tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26792227886297616972024-03-18T14:45:48.641+00:00Hedgerow Ways and Fireside Daysthe intermittent diary of a frugal christian family's simple lifeJackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.comBlogger352125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-999091463207976522024-03-18T13:16:00.006+00:002024-03-18T14:45:00.672+00:00 Shy But Not Retiring<p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It’s pointless to pretend that I’m not envious of the many 60+ folks in my feed, and indeed my life, who played by the rules, and now have a paid off house, and the liberty and security to let rip and be who they truly are. Of course I am. It’s also pointless to dwell on this, since we are, in my least favourite of modern cliches, where we are.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-fa8d2cd0-7fff-5a9f-b0cd-9a91bad57820"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’m put in a position where I shall have to continue to work for a while, and although Neil works very hard (and is a tad younger, I might add) the fact remains that we will both have to press on for a bit.</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’m sure I’m not the only one, so it may be of some use to run through the adaptations we’re looking at to get us through the next few years.</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 4pt; margin-top: 16pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #434343; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Retraining</span></h3><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Until recently, I worked as a business manager in a residential care home, and that fell apart just after I’d donated my heart and soul to keeping the place going during a pandemic. Gratitude was not their long suit. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I ran the veg box scheme for a couple of years, but without grant funding, it was not going to earn me any money, and the writing was on the wall for the physical commitment needed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I had to pivot, and come up with an alternative which would work longer term.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I love to write, and do earn a very small amount now and again from wordsmithing, with one particularly gorgeous client. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I am also working as a Virtual Assistant. I have a couple of really good clients, and could do with a few more! Do think of me if you need help!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Meanwhile, I am also retraining - I’m studying bookkeeping, which I think might be a sound back up in years to come.(I already offer basic bookkeeping, for which no qualification is required. This is the more advanced version.) Much as I love to potter in my garden in almost all weathers, the time must come when I can take shelter in the little old van, and work productively while the storm passes!</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I don’t believe it’s ever too late to retrain, but it’s also possibly not too early - have you thought about what you’ll need to do to future proof your income, should you need to?</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 4pt; margin-top: 16pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #434343; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Redesigning</span></h3><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The land tenancy is up for renewal, and despite our advancing years, we can’t imagine life without it. We moved to this house on the understanding that we hoped we would move onward and upward at some point, but if we didn’t, then we’d be content to stay here. It couldn’t be a place that we just needed to escape from day one. That acceptance was based on knowing we had the land to turn to, and for the first two years I spent most of my working life out there.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We plan on renewing the tenancy, but we know we will have to reframe how we work, and redesign how we use the land. What was a market garden, providing ten veg boxes a week, plus restaurant sales, has to go back to being a family garden - and a small family at that!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’m a great lover of allotments, and in many ways, wish I could just throw up my hands and go and get one, instead of dealing with the complexities and demands of livestock and grassland as well as the growing patch - but once again, we need to make the best use of what we have got. Sometimes it’s as much trouble to have too much of something as it is to have too little! What we need is an acre or two, but that’s just not available.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’m learning to sow a little of this, and a little of that, and trying for the umpteenth time to follow the Dig for Victory leaflets, issued 80 odd years ago in the war, which taught you how to ‘grow food for winter, as well as summer’ and supposedly did not require too much of a time commitment. I’m still recuperating, so not out on the land yet, it will be a rush to get things done when I can go out there. </span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Do you find that you’re longing to sow seeds and it’s too early, then February and March have passed in a whirlwind, (or in this case, a rainfall) and suddenly it’s too late?</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 4pt; margin-top: 16pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #434343; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Reviewing</span></h3><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The budget has long been a part of our life, but if I’m honest, we’ve been too flexible with it. We’re both optimists (Neil more so than I) and have been of the ‘there’s always tomorrow’ frame of mind.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Well, time marches on, and it turns out there is not always tomorrow - and the future needs funding. We really have to re-budget, and this time, we have to stick to it until it hurts.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’ve started a review of all our spending, and like so many of us, I’m afraid there’s not a lot of slack. As Dave Ramsey often says, if the hole is big, you need a big shovel, and our shovel (income) is just not big enough. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Neil’s business is on a cusp - I won’t bore you with the details, but further expansion either has to be quite big and quite rapid, or not happen at all. So I need to up my game somewhat, and either facilitate that fast and furious growth, or get more paying work myself.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We also need to check our spending back to zero on non essentials.</span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If you are also one of those who did not do all the right things, and find yourself now beyond, let’s say, 50, and with no real financial roadmap - what do you plan to do about it? I’d love to hear. </span></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 4pt; margin-top: 16pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #434343; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Reflections</span></h3><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I've decided for the time being not to publish this over on Substack - I don't know why, it feels quite personal and vulnerable! So this little on is just on here for now.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This is the sixth week since my surgery, so the last one where I need to be careful about being outdoors in the pulling mud and lifting anything. It's flown by to be honest, and hopefully the weather will pick up, and I'll have chance to get on the garden.</span></span></p><br /></span>Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-2101941425589719432024-03-14T11:08:00.003+00:002024-03-14T12:55:35.071+00:00Is it Me? Are We There Yet?This post first appeared on my substack, and I'm copying it over as a gentle intro - I think I'm going to start posting both here and there, and see what finds a home, where!<div><br /></div><div><h3 class="header-with-anchor-widget" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: var(--font_family_headings, var(--font_family_headings_preset, var(--font-family-title))); font-size: 1.375em; font-weight: var(--font_weight_headings_preset, bold); line-height: 1.16em; margin: 0px 0px 0.625em; position: relative; text-align: center;">Under the Weather<div class="header-anchor-widget offset-top" id="§under-the-weather" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; height: 30.2969px; left: -56px; position: absolute; top: -72px; width: 56px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button-container" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; display: flex; height: 1.2em; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 72px; width: 40px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button" href="https://sanvt.substack.com/i/142448038/under-the-weather" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; border-radius: var(--border-radius-full); cursor: pointer; display: flex; height: 40px; justify-content: center; opacity: 0; width: 40px;"><svg class="header-anchor-widget-icon" fill="none" height="20" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M10 13a5 5 0 0 0 7.54.54l3-3a5 5 0 0 0-7.07-7.07l-1.72 1.71"></path><path d="M14 11a5 5 0 0 0-7.54-.54l-3 3a5 5 0 0 0 7.07 7.07l1.71-1.71"></path></svg></div></div></div></h3><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">For the last month or so, I’ve been missing in action for various reasons, and my overwhelming feeling has been one of constraint, imprisonment, even.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">In the middle of February, I became uncharacteristically convinced that the removal of my gallbladder was really the best thing to do, and despite my terror of anaesthetic, I went ahead and presented myself for day surgery. All went well, but the ongoing convalescence has undoubtedly contributed to the cabin fever.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">Our house and its position - of which more later - has been another factor, and the utterly relentless rain a third. We Brits are known for our weather obsession and in particular an unhealthy preoccupation with precipitation, but really, this has been exceptional.