Since we began travelling across Europe we’ve become much more aware of how hard British communities work to keep travellers out. Height restriction barriers, No Overnight Parking signs, even Flintshire’s recycling centres now demand proof that you have an address in Flintshire before they’ll let you take your rubbish and recycling there – what on Earth do they think people will do with it if refused entry? They can’t eat it. So you’ll end up with roadside dumps and another…
Yesterday we hiked to the source of the Severn River. We stood at the small swampy bog that is the origins of this vast and tumbling body of water that becomes so large the Severn Bridge was constructed so that we might cross. A reminder that the humblest beginnings can grow into the most unexpected forces of nature. Later I spoke with the trees there, who do not think of humans as friends, and I apologised for the mess we’ve…
I’m on the final proofread of the novel. Can’t quite believe I’ve made it this far. Finding the right copy-editor and proofreader is essential. No matter how many edits I’d done, there were still things I’d missed, not just with punctuation and grammar but also with clarity of thought at times. All of these layers add to the process of birthing this book into the world so that I feel confident it’s the absolute best piece of work I can…
Living this nomadic life is a choice – we choose not to own property or land, we choose not to get sucked into the mass madness that is thirty years of slavery (or a mortgage).Successive governments have always fought to squash people who live any sort of alternative life as if we are an affront to their very existence. Perhaps we are. Perhaps our lives are the art that shows people that there is another way to live in this…
Making these poetry pamphlets over the years has been an education in slowing down. I’ve felt equally enamoured and frustrated with the entire process so that there’s been times I’ve really just wanted to quit. Why do I make these? They’re time consuming and awkward and even harder to make now we live in a tiny space as I can’t just have all my book-making kit out on a table indefinitely. And yet… there’s something I keep returning to, a…
This last week has been emotional. No matter how much work we do on ourselves there’s always the part where we then move back into the world of other people, and it’s daunting. Vanlife for me has been a huge opportunity to hit the reset button: on how I work, how I live, and how I connect with people. It begins with healing the Self, and as that process deepens it allows us to being the work with those closest…
I really wanted to do a post today about my low-wash hair, I spent ages taking different selfies and hated all of them: my face is too round, I have lines and wrinkles, my skin isn’t smooth, blah blah blah… and then I remembered that I turn 45 in just over a week and live the life of my dreams. I reminded myself that this body can surf waves, hike & bike mountains, write poems; this person has worked hard…
Set mealtimes don’t really exist in the van anymore – neither do weekends to a certain degree. We’ve both been self-employed for about 12 yrs (living full time in the van for over 3yrs) and are used to the fluctuations between working like crazy and fallow time.Meals have kinda shifted so that we tend to eat a later breakfast then a second meal that’s somewhere between dinner and tea (or lunch and dinner depending upon how much further south in…
Hiked about 7-8k in the sludge. It is a filthy day. All the melting snow leaking out across the muddy landscape.We have a specific system for getting the hounds back into the van after a muddy walk: first, hose down feet and bellies outside using a small hand-pump garden pressure wash that also doubles as our outdoor shower in warmer weather; second, a two towel system in the van to get them as dry as possible, one for feet, one…
