For anyone moving to—or dreaming of moving to—rural Portugal I would like to introduce to you my very dear friend, Joana, who has just launched her new business:

Portugal Green Heart

This new venture will see Joana offering Property Finding & Translator services to help you achieve your dream. In addition, she is also available to help businesses with Virtual Assistant and Art Services.

Joana is one of life's warm, kind, genuine people and I feel honoured to have called her my friend for more than a decade. Her passion for promoting rural Portugal is infectious and I know she will inspire you to explore the natural, slow and healthy pace of life to be found there!

Do check out her website for more information and find her on:

Facebook
Instagram

and here is a little photo of us together back in 2013!

My daughter has now turned 13 and I can hardly quite believe it. There are days when I long for my little baby, yet I remind myself that I have enjoyed every moment as much as possible. But still, time passes and I can't help but want to slow it down a bit.

Noting down some feelings about this stage—this stage of home-educating a teenager—I decided to send them to Ross Mountney. I've enjoyed sharing our home-educating journey on her blog over the years and you can read my latest post here:

Reflections on the Early Years

Ross's writings on home-educating are an inspiration and comfort to many and I always recommend her books to those dipping their toe in!

I have been sharing my story on Instagram in recent months… just working through a kind of potted history of my life so that people following can grasp who I am quickly in a series of short posts. It’s been quite a fun process, to ponder on the junctures in time that have most shaped me and to get those thoughts into a succinct 2,200 characters! I thought it would be nice to collate them all together here… I’ll add more as I write more.
 
Part 1: From the age of eight I grew up on an estate of straight roads and roundabouts in the centre of the new town of Milton Keynes. At one end of my street was a bridge leading to a mirrored mile-long indoor shopping centre and at the other, a path to a long-forgotten wood; a left over relic of an age before. This wood is the place that nurtured in me a love of nature. It was my quiet space, a place I could belong. Somewhere where nothing was expected of me, where I didn’t have to decipher feelings, instead I could just be. 
 
For me, seeking out time in nature means the melting away of everything: all tension, frustration, feelings of being overwhelmed by expectation and instead, giving myself over completely to the mountains, forest, sea – whatever it may be. It has always been a physical thing, a palpable slowing down of heart and mind. My body, coiled and tightly woven, slowly unravels, eases and unfurls. 

Throughout my life I have gone-a-wandering in order to attain this feeling because despite making conscious efforts to switch off, opt out, retreat from the incessant noise of everyday life, I still find myself submersed on occasion – rushed along with the tide – and always it has been my ability to disappear for a while that has kept me balanced. 
 
Sometimes it is still that snatched hour in the woods, but other times I need to go further, for longer, to achieve that sense of solace. To seek out the quiet and a place where I can think, undisturbed and un-swayed by the relentless drenching of the world out there. In nature there is space to be open, creative and unabashed, to let go of irritations and angers, escape judgment and feelings of inadequacy and when I am in that world - wholeheartedly submersed - I am free.
 
Part 2: When I left school at 16 I had no idea what to do, I knew only that I loved art and that it was one of the few subjects I did well at in my exams. I had a creative, wild mind that wanted to be challenged, excited, inspired... and so it was that I went to art college, but within a month that little journey was over. I felt stifled by the lack of individuality, controlled by the herding of creativity. I wanted to live; truly live, wild and free, so it’s no surprise that I chose love and music as alternative avenues for artistic expression – fuelled by a 9-5 secretarial apprenticeship – over the classroom. 

It was a crazy few years until my early 20s, where I lived the exciting and intoxicating life that happens in those hours when others are sleeping, but always – always – it was meshed together with taking myself out into nature even though, outwardly, that was not the world I was inhabiting. Something about the wide open sky, rippling water and overhanging trees where I would park my bike on the way home from work and lay for a while, alighted in me the ability to dream about the world and all its places and people.
 
“Let’s give up our jobs and flat and bus our way around Spain” I said with energy and excitement, but this wasn’t how it was to be and my dreams were shushed, so instead I would go from work to the library and devour books about people and place and observe the desire for more, begin to take root in my heart. It had been fun, living for the music, the night, the love... but it was no longer enough and so it was that through a chain of changes, I ended up at 23 on my way to Japan for six months. 

The new sights and smells played havoc with my senses... ramen noodles cooked ferociously for impatient businessmen in backstreet restaurants where grease and smoke clung to the air with a heavy sweetness, twilight strolls through Kyoto where Geisha girls moved hurriedly along cobbled alleyways, heads bowed. My hunger to see new corners of the world was finally being fed and I felt inspired and excited and... ALIVE.
 
Part 3: Six months in Japan confirmed to me that there was a world beyond what I had known, and I was hungry for more. I felt alive with possibilities and returned to my hometown with a spring in my step and a belief that I would get to my next adventure.

It was a dinner with ex work colleagues that eventually set me on a new course. “What job would you do if you could do anything” was the question and when it came to me I said, “travel writer”. Everyone laughed, “how on earth could you do that?” For a few minutes I felt embarrassed as I hadn’t told any of these people about my writing, but I proceeded to tell them that I’d just walked my way around London posting some of my published-in-the-local-newspaper snippets through the doors of travel magazines asking for a job (none replied). They all thought I was bonkers; all but one and sometimes, one is all you need.

As it turned out, the daughter of one lady had come along to the meal and she worked in the admin department of a company that published travel guides. “Let me put your CV forward” she said and a few months later, after an utterly nerve-wracking interview and training process where I felt completely out of my depth, I landed my dream job.

Canada, America, Thailand, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Greece… the list goes on. I travelled my way around these places with a backpack, notepad and pen, and a computer to type things onto at the end of each day. There was no phone, internet connection, satnav (yes I am that old) and it was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
 
When I eventually moved on from this job they said, “if your CV hadn’t come with a recommendation that you were truly passionate for this, we would have binned it at the first round for lack of degree and yet, you’ve become one of the best we’ve had.”  The lesson to take from this, I think, is: shout loud, be proud of who you are and what you want, know that you are worthy of your dreams and believe you can achieve them, because you just never know who is listening and taking notice of your unique, passionate self.
 
