A look back at 11 years living in a Sussex woodland: During the last month of living in our woodland barn, we sat down together and discussed the things we'd learned about life, nature and the whole universe. We originally recorded these conversations to ensure we wouldn't forget how we felt and what we'd learned during our 11 years but thought they might be interesting for others to hear. So here they are!
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Lessons and wisdom gained from 11 years living in the woods.
Last week we joined 260 hikers from all over the globe for a 50 km hike over three days in the Lake District on the Fjällräven Classic UK. Regular readers might that remember almost exactly a year ago, I did a recce for the route (https://miscellaneousadventures.substack.com/p/the-hike-that-changed-everything) in absolutely wild conditions with a small crew from Fjällräven and a filmmaker and photographer in tow. The the actual event couldn't have been more different, with clear blue skies, light winds and warm sunshine throughout. Given the summer we have had, to be out hiking for three solid days in the best weather of the year was an absolute joy. What better way to make the most of summer’s last hurrah than spending every single moment out of doors?
I plan to write a lot more about the hike next week - this was such a meaningful experience for us in many ways - but for now here is a slow and gentle film with improvised musical accompaniment of our hike which takes us from Langdale to Muncaster via Borrowdale and Wasdale, camping along the way, living in sync with the rhythms of the day. Me and Emma hiked the first two days together and then we were joined by Benji who camped and hiked the last 20 km with us.
Thank you to Fjällräven and to all the wonderful people we met along the trail for making this a memorable adventure.
We hope you enjoy following along with us and please do let us know what you think of this video post! Music
With warmest wishes,
Andrew, Emma and Benji
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13 Jan 2023
Lessons from the Woods - One Year On
Wednesday, January the 11th marked one year since we left our woodland home and headed north for a new life in The Lake District. We thought it would be a good opportunity to reflect on our first year here and look back on how we feel now about leaving the woods, one year on.
We talk about the highs and lows, the things that surprised us (and the things that didn’t!), finding a love for swimming in rivers and lakes, Benji’s growth and love for the outdoors and some of the things that didn’t go quite according to plan.
We also look to the year ahead and chat about our hopes for 2023 and the new opportunities it holds.
Thanks for listening, and as ever, we’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Andrew, Emma and Benji
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Some images from our first year in the Lakes…
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12 Jul 2022
Lessons from the Woods - Uprooting
We recently recorded this episode from our new home in Cumbria, 6 months after leaving the woods. We wanted to reflect on what it was actually like to leave (spoiler alert, it was a LOT harder than we had anticipated it would be). In this episode, we recall some of the ‘last’ moments in the woods and the heartbreak and grief that we weren’t really prepared for. We also discuss where we are now, how things are and what we think the lasting legacy of our decade in the woods will be.
Thanks for listening, we hope you’ve enjoyed this series of conversations! We have a few more topics we’re planning to cover as follow up episodes including parenthood, nature connection and knowledge. If there’s anything else you’d like to hear us chat about, please do ask, we’d love to hear from you.
All the best for now,
Andrew and Emma
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1 Jul 2022
Lessons from the Woods - Leaving
In this episode, we talk about how we’re feeling about leaving in the last week of our time in the woods. We think about what we will miss, how hard it will be to say goodbye to friends (both human and more than human) and what will become of the land we live on.
We think about the things we are looking forward to leaving behind too, some of the less fun aspects of our living set up and the stresses of being self employed.
We look to the future, think about how the lessons we’ve learned over the 10 years will inform our next adventure in Cumbria.
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24 Jun 2022
Lessons from the Woods - Good and Bad
Good and bad, there’s been lots of both over our 10 years in the woods. We wanted to talk about what each of us remembered as being good - our highlights reel of memories - but to also reflect on the bad.
We cover everything from getting married, having a baby, family connections, and starting a business to getting trolled, being let down and dealing with emotional and financial struggles. This frank and honest conversation delves into how things are not always as glossy as they sometimes appear from the outside and recounts many of the significant moments that made us who we are today.
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17 Jun 2022
Lessons from the Woods - Changes
This time we’re discussing how much living in the woods has changed us as people. How it shifted our values in ways we weren’t expecting and how we feel about these changes. Reflecting on our situation and how lucky we were to find the set up we did, we talk about our feelings on the way society has made it difficult for people to live closer to nature and how private land ownership prevents this access. Andrew discusses how moving into a manual, outdoors job has hardened him in ways he’s not always happy about and Emma talks about how it took longer for her to find her ‘thing’ and how having a baby impacted what she does.
Notes:
Emma mentions a quote from Braiding Sweetgrass when talking about creativity and outdoors work. This is it:
“The practice of forestry may be changing, but I am unaware of any instances where proficiency in the arts is sought as a professional qualification by timber companies or schools of forestry. Perhaps that is what we need. Artists as foresters”.
Forester Franz Dolp, quoted by Robin Wall Kimmerer in the chapter ‘Old Growth Children’ in Braiding Sweetgrass.
Andrew mentions a Henry David Thoreau quote from his essay “Walking’ on the subject of ‘roughness’:
“Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a certain roughness of character — will cause a thicker cuticle to grow over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their delicacy of touch’.
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10 Jun 2022
Lessons from the Woods - Wildlife
Living in the woods gave us an up close and personal insight into the comings and goings of the creatures we shared the space with. Living closely alongside the wildlife of the woodland and surrounding grounds was such a privilege and something we know we might never experience in quite the same way again.
During this conversation we recounted some of our most memorable experiences with wildlife and the impact these had on us and our connection to nature and place. Featuring stoats, deer, bats, hornets and many more. We actually forgot to mention one of favourite encounters which was our nesting wren who returned year after year to raise her chicks in our porch.
We hope you enjoy this conversation, do leave any questions in the comments and we’ll answer them in our follow up episode later in the summer!
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7 Jun 2022
Lessons from the Woods - Beginnings
In this episode, we look back at the early days of our life in the woods. We reminisce on how we found the place, how it felt moving to a rural location and learning to embrace a simpler life. We remember some of our early wildlife encounters, first lessons in outdoor skills and the transition to being (very inexperienced!) groundskeepers.
This episode sets the scene for a series of conversations on how a decade of life in the woods changed us deeply and made us re-think the way we live, our values and our connection to nature. We’ll talk more in future episodes about some of the subjects we briefly touch on in this introduction including wildlife encounters, the good and bad sides of life in the woods and what specific things changed for us in that time.
We hope you’ll enjoy these insights into our story. Please do ask questions and feel free to share.
Andrew and Emma
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26 May 2022
Lessons from the Woods - Trailer
Before we left our woodland home in January 2022 for a new life in Cumbria, we recorded a series of conversations reminiscing on our decade of living there, a time of deep transformation for us and one we wanted to always remember. We did this as a form of conversational journal, recounting the lessons we learned, the ways in which we had changed and the times we shared, good and bad. In doing this, we realised that our story might be interesting to others to hear and so we decided to share these conversations as a podcast of sorts. We hope you’ll enjoy listening and learning more about our lessons from the woods.
Andrew and Emma
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