Just Humans Being...

Our cabin looking cosy from outside. It has been stormy all day today and right now we have gale force winds and the torrential rain continues, but we are experts at Hygge and feel so happy and grateful to be indoors, to be dry, warm and snug.. We have a pot of lentil dhal bubbling on the stove... And both kitties are snoozing. Floobs is on the kitchen worktop tonight... While Tiky is sticking with the table! The woodburner is crackling away and we have plenty of dry wood. Hope you too are keeping warm, dry and grateful for everything you have. Lots of love, Kay and Sime xx  

Our beautiful pal Mabel. We were around when she first arrived at her home and we stay with her when her mum goes away...we are her family and we share a wonderful connection. She trembles with excitement every time we arrive to help out her mum and we have to have lots of cuddles before we can do anything and again before we leave. She is a sweet natured, intelligent soul and we adore her. We are also her guardians and have promised to take care of Mabel if anything happens to her mum. This means that she may at some point come to live with us - which we will be highly honoured to do. She also enjoys licking faces! Love Kay and Sime xx

  The joys of tiny home living. Our furry friends sneakily end up in places we'd prefer them not to be, which is mainly the bed or the kitchen table. The trouble is they just don't care what we say and they know that if they persevere - we will end up giving in! We do make allowances for our old chap, Floobs (Flea) and how can we treat young Tiky differently? So they both get away with doing whatever they want, though it is a relief at the moment that they have both moved on from sleeping on the bed, which caused us to have a few disturbed nights with Floobs desperately trying to sleep between us or on Sime's pillow and Tiky on our feet... Both purring loudly! They are now going through a kitchen phase and leave us to sleep solidly, which we are very thankful for. We are also grateful that they continue to be fine with each other and we can leave them in together when we go off to work - They love the cabin as much as we do!  When Lupe died last year, we never imagined that

  These beauties are super easy to make and are delicious with a vegan breakfast! Ingredients 100g plain flour (we actually used wholemeal bread flour) 1 heaped tablespoon yellow pea flour (we use Hodmedods ) ½ teaspoon baking powder 2 carrots – grated 1 onion - finely chopped Water – enough to make a gloopy mix 1 teaspoon dried sage  Salt and pepper to taste Recipe Put all the ingredients in a bowl, mix and leave to stand for 20 mins. Heat a non-stick frying pan and add enough mixture to make a pancake. This recipe should make 4 medium sized pancakes, but if you prefer to have a more crepe-like consistency just add more water and whizz the ingredients with a hand blender. Enjoy! Kay and Sime xx

  We were asked recently if we still stick to Ann and Caldwell Esselstyn's principles...being vegan and oil free and yes we do. It's over 8 years now since we stopped using oil and apart from when other people cook or we buy something while out we continue to eat the same healthy way - always vegan and oil-free.  Simple vegan meals really don't take long to make and are easy enough to cook from scratch each day. There isn't any need to spend huge amounts of money on junk food, when simply cooked vegetables taste so good! We wrote a blog post about this some years ago:  When Everyone Runs, Stand Still  but thought it would be good to remind people... It was Caldwell's 87th birthday on December 12th and he continues to enjoy good health...35 years of eating a whole food, plant based, oil-free diet has obviously worked wonders!  As a reminder, here is the list again... 1. Eat oats  (Old Fashioned) for breakfast, any way you can as oatmeal, as a cold cereal as we do

  As we ventured out yesterday, we were thinking how surreal the world has become when people are colour co-ordinating face masks with their clothes (no doubt this has been a thing for a while - just not in our little world!) - it’s quite bizarre, especially when they look so glum; almost zombie-like, pushing trolleys around shops along to the awful versions of festive music being churning out all day. We choose not to wear masks, we don’t use nasty soaps or wash our hands any more than usual, we hug our family and friends...even those visiting from other areas and guess what? We are all fine! We don’t personally know anyone who has caught the lurgy, but have heard of people who have had it and the deaths we have heard of have all been elderly with other health issues. We take full responsibility for our own health and if we do by chance get sick - then of course, we will happily isolate ourselves, but we believe we will remain well. I remember reading an interview with the Swedish

  As a child, I think I drove my folks mad by always questioning them, whenever I was told to do something a certain way – I would ask why? More often than not, the reply would be “because I say so” or “it just is” which meant I never got a satisfactory answer. Perhaps this is why I have gone through life always questioning and if the answers don’t make sense – I do my own thing, luckily I met someone who feels the same way and together we continue to follow our own path. Why couldn’t I wear bright red woolly socks with my navy blue school uniform? Or a T-shirt instead of the silly round collared blouse? What was wrong with yellow or blue nail varnish? It was quite ridiculous that I was pulled up daily from my third year in high school for not conforming...I was sent to see the head teacher, given detention, but I continued to wear my own versions and actually enjoyed finding ways to bend the rules. I was told that the uniform was to give us a sense of belonging, an identity...re