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Showing posts with the label Simplicity

The Rhythm of Life

We are back in Devon on one of our regular pet sits and after arriving a couple of days ago to torrential rain and flooding...we woke this morning to blue sky, sunshine and a beautiful mist across the valley.  After our early walk we jumped into the hot tub to make the most of this glorious weather, soaking up the warm rays from the sun and marvelling at the clear blue sky - a rare occurrence these days! We are here for 6 days and arrived with everything we need for our stay - our intention being to use this time to completely chill out and enjoy the peace and quiet. It's great that we both feel the same way and neither of us has a desire to race around sightseeing. Instead, it is a real joy to get into a rhythm with the animals, walking, cooking on the Aga, eating, reading and spending time in the snug by the fire in the evenings. Every day is pretty much the same and that's just fine by us...we always bring lots of books with us and the dogs love to snuggle in the snug... Thi

Cabin Life

We have been in the cabin for 4 months and it is wonderful to think that we are just a few weeks away from spring, not that we are wishing our lives away - because we absolutely love this cosy little place and as serial hibernators, we are very happy to be warm and snug. Choosing to live simply has exceeded our expectations and we have been on this journey since leaving Meadowcroft 4 years ago.  Our time at Cotna Eco Retreat  gave us a great grounding and enabled us to start preparing for this...outdoor facilities, mud and nature!  Simple rural living can be a challenge in the winter, but we are strong and more resilient than ever, which feels so good. We are doing exactly what we have dreamed of for many years... One of many lovely messages left behind by the previous cabin dwellers. Here we keep our recipe and natural health books...we are very passionate about food and nutrition, as you may know and seeing this message everyday has probably had quite an impact on us.  Like many peop

New Home

For some strange reason Blogger has decided to censor this lovely quote from James Allen... If anyone out there can tell us why, we would be very grateful.   Cherish your visions;  Cherish your ideals;  Cherish the music that stirs in your heart,  The beauty that forms in your mind,  The loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts,  For out of them will grow all delightful conditions,  All heavenly environment;  O f t hese, if you but remain true to them,  Your world will at last be built. ~ James Allen ~ We have written many posts about how we have always spent time together "scheming an' a dreaming". We still have the book we wrote our list of 101 goals from over 10 years ago and we are always pleasantly surprised when we dig it out that we can tick off a few more! Amongst the completed goals we have: Live by the sea  Own a house in France Live on a mountain Live in a wooden house Grow our own vegetables Recently, we thought again about living in a wood cabin...influen

Embracing Life at Home

We realise just how lucky we are to be living in the countryside. Lockdown for us is quite different and although, like lots of other people, we have lost the majority of our income - we find it easy to adapt and already live very frugally... Our work on the outside world has reduced to one day a week and instead, we are able to help out on the farm in return for rent and some food. We have an organic veg and fruit box still being delivered to supplement what is available here and have no need to venture out to supermarkets or nearby towns. Those of you who know us are probably aware that we are not big supermarket shoppers anyway, so we feel no loss for them.  We don't have a freezer and cook from scratch, often making extra for the next day.  We eat simply...oats for breakfast, homemade sourdough for lunch and usually rice, quinoa or very occasionally pasta for dinner. All served with fresh veggies and pulses. Easy.  We've already dried a jar full of you

Finding Joy In Frugality

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly."  ~ Bertrand Russell~ Buying our French house was a dream come true for us and something we have talked and blogged about a lot since we started out with Just Humans Being. We stopped buying trivial stuff years ago and instead focused on what we really wanted...A tiny house in France and a decent energy efficient car to travel in.  Our plan finally materialised last year and it fills us with joy that we made this happen. We intend to "creep and go" with regards to furniture and any decorating, as most of you know - we rarely rush into anything! On our recent visit, we bought a second hand table and chairs from a wonderful resource centre - La Ressourcerie du Pont in Le Vigan. We had visited twice before on previous trips to the Cevennes, but never found what we wanted, but it felt very important for us to support the centre, as t

The Year Of Buying Nothing

This year we have vowed not to buy anything other than food & really essential things. This also stands for both of our birthdays, so we've got to be creative. Mine's coming up soon & I've asked Sime to write me a story & make me a meal consisting of several courses. Though saying that, I'm not sure whether I could eat several courses anymore... Maybe it would have to be tiny courses! What we hadn't contemplated - is that our vegan diet would make us lose weight... The trousers I've been wearing today are now a couple of sizes too big & hanging off me, so because I really don't want to go down the road of buying more - Sime has sewn a couple of tucks in them for me tonight. Where has that flesh gone to? It's not like I'm working out - though I suppose we are more active. When I first became ill with Graves Disease, I lost about 3 stone & looked dreadful (as everyone kept telling me). The disease causes muscle wasting, which lef

Making Do

It's great how quickly we've adapted to living without the central heating...  The three of us just wear lots of layers & Hugo gets into his sleeping bag if needs be. The only problem we find now is going into places that are heated - it kills us! We don't really walk around towns much, but when we did before Christmas - it was unbearable... And the funny thing was, it seemed that it was only us that suffered. Being out in the fresh Cornish air is much more fun... We've embraced life on a budget.  We think about how often we travel into one of the towns (the nearest is St Austell) & seem to need very little. We had already bought large bags of pulses & grains in November, which will keep us going for weeks yet & we have  an organic veg delivery each week, so our outgoings are very little - which thrills us! When we do get busy again in the Spring, we are going to make an effort to continue eating home cooked food -  No more eating out willy-nill

This Evening...

We are here. Kay & Sime xx