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">The final straw on this particular camel’s back has been the need for both of us to work as much and as feverishly as possible, for scary financial reasons.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">Unable to drive for a couple of weeks, and pretty much holed up on the sofa, I had originally convinced myself I would use the time to write, only to discover that my brain is one that absorbs general anaesthetic enthusiastically, and holds onto it for as long as possible - leaving me unable to string a sentence together for the entire period of my immobility.</p><div class="captioned-image-container" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; margin: var(--size-32) auto;"><figure style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; 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border-radius: var(--border-radius-sm); cursor: pointer; display: flex; height: var(--size-32); justify-content: center; opacity: 0; position: absolute; right: var(--size-12); top: var(--size-12); transition: all var(--animation-timing-fast) var(--animation-smoothing); width: var(--size-32);"><svg class="lucide lucide-maximize2" fill="none" height="16" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" stroke="#FFFFFF" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="16" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></div></div></a></figure></div><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">The notes urged me to go for a walk - just five minutes at first, then a bit further the next day, and further the next. Well here was a thing. Without driving, and perched on the edge of the world’s least inspiring housing estate, my only option was to trudge down its faceless pavements, looking listlessly at the people hutches, and longing even more to just escape. How do people do that? I’ve spent more than a quarter of a century trying to escape the rat race, and here I am walking round the flaming vermin velodrome!</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">My eclectic reading, viewing, and social media consumption does seem to coalesce at least a little around alternative lives: the opters-out, those who have gone counter culture, in order to find the simple, slow life I also crave. The ones that got away.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">Restless in my centrally heated box, amid a square of square of boxes, I wondered: Who are they? How have they done it? Have I missed a turning somewhere?</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px;"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: flex-start; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); direction: ltr; font-family: var(--font_family_ui, var(--font-family-text)); font-weight: var(--font-weight-regular); line-height: 1.5; margin: 24px auto; max-width: 560px; padding: 32px; text-align: center;"><div class="preamble" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; display: flex; font-family: var(--font_family_ui, var(--font-family-text)); font-size: 18px; font-weight: var(--font-weight-regular); line-height: 22px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: var(--size-16); max-width: 384px; width: fit-content;"><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span face="var(--font_family_headings, var(--font_family_headings_preset, var(--font-family-title)))" style="font-size: 1.375em; font-weight: var(--font_weight_headings_preset, bold); text-align: left;">The On-the-Roaders</span></p></div></div></div><h3 class="header-with-anchor-widget" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: var(--font_family_headings, var(--font_family_headings_preset, var(--font-family-title))); font-size: 1.375em; font-weight: var(--font_weight_headings_preset, bold); line-height: 1.16em; margin: 1em 0px 0.625em; position: relative;"><div class="header-anchor-widget offset-top" id="§the-on-the-roaders" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; height: 30.2969px; left: -56px; position: absolute; top: -72px; width: 56px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button-container" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; display: flex; height: 1.2em; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 72px; width: 40px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button" href="https://sanvt.substack.com/i/142448038/the-on-the-roaders" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; border-radius: var(--border-radius-full); cursor: pointer; display: flex; height: 40px; justify-content: center; opacity: 0; width: 40px;"><svg class="header-anchor-widget-icon" fill="none" height="20" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M10 13a5 5 0 0 0 7.54.54l3-3a5 5 0 0 0-7.07-7.07l-1.72 1.71"></path><path d="M14 11a5 5 0 0 0-7.54-.54l-3 3a5 5 0 0 0 7.07 7.07l1.71-1.71"></path></svg></div></div></div></h3><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">The first group I suppose I would loosely characterise as nomadic. Van dwellers, boat dwellers, travellers. Many of these folk are, to begin with, very young and in each case, I have to accept that a lifestyle which appealed to me at 24 is not the one that will work at 64.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">The side benefit of being so young is that this subgroup has Somewhere To Leave The Stuff. </p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">My parents sadly passed away when I was 25, but until then, like many of us, I took full advantage of their loft, their garage, and my old room. I was pretty nomadic myself but never had to worry about storing core stuff. </p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">Should the call of the road reassert itself, of course the storage clause is no excuse. There are lock-ups. But the bigger thing is that those younger folks who are happily globe-trotting have a home to go back to when things get tough, a hopeful future which will probably not involve living in a van, and a lifetime ahead of them to do all the things.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">With one or two notable exceptions, older ‘van-lifers’ do often seem to me to be putting the bravest face they’ve got on fear and loneliness, and fair play to them for doing that, but I don’t view it as much of an escape.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">An example of a (slightly) older happy nomadic (and I lay no claim to having any background knowledge, so there may well be a hidden layer of security I know nothing about) would be the gorgeous boat dwelling </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/michaela_cordes?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; text-decoration-line: none;"> Michaela Cordes</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">. </span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">I note that crafts such as spinning paired with great creativity often unite the nomads.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"></p><h3 class="header-with-anchor-widget" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: var(--font_family_headings, var(--font_family_headings_preset, var(--font-family-title))); font-size: 1.375em; font-weight: var(--font_weight_headings_preset, bold); line-height: 1.16em; margin: 1em 0px 0.625em; position: relative; text-align: center;">The Off-the-Gridders<div class="header-anchor-widget offset-top" id="§the-off-the-gridders" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; height: 30.2969px; left: -56px; position: absolute; top: -72px; width: 56px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button-container" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; display: flex; height: 1.2em; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 72px; width: 40px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button" href="https://sanvt.substack.com/i/142448038/the-off-the-gridders" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; border-radius: var(--border-radius-full); cursor: pointer; display: flex; height: 40px; justify-content: center; opacity: 0; width: 40px;"><svg class="header-anchor-widget-icon" fill="none" height="20" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M10 13a5 5 0 0 0 7.54.54l3-3a5 5 0 0 0-7.07-7.07l-1.72 1.71"></path><path d="M14 11a5 5 0 0 0-7.54-.54l-3 3a5 5 0 0 0 7.07 7.07l1.71-1.71"></path></svg></div></div></div></h3><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">Among my obsessively viewed YouTube playlists the Tiny House Movement snuggles happily in the midst. Unfortunately, Tiny Housing in this country is a bit of a non-starter . </p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">I just love to watch because of the designs, the simplicity of the lives, and the cosy contentment, but building something of that size and complexity and then finding land to site it on would probably cost more than an actual house, if it was possible.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">For this reason my favourite Tiny Houser of the moment is </span><a href="https://youtu.be/6sLqJScAO1M?si=dodC2bxhzg3FkUkT" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; text-decoration-line: none;">Carol of The Dragon’s Nest</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> in Canada, because she at least does seem to face some of the challenges the UK offers to anyone trying to grasp simplicity from a fresh angle. Also, she has goats.</span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">Other off-gridders more successful in this country are Eco Villagers such as </span><a href="https://www.lammasearthcentre.co.uk/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; text-decoration-line: none;">Lammas</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> (a project we’ve followed from its inception, and nearly applied for, a quarter of a century or so ago. Nearly. Sigh) and the more recent One Planet Developments in Wales, of which my absolute favourite has to be Dave and Irene at </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/p/Gardd-Darna-100079491973545/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; text-decoration-line: none;">Gardd Darna</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">. I am so often tempted to write off this option with ‘we are just too old’ - and then I look at Dave and wonder if I am just spelling ‘scared’ wrongly!