Part 4: By age 27 it was deemed by those around me as time to quit the travel writing job and ‘settle down’. As any wanderluster knows, this is not a phrase that sits well but, sometimes loved ones can overpower our thoughts… and I was lost, flailing about trying to form a picture of what a free-spirited life might look like and at times, acknowledging that the vision felt scary.

Settling down meant safety, didn’t it? It meant marrying my good solid boyfriend and having children. It meant the security of a nice two-up, two-down. It was what everyone around me was aiming for. This was it! So why did I feel empty when I considered that scenario?

It took a lot of dithering and heartache before I found the courage to say, “NO, this isn’t for me.” What I wanted was to be free: to walk, fly, take train rides, camp out under the stars, live in vans or on the side of mountains. I had no real plan, I knew only what my heart was hungry for and that I had to find a way to live that wouldn’t quash those desires.

But, like most people trying to follow their hearts, there are crappy times where you give up because, frankly, the what-you-know option feels like the easier option. So renting a room in a shared house and working a temporary office job I hated, was not the scenario in which I imagined meeting my now husband. But meet him I did and 17 years later, here we are.

In him I discovered my dare-to-dream-soulmate and within a year or so we were travelling to a Greek Isle to buy a little house in a village on a hill. This became the place to which we would return with our baby daughter, where we would marry and have a good ole’ party, dancing barefoot in our favourite restaurant to the tunes of a local bouzouki band. It was the starting place of our wandering family life; a life I had been led to believe wasn’t possible. But that’s how it started... and if there’s anything I would share from my experiences it would be: TRUST IN YOUR HEART. It’s not always easy and sometimes, honestly... it leads you in messy directions, but it is always exciting and energising and challenging and all.those.things.that.make.life... LIFE!

Part 5 to follow... #aliceisinwanderlandhistory

It’s 7am in the morning; dark skies and mizzly rain were not what we were hoping for. My husband, Scott, is rushing around in the stables with a headtorch on fishing out his toolboxes, our packed up awning, a chest of draws from my childhood and a table made by his Grandad, so they can be stored in our caravan that we leave here on this Buckinghamshire farm whenever we go away wandering.
 
Ideally the furniture would be in storage, but we can’t afford a storage unit big enough because already we’re taking money out of savings to pay for the small space we do have for our keepsakes. As tensions build and I get cross at Scott because he’s telling me to tip the sofa cushions up so he can pass things in - as if I’m not doing anything at all to help - I feel overwhelmed with our life and not for the first time, I imagine the simplicity of a 9-5 with a house and running hot water.
 
Our daughter, Isabella, is already nestled in our loaded car with the two dogs. At almost 13 and having spent her whole life packing up and un-packing to accommodate our travelling lifestyle, she knows now that the best thing to do in these moments is sit it out in the car. I trail back and forth, in and out, with last-minute bits, ‘I can’t fit this bag in the car’ I shout to Scott whilst simultaneously trying to slam shut the boot in frustration. I can almost look down on myself and see my eyes rolling, can feel the agitation that I’m directing towards him for no other reason than I’m tired and overwhelmed with the fact that despite supposedly being good at living with little, we still seem to have too much stuff. I want to stop myself, to slap myself and tell myself to stop being a petulant child trying to shove the blame, but there is nobody else to direct this frustration at. Our family and friends have no sympathy; this is the life we choose and rightly so, but when I think of all the delightful #vanlife and #simpleliving posts on Instagram, this scene is not what immediately springs to mind.
 
It’s hard being a travelling family, never quite staying put long enough for roots to take hold, never knowing where you might be from one month to the next, never knowing where your next pay cheque is coming from. The packing up and packing down is endlessly exhausting and at times I’m so angry at myself: angry for not being able to just get on, for the fact that I bore easily and never quite feel like I’m living if I’m not pushing myself to do something on the edge. As we finally close the boot and lock up the caravan door I know I should feel ecstatic relief, but instead I feel longing as we drive by the big houses in the village with warm welcoming lights on as people eat their healthy breakfasts before hopping in the car with their nice hair-dos and fancy clothes and going off to work. I want to feel release, but I don’t. Instead I immediately start outwardly panicking to Scott, reeling off the monthly outgoings we’re having to pay for, the storage, caravan, blah blah blah and knowing that my meager current earnings as a writer will only just cover this. ‘How will we pay for food? How are we going to live?’ I bemoan pitifully.
 
Scott stops me straight, he’s always good at that. I’m a blatherer, a day-dreamer, I get myself in an anxious tizz quite easily when it comes to mundane everyday stuff and he’s my leveler. ‘Look’ he says in a calm but firm voice, ‘we’ve made the decision to do this. We’ve made the decision not to get jobs and buy a house, not to get another boat. We’ve made the decision to keep going with this life and to go on this adventure, so let’s try and enjoy it, not talk ourselves out of it before it’s even begun’. I feel reprimanded, but know that he’s right. We had sat together and said we’d rather take money out of our savings pot to do something that feels right - right now - than take the safe option and try and do something a bit more settled.
 
Walking 994 miles to Portugal was a mad idea that I had back in December ‘why don’t we just walk back?’ I said flippantly as we talked about perhaps returning to a little village where we had recently spent a month in our camper, ‘we’ll walk back and rent a place and see what happens’. It all seemed so easy then, to just say it and then suddenly the dream takes shape and all the reasons why we want to do this snowball like; we might not have another perfect time like this again. Our older dog might not even want to be pushed in a buggy in another year, Isabella may want to stay put to study for something and and and… so we said sod it, we’ll spend the money and we’ll have an adventure! But right now, right here in this car, I’m thinking of how the hell we’re going to do it. It all feels too big, too scary, too unknown and whilst I’m trying to believe and listen only to Scott’s voice, my inner voice is panicking and I know outwardly I look frantic.
 
