Just Humans Being...

Cabin life... For years, we have felt the need to shut out the light from our bedrooms. We truly believed that our inability to sleep solidly was due to our curtains not being thick enough, long enough, wide enough... And yet here we are; over 10 months without curtains in a south facing cabin with many windows, lots of light and we sleep so well!  At a time in our lives when many folks of our ages are wakeful or needing the loo in the middle of the night...as we did before living here. We now sleep soundly and only extreme weather (torrential rain or howling wind) has disturbed us.  We don’t have any electricity around our bed. Our wooden cabin doesn’t have any built-in sockets and our only electric cable is in the kitchen, which is at the opposite end of the cabin. The fridge is the only thing that remains on at night and we switch everything else off...absolutely everything; including our phones and we pack all our devices away each night. We use candles, tea lights and torches on

When we think about all the wonderful opportunities that come our way, we sometimes have to pinch ourselves...what an incredible life we have created together! This is the beautiful place we are taking care of at the moment and although it's been a while since we were last here, it has felt like coming home and our furry friend has been very happy to see us. The huge garden is a peaceful haven for wildlife and it's a joy to wake up each morning to hear and watch the birds and squirrels feed, potter and play. There is also an abundance of butterflies and bees...being surrounded by nature is very much home from home for us, as our Cornish home is also a quiet haven with many birds, bees and butterflies.  Woodpecker Red Kite Our lovely furry buddy... enjoying some snuggles. Our roles here are to firstly doggie sit (feeding, walking and snuggling), then take care of the vegetable garden, feed the birds and look after the house. We do love all our work - helping others comes natural

  More pics of our wild garden. We are going with the flow and creating little pockets of growing areas without getting concerned about timings; happy to just see what happens. Sweetpeas along the path to the cabin. We have around 30 tomato plants, which we have repotted for now and they continue to live in the workshop until the posts for the polytunnel/greenhouse come to us...which they will! Creating another no dig area. We have lots of fruit vines, which we are gradually getting tied up. The bees are loving the wild flowers, so we are leaving them in place. Floober Toobs overseeing everything in his most regal way. Not easy to see on this photo, but the Globe Artichoke is looking quite magnificent and is already over 6 feet tall.  We have lots of raspberries and red campions fast taking over the chard and kale area, but we seem to be still getting some nice edible greens, so we are happy. Yesterday was very hot and having a south facing garden means there is only shade early mornin

Taming some of the wilderness! We have started clearing little areas and putting in a variety of plants we have very gratefully received. (Thank you Sadie and Amy!) We haven't pruned the raspberries, but Sime was eager to get them tied up. We are using some scraps of recycled fabric as ties...I think seams and cuffs from our friend, Kath who makes fabulous patchwork quilts and all sorts of beautiful fabric art from recycled material.  Compost Corner. Inside our bin...we started this one 7 months ago and we are already getting some lovely compost. We only put in raw vegetable and fruit waste, which we layer with brown paper, newspaper and cardboard. Garden waste is put into a separate open heap and seems to rot down pretty fast. Making progress in what will become our hybrid greenhouse/polytunnel... We have the side panels and hoops ready to go on and the roof will be made from the old polytunnel plastic sheet - just need the supporting posts to hold it all together. Some views from

 Holidaymakers are swarming down to Cornwall, so we are enjoying a couple of days being homebased and it's finally warm and dry... instead of the cold, wet and windy weather we have had over the last weeks or is it months? We have much to do in the garden  jungle, and after being crazily busy for what seems like forever - we were dreaming of spending some quality time at home with the kitties, pottering about outside...and now we have exactly what we have been craving. Yesterday we visited our local farm shop and for the first time we bought some Green Wheat Freekeh from Palestinian company  Zaytoun  and we love it! We cooked up some spicy veggies and added the soaked Freekeh at the end and served on a bed of salad and topped with chopped coriander. We have also been experimenting and decided to have a go at making our own version of a vegan frittata using silken tofu and buckwheat - it was delicious! We'll make it again and share the recipe soon. The weekend wouldn't be co

  One thing we learn from spending time with older folks is how NOT to live! We are well aware that we are not like most people and our views on life are probably very different, but is it not weird that so many people happily follow the path of many others? All with similar jobs, houses, cars, clothes...all influenced by something they’ve seen on TV or read in a magazine. Groups of similar aged people all wanting the same; conforming to what they feel is expected of them without question. We can only imagine what it is like to feel the sort pressure that would make someone want what others have and slipping into a strange world where everyone is the same. We only catch glimpses of these lives and from where we are standing the results are not looking good. There are many lists out there for improving lives with recommendations for happy and healthy retirements; most of them are quite twee and superficial, so we thought people need to know what not to do!!! Without further ad

We take much pleasure in this view...The gateway to our plot. Yesterday we had a lazy day, after a few days of being on hand 24 hours a day supporting a client. We have spent time looking at the garden and thinking about our plans for the little caravan, which was originally used (by the previous dwellers) as guest accommodation.  We would like to eventually wood-clad it and use as a potting shed, freeing up the workshop for other things and as the farm has a hostel and camping field, any folks wishing to stay have those options instead of this little caravan, but we would highly recommend a visit because it really is a lovely place to be. Have a little look at  Holifield Hostel   It was built by the community using reclaimed wood from Falmouth Docks and we believe it's going to become a very popular holiday destination, especially as it's already getting booked for the summer! If you are planning a trip to Cornwall - come and see us...you will of course not only be immersed in

There are several growing areas on our plot, so we have decided that the veg bed directly outside the cabin will eventually become a flower bed and picnic area.  The kitties love this space and we have the bird feeders here too.  Our French windows need fixing and then they will open out on to what we hope will be a pretty little space for us all to chill out. We think the bin lid may make a nice bird bath, which Sime wants to set up on a plinth. Our plan for the old polytunnel space is to make a greenhouse, using recycled panels. We are a bit late with getting our seeds going, but so far we have tomatoes which will go into the greenhouse plot and leeks which we plan to put amongst the rather overgrown plot of raspberries and assortment of greens... We are spending a lot of time away at the moment; caring for one of our clients; giving his family a break...it's not quite how we imagined this year to be, but as always, we go with the flow - the garden isn't going anywhere and wi