</span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">Again, in honesty, we’d struggle to raise the funds to take part in any such project without pretty much killing ourselves in the process - and then be faced with dragging our burnt out bodies off to a field somewhere to try to figure out how to build a house.</p><h3 class="header-with-anchor-widget" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: var(--font_family_headings, var(--font_family_headings_preset, var(--font-family-title))); font-size: 1.375em; font-weight: var(--font_weight_headings_preset, bold); line-height: 1.16em; margin: 1em 0px 0.625em; position: relative; text-align: center;">The Just-Stay-Putters<div class="header-anchor-widget offset-top" id="§the-just-stay-putters" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; height: 30.2969px; left: -56px; position: absolute; top: -72px; width: 56px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button-container" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; display: flex; height: 1.2em; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 72px; width: 40px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button" href="https://sanvt.substack.com/i/142448038/the-just-stay-putters" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; border-radius: var(--border-radius-full); cursor: pointer; display: flex; height: 40px; justify-content: center; opacity: 0; width: 40px;"><svg class="header-anchor-widget-icon" fill="none" height="20" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M10 13a5 5 0 0 0 7.54.54l3-3a5 5 0 0 0-7.07-7.07l-1.72 1.71"></path><path d="M14 11a5 5 0 0 0-7.54-.54l-3 3a5 5 0 0 0 7.07 7.07l1.71-1.71"></path></svg></div></div></div></h3><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">The last group, at least for now, are those who have found the peace to embrace their small, confining spaces, to love and appreciate the flat or very small house that is where they turn out to be, and made a great blessing out of it. Chief among those is perhaps the lovely </span><a href="https://theslowlivingcollective.substack.com/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; text-decoration-line: none;">Amy</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> whose trials and tribulations around their home have been epic, yet still her love for the limitations of that space shines beacon-like through all her content.</span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">I also confess to enviously soaking up </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@BenitaLarsson" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; text-decoration-line: none;">Benita Larsson’s</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> ruthlessly minimalist Stockholm apartment, her riverside power walks, and urban wanders. But - a market town in Wiltshire just isn’t Scandi / Brutalist/ Minimalism however you dress it up (or rather, undress it, I suppose) is it?</span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">These people have perhaps accepted that they will not be waking up to songbirds and fast flowing streams, in the middle of their own land, nor to a new and exciting vista each day, and decided, much like my great hero </span><a href="https://sanvt.substack.com/p/the-last-of-the-library-book-bloggers" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; text-decoration-line: none;">Rhonda Hetzel</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">, that true peace is to love the home you are in.</span></p><h3 class="header-with-anchor-widget" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: var(--font_family_headings, var(--font_family_headings_preset, var(--font-family-title))); font-size: 1.375em; font-weight: var(--font_weight_headings_preset, bold); line-height: 1.16em; margin: 1em 0px 0.625em; position: relative; text-align: center;">Oh. Wait. It’s Me.<div class="header-anchor-widget offset-top" id="§oh-wait-its-me" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; height: 30.2969px; left: -56px; position: absolute; top: -72px; width: 56px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button-container" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; display: flex; height: 1.2em; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 72px; width: 40px;"><div class="header-anchor-widget-button" href="https://sanvt.substack.com/i/142448038/oh-wait-its-me" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: center; border-radius: var(--border-radius-full); cursor: pointer; display: flex; height: 40px; justify-content: center; opacity: 0; width: 40px;"><svg class="header-anchor-widget-icon" fill="none" height="20" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M10 13a5 5 0 0 0 7.54.54l3-3a5 5 0 0 0-7.07-7.07l-1.72 1.71"></path><path d="M14 11a5 5 0 0 0-7.54-.54l-3 3a5 5 0 0 0 7.07 7.07l1.71-1.71"></path></svg></div></div></div></h3><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">On reflection, it’s so easy to see each of these gangs as having grasped the nettle, and gained it all, but each of them has its own challenges and downsides. </p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">I think Neil would give nomadic life a go, but I just can’t. Without land to grow things in, and roots to home, I would break. One of the reasons we are stuck in the loop we are in is because we can’t seem to part with our rented land, and to be without so much as a garden I think would finish me off. </p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">The off grid options are not totally out of the question, but the raising of the finances to make it possible would be hard. Had we done that, many years ago, and taken the leap, I think we would be up for it. If we had made different choices, and now sat on property owned outright, which we could sell in order to make a run for it, perhaps we would. (I often smile over Ben Fogle’s ‘New Lives in the Wild’ subjects who have ‘sacrificed’ or ‘given up everything’ to make that change - but of course they had the assets to trade, if you would rather look at it that way!)</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;">The final group, I suppose, if I choose to make it, includes us. So for the hundredth (and please let it be the last) time I have navel gazed my way around to the obvious. We have a roof, and a safe place to be, a place to put the stuff, and, excitingly, land to play with, grow food on, soak up Vitamin D, and escape the estate. </p><div class="captioned-image-container" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; margin: var(--size-32) auto;"><figure style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); 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border-radius: var(--border-radius-sm); cursor: pointer; display: flex; height: var(--size-32); justify-content: center; opacity: 0; position: absolute; right: var(--size-12); top: var(--size-12); transition: all var(--animation-timing-fast) var(--animation-smoothing); width: var(--size-32);"><svg class="lucide lucide-maximize2" fill="none" height="16" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" stroke="#FFFFFF" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="16" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></div></div></a></figure></div><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">This all goes to show what a battle it is for me to remain </span><a href="https://sanvt.substack.com/p/assorted-sticky-situations" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; text-decoration-line: none;">‘Present’</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> as I have vowed to be this year! And raises the question - how do we know when we have arrived, when we have spent a lifetime trying to escape? How much of the unsettling discontent, the constraint, the imprisonment, is just the state of mind we’re stuck at? </span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Spectral, serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">Maybe, I </span><strong style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">am</strong><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> the one that got away?</span></p></div>Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-6163540266649702972022-07-10T14:35:00.000+00:002022-07-10T14:35:15.806+00:00Post Covid<p> Ten days ago, just as I came towards the end of ten weeks training, I felt ill at afternoon break, tested positive for Covid, and pretty much checked out for the next five days.</p><p>As I surfaced, feeling slightly better, Neil came down with it. I'm back at work, blessedly having a very light schedule the end of last week, but feeling utterly shattered. Neil is getting better, but the heatwave isn't helping anyone.</p><p>Over the years we've handled hay making in a number of ways. Last year, we got no hay - the contractor we normally use left us til later and later in the year, and finally left it too late. We bought in hay but weren't keen on doing that again Financially it's not probably any great gain making our own hay - we don't own a tractor any more, so pay someone to do all of it. However, our hay is our hay, and it's better than everyone else's !</p><p>That is to say, that we don't spray or treat it, it's a very diverse sward, and it's a rather special site. </p><p>This year, we've changed contractor and gone very early for us. The bales were made yesterday and Neil and I went to sit up there and eat fish and chips - a long time ago, with two little girls, we would do that after we'd physically carted 300+ bales by hand, in a little home made flat bed trailer, towed by our 4x4. This year was very different, but nevertheless it was lovely to sit by a bale at sunset. They will be brought in today.</p><p>I'm now ridiculously tired and sitting sleepily with a fan on watching the Wimbledon men's final.</p><p>Current plans involve trying to safe enough of the veg plot to give us some food over winter and then plan well ahead for next year, and working over our tiny home garden to make it a lovely place to enjoy during these hot days and evenings.</p><p>Also, since finishing training, my work hours are down to 25 so I need to reschedule my regular week to get more home and garden work done.