Then out of the piles of dog blankets and bags and food in the back of the car, pipes up Isabella in a funny long drawn-out voice, ‘all we need is each other’ and I see the white star glint on her teeth as if she’s in an American advertising campaign. We all laugh hysterically and it’s enough… It’s enough to remind me that life is short, that we are going on an adventure, that no – it’s not perfect and that yes, it would be nice to have a bit more money or less crap to store, but we’re doing it. We’re going on a walking adventure and we’re all together and we love each other and that after 12 years of wandering as a family in campers, caravans, narrowboats, volunteering and working and learning and growing, we’re taking it to the next level. We’re challenging ourselves even more and we’re going to find out how nice or horrible people are and we’re going to get to know ourselves even better and we’re going to delve deep, we’re going to connect and it’s true, we only need each other.

994 miles doesn’t seem like that far, when you break it down…
 
As a writer/researcher for a travel guide – way back when – I walked everywhere and would plan for around 1 mile every 15 mins. So, by that reckoning (and maybe my maths is bad)…

But given the fact I’m now in my mid-40s, certainly less fit and therefore probably can’t keep the pace of a mile every 15 minutes (and my husband falls into that category too), plus the fact that our 12-year-old daughter won’t want to keep that pace… and then add to that our two dogs – one of whom is nearly 14 (and when not walking will be pushed in an adapted mountain buggy) and the fact that we’re not planning to walk continuously every day, my thinking when I woke up in the early hours back in December consumed with the idea of WALKING… was that we could probably walk the 994 miles between Vimoutiers (the town in Normandy, France where we will leave from) and Penela, (a little town in Portugal that we’ll be aiming for) in around two to three months.
 
One foot in front of the other… slowly… how hard can it be?
 
I have dreamt of doing something like this for so long I can’t even remember… since I first read about Laurie Lee, who one sunny day in 1935 left his Cotswold village to walk to Spain, or Patrick Leigh Fermor who walked from Rotterdam to Constantinople in 1933, or Robyn Davidson who walked across Australia in 1977. 

The list goes on.
 
For me there is something so freeing about just walking. It’s time for the mind to uncoil, the body to unwind and feel connected: to landscape; to those we walk with.
 
It’s liberating to have nothing but a tent to sleep in, a small fire to cook on and a stream to wash in… but alas, I act as if I know about this day after day, night after night, when I don’t – and that’s the problem. I don’t want to not know anymore… I want to understand what it feels like to walk across a whole country, I want to soar with the eagles in the Pyrenees instead of just driving through the cuttings made by humans and I want to push myself through difficulties and feel real achievement.

I want to truly live in this present moment.
 
There is never a right time, I’ve come to realise. There is always something that isn’t quite right… but I just can’t wait another year. My husband is up for it, my daughter – on the verge of being a teenager – is eager to go on an adventure and considering that back in October I found myself crying because she was growing too fast and too far; it seems like a gift to spend this time together, doing something utterly life-changing.
 
So, that’s it. I’ve said it out loud. To myself, to my family, to YOU and that means it’s a dream set in motion, that I can’t now not go through with it and so I’m thinking of that number ~ 994 ~ and wondering what might happen in there - in those miles underfoot - and I’m excited and terrified and inspired and sick with fear.
 
But I’m going to do it, because life is so damn short and I can’t stand the thought of not trying, of not having a go.
 
I’m going to (attempt to) walk 994 miles to Portugal. ​

​A decade gone, a new one to begin and somehow it feels far more momentous than I had even really given thought to… to look back over ten years and think ‘what has it all been about; what will it all be about’ is quite something and it feels important to note down where I went, what I felt.
 
I remember back to the start of 2010 when, after returning from travels we sought to find a new way of living in the UK. We bought our first boat, renovated it and lived on the fringes glowing in the happiness that was discovering a world within a world. It was the year I first explored my local home-ed community, taking my then three-year-old daughter to a meet up where teenagers and toddlers played together, sloshing around in a muddy pond, talking with passion and liveliness and I thought, ‘we could do this’. We travelled to Norway to stay in a remote cabin with a four hour round walk to the shop, we camped our way through Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands. We spent sunny afternoons lounging on the towpath and the coldest winter I can remember, frozen in from November to January with no water and just the sound of ice cracking around our beds.
 
2011 was the year that felt tightened, where we bought a camper for trips around England to temper my flighty spirit. I tried hard to stay put and for a while it was important and necessary, to care for my best friend, but once she was better the familiar flutterings couldn’t be tamed and by the beginning of 2012 I was driving to Italy with my daughter to volunteer on a farm in the Appenine Mountains. It was here that I first began to explore my journey from vegetarian to vegan as I saw things up close and personal. It was here that I knew I simply couldn’t settle for just one kind of life.
 
In 2013, with a need to get away, to switch off, to inspire myself, I turned to my husband and said ‘I want to ask my Dad to go on a trip with me’ and he replied, ‘then do it, you might not get another opportunity’ and when I now look at my aging parents, I understand the preciousness of that experience. Me, my six-year-old daughter and my 74-year-old Dad, a plane to the bottom of Spain and a journey across and up by train and bus into Portugal… Notebooks filled with scribbles about life and loss and love and all that good stuff that is the fabric of a person that if we don’t write it down now, will unravel and be lost forever.
 
That trip led to the taking off once again of a family in a van… we travelled the UK, we travelled south: to beaches and forests, mountains and olive groves. We lived in a cabin near Carcassonne until we realised that for our daughter, it wasn’t enough and so 2014 became a tale of two halves… of trying to balance a life between another boat in the UK to suit her needs and the open road to suit all of us. It was driving north to south and back again, it was sleeping in our car in the Pyrenees, it was travelling by boat from Milton Keynes to Wales and back again, it was dusty tracks and watery roads, it was the nurturing of friendships and the blossoming of hearts.
 
