Yes, I feel like time is going over so quickly! I’m still here at Sam’s in La Creuse, and still really enjoying my time here. It’s really just like home for me now, and it will be strange to leave. But, leave I must, and that’s going to be on the 14th, with my good friends Becky and Adam who are arriving in the next few days. Although I’m going to miss it here, I’m ready to throw myself out of my comfort zone again. I’m excited for my travels.
It’s difficult to know what to write about when I’m not in a moment of change, but I wanted to write just to document how I’m feeling at the mo, which is quite content. I feel like I’ve got lots of space to think, and to be sensitive to my emotions, my reactions to things. If I’m feeling really good or sometimes a bit moody or sometimes a bit sad, I have time to acknowledge these feelings and think about why they happen. I’m enjoying this and I think it’s quite powerful. It might sound a bit over sensitive but actually I think it’s just the normal everyday ups and downs that we all have constantly, but don’t always take time to acknowledge. I’m quite sure being more in tune with these little ups and downs is important for feeling balanced, which I am feeling at the moment 🙂
It seems I haven’t done much writing recently, but actually I’ve updated my new shiny blog site here with some extra info about me and about workawaying. I’ve also been working on building up my photography portfolio, papping new friends, again! From now on I think I’ll be adding lots of pics to my new places & faces page. There’s some new photos of a lovely English family who we met at the weekend at a village community bbq – the lady, Kerry, heard my accent and got chatting to me, and it turns out she is from just around the corner from where my family live now, and she went to my school. Small world, as always. There’s also some pics from the day we went to Sam’s friends house, to bottle beer that we had made there the week before. We had a little party in the evening (again) which was really nice (and I suffered the day after!).
In terms of practical learning, recently I’ve learnt a lot about trees – we’ve been taking all the trees from the tree nursery in Ropato, a lot of which Sam has grafted himself (attaching a cutting of one tree onto the strong roots of another tree to grow different varieties), and planted some up here. I now know a little bit about good ways to plant, and mulching, and the needs of the different trees. All things that will come in useful one day I’m sure.
I’ve been really feeling the need to find my own little base relatively soon. I am excited for my travels and feeling positive, but I am looking forward to a time in the future when I will feel the way I feel about this place about somewhere that is actually mine, and I will be able to work towards my own goals; even though I do of course enjoy helping other people with their’s. I have days where I feel a little bit useless in the world, like I don’t have anything to show for myself. But then I think about the freedom I have, and the time that I value so much, and I know that I’ve got time to get to where I’m going.
Time for bed, soon. I started writing this a while ago, but then Sam came in to the house and spontaneously baked a gloriously fantastic chocolate cake that I feel deserves a mention here… It was an invented recipe which turned out something like a (vegan and gluten free) fondant, with added chocolate sauce. So that’s made my evening. Since I left and came back Sam has gone completely vegan, so I’m enjoying eating completely vegan at the mo, too. Ethically, vegetarianism/veganism is something I feel more and more strongly about. I haven’t eaten meat for quite a while now, and I’ve even started to officially call myself a vegetarian. The idea of eating animals is becoming more and more strange to me. Even though it’s difficult (as I’ve been raised eating meat and I still automatically see it as a food), slowly but surely the association of death and of the entire industry is becoming more vivid for me whenever I see meat. The environmental impacts are insane, and just the sheer brutality of the way it happens on a global scale. Fair enough, if society ate meat in a sustainable way, I’m still at a stage where I can accept that animals are farmed and eaten. But the large-scale industry as it is is completely ludicrous, and a lot of people eating meat do so in total ignorance of that. I’m beginning to find it more and more difficult to understand. For a long time now, if I’ve eaten meat, I have been very mindful of where it’s come from, and I’ve tried hard to not contribute to the mass-produced supermarket meat industry; but now more than ever I feel quite passionate about this, and about making sure I live in a sustainable and fair way. And, as it’s all the same industry, I would like to slowly phase out animal products as a permanent choice, too. I certainly don’t miss most things at the moment; milk alternatives are so varied that it’s quite weird how much humans feel the need to exploit cows… But I have to say that, particularly being in France, I do miss cheese. I can’t imagine it will be a quick process for me to go hardcore vegan permanently. But anyway, I thought I should give this a little mention as something that I’m thinking a lot about at the mo! Be sustainable!
So, it’s definitely time for bed. I’ll leave you with a picture of Sam in a wheel barrow to laugh at:
REFLECTIONS OF A WORKAWAYER 