</p>Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-72091588126472536012022-04-25T10:23:00.001+00:002022-07-10T14:09:42.454+00:00What Goes Around<p> A circle has been navigated, and I find myself very much in a similar place to where I was when I jumped off this roundabout some years ago, so I thought I would quietly jump back onto it.</p><p>I am 62 years old, and about to begin a new work from home job, because of the cost of living situation here in the UK, after a self employed hiatus of eighteen months.</p><p>I live in a tiny, mid terrace house with my husband of a quarter of a century, and one of our two daughters, who plans to marry and leave us in October.</p><p>We rent ten acres, two miles away, and we keep sheep, goats, hens, ducks and a retired pony, and grow vegetables.</p><p>Until recently the vegetable growing was a commercial enterprise, but it was failing to provide me with an income, so it is now back to being a self sufficiency project.</p><p>My dream is to own a house (as tiny as this one is fine) on a small plot of land ( a couple of acres would be nice, but half an acre would do) which we can call our own smallholding to retire to, after so many years of tenancies and travelling between plots.</p><p>I also dream of living a slower, simpler life where we provide almost everything for ourselves, and don't trade so much of our time for the money to cover our costs. If you look back, you'll find my dreams haven't changed much over the years! We've been closer, and further, further and closer from them like a tide. </p><p>I do my best to live the simple life, while acknowledging that in order to get there, there are still things we have to do, which we'd rather not.</p><p>I will slowly update the links, and try to keep up to date with posting.</p><p><br /></p>Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-75561085184905228942021-03-15T08:21:00.002+00:002021-03-15T08:21:53.057+00:00Lambing Nights<p>Given we only had ten ewes to lamb this year, lambing has gone on forever. We had an outlier at the beginning and we've got one at the end, so the four hourly checks go on. And on, and on, and on.</p><p>Yesterday was Mothering Sunday, and I was very glad that as a result H was cooking - feeling a bit fraught and over-tired, it was nice to be pampered a bit. I sat and read, with my new slippers on, with my flowers and my brownies, and it was lovely. </p><p>We still aren't back at church - services are taking place but we're in two minds about whether it's really in the spirit of the rules to drive as far as we do, to attend a service we can watch online. As a result, the simple breaking of bread we have shared as a family since lockdown began once again followed dinner.</p><p>A small glass of wine, and a torn crust of home made bread.</p><p>Then to bed for me at 9.30. I'm not sleeping well, waking up far too regularly, as well as when Neil comes back from the 10 o'clock check, and when he goes out at 2 am, I seem to have a love hate relationship with the hour of 3. I look at the clock and it's 3.05. I go back to sleep, I'm sure I do, for ages. I look at the clock, it's 3:16. I think about John 3:16, go back to sleep. Some hours later it is 3.28. And on we go.</p><p>Up at 5, I stumble downstairs and make coffee - one each for H and me in travel mugs, and a small cup to take back up to get dressed. The bread lives in bread bags I made years ago. One's red gingham, the other a flowery number, made from an old pillow case. The bread today is Three Malts and Sunflower, I bought the flower from Shipton Mill with the last big order. It's dark, seedy, and malty. It smells delicious in the toaster, where I leave it as I head up to get dressed.</p><p>A small pile of clothes waits on my chair in the office - there are clothes all over the house, as people try to get dressed and undressed at stupid hours of the day and night without waking anyone else up - and I layer tights, jeans, t shirts and sweaters. H is buttering the toast and slathering home made marmalade on it. I made twelve jars, half of them in nice, bought in jars as potential gifts. Some hope. I made it in January and we're half way through it now.</p><p>We're in the truck by 5.30, and off up to the top of the world to visit the ewes, housed in Charlie's barn, where they came to escape from our flooded pasture a couple of months ago.</p><p>The remaining ewe, in the pen with old Frankie, the grandma of them all, looks at us and blinks. Nothing doing.</p><p>It's getting dramatically lighter each morning at this hour, and a quick glance round tells us we've still got all the lambs we should have, and everyone's happy. We sit in the pale morning light, drinking our coffee, and watch two young stags amble placidly across the track, barely 50 metres from us. They gaze back at us, and saunter off. These days we're a bit late to catch the barn owl returning to her box.</p><p>Both of us have work to do. We drive back up the track. I hop out to re-lock the gate. A grey partridge creaks in the grass beside it. The lights of the industrial estate on the edge of town, down in the valley, lose their brilliance as the sky turns pink. </p><p>Monday.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--tBJRLWuDzQ/YE8X-OjT0nI/AAAAAAAAqd8/ywSH9YumuQU5qSQmXRqpbCJYwZr0WUOjACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Roundway%2BDawn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--tBJRLWuDzQ/YE8X-OjT0nI/AAAAAAAAqd8/ywSH9YumuQU5qSQmXRqpbCJYwZr0WUOjACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/Roundway%2BDawn.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-26469813215036896272021-01-13T14:33:00.002+00:002021-01-13T14:33:57.364+00:00Still...<p> Lockdown number three.</p><p>An awful lot has changed. Untold hurt, only three of us here now, and our income about to be slashed by my having fallen for a bunch of lies.</p><p>But it's time. Time to come back. I miss the other bloggers - I've just had a toddle through my bookmarks down there ! I miss the common sense, the day to day, the journal angle.</p><p>I used to call them my library book bloggers. They weren't changing the world, so you'd notice. They let you know when they changed their library books. Fat chance of that now, but you know what I mean.</p><p>I've got a tall order coming up keeping up on social media for the farm at www.chestnutsfarm.com and also our other business, so I can't say how much I'll have to say, and how often, but this is a start.</p><p>I'll let you know the minute I'm able to change my library books.</p>Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-43505090418987944792020-04-08T20:48:00.000+00:002020-04-08T20:48:10.599+00:00Covid 19 and the return to all that mattersOver the last month, all of us have seen the world change. No one is untouched. No country unharmed.<br />
This little group of islands is taking a proper battering. As I come back to my online home, I suppose for comfort, and familiarity, our Prime Minister is in Intensive Care with the virus which is ripping apart the world.<br />
We live in a kind of stilled, empty space, and yet time races on. We are nearly a third of the way through yet another year, the weeks pass at a terrifying rate, and yet nothing happens, to us anyway - which is really good. Because all the stuff that is happening is pretty bad.<br />
We stand on the promises of God. Both girls work from home, Neil, with no work at all for his business, works all day on our land, and I - I go out every day and work in a care home. Thankfully not just any care home, but the light on the hill, a place hedged around with prayer, and upheld by the prayers of the righteous, which availeth much. We just go on.<br />
<br />
Everything begins 'if we get through this...' which I believe we will, or 'when things get back to normal...', which I pray they won't. This is an extraordinary time. A time like no other in history. A world suspended. Let's never, never, got back to normal.<br />
<br />
Two decades ago, we were led to come here, led to the land, led to work on it. We're a bit off message, to tell the truth, it's all gone a bit awry. But, per force, Neil is now working, working to put back together the resource we were blessed with, and we have time, time and more time to work out whats next.<br />
<br />
We have an opportunity to learn to live on half what we were earning, a bright hope that we can get out of debt come what may, and that we will be in a place where we can follow that calling and just see where it leads. Too long we've waited to know where the road is going, before we set out. Now we must just, like Christian, set forth on our pilgrimage - and find out where it leads.<br />
<br />
If we get through this (we will) and when things get back to normal (I pray they won't) the world will have changed forever. Our frugal ways and plain and simple days will be ... what? ... the new normal? An aspiration? A place of faith?<br />
<br />
And yet, I came home here, to write that down.Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-83157001444587282612020-02-17T14:50:00.000+00:002020-02-17T14:50:31.302+00:00Time has passedTime has indeed passed, and our lives have changed a little - we still rent those ten acres, currently under water, but have moved house.<br />
We are still living frugally - in fact a new surge of frugalness (?) is currently underway as our situation, which has come and gone, finances-wise, has currently somewhat gone.<br />
My intermittently empty nest is currently re-filled (and beyond, given the size of this nest) with two young adults- both working full time, one with what we used to call a 'steady boyfriend', the other with two jobs and a full time OU Degree schedule. As they're now adults, that's probably all I'll be saying about them.<br />
The DH is still building his own business, I am currently working four days a week, but may soon be back to five.<br />
I am creating my own 'allotment' on the field, and already have a tiny plastic temporary greenhouse in our new, minuscule back garden, and a propagator on the kitchen window ledge, where it barely fits. Big changes from our sprawling rented farm house, and hard to come to terms with. On the upside, we are warm!<br />
So I thought I'd pop back and see if anyone was still around, to hang around with a cup of tea and a bargain digestive and natter about frugal news, mini farms, growing your own, making do and mending, and generally getting back to blogging?<br />