By 2015 we had found a place to rest in Portugal - our quiet quinta - and so we continued the back and forth never knowing quite where we belonged or if we even needed to. It was chestnuts and horseriding, wild Welsh beaches and cityscapes, cooking on fires, here there and everywhere and then it was the longing for water again and by 2016 we were travelling from North to South on a narrowboat that had once been a floating hotel, to re-connect with our own country, our own people. Ourselves.
 
2017 saw more camper travels but hiccups and drama meant tiredness and apathy for our wandering life – it seemed the road was against us at every turn and the exhaustion pulled us down. We sold our dream in Portugal, breathed deeply in Andalusia at a place that is so special to us it’s hard to put into words and than in 2018 we ran back to lick our wounds in the UK close to those who needed us; and whom we felt we needed. The North York Moors became my blank page, where I could walk barefoot and write out endless sentences in my head without a soul to cloud those words. Where I could explore the meaning of family, the meaning of rootedness, the meaning of home.
 
2019… well, that’s just been about the journey within. It’s been – without my even realising it – the launch pad to a new decade. It’s the year I focused on yoga and healing whilst friend-hopping around Spain and Portugal with my daughter. The year I finally lived in the Scottish Highlands and it's the year we took a few months out in (another!) motorhome to recover from personal summer struggles and health issues, seeking out old friends and sharing many healing meals around many tables. It's the year we stumbled upon an amazing community in Portugal, a place we see ourselves going back to, but overall, 2019 has been the year that I made bigger decisions about my life, about who . I . really . am. 

Sometimes you have to go to places you don’t want to, uncover truths that are painful, to make decisions about what you really need and so I’ve let people gently fall away from me this year and I’ve sought out those who I know nourish me, reaching out for their love, support and encouragement. I’ve realised that blood is not always thicker and that that’s OK.
 
I’ve realised that I am OK.
 
So a decade… what does it mean? I’ve lived in France, Wales, England, Portugal, Scotland, Spain; in boats, caravans, campervans, cabins, cottages, tents and houses. I’ve taken myself away to be quiet, to reconnect. I’ve been in the thick of it, laughing around tables, sharing food and conversation. I’ve watched the most bouncy, fun-loving happy little girl evolve into an-almost-teenager who has an untameable spirit and an unstoppable passion that I know I helped ignite and I’ve never felt more proud of anything in my life. The dog that turned four in 2010 is now almost 14 and that makes me sad, but also incredibly lucky and of course, I’ve become Mum to another little pooch, sent to shake things up a bit I reckon. I’ve realised that I can commit, to a man I have loved for 16 years and that; THAT is home.
 
I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve screamed, I’ve fallen down, I’ve got back up again and I’ve FELT the beating heart of life all around me.
 
Some might say I’m scatty, unable to stick at anything, lost or just plain confused. I say I’m living. I’m just trying to find my way and when I sit here now; writing, reflecting, I think – how could it ever be any other way? There is a world out there. There are people just waiting to be met, experiences to be lived. How can I not have a hunger for it?
 
And so, 2020 is about clear vision. It’s about more adventures and whilst I can see what I’m aiming for with clear intentions, I’m not naïve enough to think I won’t be pulled off track along the way. And that’s OK… it’s all OK… because if I can reach 2030 with as much to look back on, as many smiles to re-live, as many great people to call my friends and with a continued openness to new ideas and willingness to work on myself, then I’ll take it.
 
Wishing anyone reading this a wonderful 2020 filled with amazing adventures and healing energies. May you have the strength to take leaps of faith, to try things and not worry about if they don't work out, because they ALWAYS work out as they should in the end. And may you believe in yourself, know that you are amazing and good enough for whatever it is you want to be or do.

May 2020 be the year we all strive for that which is important to us, without fear of anything at all. 

Exhausted from a broken night’s sleep in our van due to the relentless hum of an adjacent building, the morning sun lifts our spirits gently as we stroll down towards the Rio Tejo.
 
As we near the water there is a beautiful garden in bloom; bright orange flowers to the backdrop of higgledy-piggledy aged-terracotta tiles atop a crumbling white-washed cottage, and another, and another… all staggered downwards toward this magnificent body of water. We peer over the wall of the garden and spy neat rows of vegetables, trees laden with fruit and flowers bursting from pots and crevices.
 
The owner of the garden – his shirt front soaked with sweat, strong arms pulling an aged wheelbarrow behind – wanders slowly around the corner. He smiles at our admiration, lowers his barrow, removes his grubby straw hat and wipes his tanned forearm against a glistening brow.
 
He is slow, methodical, his soft voice like balm. “Falar Português?” he questions… and so we speak. With small sentences broken by actions he tells us how he has lived here for 24 years, at peace, happy. I envy his love for – his utter comfort with – being here now, perhaps forever. He talks about rain coming and how water from the mountains passes by his house like a torrent down to the river providing plenty of nourishment for his abundant garden. Mimicking rowing a boat down to the bank, we all laugh.
 
I could have stood with him for hours: his patience with our Portuguese, the mesmerising softness of his manner, the happiness that comes from standing in the glow of someone in love, and as I walked away I wondered if I might ever be lucky enough to find a place I love that much, a place to make me stay.

We look up to see the morning mist settled atop the valley as steep-sided pine, eucalyptus and oak-covered hills draw us downwards ~ we feel cocooned, underneath the world ~ we pass the shepherd and his goats, his dog Karillio gambols around with our two ~ we laugh and exchange pleasantries ~ turning a corner in the track, down and down we go until all we can hear is the rushing river ~ the ground is damp, the smell green ~ in the distance we begin to hear children laughing outside the white house with a turquoise-painted balcony ~ our daughter waves goodbye, joining the group for a day of learning together and as we make our way back upwards the sun begins to poke through and the sleepy morning valley opens up to blue skies and endless possibilities.

