creating – OUTSIDER

STEPHEN’S LAST NIGHT IN TOWN (NOT)

June 24, 2020

I’m not doing a ‘Stephen’s Last Night In Town’,* promise 😂. But just to say that on this OUTSIDER blog I’ve opened up all the additional paid-for content so that it’s free. In the right-hand column there’s a category ‘OUTSIDER Patreon Chapters’ click on that and you’ll find additional recipes, poetry, photography and some longer essays. My hope for this online project was to illustrate that living slowly with less doesn’t have to be purgatory, in fact it can be…

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Some thoughts on change

June 22, 2020

I haven’t been posting on here so much lately, & it feels as if I’ll be posting less now as the months roll on. Originally I set up this account, and the OUTSIDER Instagram to document our shift from a settled life stuffed full of overwork & fast-paced living, to a more minimalist, slow, migratory way of living. That was thirty months ago. I cannot believe how quickly the time has flowed around us & we have felt like a…

creating food vanlife

Making it up as I go along

June 15, 2020

The best way I’ve found to move towards #zerofoodwaste in the van kitchen is to work with what’s already in instead of buying new ingredients all the time. I try not to just do the food shopping on the same day each week, instead going once the food has run out (which can be up to 9 days later). This dish of spicy black bean and fresh tomato soup with lemony-herb topping, served with garlic chapati, was inspired by the…

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The Awakening

June 7, 2020

The product of early morning insomnia. Wind is wild outside the van this morning. #awakening #wakeup #poetry #poetlife #insomniacs #waketheheartup…

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Where is your freedom?

June 1, 2020

How much freedom do we have, if we’re completely honest with ourselves? Every choice come with conditions: buy a home, and agree to trade an extortionate amount of debt for comfort and security; focus on your career, and know that the more successes you have the greater the compulsion to compete, the need to remain current and relevant; choose a family, and be enfolded in love, but also all the drama. What is the price for absolute freedom? To live…

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poetry and song

May 11, 2020

Sometimes beautiful things come to you from out of the blue and they make you smile. This is a piece by my friend Moushumi Bhomik incorporating sections from a poem of mine. The photo is of us travelling on the overnight train from Kolkata to Jalpaiguri in 2018. Her words about it are below. I’m so lucky to know such lovely, creative people. “Song for My Father, with Sophie MckeandI met Sophie, a beautiful poet and spoken word artiste, in…

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Still working on Self-love

May 4, 2020

I wasn’t sure about posting this photo Andy took when I wasn’t aware recently. I don’t look like a lot of the other yoga people in these squares. My legs are thicker, I’m still learning to stretch my 44yr old body into what are considered some pretty easy poses, and I’m not in lycra. But then a lot of showing up in this space, for me, is about my struggles with self-acceptance, with loving myself exactly as I am, not…

creating family feature

Sixteen years strong

May 1, 2020

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…

creating Europe poetry

change is here

April 30, 2020

Number five in a series of 10min poetry performances from our travelling van.…

creating nature poetry

When the voices are at peace

April 28, 2020

I think the internal struggle is the hardest because it’s the one we find most difficult to articulate. It’s the place perhaps where we need the most help but no one else knows where it is, and we don’t really know how to draw a map for fear of getting it wrong, or perhaps for fear of shining a light on the chaos. It’s a discussion (or argument) we can ultimately only really reconcile by ourselves, and yes I’m aware…

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