<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-81391761625322415042018-07-08T22:02:00.001+00:002018-07-08T22:02:55.263+00:00Here we are againSo I was all set to start a new blog. I thought about what I wanted to talk about - well - life, work, saving money to get out of debt, buying somewhere to live.<br />
Budget allotment growing, our rented land and the critters and plants that live there.<br />
The wonderful new world of sheep fleeces and spinning.<br />
Growing older, and somehow making life better - losing weight, getting fitter.<br />
My intermittently empty nest.<br />
<br />
And I decided there was no point starting a new blog, because it's just this one continued.<br />
<br />
The heat around here is absurd. When Neil hopped into the van to go back to church at gone 5.30 this evening, the external temp read 35°<br />
<br />
The sheep are dealing with the heat well. The hay is in, the goat is pregnant. The vegetable 'allotment' was going well but this punishing heat means that my Saturdays and Mondays can't be spent weeding and tending for long bours so it's a bit of a mess, and drought is a tough call.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow was to be back to Slimming World and the Library - I'm hoping for a lift to the former but the latter is off limits as my car has bitten the dust and had to be towed to the mechanic<br />
<br />
The next question is, can gym / health club membership be justified on a budget. Discuss.Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-215050617987578132018-05-04T06:09:00.001+00:002018-05-04T06:09:58.273+00:00Days off, and a bargainSpring is coming a bit slowly. It's still cold, and things are growing cautiously. We had a frost this week.<br />
I've got five days off work now, and the job list is growing!<br />
Top of the list is to disassemble and recover the polytunnel. It's way past its best, and really does need an overhaul.<br />
I've also got a lot of seeds still to plant and lots to prick out/pot on/possibly even plant out, too.<br />
I haven't been to see Diva the welsh pony for a while - Neil looks after her while I'm at work - but if the collie's coat is anything to go by, she'll need a good spring brush.<br />
The sheep are already sheared, as they were due to be shown at the Bath and West, but our class has been cancelled, so no show prep to do.<br />
One hopefully pregnant goat might need some tlc, and the two 'baby' chickens will need to be moved outside.<br />
Not to mention a bit of a house and garden overhaul. I need five weeks off !<br />
<br />
I am usually wary of magazine subscription deals, but I couldn't find much wrong with Kitchen Garden's £5 for three issues, plus free seeds.<br />
<br />
Today the seeds arrived! A very good deal, I think!<br />
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Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-28463913832732621632018-03-31T22:25:00.000+00:002018-03-31T22:25:33.976+00:00Out of Doors<br />
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Plans were afoot to do work in the garden, the house, and all sorts. However, the weather forecast being what it was, in classic Bank Holiday style - that is to say that it will rain torrentially all day Sunday and Monday - we decided to focus on the veg garden while we could, and possibly pulled a muscle or two in the doing.<br />
In the top half of the picture you can see a no dig bed under construction. We bought two 'tonne sacks' of compost from the recycling folks, and hoped it would do two good beds, but it's gone nowhere near. I've just prepared a seed bed at the near end of the next bed, and we should be able to put a 2" layer on the rest of it, and it did have some on it last year.<br />
Every year I say I'll give up on no dig because the couch grass is such a problem. Every year I give it another go.<br />
However, you can't be permanent no dig on our plot - it's silty, sandy soil and it caps. So within some kind of rotation, you do have to dig or at least turn over the soil now and again. At the bottom half of the picture you can see my potato bed - that's getting dug and planted at the same time.<br />
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Meanwhile Neil cleared massive amounts of blackthorn from the boundary hedge, freeing up the fruit bushes, and managed to burn quite a bit of it in my aged incinerator. The fruit bushes have been neglected and needed a real clear out.<br />
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Newest babies are doing fine.<br />
<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-86434829306499867022018-02-26T23:21:00.000+00:002018-02-26T23:21:51.859+00:00Bitter<br />
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The dogs’ breath silvers in the last of the light as we
leave Lacey the goat and Diva the Welsh pony to the night. Both shelters have
been double strawed, hay is inside, and this determinedly tough duo have sanctuary
if it is needed. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Without doubt Diva will brave the snow and the wind and may
condescend to put her head into the shelter to eat the straw, as long as it is
clear her round fat backside was outdoors all along.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Linney, Lacey’s sister who is usually her companion, is away
over to Pewsey way, with a billy goat, hopefully ensuring the continuation of
the line. Poor Lacey has a detached udder, and although in fine general health,
cannot be bred again, so will have to settle for being an auntie.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We’ve taken the unusual step of bringing the Oxford Downs in
for the night, partly because of the exceptional cold, and partly because this
morning we were greeted with an unexpected babe. Since Aran the ram did not
make the acquaintance of the new mother until a scant four months ago, he
cannot be the daddy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of last years
ram lambs was obviously left in a position of trust for too long.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This means our plans for lambing – still a long way off –
have been scuppered and anything could happen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Back at home the Rayburn and the woodstove are kept fed all
evening, as phone calls are made and we battle with making sense of the
instructions for the incubator – eggs are on their way and we’ve yet to decipher
the translation from the Chinese. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Tomorrow, after a week’s leave that amounted to ten real
days, I’m back to work. This lamb thing has somewhat messed up our plans.
Thankfully Neil is working locally so he’ll be on lamb check for the
foreseeable. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My tiny plants in trays in the polytunnel have had a few
hours of fresh air and daylight each day while I’ve been around, but from tomorrow,
they, like me, will be confined. They will be under fleece. I will be in an
office.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-89433777604985980102018-02-19T12:42:00.000+00:002018-02-19T12:42:28.780+00:00February FreedomI'm not even going to say anything.<br />
I always love it when people pop up and say, 'I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a while.'<br />
I'm pretty sure no one was waiting.<br />
Had the lovely H home for the briefest of visits this weekend. So lovely to see her, and hear all her news.<br />
Boo, meanwhile, who nominally lives with us, works so many hours I barely see her.<br />
This weekend we vaccinated the sheep and goats. We've moved the sheep around so the girls are all on our field and the boys are at the field in the next village. So a bit of driving around with a satchel full of sharps, but all done.<br />
Then H came home, and we had a late night chat, and then Sunday morning church, big roast, sleepy afternoon, and then she went home.<br />
<br />
Thus begins a whole week of 'work' in which I have to make inroads into the veg garden, and try to sort out the house and bits of the general garden. Two cubic metres of recycled compost due for the veg garden have been delayed until Thursday, so Monday is starting slow and I really must be careful not to waste the week.<br />
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Updates to follow, I hope!<br />
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<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-14878724767713411932018-01-28T00:30:00.000+00:002018-01-28T00:30:28.840+00:00One last January SaturdayI managed to hit Lidls by 8.30 am which I haven't done for a long time, I must say.<br />
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On a tight budget and trying to use up a lot of stored and frozen stuff this week, so kept it low, but oh! the joy! the seeds were in. It would be rude to buy none, wouldn't it? Even though the seed tin of shame is overflowing as usual.<br />
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We had a list of errands around town, most of which I sabotaged by forgetting something. Near the top of the list was refilling my ecover washing up liquid bottle. Which I left on the draining board. With the shopping list.<br />
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I popped into the wool shop (you know where this is going, don't you?) to buy some short 3mms. The natural nativity is progressing as if to be ready by next Christmas, but it is dull knitting Joseph's scarf or the donkey's legs on great long needles.<br />
<br />
I came out with some gorgeous beech wood double pointed needles and sock wool. There you go.<br />
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'A bit of batch cooking' seemed to take up the rest of the day - chick pea casserole, macaroni and cheese, this and that, ready for a busy work week.<br />
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Cheese and lentil loaf for supper as well, and then by 7 pm I was installed in front of the fire, with the sock wool.<br />
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Spring will be here soon enough, with seeds to plant, and sheep to halter train, and chickens to hatch. One long evening in front of the fire knitting socks can't be all bad.<br />
