The re-return

So helloooo blogosphere! I'm back. Again. Again.

Life seems to go in these cycles where I go off and discover new terrain, and then want to 'come home', make lemonade and knit stuff. Perhaps it's a good moment to reflect on what's the same and what's different.

So what is the same? Not much. Just me. Everything around me is different. Different job, different city, different home, different rhythm of life. I'm having so much fun with my life. I have a job I am excited to get to in the mornings, and that's very precious.

Because of that, my work has been my primary focus over the last months or years even, but I think the urge to knit things is perhaps an indicator that I need to slow down a bit more and savour this journey. Take more time just to be, to reflect, and to recharge. I feel a bit like I've climbed the first peak in the Himalayas and it feels awesome, but maybe I should take a break before I hit the second.

And you? What's new?

Woot woot! Five years (and a few days)

 So, err, sorry guys. I set this as a scheduled post so I wouldn't forget to write and then... I forgot. And it got posted. As a bit of a non-post.

So now I'm a couple of weeks late, but what the hell. The 8 October marked the five-year anniversary of my first post on this blog, which you can read here.

Looking back at that post, I'm struck by two things. Firstly, my choice of Meadow Orchard as a blog name foreshadows my discovery of permaculture in the last year rather neatly. A meadow orchard is a form of landscape encouraging meadow wildlife among fruit trees, so very positive for biodiversity.

The second thing that strikes me is that the lifestyle I was then interested in building - log fire, fruit trees outside the back door, home comforts and handmade crafts - is still very much what I am endeavouring to build today. 

And I've definitely made progress, which I reflect on every night as  we sit down to homecooked healthy food on a handmade tablecloth on a second hand table and talk about our next beer, and when I draw my homemade curtains in homemade pajamas and slippers made out of old jeans and cardboard.

I thought for my five-year bloggiversary, I'd share five posts and an assortment of photos representing five themes of this blog:

Mindfulness

Washing up: A philosophical meander

Decluttering

 Decluttering is an exponential function

Living better with less

Project 333

New skils

My very first skeins

Savouring simple pleasures

Two steps back, three forward

 

Individual and collective choices

I wanted to share this video with you, because it has really stayed with me over the last week. I am struck her comments about how the focus on individual choices can distract us from collective choices that we make as societies and nations. I think the two can complement, can reinforce - but I also think it is true that my focus on what I can do to declutter, to be more frugal, and to live more sustainably is masking my lack of engagement on these issues more broadly. 

Blogging links those of us exploring this way of life together, offering valuable encouragement and ideas like virtual neighbours. This is incredibly important when we are starting out because we need to know that we are not the only ones exploring these life choices. However, I think our engagement online, in this community without elections, without institutions or governments, should at some point support engagement in our local communities.

To be honest, that's kind of scary. Deciding to grow beetroot on my balcony, reduce the temperature at which I wash clothes or knitting my own dischcloths is a lot easier than trying to build change locally. Where do I start? And the language issue does not help - I speak French reasonably well but not fluently, and speak almost no Dutch at all. I also don't know the local systems, norms and infrastructures as well as I do in the UK, even after several years. 

The idea of trying to get involved in local efforts at commuity, city or national level is very daunting. I have engaged with various volunteering projects or crafting groups since I've been here, although most of those have fallen away with the greater workload at my new job, but most of these were expat-dominated. I don't know most of my neighbours in the building, let alone on the street. But I'm coming to the conclusion that it's something I really want to do, something that is an unavoidable part of being true to how I see the way forward.

Blogs: Simple living inspirations

I have realised that my blog does not accurately reflect my inspirations. A recent comment from a reader about how great a fan I seem to be about a particular blogger gave me a moment of pause - because in fact I don't follow that particular blogger. I thought this blog should better reflect my influences, by perhaps taking a moment to tell you why they inspire me.

We all need simple living inspiration - blog porn that we can drool over while we ignore our humdrum, cluttered, modern surroundings. It helps us to articulate where we're going and how we're going to get there. There are a huge number, many of which I am only just discovering, but I wanted to share some of my favourites. As I have quite a few, I'm breaking them down - some blogs I go to for the crafting, some for the recipes, some for home beauty treatments, some for budgeting tips, some because I really relate to their journeys. Here are three of my favourite blogs for thought- (or envy-) provoking posts and inspirational pictures, reminding me of the life I want to lead.