Sitting outside my caravan I hear the familiar undulating song of the skylark soaring high above. For me this is the sound of summer that always alights joyousness within my heart, yet this year there is also a stab of disappointment that summer has come and gone, grasped - it seems - in just a few fragmented moments.
 
I have heard them a handful of times: above fields as I have walked to catch my breath, high over Stonehenge on a hot day of travelling and of course, near to my caravan as I have washed clothes and cooked outside, and each time I have felt myself lost in a kind of melancholy. Our Highland spring - that feeling of quiet measured belonging - seems a lifetime ago in a world that is jumbled and fast.
 
But the skylarks… their intermittent song keeps me grounded for I am sure they sing with knowingness. They sing to remind us that even when there has been loss, there is always a chance to gain. They sing when spirits are low, pushing us towards a summit that is there behind the mist, no matter what private hill we are climbing. They sing to show us that we are just a part of nature; that there is no grand plan to life, no points system that brings you more or less. For me, the skylark sings to remind that life is arbitrary and that we must stop, listen, breathe, and simply try to be at peace with just having this moment.
 
So now, as I find my wheels turning through the golden light of rural France, I do my best to think on that song and simply enjoy the journey I am on. 

We all believe in something: nature, creation, love... sometimes I think all our gods are one and the same; only our perspective is different.
 
For us, it is landscape; that gentle reminder of smallness amidst vastness.
 
Whatever we believe, if it ignites hope and compassion in all that we do, then let it be.
 
“Reversible Cross” on sterling silver.

There is laughter and conversation between people from near, from far, both in physical and also in years. For a while I am silently absorbed in the moment, soaking up every smile, every line of face, every sentence, my face contentedly gleaming in the iridescent late evening light that is of the Highlands at this time of year.

I look around this wooden house with golden windows on every octagonal side and remember other tables we have sat at; other people we have nurtured a connection with, and feel a deep sense of comfort to know that there are pockets of people and place all over who still yearn for the traditional ways of communication; of spending time in a solid kind of honesty, together.

This table of larch – thick and sturdy – has ensured our acceptance into the fold and I run my hand over its smooth surface with gratitude. During the past two months we have shared meals and long conversations about both the trivialities as well as the deeper issues of life. Last night we sat mesmerised as we were introduced to the true meaning of a Ceilidh… not the group dances that take place in halls throughout Scotland, but the smaller, intimate gatherings lit up by song and story.

As we listened intently to the soft tones of Highland voice, my daughter rested on my knee, eyes glistening, bodies stationary – all of us in that deep state of rest that comes with the complete absorption of something magical – I thought: could we stay?

The connections we are making here, the joy we feel from community – of working through the difficulties and learning to accept difference – and the sense of achievement felt from splitting wood or turning compost; I find myself, in many ways, afraid to leave.

I walk through the landscape on a bright morning and soak up the tumbling bird song, babbling brook, brightest gorse, that silent shift of a deer in the undergrowth and trees that have cascaded into spring above the bluebells without my even being able to keep up. I marvel at the four seasons felt in one day and for a moment I think, ‘Alice, please stay’.

But then, as I turn the well-thumbed pages of an old copy of ‘A Croft in the Hills’, Katharine Stewart’s words about an impromptu camping trip to the West coast, to cook on a driftwood fire and sleep in their van, ring out in my heart:

“We loved our small house, every stick and stone of it … yet here we were, completely happy as nomads! We had unearthed an even deeper level of existence.”

and I know that soon we will move on again… to both return to those other people and landscapes we have fallen in love with, as well as to discover more. For we have gypsy blood and for every table we sit around, for every person who captures a piece of our heart, there is still a deep hunger for movement, to be free of all shackles and yet be tied to every . single . place . we come to land with an intensity that can only be achieved by passing through because these moments are held tighter, the experiences kept closer: never taken for granted.
​
But this Highland place, this glen, these people: I know they have weaved their way into our very beings and I know that this has become another stopping place on our wandering path: a root to our route, and somehow that thought brings me great comfort.

​When I work with wood I imagine life, with all its twists and turns; sharp edges, soft curves. Sometimes we are faced with a knot, or the knife slips and we slice something that we must then try to fix.
 
I work silently; sometimes for a while, just whittling and thinking. I ponder how we overcome adversity as I carve out an ever-changing shape, how we work out which road to choose: with or against the grain?
 
But mostly I see how life hands us raw material to work with and sometimes all we can do is chip away, sand and shape and do our best to make something beautiful.
 
“Orca” for Simon. 

And so we come to rest again… for a while… and I feel a deep sigh within; a contentment that we have come to a standstill in a place that takes my breath away. If there is anything I have learned in this past year of attempting to explore the idea of roots in the UK, it is that no matter the sentiment behind the desire, it is not possible to rest – however briefly – if a place does not take your breath away. For how can we grow an appreciation for life if our breath is not momentarily paused?

Here the colours draw me in… for hours I could lose myself within the purple, pink, brown, green and yellow hues of this diverse Highland landscape, and I know that within its embrace I am taking another step on my journey: I am absorbing, I am learning and I am figuring out the path step-by-step because I have come to realise that we can only do that.

Not one single person can know the destination at their beginning, for how can we predict what will happen during the in-between?

So as a family we are enjoying the rests along our many-stepped journey and learning to say, ‘right now, we are here’: here where birds of prey float effortlessly through the sky, where deer roam the woodland and pine martins run fleetingly across moonlit bridges; where silence is, at times, unsettling but also nourishing and where our dreams can be turned over and explored slowly, without pressure.
​
Oh, Scotland… thank you for allowing us to walk your lands, whether it be for a month or twelve.