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<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-68049664125921706492018-01-08T22:20:00.000+00:002018-01-08T22:20:28.283+00:00Moving onI'm going to ignore the long gap. In it our darling Boo went to uni for three weeks and came home again. In it some bizarre things happened at my place of work. In it all kinds of things looked possible and then weren't.<br />
<br />
I'm just going to take a deep breath, and hark back to last year's new years resolutions, and gently bring them forward to 2018.<br />
<br />
Last year, we joined the garden club. Towards the end of last year I fulfilled a lifetime ambition, and learned to spin, at a fabulous course run by our local Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers.<br />
<br />
I joined the Guild, and on Saturday attended my first 'Craft and Chat'.<br />
<br />
Socialising doesn't come easy to me. I'm an introvert and lack confidence, while managing to look as if I'm brimming with confidence and talking too much. It's a nightmare. However, it's still a massive aim to discover community where we are, and I the Guild is a brilliant place, full of fantastically talented people who share their gifts and skills freely.<br />
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The fantastically quirky building in Steeple Ashton is a dedicated space. It's a bit chilly and the stairs are a nightmare, not to mention getting through the gap into the carpark, which is about 2.5 inches wider than my car, but oh the joy that awaits.<br />
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2018 is going to be a very different year for me. This is the start. I have some big and scary decisions to make. But The Guild is a start.Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-85688710546945940542017-09-17T19:10:00.002+00:002017-09-17T19:12:44.965+00:00Autumn and FledglingsApproaching the Autumn Equinox, and I have a bizarre week ahead.<br />
<br />
On Wednesday Boo departs for Uni, and I will go with her and DH - I have to see her safely in - and then he will drive me most of the way across the country to Managers' Conference, where I will stay until Friday.<br />
<br />
Two utterly traumatic events on one day. When I come back, it will be to an empty nest. Next expected visit of chick will be two weeks hence, when H will be back to work for the weekend, but that is not going to last long this term, I fear.<br />
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We've built a new log shed, but as yet I am afraid it lies empty. We have logs in plenty, seasoning in the field, but they need transporting, splitting and stacking.<br />
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It's getting colder and it's important to us to have enough wood - we don't have central heating, and coal is expensive. With just the two of us this winter, at least until the girls come back at Christmas, we'll be cooking on the Rayburn, and sitting in the kitchen, <a href="https://hedgerowfireside.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/gather-round.html" target="_blank">as we did briefly last year</a>, and making the most of one lot of wood a night.<br />
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The Rayburn also heats the bathwater, so we keep the Big Kettle on her in the evening, for washing up or any other hot water needs, so that the tank remains toasty for a bath. The electric immersion heater, which heats the water in summer, will go off until Christmas.<br />
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This has been a costly and frenetic season. Time to slow down and take hold.Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-23788818495796807282017-09-05T21:31:00.000+00:002017-09-05T21:31:00.496+00:00The last days ...Over the next three weeks, both our girls will be away to Uni.<br />
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While H is going back for her second year, last year she was home most weekends, this year, she won't be. Boo, meanwhile, is leaving for the first time, and will probably not be back until Christmas.<br />
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To offset Empty Nest Meltdown, I've set myself a few challenges.</div>
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I pinched the idea for my first challenge from the awesome <a href="https://www.inkblotkingdoms.com/blog/" target="_blank">Mel</a> 's 'Analogue Days'.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>'Real Time'</b></span></div>
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This one is about the time we spend once they are gone - challenging us to learn to create more of our own entertainment and spend less screen time - TVs, computers, phones - and more time on traditional crafts and pursuits.</div>
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As one of the designs for my Diploma, I decided to look at how much we could replace in our lives by the hand made, homegrown, home reared, done ourselves. Of course there is food and clothing, but there is also down time, entertainment, life stuff.<br />
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Instead of glumly watching TV or tattering away on our laptops, we aim to learn to play a musical instrument (which neither of us does) and involve ourselves in developing a craft apiece - although I really do want to learn to spin properly, I think I've opted for dressmaking first - I can throw together a garment, but I'd like to have some real skills - to be able to make things that don't look homemade.<br />
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This together with my other challenge, an audio diary called<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">'The Frugal Commuter'</span><br />
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Should keep me busy. This one is something I've recently started doing somewhat haphazardly, but aim to get more organised.<br />
I talk to my voice recorder on my way to work! As it is, I'm inclined to ramble, but my aim is to stay on topic and talk about what steps we've taken towards repaying debt and building a fund towards one day owning land of our own.<br />
Thus far the quality is quite appalling, and I'm wondering if you can actually get a cheap mike which would cancel out the road and engine noise - in which case at some point in the dim and distant future, I might be able to share it here, or even create a podcast!<br />
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Everything I do at the moment is haphazard. When they are little, and they interrupt your chain of thought, walk in on every attempt to write, sit down in the middle of your de-cluttering, talk through anything you are listening to or watching - you say 'I need to establish some boundaries. I have to have time for myself, or I shall never get anything done. We need to set aside time for me to do this'.<br />
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When they are two days/two weeks away from leaving, you set aside the laptop, turn off the radio, say to hell with the clutter, and you take every last moment on offer. It can all wait. I'd gladly never write another word, or live surrounded by endless clutter, and even terminate Radio 4, for just another year with them safe at home.</div>
Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-52912581650446251822017-08-10T21:22:00.000+00:002017-08-10T21:22:14.395+00:00A Bit More Structure We have a lot of plans.<br />
We're living in incredibly turbulent times, not just globally and politically (although ...) but also in our house.<br />
As Boo has just turned 18 and August races ahead of us, the time is coming closer when the house will be a lot quieter, a lot more echoey, and I will be dealing with an 'empty nest'.<br />
Our loose plan is to get right clear of debt, put a roof over our heads (shared ownership house? co-housing? long term lease of land? buy land?) , move to building more of our own income streams (hubby is already successfully self employed, I need to move that way before I am too elderly!) and making more of them land based, increase our self sufficiency, and hang on to our smallholding, where ever we need to take it to keep it, as it were. Ultimately to live a plain and simple life, "living simply that others might simply live."<br />
The key word here is 'loose'.<br />
In some ways, it's good to keep plans loose because, to be honest, we don't <i>know</i> what opportunities for housing will come up, or what possibilities will strike us as income streams, and we need to be adaptable.<br />
However how we finish off our debt, and save for our future, should probably be just a <i>little</i> more detailed!<br />
We need more structure, more accountability, more tick lists and target dates - more detailed execution, more feedback loops.<br />
I'm looking for some good frugal challenges to join, and I need to reorganise my time to make better use of what little spare time I do have.<br />
What's your top time management tip?<br />
<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-47093960853627251222017-07-23T19:23:00.000+00:002017-07-23T19:23:28.647+00:00I wish I knewWe've been on holiday for a week in Cornwall, and for some reason, I thought I'd come back with the whole plan sorted out in my head.<br />
I didn't.<br />
I still need a lot of pieces to fix this puzzle.<br />
The time off work was great, but I know I'm going straight back into a very stressful week, with a lot of high pressure stuff going on.<br />
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The land is bare at the moment - the sheep moved over a village while we were away to be watched over by a dear old friend who is a retired shepherd.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kjzsLn6cV6A/SSU30scUH_I/AAAAAAAAACU/Ta-__axLOeMqdO0oWI4GiMLP4NKiR8GYQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/DSCN0380.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kjzsLn6cV6A/SSU30scUH_I/AAAAAAAAACU/Ta-__axLOeMqdO0oWI4GiMLP4NKiR8GYQCPcBGAYYCw/s320/DSCN0380.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Little girls with goats - 2006?</td></tr>
