I just wanted to say a few words about how I appeared here. We (me, my partner and our nine year old daughter, met Darren and Cathie nearly a year ago at the place we had then, recently moved to in Cornwall. I had made contact with Cathie before this by email and was familiar with her old blog.
We had similar and different reasons for our moves there. A big difference was that Darren and Cathie were “Peak Oilers” and to be honest that was something that was completely off our radars – or maybe, like most other people we were merrily sticking our heads in the sand. So, thank you (I think, dear neighbours) for waking us up to this.

I guess I have become a “Peak Oiler Lite”. I don’t read too much of the heavy stuff, I choose not to listen to the news most of the time and find my quality of life is far better for it. Cathie has introduced me to Sharon Astyk who I really enjoy reading. I like her sense of humour and positive approach to dealing with our uncertain future.

Anyway we had always fancied the land, pigs and chickens thing, but it was incompatible with our former lifestyle (living on a converted barge) and we knew that it would be hard work and unaffordable on our own.

Living in the community we were at wasn’t working for either of our families, but there were aspects of it that we really enjoyed, particularly with the next door neighbours – sharing meals, resources, laughs and childcare are examples. When we decided to move a move together sounded ideal. To cut a very long story short, after much searching we found the place that we now rent in Mid-Wales.

So here we are – four months after the move, not very self sufficient, but producing a bit of this and that, while working in the wider community, with happy kids who have settled after yet another move. I feel very lucky. To come home after a great week away to welcoming neighbours is lovely.

It has been an interesting 18 months or so for our family, but life has always been a bit of an adventure. At the moment I feel incredibly lucky that we have found this place to live with our chosen neighbours near a really great little town. I sometimes feel overwhelmed by how much we “should” be doing in the garden, but it’s good to be able to share the burden. We are not going to be self sufficient in much produce this year, there is so much to learn and experience is a good teacher. When our landlady said that there could be frosts here as late as June I didn’t take her very seriously. At my peril. We put most of the bean plants outside in the last week of may, and the few that remain are a sorry state. Never mind, Cathie and I have quite a good supply of dried beans stashed and we are lucky enough to have a lovely organic fruit and veg shop in town which we are very happy to support. It’s mainly staffed by volunteers and a local couple have recently started supplying artisan bread to the shop. http://www.theloopproject.co.uk/bakery/

Luckily we will benefit from stuff planted here in the past by the landlords, there is a fair bit of soft fruit that we will soon be enjoying and damsons in the hedges in the fields and a few fruit trees in the orchard. It feels more important at the moment to live through our first season here concentrating on our relationships with each other. If we can get on, support each other and have similar hopes for the future it will be easier to cope with a less than self sufficient bean harvest. We need to get to know the land, the climate, where it’s light and shady etc. We probably need to invest in a far bigger polytunnel if we decide that we are going to stay here beyond our first year.

That will depend largely on the winter ahead. We are expecting the buildings to be expensive and difficult to heat. We are accumulating wood supplies, but I feel we can never have enough. There’s a bit of frantic blanket crochet action going on and merino thermals are on my shopping list. I think we will have to find some creative insulation solutions.

It feels funny to be writing a blog post because I’m unsure who would be interested in my witterings, but I suppose what we are doing may interest people thinking about living in a slightly different way. The intentional community we came from wasn’t right for us, but out of that experience we are here, now with neighbours who want to be our neighbours. It’s certainly easier on a small scale, both with less people and with less land.

At the moment I feel very lucky and positive about our uncertain future. Hopefully the laughs and good times shared with the neighbours will continue.

I should add (in case this is all sounding a bit too good to be true), that future posts will include tales of small and not so small rodents, dealing with a cock that goes bad (that is, a toddler, child and female adult attacking rooster) and how to survive (or not) winter in the hills of mid wales in an ancient building with holes in it.