The beach. Just the very word makes me sigh with a deep sense of comfort. For me there is something about it that draws you in; gives focus to the day. I only need to call out ‘shall we walk to the beach with the doggies?’ and all life springs into action.

I wonder, what it is about this stretch of sand and water at the end of a road that makes life feel so much more… together? I ponder as to whether it is simply the walking purposefully, knowing that you will – without doubt – reach your destination.

Lately I have longed for destination, to stand still and breathe. Life is about the journey, yes, but sometimes a journey can be in one place.

Over the years many places have made me want to stay for a while but always – always – it’s not long before I am bitten again by the urge to move on, endlessly enthralled by the idea that something else is waiting for me in some other destination.

Right now, though, I realise that seasons are another destination and having watched each one unfold in one country last year, I recognise my deep yearning to continue on that journey, that journey of standing still.
​
My six week road trip through Spain and Portugal, just me and my girls (daughter and doggies) ended at a beach house near Porto and the daily ritual of coastal walking gave me time to strengthen this conviction. The comfort of the beach as my definite destination each morning, each evening, gave rhythm to the day; to life, and so I end this road trip wondering if our next chapter will place me somewhere I can stay a while.

Driving the road we felt ourselves lean into each bend and curve, felt our ears pop as we edged higher and higher… me and my girl, journeying to find the end of the road. I needed to find the end of the road because for a change, I wanted to be somewhere. No onwards, no through, just the destination.

When we reached the silent village teetering between mountains I immediately pulled a chair outside the front of the tiny schist cottage we were renting and let the sun warm my face. I could hear nothing but the tuneful bells that rang every hour and the sound of a breeze blowing through the pine trees.

Pine River.

Shortly, an elderly lady strolled by in a black shift dress, jumper, wellies and a hat pulled down firmly over her sun-darkened face. A bucket of greens swung in her right hand and her mouth sang a happy “Boa tarde”.

I smiled and thought, ‘this is just what we need: Silence. Gentleness. Simplicity.’

When you live at the end of the road it seems that nothing else matters because all life is where you are, and why go backwards? As I watched daily life unfold I wondered if I could live in such a place; if I might ever find myself contented at the end of a road.

One evening by the light of the Wolf Moon we opened the door to traditional singers who sang happy words whilst thumping a paper drum, holding out a cloth bag for pennies. Neighbours leant out of top floor windows to shower down coins and we stood, mesmerised, watching and listening as they trailed through the village along the narrow cobbled streets.

The following afternoon as we walked our dogs around the surrounding hills we came across an old lady dressed all in black walking up the winding road back to the village, a two-foot pile of cabbage leaves tied to her head. We walked together for a while and with our combined Portuguese and Spanish abilities I discovered that she was 82. When I remarked on how fit she was she told me it was the mountain air that kept her strong and stopped in the middle of the road to do a sprightly little wiggle, arms and thick-fingered hard-working tanned hands outstretched, her face beaming.

As I look around I see people that are always striving for so much more: more belongings, more speed, more space, more likes, more filling-in-of-time and so many of us are always pondering as to if we – and our life – is enough.
​
It seemed to me during my time in a village that the map told me was the end of the road, that enough is that which keeps us sprightly, makes us smile, and it seems that perhaps it is found when the road reaches its final destination and we stop, look around and say: ‘this end of the road will do for me.’

​In an olive grove in Extremadura, the winter sun warming my face, the Serins and Sparrows chirping around me, playfully darting from apple tree to persimmon to olive, the undulating velvety green hills in the distance… I sit, motionless.

​Time drifts over me like air, thoughts come and go gently and I bask in the stillness of it all and yet, all-too-soon, I become aware that I am not doing anything, not even reading. I berate myself, inwardly battling with needing to do more than simply sit and yet reminding myself that I came here to sit. “Yes, Alice, you came here to meditate, practice yoga, study chakras and, ultimately, manifest your dreams for the coming year, remember?”
 
This ping-ponging of thought continues for a while as I acknowledge the enormity of recognising the need to shut down my everyday life for a while and I feel blessed that I have constructed my lifestyle in such a way that I can do this. Life can feel so loud, busy and overwhelming and yet so many of us solider on, forgetting what stillness feels like, forgetting what our inner voice sounds like.  I don’t want to forget for I know that here – within – is where the truth lies and that if I let it spin away from me too fast and too far, I may never be able to grasp that truth back.
 
So, I continue to sit and I tell myself it’s OK to have a break, to have time to focus on me. I look around, soaking it all up, listening and dreaming, understanding that no day can ever be lost. That even these slow silent days that seem somehow self-indulgent, go towards many other days that are not, allowing us to be the best person we can be so that can happen.

We live in a world where we are more connected than ever and yet at times, it feels like there is less connection. Close friends can feel like they are miles away, when in reality they are just around the corner and strangely, many of us find closeness in those on the other side of the world. The on-line brings us into each other’s lives, thoughts and feelings in a more open way; yet sometimes it feels we share less with those next to us.

​I often feel adrift: taking steps, losing my footing, tentatively stepping back in again… because like most people, I want – long – to feel connected, to share and be involved and yet, for me there is simply no comparison to a real hug, a real like and of course, real love.

We took our box of wooden handcrafted wares out into our community yesterday and it was heart-warming stuff. To see friends old and new, to feel the embracing arms of real flesh and to hear lovely real likes as we talked about our work, shared stories of our travels and told customers where their gifts started life, because it is important to us that they can hold that piece and feel the energy of where it came from.

One lady bought a simple pendant of olive in celebration of her daughter’s name. I told her where the wood had come from (Portugal) and she asked, ‘but how do you remember?’and I thought… because I know the story behind it, I know the olive grove, the memory of sitting and sanding, of hearing the breeze through the pine trees on the hill and the sounds of birds and next-door’s donkey. I remember the warmth on my skin as I worked. (My reply was a little more succinct!)

