One thing I didn’t expect when we set out to live this nomadic life is how much it would change me. I rather naively thought that I’d already developed into the final version of myself. Which is pretty f*cking stoopid now I think about it.
It’s been over a year since we left London. I haven’t worked in over 13 months. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. Hundreds of days in fact with no routine, no commutes, no emails, no meetings, no colleagues, no to-do lists, no wages, no purpose. Sometimes it’s felt a little overwhelming. Sometimes it’s felt a little underwhelming. As Dusty herself discovered, sometimes you just don’t know (just) what to do with yourself. 😳.
Rodney once asked me (when we were bored shitless in the van one rainy day last year), ‘is there something wrong with us that we can’t be happy doing nothing?’. After a bit of thought we agreed that it’s sort of like when people are released from prison after many years of incarceration and they often struggle to adapt to life in the outside world (I said sort of).
I’ve now been an adult on this earth longer than I was a child. I’ve been in work for most of my adult life and I’ve got used to fulfilling the role of a “responsible” adult. I had thought I was doing quite well at it, the whole adulting malarky, but there were days when I felt I couldn’t breathe, days when I thought ‘f*ck, is this it’? As each year passed I found I had less energy, knew fewer jokes and completely lost my ability to do a crab/cartwheel/headstand (though I can still gambol… small mercies). I was a thousand times better at living as a kid. Back when people asked you your favourite colour by way of sizing you up. Nowadays of course they ask ‘so what do you do?’.
But the point of all this drivel is, a girl cannot become free simply by freeing up her time. A girl ( just watched Game of Thrones) must remember how it feels to be free. I’m getting there. With each purposeless day we live, the shackles of adulthood loosen. I may never be a crustacean again, but somewhere inside my head is a six year old girl who hates routine, loves cake, and believes in magic. And her voice is getting louder. When she grows up she wants to be a dancer. But she’d settle for being a butterfly. Or a chief chocolate taster. Or a writer. More importantly, her favourite colour is yellow.
Here’s a quick photographic update on all the nothing us crazy kidz have been doing…
Cowboy ping pong…
A man’s van is his castle…
Taking this beautiful girl on one last walk before we left Ireland…
Snoozing on the long ferry journey from Belfast to Liverpool…
Playing in the bluebells with my old mate Rufus in Sheffield…
Cruising in my Ma’s T4 in Cornwall…
Testing a portable solar panel kit… before sending it back to the shop coz it was shite…
We picked some wild garlic flowers and made the tastiest garlic soup. Proper wholesome like…
Family…
Rodney suggested we run 10k along the south west coastal path, in the rain. I managed not to throw up. Just…
We passed another MOT. Going up…
We drank a lot. A perk of adulthood perhaps…
A more pleasant run. We saw three seals and a snake…
Driving around Cornwall…
Just rockin’…
Collecting shells with a dog named Boo…
Rodney loves it when we go out for vegan Sunday lunch 😬…
I had my hair cut and I’m kicking myself that I didn’t do it sooner as it’s so much easier to wash in the van…
Rodney multi-tasking…
Just picked up this old lonely planet to help us plan our route. Don’t you just love EU?…
We’re now back at our fruit farm for another wee fillum. We’ll be off across the channel just as soon as the director calls it a wrap…
But don’t hold your breath…
VanSpecies 