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This land, on which we have done so much - on which our children played, and rode, and worked. On which they grew up, from toddlers to grown women. The land where they kept their first cute ponies, and I my last, loved horse. The land where we started a business and it grew and fed people. The land where we grew a big flock of beautiful jacob sheep, and then they were sold. It's still ours - well, the tenancy is still ours, for another 8 years - and it's still there and it's still precious and just now and then when I get to stand at the top of it and breathe, it still makes my heart sing. But it's doing - nothing. It's ungrazed, unworked, unloved. The hay crop which should have come in last month in the heat now stands overgrown and damp. Waiting to know what we will do.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tall girls far away - Cornwall 2017</td></tr>
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It feels quite <i>horribly</i> metaphorical. It's a metaphor for ... well, me.<br />
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On the edge of change, with change behind me, struggling to give voice to a new life <i>after</i> all this. After they go away in September - both of them this time - to build their own lives at University. After the long sweet years at home and on the land, trying to come to terms with years locked away indoors. It's a good and worthy job that I do, but it's inside.<br />
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I feel the weight of the deep wet hay. Tears rise to realise it had no purpose. It just stands wilting. There is no one needing the shelter of the barn, and the nurture of its provision this winter. For our two goats and half a dozen sheep, last year's surplus will more than suffice.<br />
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Where once were lovely, pretty sheep, and goats and kids, and sweet milk and soft cheese. Where once were row upon row of succulent peas, and chubby fingers picking and popping. Where once when we called, heads raised, and nostrils flared, and tiny hooves came thundering. There is an open green space. It's not malevolent. It's blank. It can be what it wants to be?<br />
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Surely? It can be something new? Something worth being? Can't it?<br />
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As I stare at the blank canvas, sorrow is slowly making space for hope. I've signed back up to finish my Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design, and booked onto a course in October to explore new livelihoods.<br />
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Something will have to be done with the hay.Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-76209125611334593742017-06-15T23:56:00.000+00:002017-06-15T23:56:03.580+00:00Trying to Act NormalI don't blog regularly enough to suggest that any given gap constitutes 'taking a break from blogging', but I haven't been around for a while.<br />
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I think it's fair to say I've been just numbed by the horrendous few weeks we've had. Two terrorist attacks, a General Election with a wobbly result, the ensuing bargaining and bartering, all the while with a daughter home from her first year in Uni and another one taking her A Levels.<br />
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It's pretty easy to be speechless.<br />
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Summer goes on, and I continue to miss most of it, being shut in an office. Three of us went to the Bath and West Show, two of us to the Green Scythe Fair.<br />
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The sheep have now all lambed, and all been sheared.<br />
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I'm starting to get used to Oxford Downs, they are nice, but I miss my Jacobs.<br />
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And so I return to saying something. While we all struggle to come to terms with<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/14/fire-24-storey-grenfell-tower-block-white-city-latimer-road-london" target="_blank"> this </a>happening.<br />
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<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-84525530081543745302017-05-02T23:38:00.000+00:002017-05-03T00:08:10.710+00:00We, Who Have Compromised?I wanted to attend a screening of <a href="https://wetheuncivilised.org/" target="_blank">We The Uncivilised - A Life Story</a>, before it was released as a download, but never quite got the opportunity.<br />
We live in social economy black spot. No one believes us until they look at the map of just about any membership organisation and go 'oh there's a big hole, right there'. From beekeepers to WWOOF hosts, goat societies to smallholder co-ops, calculate the biggest gap between willing participants, and we'll be smack bang in the centre.<br />
Anyway tonight we downloaded and watched the film.<br />
Motivating myself with this as the payoff, I closed out April's budget with a will of iron. Then started May's. I am, in one sense, happy to report that all our corporate and entreprenuerial diligance is making a difference. We will soon be closing the gap.<br />
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On another level, how hopelessly sold out and useless do I feel?<br />
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If you haven't seen the film (- do -) it's made by a young couple desperately seeking place, community, sustainability, responsibility ... and they talk to many of our friends and heroes : Sarah Pugh, friend, hero, innovator, people lover, trainer, teacher, inspiration. Mike Feingold, the Royate Hill pixie, such a genius of a man, and so kind. Neil's guiding light, Simon Fairlie ... and above all, they talked to Patrick. Not long before he died, they captured his closing remarks, his legacy, his extraordinary funeral, his wife, Cathy's, poems, I will not lie, there were tears in our sitting room, and they weren't all mine.<br />
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On an unbelievably cold day, in February 2002, Patrick came to see our land. He walked it with us, talked to us about it, drew up some plans, and gave us some advice. Thereafter he never failed to support us, love us, have faith in us, and help us. He often gave us things because, he said, 'he believed in what we were doing'.<br />
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Tonight, I wailed, 'But we're not now, are we? We've let him down.'<br />
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'Not yet, we haven't' Neil replied grimly. I think that's the man version of my response.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.permaculture.co.uk/news/2702156034/patrick-whitefield-1949-2015" target="_blank">Patrick Whitefield 1949 - 2015</a></td></tr>
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<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-81821779563081227732017-04-19T22:43:00.000+00:002017-04-19T22:43:22.168+00:00House Rage ReturnsWell, it's back to work tomorrow.<br />
Tonight, by way of experiment, I've done my shopping online to be delivered tomorrow night. I reckon it's cost me about £10 more than my usual Lidl run and freed up my Saturday morning. So it remains to be seen what I do with my Saturday morning and whether it will be worth it in the end.<br />
While I was doing this, I made the basic error of watching Sarah Beeny's <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/how-to-live-mortgage-free-with-sarah-beeny" target="_blank">'How to Live Mortgage Free'</a> on Channel 4.<br />
Oh. My. Gosh.<br />
How can you be mortgage free?<br />
Plan A. Well, you could buy a boat, with some money you happen to have, and save lots by not paying the £1.7k per month rent on your little flat in London. And then, as an additional idea, you can get a job in January. How were you paying the rent?! Without any mention of the real costs of living on a boat, you can just celebrate the fact that you have a hole in the floor in which to keep your potatoes.<br />
Plan B. Buy a tin church. The catch here is that it's not possible to *get* a mortgage on a tin church, so you purchase it for the mere pocket change of £90,000 and there you are, mortgage free! Why didn't I think of that?<br />
Plan C. Buy your house the normal way by getting a £200k mortgage (oh. wait.) and then by dint of eating cheap pasta and only playing with water pistols to amuse your kids, pay it off in half the normal time. Of course for this one, you do need to be able to get a mortgage, and not be paying so much in rent that it is impossible to save a downpayment on a pedalo on the local lake, never mind a house.<br />
There was a Plan D but it involved a 26 year old with £70,000 buying a brownfield site and magically getting planning permission for an eco home. I know so many people with good designs for eco homes and land that they own, who have not a hope in hell of getting planning permission that I don't even want to discuss how she did that.<br />
Housing, or the lack of it, is becoming the hot topic in this household. Sarah Beeny helped us not one jot.<br />
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<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-85220638314877010312017-04-18T23:23:00.002+00:002017-04-18T23:23:54.235+00:00Cutting Back - In More Ways than OneThe piece of land that we still rent, as a nod to our farming days, has been overcome over the last few years with thistles and nettles. It's a damp squib of a no good corner which is the only reason we got to rent it from the Crown Estate, and our being busy for the last year or two working to try to pull up our income means our farming activities have been severely curtailed.<br />
Although we're committed to organic production, we won't have been alone among organic types in considering a one off spray to get rid of all the darn things. We're not certified, so we can do as we please, and we called a local contractor to get a quote.<br />
The guy has a living to earn, and I don't think his price was unreasonable, but it was untenable. We don't have £660 to spend on clearing up weeds.<br />
So, we've added an after work workout to our schedule that beats any gym.<br />
There are very few things we possess in duplicate, His'n'Hers models. In fact, apart from the Bible, of which we each possess multiple copies (a freedom by the way we should not take for granted,) and John Seymour's Complete Book of Self Sufficiency, of which we definitely do possess such, I can only think of our beloved scythes.<br />
