Friday 1 March 2013

Looks like we made it...

Two years ago we set off in our campervan which had been condemned to being unlikely to get out of Sussex on an adventure. We had no savings, our mortgage was being covered (we hoped) by renting out our house to possibly the least reliable tenants ever along with their pet ferret. We were planning to stay with a selection of people we had never met but made contact with by email on the basis that if we did a few hours work for them each day they would feed us and we didn't quite know what we wanted to happen to us at the end of it all.

When I put it like that I can understand why people who loved us were actually pretty worried about what would become of us!

The fact is those same people could choose to frame their thoughts about us now in several different ways. They could be horrified that the flight of fancy which carried us off two years ago has led to us living on top of a muddy hill on a remote Scottish island with only 40 people, with just one 12 hour a week job between us, no electricity, running water or toilets.

Or they could be mightily proud of where we're at just now. We did indeed escape the rat race, the traffic jams and the wage slave mentality. We totally found the place where we get to be pioneers, write our own destinies, fix our own futures and make up our own rules. We do live off grid, somewhere beautiful and spend our days meeting our basic needs and following our dreams. We are in touch with the land, nature, the seasons, the world around us. We have heads and hearts full of memories, experiences and adventures, stories to tell, anecdotes to share and photos to show.

We got to John o Groats, saw out out WWOOFing, lasted the challenging hosts and learnt all those lessons. We scraped together the coppers and stretched our budgets thanks to reduced to clear bargains, finding fun in the free stuff and meeting some amazing people along the way. We could have stayed in our jobs and our house but we'd never have met that bloke who was walking100 miles and needed a tent peg we were able to give him, that woman climbing a mountain on Skye who I shared my philosophy of those who need to reach the top of peaks and those who are happy to pause midway and appreciate how far they have come. We'd not have met the people who are sending us a compost loo, or who told us about the croft on Rum, inspired us with their amazing organic veg box business or their microholding on just 1 acre. We'd never have spent time with that community who live off grid and taught us their mantra of 'love the hill' or the family who live so remotely in Wales that their kids didn't know what a zoo was. We'd not have learnt - and taught - in all those places to all those people.

And so to Rum, where a mix of blind naiivity and foolhardy optimism led us to believe we can make it. Despite so many people looking at us and either wrongly assuming we had an inkling what we were doing or merely expecting us to fail. To not make it. Yet, we got through that first summer, survived the midges. We faced those autumn equinox winds, took down the clock from the wall and sat up watching the walls flex and the roof rattle. We lasted that winter, wiped down those windows, wrung out those chamois and threw out the belongings which were claimed by mould. The static not only reached Rum it eventually reached the croft. We have light, heat, power. Sure we run a generator most days but we are also taking solar power, gathering our water from the river or harvested rainwater. We still buy in animal feed and have not even scraped the surface of starting our self sufficient journey but we are far from just talking the talk these days.

I think those who love us will be looking at us now and feeling proud. Proud of our children for making this their island; for packing their rucksacks and heading off with their dog on adventures. For viewing every day as an opportunity to learn, to explore and to discover. Star told me today that when she grows up and has children she is *definitely* taking them off travelling in a campervan and home educating them in the exact same was as she has been home educated. Dragon told me that no matter what happens he will always feel his home is here on Rum and while he intends going off to see loads more of the world this is where he'll always come back to.

I think they will be proud of Ady and I for changing our lives. From being overweight, unfit consumers to fairly hardy survivors, doing whatever it takes to carry on providing for our family. Chopping firewood to keep them warm and collecting water from the river rather than going out to work in meaningless jobs to pay the electricity bill and the water rates. Proud of us for not sitting moaning about local council policies and government directives but instead being vocal members of our own community and helping to decide structure, policy, charges, priorities. Taking charge of our world and being the change we want to see in it. Spending our time not sitting infront of meaningless TV shows or reading other people's news in tabloid papers but writing our own newsletter and helping to manage the community website, sitting on steering groups and being voluntary directors of the boards taking new ideas and enterprises forwards.

We're not getting it right every day, we're still a full ten years (maybe even eleven!) from where I'd like to be in ten years time but we're making every day count, every week worthwhile and every month one to remember. I hope you are proud of us, because we're pretty proud of ourselves and where we've got to so far. And as the daffodils push through the grass and the met office claims it to be the first day of spring the knowledge that we did indeed do that first winter will keep us warm through any cold nights the spring has to throw at us!

11 comments:

  1. You should feel proud of what you have achieved as a family.I have been following your journey through your blog,getting a taste of your life and the successes and challenges you have faced along the way and mentally cheering you on from the sidelines.Well done for striving for your dreams and giving your children such a unique grounding to their life :)

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    1. Thanks Dreamer, it's been an amazing adventure so far and when I talk to Dragon and Star and hear how enthused and passionate they are for what we do I know we are making the right choices for us all.

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  2. You should be very proud of your adventures and all that you have achieved. I love reading your blog. Thanks for sharing your journey x

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    1. It's a pleasure - I think sharing it makes it more real for us too somehow. I love the comments and feeling there are others along with us for the ride.

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  3. I really enjoy reading your blog too. Inspiring to read of a family doing what so many of us only talk about. Hope you are going to write it all down and publish your book someday :) x

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    1. Thanks Sandra, I'd love to publish a book one day, it's long been an ambition, way before I had such a lot of content to put in it!

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  4. you guys are inspirational :) I love hearing how you are doing and wish we could feel further along the road to self sufficiency. I managed a little bit in the allotment today with baby on my back, which has got us talking about how we might be able to do a bit of WWOOFing. Possibly even Steward Wood ?! we just need some more off-grid contact after so long (completely needed at the time) in a house, and before baby gets on his feet....

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    1. I was reminiscing about Steward Wood to someone just the other day and it's been in my heart again this week as we get close to two years ago that we were there for a cold fortnight in March 2011 in our tent! A magical place where I am sure you can't fail to be inspired by the people, the landscape and the spirit of pioneers and adventurers that linger there in those woods...

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  5. So brilliant to see the perspective of your journey over two years and all you've achieved. We currently have a camper van with a hole in the bottom (but not in a super important place..), but the plan to be out in it by the summer, hopefully coming up your way! Abi and Alexa xx

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    1. Fantastic! Not the holey bottom but the prospect of seeing you guys up here! xx

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  6. I think of you pretty much everyday. So many talk the talk. So few walk the walk.

    When I fret about social contact in home ed land I think of you guys and how you seem the happiest of all.

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