Just Humans Being...

 The shortest day is here and we can feel the excitement of the returning light... It's a dark morning here and although we are looking forward to the longer and lighter days, we still enjoy these cosy candlelit mornings. We may bring in some greenery at some point today and find a branch to decorate. Hope you are enjoying some slowness and taking time for yourselves. Wishing you a peaceful and Happy Solstice! Lots of love, Kay and Sime xx

Do you trust your own instinct or prefer to rely on opinions supposedly based on facts? Over the years we have been advised against doing what we have wanted to do, we have experienced so many sharp intakes of breath by the people trained in the various areas we have disagreed with, but we have always chosen to stick to our guns and do what we feel is right. The thing is, our decisions came from within – we were never been influenced by others or knew of other people doing what we we wanted to do, we just felt something...a knowing. When we first got together in 1986, we discovered that we both felt repulsed by certain meats and we began questioning why we continued to eat it when we felt so uncomfortable. One evening Sime came over to my flat and made spicy veggie burgers from soya mince which were delicious and I then found a recipe for walnut and broccoli lasagne and we carried on learning more and more. In 1987, we bought our first house together and it just so happened that ...

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 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 Swe...

  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....

  At what point in history did we start putting our elderly relatives into care homes? As I write, I have no way of knowing...no internet to help research and Sime’s still snoozing, well it is only 6:30 and dark - most people are asleep, but I woke with this thought and no doubt I have written something along these lines before. Having cared for both my Grandmother (Nan) and Sime’s Mum (Bebe) and knowing how difficult it was especially with Bebe as her dementia progressed...I was thinking about how families managed before care homes. Certainly in the UK, we have become quite disconnected from our older generation and it seems that their opinions are no longer valued by younger generations. How differently we live today and yet Nan grew up surrounded by family, cousins in the same street or just around the corner. Neighbours were like extended family and everyone helped each other - taking care of the children and keeping an eye on aging grandparents. Lives were entwined. Young ...

  We often wonder when this mindless merry-go-round of consumerism will end. When people suddenly realise that they don’t need to keep buying the next best thing, to fill their homes with chain store tat and their wardrobes with clothes they rarely wear. Why is there so much importance put on stuff? How did the human race get persuaded to spend huge amounts of money on winter religious festivals? The whole crazy buying thing is quite bizarre to us. If you are a consumer – do you look into where your stuff comes from before you make your purchase? Does it concern you that your fellow humans are being paid peanuts to make some of the items you buy, or that there is still slavery in the world? Large corporations continue to exploit people because they can and will do so until they are found out and they will no doubt blame “customer demand” for pushing them to make things cheaper. What would happen if we all stopped? If we found a local person to make something for us and instead ...

We first came across the intriguing story published in 1939 of Peter Kelder, Colonel Bradford and “The Fountain of Youth” from a book we picked up in Lanhydrock’s second-hand bookshop in 2017. We have no idea whether the story is fact or fiction, but it led us to start practicing “The Ancient Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation” - five exercises which have been found to reverse the aging process and improve health by stimulating the energy centres. The story in a nutshell is that Peter Kelder met Colonel Bradford, an elderly retired British Army officer during the 1930s. They became friends and Colonel Bradford talked of his travels and how he had heard about a monastery of Lamas (Tibetan Monks) who had discovered “The Fountain of Youth” and the older visitors of the monastery who mysteriously regained their health, strength and vigour. The location of the monastery was unknown, but the colonel felt a strong desire to find it...and so he did. He embarked on his journey of discovery and whe...

Who needs a TV when you have several bird feeders? The cabin is a bit like a bird hide and we get hours of entertainment watching our feathery friends flying around and chomping. They have already gone through a large bag of peanuts and are now on some mixed seed and sunflower hearts we picked up from the local garden centre. We have also made our own fat balls – which are probably a lot healthier than the ones you can buy and the birds love them. We put all the ingredients in the food processor...Peanuts, sunflower seeds, ground flax (linseeds), oats, polenta and water. Whizzed it up and left the mush to stand for about 30 minutes, then separated the mixture and rolled into balls. We didn’t weigh anything out, just whizzed it all up until the right consistency. It’s really easy to do and probably much cheaper. In the garden each day, we have mostly Great tits, a couple of Blue tits and this morning we have seen our first Coal tit. We also have Greenfinches, Goldfinches and Chaffin...

  I could capture the breathtaking views from this cabin, wrap them up and send them out as gifts to folks who need some beauty in their lives, but our camera just doesn’t cut the mustard! This morning is quite magical and is one of those occasions where I want to share the joy... I had to get out there - not just content in seeing the beauty from the warmth of the cabin, but I wanted to be out and to feel it. Witnessing the world awaken is quite an incredible experience and although this morning is probably no different than any other, I feel excited for the day ahead. We know that being in nature recharges us...perhaps living in nature supercharges us! As our feathery friends arrive to feast on the goodies we leave out, my rumbling tum is telling me it’s time for our breakfast too. Enjoy the photos! Love Kay (and sleepy Sime) xx

  This is our loo...I can almost hear some of you shouting “How Primitive!” at the screen, but we are very happy and grateful for it. It’s called a “Long Drop” and is basically a pit with a toilet seat over it. Instead of having a flush, we sprinkle sawdust each time we use it and not just any old sawdust...we came across a pine furniture maker who gives away off cuts of wood – which are great for the wood stove and big bags of sawdust, so our outdoor facilities are smelling pine fresh! When we saw this little hut I was transported back to the film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” – it reminded me of the kidnapping of Caractacus Potts senior. The whole shed gets transported over the sea to Vulgaria, while Caractacus (Lionel Jefferies) sings a song about the posh travelling life...Wonderful stuff! We don’t really sit in fear of being kidnapped, but we have had some windy experiences...and I’m not just talking about eating pulses! The shed can feel like it’s about to take off, though in...

  After years of making big pans of porridge every morning we have discovered a new and improved way to eat our daily portion of oats. Ingredients 50g Oats (we use Mornflake Organic Oats) ½ tsp each of dried Turmeric, Cinnamon, Ginger and Rosehips 1 tbsp raisins or sultanas 1 tbsp ground seed mix - Flax (linseeds), Hemp and Pumpkin 1 tsp Blackstrap Molasses 1 heaped tsp peanut butter (Essential is our favourite) ½ chopped apple 1 tbsp berries (if in season) 1 small or ½ large chopped banana Boiling Water Plant Milk Sprinkle of Terra Nova Living Wellbeing Powder   Method Put all the dry ingredients into a breakfast bowl and mix well. Add Molasses, peanut butter and the chopped apple. Pour the boiling water over the mixture – we fill our bowls and leave for 5 mins. Mix well again. Top with the banana, berries, powder and milk.   Hope you enjoy it!   Love Kay and Sime xx

  We work hard at being present, enjoying the moment without thinking about the past or future. It seems to be an easier thing to do in nature – watching the waves crashing over rocks and shorelines, the wind blowing in the trees or looking up at the sky on a clear night...for a few seconds; sometimes minutes we can feel totally immersed and connected to nature, the planet, even the universe. We have a tendency to operate on autopilot - especially if we are doing something mundane and monotonous, but we challenge ourselves to quietly concentrate on what we are doing, observing ourselves doing the task...it’s like a wakeful meditation and it’s not easy to achieve. The beginning of freedom is the realisation that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realise that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. Yo...