Lazy van mornings. Cooking breakfast for the hounds. Being back in Wales is making lockdown more real, perhaps because we’re more tuned into the cultural thinking here. Half of me feels totally disassociated from it all, the other half feels as if I’m absorbing too much of the worry and the anger and the stress. This can lead to catastrophising about future things I have no control over. When this happens I have a series of questions to ask myself:…
Lazy Sundays. Experimenting with hot turmeric coconut drinks (with heaps of maple syrup ??). Watching the downhill mountainbike racing at Maribor, Slovenia and remembering being there to see it live last May when the world was a very different place. Tiny living isn’t a hardship once I was prepared to let go of all the stuff I really didn’t need. It also allows for a slow, simplicity of life that I’d never dreamed possible in our culture that pathologically values…
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…
Something that has brought me joy today – receiving this lovely cacti & succulent compost by Clare @digbywilde because she saw my beautiful Dashboard Darlings on here recently and wanted to send them some love. I feel incredibly lucky to meet so many creative, kind and generous people through these tiny squares. My babies will do just fine hibernating in their new autumn/winter duvets. ??? ps – the only way to keep plants happy in a van is to have…
Crows now finished. Obrigada Lisandra Siqueira for your beautiful work of art. I knew I had to have this tattooed on my skin the moment Andy returned from Lisandra with new ink. I always said I’d stop having tattoos when I turned 40 because that felt like the time I should start to be more sensible. Ha. Fuck that. Now I’m 44 and working on this leg sleeve. Tattoos are a deeply personal telling of my story and so of…
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…
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…
Wore shoes last night for the first time in ages and still walked the 5km home barefoot. I love being in tune with my surroundings, the way my body is fully aware of changes in temperature and texture; feeling the hard, smooth white cobbles give way to soft, damp midnight grasses. These past few years, no longer restricted by ridiculously shaped shoes, my feet have spread, rough callouses have formed along the heels; I can no longer stride with certainty,…
There’s something I love about the art of perseverance. Although we’re all born with differing capabilities I truly believe that anybody can get good at any skill with enough time, effort and perseverance. Personally, I prefer taking the longer, more difficult route to learning. When I’ve examined this I realise it’s because my philosophy is that if I can do something in difficult times/under difficult situations then I’ll be really good when the going gets easier. Surfing has been one…
People have such varied ideas about vanlife. Some give the impression that we’re all driving around searching for the perfect nature photo opportunity, that we do 100,000km a year, and that we’re all social butterflies flowing effortlessly into new situations with grace and ease. I think there are definitely people out there who do that. It’s just not us. One of the things I promised myself I’d do with this account and the OUTSIDER blog was to honestly reflect the…