Blog
This blog documents my reflections as we travel, and settle, and parent and carry out the work that is surviving. Our journey, gradually moving further away from ‘the West’ and what it embodies (literally and metaphorically), we are trying to unlearn the things we take for granted as normal, searching for different forms of value.
parenting and unschooling
do nothing parenting
A couple of years ago I took a Permaculture Design Certificate course run by Rhamis Kent, who had studied under the tutelage of Geoff Lawton. Sidi Rhamis introduced us to the ideas, writings and practices of a Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, which are set out in his notes and writings in a collection called ‘The One Straw revolution’.
unschooling and the pandemic
When my friend told me she was worried that her daughter would “get behind if she did not go back to school soon”, this got me thinking. While these are very real concerns for parents, who know how fiercely competitive the job market is getting, I started to think what does ‘behind’ mean? Perhaps now, in the midst of the Pandemic, is the time to reassess what education is actually for, and doing.
Traveling in a van with young kids: my essentials
Having spent nearly two years in and out of living in a van, with a hyperactive child, aged two to four years old, I learnt the hard way what was needed on the trip; what was missing; what was superfluous; what worked and what didn’t work in terms of organising the space and so on.
Toddlers and screens: is the tablet computer a tool of the devil?
I’m unsatisfied with the information in blog posts and articles about the dangers and damage of too much ‘screen use’...
Survival or specialisation?
what do we want for the next generation?
travel and #vanlife
9 reasons to queue up for the squat toilet
Warning this post contains graphic detail: if you don't like that sort of thing...
Traveling in a van with young kids: my essentials
Having spent nearly two years in and out of living in a van, with a hyperactive child, aged two to four years old, I learnt the hard way what was needed on the trip; what was missing; what was superfluous; what worked and what didn’t work in terms of organising the space and so on.
Ten things to value about Morocco
View across the river, Ait Benhaddou Last year we spent nearly three months in Morocco, on a road trip in our Mercedes...
Croatia, Tuna ‘ranching’ and the state of our oceans
A 10 minute read. Just read it. Its important.
House-dwelling makes us lazy?
in defense of vanlife
right livelihoods
I fasted for the month of Ramadan. Here is what it was like.
NB. I wrote this post in 2019, which was my first time fasting Ramadan, and updated it in 2020, after my second time...
Russell Brand, utopia and the posthuman
This blog post was previously published in November 2013 on the now discontinued Weeks Centre Blog, a blog of the...
The angry locust and other stories
I got an email the other day for an academic conference session called Intimate Ethnographies in Multispecies...
What is Work?
'You are not working at the moment then?' I was recently asked. This is probably something that makes most...