting, and I realise how…

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