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Daily, we advance on the field and its rampant nettle and thistle growth and we spend a solid half an hour scything. Oh boy that works some muscles. Half an hour does well for now. We may need to increase as we build up stamina and technique. You can scythe for a very long time if you are very good at it. I am medium good at it and unfit. Frugal triumph number one, a saving of £660<br />
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In other frugal news, H and I took a quick trip into town to spec out the charity shops. I do feel they have gone to the dogs a bit to be honest. Prices are silly high and there is not much of any quality on offer - the annoying practice of copying retail stores and grouping all the clothes by colour instead of style, just does not work in a charity shop. It's all well and good leafing through the rose greys and loving things but no use if they only exist in an 8.<br />
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What with all this and a long day's gardening, supper was limited to a classic from my own days of youthful penury - tuna rice and peas. Mine with soy sauce, Neil's with chilli sauce, and H's with kind of pop up Marie Rose sauce - i,e, a squirt of ketchup plus a squirt of mayo. The funny thing was, my own skint student, upon whom I clearly had not previously inflicted this delight, at least not recently enough for her to remember, was in paroxysms of joy about this new cheap and swift supper, and has sworn to add it to her repertoire once back at uni.<br />
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Oh and a General Election was called. Of which, I fear, very, very much more later.Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-36023015428549007562017-04-16T23:48:00.000+00:002017-04-16T23:48:26.260+00:00Two Elephants : One RoomTwelve years ago (can it be? It really can) we were in the biggest financial doo ever. There's certain terminology I won't ever use on the internet, so I won't really ever explain how bad it was, but you can imagine. Go on imagine. Now just imagine it being a little bit worse. Yes. That.<br />
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And eleven years ago, we were released from that kind of condemnation, but boy, the clean slate was slippy.</div>
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For a few years we were ultra cautious around finances, partly because we had not a lot of choice, and partly fuelled by pure fear.</div>
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Our income, however, was absolutely miniscule. We recently worked out that when I was homeschooling two children, our rent was equivalent to more than half our income. We lived close to the wire, but as the years went by, we got less and less careful and the debt slowly began to build up again.</div>
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Once bitten, twice ... um ... bitten.</div>
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Thankfully this time we were a little bit more aware, and over the course of the last two years, we've both set about earning more money. We didn't get in this mess overnight, and we won't get out overnight either, but we are trying. </div>
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Elephant #1 : Until recently, our rent and our debt repayment together accounted for around about 60% of our income.</div>
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Part of the problem - actually rather a huge part of the problem - we have with any situation is my inability to focus and stay on plan for any amount of time at all. I don't know if there is a name for my condition, I guess it has elements of OCD about it, or even ADHD. </div>
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It started to become a problem maybe 15 years ago, when I would be wholly committed to one plan, one future, one job, one business, one idea about how my/our life would look, for up to six months. Then suddenly I would change it all completely. I would shed a skin, and become someone new.</div>
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The investments of time and money I'd made into Plan A would all be written off. Plan B would launch and I would be sure this was it.</div>
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Another few months would pass, and Plan C would emerge.</div>
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Over the years, those months became weeks, days, and at the worst of it, hours. I couldn't sleep for it, nothing made me happy, because it was impossible to be progressing towards a goal, when the goal kept disappearing. I thought I would go insane. I think at times I did.</div>
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There are a hundred stories to tell, by a hundred personas, from those days, and I am still afflicted with this illness. Two of my closest friends share the very same problem, and that to me means : either somehow we attract one another, or it is very widespread indeed.</div>
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It is an illness (I truly believe it is that) perhaps caused and definitely aggravated by the internet. I am so sure I want to be one thing*, until I see a really nice instagram picture of the other thing. I'm gone. The internet makes endless options seem real. In the end, it is a terrible plague of a condition, and without treatment, because it doesn't exist, all you can do is experiment with ways to make something, ANYTHING, stick, before they carry you out feet first.</div>
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Elephant #2: I have a mental health issue which effectively stops me pursuing any goal, with mindful intention, for more than a few months, sometimes hours.</div>
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I'm incredibly proud of us this year, for tackling both the elephants - of which more another day - but for today, the issues needed naming, and putting out there.</div>
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I have, as they used to say in the cringeworthy 80s, run it up the flagpole. Now let's see if anyone salutes it.</div>
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*Bear in mind I am closer to 60 than 50. Deciding what I want to be may well be a bit superfluous.</div>
Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679222788629761697.post-88776593399322009722017-04-01T23:41:00.000+00:002017-04-01T23:41:47.897+00:00Small PlatesI've been thinking a lot about losing weight.<br />
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I seem to have fallen out of love with Slimming World, and as we try to keep a very tight rein on our finances, the weekly cost can't be justified when it's just not working.<br />
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I have always had a bit of a thing about how much our meals have changed in my lifetime.<br />
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It began with Christmas, when I would wonder how on earth, as kids, we ate a big Christmas breakfast of cold cuts ( a Midland thing, I think), turkey and all the trimmings at lunch, tea with cake and trifle, and turkey sandwiches for supper. The <i>only</i> conclusion I can draw, is that the portions were much <i> MUCH</i> smaller.<br />
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I've dwelt on this, and I'm sure I'm right, The <i>plates</i> were smaller! Everything was smaller.<br />
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I was born fourteen years after the end of the second world war, but scarily, only five years after the end of rationing. My mother could make a shilling do the work of two and feed a family on next to nothing. My father was ill, for the whole of my life, but worked relentlessly. They had been through impossible to imagine hardship.<br />
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I'm absolutely certain that what to them was the untold luxury of unrationed food, of imported treats and the birth of supermarkets and frozen foods - to us, today, was meagre fayre still.<br />
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So I've got this theory I might be able to gain control by just eating like my parents did.<br />
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Fortuitously I found three plates sitting in the greenhouse which are more the size we used to have. They've had a good clean and are in the kitchen.<br />
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For lunch, I had a ham and tomato sandwich. Just that. And a cup of tea. It had un slimming world spread on the bread, but it was not accompanied by any extras.<br />
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For supper, I fished lamb chops out of the freezer - ours are huge by shop bought standards but we've still often had two each. One today, with plentiful vegetables and rather less potatoes - though it was the spuds which were always piled up to feed the men! The men, incidentally, had bigger plates. More the kind of size we now use. In a real nod back to childhood, there was bread and butter on the table, and the teapot warming for straight after the meal.<br />
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A small dessert of tinned peaches and one small scoop of icecream.<br />
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I struggle to find time in the evenings to do the things I need to do - study, do the garden, do some sewing - so I plan to simplify meals, and make them smaller. In summer, night after night we'd have salad - which amounted to plain cos lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, and a dab of salad cream - with some new potatoes and either ham, cheese, or egg. I see a few of those in our future. I can produce most of that!<br />
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We talked about packed lunches - one round of sandwiches - just cheese or maybe fish paste - a small slice of cake if you were lucky, and an apple. Neil can remember with his two brothers, having a bag of crisps to share!<br />
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I'm happily fascinated. I must dig out Nella Last. And get to using the small plates.<br />
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<br />Jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13320930325249337062noreply@blogger.com3