Just Humans Being...

As lots of you will be aware...we eat porridge every day. When we go away, we take all our ingredients, pan and utensils so we can continue to eat it on the road. We have recently introduced various hosts to the benefits of eating a daily bowl of what we call superfood porridge and have gone through the recipe with them, but we did promise to make a video too, so here it is! It's funny, but we still get contacted by old blog followers and B&B guests from years ago asking us for a reminder of the recipe.  Simon made it back then and would beautifully hand write the recipe out for anyone who requested it. One guest wrote to say after using Simon's recipe for years, she went and knocked a cup of coffee over it and could no longer read it, so this spurred us on to create a copy on our laptop and now we just press a couple of buttons and off it goes attached to an email (yes, we realise this technology has been around for a while, but still - it's a cool id

All you need is the plan, the road map and the courage to press on to your destination. ~ Earl Nightingale ~  We are pretty sure that we have covered this subject before... We absolutely love road trips and they start as soon as we close the door at home. We focus on the journey, rather than the destination. Sometimes the journey turns out to be completely different than we expected, but it never matters. What is important to us is that we enjoy it. Being on the road lights us both up - the amazing places we come across and the people we meet, the new friends and connections we make - it's all wonderful.  Even when we set out to explore a place only to discover that we have been there before, which seems to happen a lot lately...Hahaha!!! It makes us sad that most people are so keen to get to their destination as quickly as possible, they miss out on so much. Folks who drive long hours don't seem to think of their journey as part of their trip

"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

We need to understand that all species are related to each other, all of us have evolved together. The sun heats the soil, the soil feeds the trees, the trees feed the birds, the rain feeds the trees. All beings nourish each other. This is ecology. ~Satish Kumar~

All civilisations are impermanent and must come to an end one day. But if we continue on our current course, there's no doubt that our civilisation will be destroyed sooner than we think. The Earth may need millions of years to heal, to retrieve her balance and restore her beauty. She will be able to recover, but we humans and many other species will disappear, until the Earth can generate conditions to bring us forth again in new forms. Once we can accept the impermanence of our civilization with peace, we will be liberated from our fear. Only then will we have the strength, awakening and love we need to bring us together. Cherishing our precious Earth–falling in love with the Earth–is not an obligation. It is a matter of personal and collective happiness and survival. ~ Thich Nhat Hahn ~ Here is a link to the full article: We Need a Revolution; It Starts with Falling in Love with Earth Now is the time to be thinking about the way you live your life.  To

As a lot of people know, we love our porridge and eat it every day. We are often asked for the recipe and have probably shared it on here many times, but as we do constantly seem to tweak the ingredients - we thought we would share it again, so here is our current recipe.  We use all organic ingredients too! 💚 Porridge  Recipe Serves 2 Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan. 100g/4oz oats   1 teaspoon ground rosehips 1 teaspoon ground turmeric 1 teaspoon ground dried seaweed (we use kelp) 2 heaped  tablespoon s of a ground   seed mix (we usually grind  1 tbsp linseeds and 1 tsp each hemp,  chia and pumpkin) 1 tablespoon dried fruit 2 tablespoons fresh berries (we use blueberries, blackberries  or blackcurrants)  1 or 2  chopped apples (with skin left on) 2 chopped bananas Approx  1 litre cold water 1 heaped tsp  blackstrap molasses  (add to the porridge before serving) Heat slowly,  adding half of the water  and  stirring ever

Some photos from our recent road trip through France... Old road sign in the Vendee Old meets new A private house now...hope they're still dancing! Spotted this in someone's garden... Looks like Romeo's been busy! Picnic area with quite a view Beautiful old car, but no idea what it is... Organic zero waste van Street art Biocoop Kitty Breton Marais Free books - take, deposit, exchange as you wish.  About to drive over the Saint-Nazaire Bridge Les Moutiers-En-Retz in the Loire-Atlantique...love this place! Bye for now, K&S xx

"Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the result of long and patient effort in self-control. It's presence is an indication of ripened experience, and of a more than ordinary knowledge of the laws and operations of thought." ~ James Allen ~ As August was coming to an end last year, we decided to make September a month of gratitude - writing down 10 things to be grateful for every day. It proved to be such a powerful thing to do that we've kept it going. Every night before going to bed, we compile our list together. At first, we were writing about all the big stuff happening in our lives and as time has gone on, we've found ourselves noticing all the little things too and just how quickly these come to mind. The list writing quickly became a habit, it's the last thing we do after cleaning our teeth and it feels so good to do every night. Our mornings also start with even more good habitual routines...medit

After many years of bread making, I have finally learned (thanks to Sara at Cotna Eco Retreat ) how to make sourdough this year - using a wonderful old starter made from organic rye flour and pure spring water. As usual, I've tweaked the original bread recipe just because I like to make things simple and we both prefer denser breads.  ♥ Scroll down for the recipe ♥ Feeding the starter. I keep the starter in the fridge until ready to use, then add organic rye flour and warm water. This is how it looks when mixed in... And this is after around 8 hours. The starter gets added to the other bread ingredients and forms the dough.  I use Shipton Mill organic flours and mix it up for variety. Our favourites are stoneground wholemeal, extra coarse wholemeal, wholemeal spelt, light malthouse and dark rye. This is how it looks after being left usually overnight. I line the banneton (proofing basket) I like to use polenta and sesame seeds, inst

This year we have taken the opportunity to get homebrewing again and so far, we've made over 200 pints... All vegan and organic, using mainly foraged herbs and flowers, along with organic sugar and malt extract, yeast and pure spring water. We started out making our old favourite - nettle, goosegrass and ginger with a few dandelion petals thrown in for good measure.  Next up was the very popular lemon balm and lavender and then we decided to purchase some dried hops...we visited a small organic brewery where we were treated to a little tour and were able to buy a couple of different types of hops - one quite bitter and the other more floral. This resulted in a light, hoppy lemon balm bitter.    Our fourth brew was using the floral hops with rosemary and lavender, then using the floral hops again - we made a hops and lavender beer, which wasn't so good. We think the bitter hops would have worked better...nevertheless it's still very drinkable. Our latest be