My life in the forest - The first months
I’ll always remember the moment I decided that I wanted to call this forest my home. It was the middle of the rainy winter in Portugal, clouds poured into the valley like sea foam onto the shore. Myself and my partner, were sleeping in an (almost) waterproof tent and trying to dry our damp socks next to a rocket stove, with little success. For fun, I was reading and rereading, a book about permaculture that I’d found in a petrol station. Our head torch had run out of battery, meaning that when the sun went down, it was fire or candlelight.
Framed in a certain light, this could have been a miserable time, but the fresh air, constant sound of birdsong and the misty beauty were lifting my spirits. The colours seemed so bright. The green grass was luminous, the rust-coloured leaves stood out bronze and glimmering against the grey sky. The fact that this forest is unreachable by car, only foot, means that it’s pristine. Not a scrap of rubbish or a sound. You’re more likely to bump into a wild boar than another human.
I’d gone for a walk to explore the valley, with my umbrella and floor-length raincoat I was protected from the barrage of raindrops that poured down from the oaks and chestnuts above me. The vaguely strenuous mountain walk meant that I was taking deep breaths, gulping lungfuls of fresh forest air. My heart soared and everything looked hyper-real. What I felt was akin to being high, but high on nature, high on the sounds of water trickling along the rain-made rivers. It was blissful.
I remember crouching next to the running water which poured down the rocky path, dipping my fingers into the ice-cold clear stream. Little bits of moss and leaf skeletons floated by. A microcosm within the forest floor. I felt like a child, seeing the wonder in life again. From this seemingly insignificant moment, I knew that the forest was where I wanted to be. I felt at peace here.
The previous five years
Well, I always knew that I wanted to live off-grid. Although, if you have internet you’re surely on-grid, by definition. So let’s just say - I always knew that I wanted to live surrounded by green, by trees, by wildlife. I’d grown up in a small town in England, and when I left home at 18 I’d gravitated towards the big city life in London. I just loved the fact you could meet so many people, all with different ideas. The buzz of the city and the people opened my mind and inspired me. Trying to make it as an artist in London was a little futile. You were expected to put in your time doing unpaid internships, and if you didn’t have anyone to bankroll you, this was just a pipe dream. The cost of living there steadily climbs and climbs. After my studies at art college ended I had to decide if I could afford to stay, and still be creative. The answer, for me personally, was no.
I finally settled in Bristol, where I already had some friends and connections. I ended up in a housing co-operative there, with an eclectic group of residents ranging from age 18 to 70. I became a bike courier, fusing my desire for active work with a love of cycling. By day I delivered organic vegetables for a small company and by night I delivered hot meals for a well-known courier giant. I passed many contented years this way, a constant pump of endorphins negating the fact that vast periods of the year there are drizzly, windy and grey.
I always wrote and painted on the side, and I volunteered at an organic farm just outside of the city. Getting my hands covered in soil and eating the veg we grew there made me re-evaluate my relationship with the natural world. I’d never really been interested before. My mum had kept a little veg patch when I was young, but I don’t think I’d ever looked at it or asked a single question.
I remember tasting a home-grown carrot for the first time at that farm in Bristol. My taste buds exploded - this was a carrot. I don’t think I’d tasted anything like it before. So earthy, so sweet, so carroty. In England, most of our supermarket vegetables come from vast seas of polytunnels in the South of Spain. Lacking in both flavour and vitamins they’re often good-looking but fairly bland. Tasting this organic carrot was like fireworks going off in my mouth. I became very interested in gardening from this point on.
Many more years passed in Bristol, but I had a new focus. Any holidays I took I’d go and volunteer on a farm somewhere in Europe. From the snowy mountains of Greece to the dry coast of Spain, I learnt and I dug and I asked questions. My new love was born and I re-discovered a connection with the outdoors and all the plants and beings it held. I cherished the moment I had, being taught by nature and by the people in these remote communities and organic farms. I had a focus now, I would have my own off-grid(ish) homestead one day too.
Photo credit: D. Greenfield - Asturias, Spain