Down to Earth - www.down---to---earth.blogspot.com

You can't really talk about simple living blogs without mentioning Rhonda's blog Down to Earth, it's almost an institution. Her gentle musings on the meaning of simple living, the joys to be found in your own home, and the important things in life; her encouragement of people starting out on this journey; and her simple tutorials for getting started - whether baking bread, making soap, using green cleaners or brewing ginger beer - are a godsend for the wannabe simple-liver. My sister has just bought me Rhonda's first book for my birthday - but it's waiting in the UK for our next meeting so I can only bite my fingernails with anticipation.

Purple Pear Farm - www.purplepearorganics.blogspot.com

Kate and her partner Mark live on their farm in Australia raising animals and plants and kids, not necessarily in that order. Enough land (and commitment) to take on the challenge of raising animals is a long way away for me but I really enjoy the peeps that Kate offers into the running of their farm, from organising birthday parties (oh how I wish I was ten again so I could have one of their parties!) to moving pigs from one area to another. Kate's blog makes me wish we were neighbours so I could ask her over to help me out with a difficult gardening challenge, or an epic jam-making session, or just a knitting bee.

Soule Mama - www.soulemama.com/soulemama

 
Amanda Blake Soule's blog is the ultimate visual feast, if like me you cannot get enough of pictures of quilting and knitting, home dairying and whatever happens to be on the kitchen table at the time. And they have sheep about to lamb! If planting seedlings is so exciting, what must your first lambs feel like? It's reassuring that even someone as far along their journey as Amanda still has new things to discover, but mostly I just love the colours and textures of her home and family life.

A permaculture life?

Hello and welcome to everyone visiting from Purple Pear Farm, where Kate has been kind enough to link to this blog. I've been reading through her blog and musing on the meaning of permaculture.

In my local collective garden here in Brussels, there are a small number of potager gardens (the closest thing to an allotment here, but a fraction of the size - less than a metre square). One of the conditions of being allocated on of these potagers is that you have to observe the rules of permaculture as it is understood here. This means that you can sow seeds, but are not allowed to remove weeds, hoe, turn the soil, or add compost or fertiliser. Permaculture here is defined as planting stuff and then leaving it entirely alone.

This is not quite the same concept as I've seen expressed elsewhere. As far as I know, permaculture in the English-speaking world is based around practices which are sustainable and could be maintained permanently. This definition allows a more active human role, something akin to stewardship perhaps, where you can manage the soil by ensuring that manure or compost replaces the nutrients taken up by plants etc. (Please forgive any inaccuracies here - I'm no gardener!)

The kind of simple life that I - and I'm guessing you my readers - are trying to built is very much based along the same principles, but in different ways (financial, emotional, physical). Make sure your spending is at a sustainable level, that you can match what goes out with what comes in. Built relationships and communities which nourish rather than numb or drain one another. While we all work hard, either at home or in the workplace, we need to make sure that we get the food, sleep, exercise, and down time to keep ourselves physically and mentally healthy to continue working the next day.

What I like about this concept of permaculture (at least as I've understood it) is that it is about balance. It doesn't mean not spending on the things that matter, but making sure that spending can be sustained not just in the short term while you have an income but in the far less predictable long term. Living without possessions may work for some, but the important thing is that your life is not drowning in clutter. This seems a good way to evaluate what I'm trying to do here - not am I living simply, or even am I living simply enough, but am I living in a way that I can continue to enjoy and thrive indefinitely? And I think the answer to that is definitely yes!

Blog envy

I spend a fair bit of time procrastinating and one of my favourite procrastinating activities is delving into the archives of simple living/slow living/crafting blogs. I love love love the thoughtful meditations, the sharing of oh-crap stories and oops stories, and of course most of all the lovely pictures of homes and traditional crafts and creativity and natural materials weathered through use and care.

Oh the envy.

The pictures on my blog sometimes show glimpses of this, but there's so much imperfection in the background - the IKEA furniture filling the gaps amid the second-hand finds; the clutter; the plastic tubs that I so want to replace with earthenware pottery etc etc. (See the clearly terribly messy cupboard top below).

However, going right back to the earliest archives does help - it looks not far off where I am now, which suggests that a home filled with natural materials and handmade or antique treasures is definitely achievable. For now, I reckon most people reading these blogs have the same reaction and they should be taken as inspiration rather than example.