When you make something with your hands, there is a real connection to the creation and yesterday reminded us of how much we love that, for without real people to share real stories with, sometimes it can all be lost in a sea of beautifully-staged photos and mere glimpses into worlds we can never really know.

Perhaps, for me, this is the limitation of the on-line world, where celebrations, commiserations and jubilations are shared in short sentences, or even shorter reactions, when what I long for is conversation.

Yesterday my conversations introduced me to Sew & Grow where I peered into dye baths and touched beautiful products, but mostly felt the enthusiasm of the creator that simply does not come through in a photo. I was also inspired by Vintage Knit & Sew and her passion to re-use what we already have in circulation – we must! – and consequently we now feel a deeper sense for the need to try and source second-hand chains for our jewellery.
​
Connection, for me, is something you can touch, see and feel. It’s all around us if only we step out and submerse ourselves in it, make time for those friends around the corner, take our wares out to be seen by real eyes. This world here on the screen is wonderful and wide and opens doors to opportunities and friendships we might never have had, but the smaller world, the world we all have outside our door, well that is just – if not more – as important and it feels good to find yourself in the heart of it.

“I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness.” ~ Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust (A History of Walking)

Lately I’ve been walking as a way to find some space, to help me pull words together for the book I’m working on. I stroll briskly, usually from the field where my caravan sits, through the woods and fields in a loop or sometimes to the next village, and back again. Last night it was almost dusk as I set out but I could still see the hedgerows beginning their giving over to the autumn palette, the hawthorn and rosehip berries ruby red and ripe. There were even some huge blackberries still hanging on. It’s been such a hot summer and everything seems to have come and gone in a rush.

As I walk I remember how much and how far my legs carried me when I worked as a travel guide writer. The roads and pathways from country to city that I would pound armed only with my pad and pen. I think about how strong I was then and long to be strong again. Lately I have felt weakened by the inevitable pressures that life throws at us – all of us in one way or another – and those carefree memories of myself sometimes feel so far away: untouchable. I look at the little wooded dells of green and imagine just curling up in them for the night. I think about Patrick Leigh Femor walking to Constantinople – across Europe in winter – and wonder if I will ever get to do a walk that long. One day I would like to. I see rubbish in the bushes and ponder for how many years it will pollute this landscape – oh what us humans have done.

The fields are mostly bare now; harvesting is over. No more the sounds of combines and tractors working late into the summer evenings and I feel a deep loss for the long hot days we have had this year in England, for the eating outside for seemingly unending evenings and I recognise that old familiar melancholy for autumn deep in my heart. But the breeze is still warm; so warm, so I close my eyes to it and bask in its serenity.

Just before I reach the village a large group of crows fly over, squawking and cawing, and I am reminded of camping out beneath a rookery in Norfolk. I turn to begin my walk back, pausing first beneath their swell, watching them move together, working out where they are to roost for the night. I envy their living in the moment, for the moment. I walk again and hear a rustling in the hedgerow, it sounds large so I kneel down, stinging myself. I wonder if it’s a small deer but I can’t see. An owl hoots behind me and a pair of pigeons fly out of a low tree, their unmistakable flapping bringing an eeriness to the darkening sky that makes me feel suddenly vulnerable.

Ahead I make out the treeline and love that I know the shape of my field. I hop over the gate and walk – alive and refreshed – back to my caravan and the light and laughter of my family preparing to turn in for the night.

It’s the lying back… it takes a while you see; to truly trust the sea. For me it happens slowly – inch-by-inch – that relaxing my body into salty water. As it gently laps against my face I am still aware of a tension in my neck, conscious that I am holding my head defiantly; resisting ultimate conclusion.

With a desire for harmony, first I stretch out my legs and watch my toes float up. Keeping my arms gently waving at my sides I stay there for a moment… half fighting, half giving over, knowing that I desperately want to surrender but never finding the right moment.

After a while I know it’s time and as I let my neck relax fully, all pressure releases and I float backwards into the water. My ears begin to fill; slowly at first and then in that final release – that ultimate giving over – completely, until there is a soft muffled pop and I am there: total and utter release, pure silence, serenity.

My body motionless, my arms still, I am aware only of the gentle water, the deep heartbeat of the sea. We are in unity… and I am free.
​
Floating there I know that in life too I must remember to trust more, let things flow over me, for it is futile to try and control destiny. I ponder about contentment being achieved only when we become totally and utterly unafraid of the giving over of ourselves.

​The rumble of noise dissipates. Bright lights, the seduction of all you are told you want or need spinning around; finally trails away. For a moment – in that moment – I had become briefly blinded as to how life can be but now, now the window is rolled down and the night air is warm.

I tip my face to the stars as our little rental car climbs and climbs and I realise that I am free again; that I can breathe again. I am aware that my lungs, recently so constricted with anxiousness, are instead open and infused with the scent of pine and eucalyptus. My ears, dulled by the din of expectation, are now alive with the sound of cicadas.
​
We arrive in the dark, following our host down a long and dusty track flanked by shadowy hills and grapevines and there is something unbelievably sweet about not knowing exactly what is out there, trusting only in our non-seeing senses.

Outside this simple home on a ranch in Catalonia we play cards and lounge on the swing chair until the early morning hours and those senses tell me to remember that this is how life can be and deep in my heart, I know that I have been away too long.

We walk, and talk. About being wild, being female. 

We talk about wonder and love and pain. About falling down, grasping our way back up again. 

We talk about nature, bounty, beauty… strolling slowly, pausing when a point needs to be made more pressingly. Munching blackberries, squeezing sloes, marvelling at oaks, silver weed soft in my palm, thinking about pilgrims.

I walk barefoot through a soft field and remember a book I love, about what it means to be a true ‘Nature Girl’, “wild and free, completely unattached, except for a love of life, animals, nature and a few of the right kind of people” (Juliette de Bairacli Levy) and I know that she is one of those right kinds of people.

Sometimes there are no photos; only words. Yet in a world that demands to see perfection created through endlessly compelling composition are words, anymore, enough?

Yet, can a photo really show you how the wind felt on my face ~ soft, airy and filled with fine grains of sand ~ as I sat against the grassy cliffs?

Can a photo tell you what I was thinking ~ freedom is to fly; to lose all sense of anything else around you and let this world we have constructed of noise, shopping trollies, bricks and wheels, fall away ~ as I tipped my head back to watch a white seagull soaring against a silent blue sky?

Can a photo really convey the look ~ sincere, compassionate, kind ~ as heartfelt words were shared, or how a hand felt ~ strong, safe, secure ~ within mine?

Can a beautiful photo of a beach, somewhere on the North Yorkshire Coastline, convey how it truly made me feel ~ humbled, centred, calmed, thankful?
​
There is no photo, there is no trace
for I left everything behind today
to simply lay
in the sand
and let my dreams take shape. ​

Restful, deep breaths, a temporary equilibrium that feels easy. Water runs, heat burns; everything is stable and stationary. 

There is comfort in this state for it brings a silencing of wired thoughts and yet… there is the constant danger of boredom lurking on the horizon. It’s been too long that my water has not run, that heat has been created with my own hands, that my view has changed daily, for me to fall willingly into the arms of something so… predictable.

These months here in a house between the moorland and coast of North Yorkshire have forced me recognise that my hunger for the road is not simply for the sake of travel, but more importantly: the sake of connection. Connection . to . every . small . seemingly incidental action that we open ourselves up to when we wander; when we make life tiny, yet wide, because there is the realisation that we are forever living in the moment.

Living in a house the moment can be lost within the ease of it all and yes, that can be welcome: to know that when travel fatigue sets in you can put a key in the door behind which you might find familiar pictures and books, cushions and blankets, a writing desk and typewriter and know that it is possible to stop, burrow down, rest.

And yet, I find myself periodically running to our caravan tucked away in the corner of a field in the South of England so that I might fill up water containers, feel the wind all night long and be connected to life and when there I find myself dreaming rose-droplet-framed dreams about the road: about campfires and weathered faces; conversations and music, and I know that this house-living-lark could never be every day.

Forever.

Can anything?

If it can then surely we are heading speedily towards death.
​
And so, as a family, we adjust to the knowledge that we are here, find joy in the vegetables growing at our allotment and tentatively allow our roots to venture a little below the surface and yet, also remind ourselves that there will always be a need for us to go away… to walk barefoot, wash our clothes in a bowl, cook on one ring and wake up together overlooking the sea. Because we are travellers, wanderers, gyspy souls and it is the call of the road that makes us know we are alive.

Wandering = Movement = Freedom. It is a stretching of limbs, and of mind. It is never standing still for long and yet, standing still long enough to breathe. Mountain, moorland, coast, forest, meadow… walkways, waterways, roadways; the life of a wanderer is a perpetual anticipation of next steps and new adventures.

Perhaps the attraction is in the new? The erasement of that which you do not want to remember because you find yourself lost in the absolute freshness of possibility. It is a running away; a running to, and I have a hunger for that lightness of step – that release – that comes, both physically and mentally.

The wandering life is lived deliciously simply, out of a bag… once upon a time (for me) on foot, but as a family: in a van, cabin, boat, cottage, caravan… shared houses; shared spaces – so many places and people found, so many adventures that have grown within us like a patchwork quilt and so many experiences we are endlessly glad for and yet, like any life there are periods of unrest… the flailing about on an unknown path without destination, the night-time awakenings given over to creatively developing ways to sustain such a lifestyle and then there are the waves of uncertainty, wondering whether the wandering life still works for the whole family.

On a practical level, living from here to there brings challenges… there is water to be collected, waste to be disposed of, laundry to be done with cold red hands – either from hand-washing or dragging a bag to the laundrette in mid-winter. Food must be prepared and cooked in tiny spaces and higgledy piggledy places while crafts, projects and colouring are limited and put out or put away to accommodate. Beds are endlessly made up and down whilst stepping over dogs – and each other. Pans and kettles are boiled for washing up… and washes, for showers can be taken only when there is enough solar power. There is paperwork in foreign countries; translations, invitations, conversations… a combination of sometimes wonderful, sometimes tiring things, because the tiny little incidentals can loom large when you’re out of your comfort zone… and there is the endless packing up and unpacking; forever losing and finding.

For ten years now as a family we have wandered. Sometimes standing still, but never for too long and for any hardship this life has presented, there have been more than enough joys to balance it out. For every irritation such as living without running water for weeks on end because the canal has frozen, there has been felt a sense of accomplishment for being independent and resourceful. For every night spent uncomfortable, tired and lost on the road, there have been ten heart-stoppingly beautiful stopovers that remind you why you do what you do. For every anxiety arising from living in a different country there has been a cultivation of pioneering spirit and a warmth from locals that restores your faith in human nature… for every mean person, there have been five beautiful souls and for every frustrated word (or ten!) flying around our tiny spaces and big dreams, there has been nurtured a deeper love, admiration and respect.

However, recent months saw our path edging into a different space and it has taken a while for us to navigate this changing route, to acknowledge our collective desire to stop, root down for a while, maybe even think about belonging somewhere for a while, in our own country. We don’t know for how long we will need this, but we know that finding ourselves in a house nestled in a village between the sea and moors of North Yorkshire, feels right. We know that for a while, having some comforts and space feels as exciting as running away. We know that the connections our daughter yearns for at this stage in her life are valid and that being close to our extended family is important and we imagine (hope) that having such endless and boundless beauty on our doorstep where we can seek out plentiful micro-adventures, will allow us to weave these wandering hearts into our new chapter of standing still.