Oh what a beautiful morning

An early start today.

The weather is beautiful today, the sun beating down since its early rise. The caravan gets hot really early and despite opening a few windows, this morning it was unbearable. So, I just had to get up, and I'm glad. I'm not the earliest of risers by any means, but maybe I will start because watching and hearing the world awake and unfold is beautiful.

So, I'm sat on the settee in the awning. You can roll up the front of the awning, quickly turning it into a gazebo type tent, letting the day breeze in whilst sipping coffee and catching up on the days news.

The site is in great form, the showers that were plentiful at the beginning of May have helped turn the site into a lush green, all the trees have their leaves on, everything is growing really fast around us, including some little ducklings that were born the other day. They've just passed by, their duck mummy leading the way, passing on little tricks and knowledge to her offspring.

Time is speeding on by, although summer is only just beginning, I'm already fearing its end. We are talking now about staying on through the Winter, which if we do, could be quite tough. Being so close to nature and almost becoming part of it, we feel we need to do a whole year, the whole cycle in order to have the full experience. Dark and cold nights in a small van with no tele present a different living challenge to the one we are enjoying now. Washing up and showering on cold wet January mornings don't hold much appeal whilst sat here in the sun. But, as they say, we only live once, and with the right clothes and attitude, I'm sure we would survive. Life is too short.

The campsite is busy, the sun brings everyone out, and even at this time of the day, there are sunburnt men meandering around with cans of lager, lapping it up. The evening is filled with the smell of barbecues and woodsmoke. Kids are everywhere, exploring, having fun and murdering undeveloped trout, but I'm not going to do a Victor Meldrew here today.

Instead I'm going to take my guitar into the sun and have a strum, the sun is shining, the weather is sweet

Its Nature's Way of telling you

Well,

It's been almost a month since the last blog update, why? you may ask, well I will tell you.

We are what it says, we're living in a caravan, not a holiday, this is now, life as we know it.

We've been here pretty much three months now, its an old cliche but time really has flown by, and if we stick to our plan of moving back into a proper house/flat, then it will be about three or four months until that happens, so you may say, we're halfway there.

It really is a fantastic experience, and I recommend anybody to do something similar, to take ourselves out of a 'normal' way of living into something simpler, and more in touch with nature and ourselves.

We have chosen to live without tv, we don't have a radio, or a 'hi-fi', ok, we do have a laptop, which can incorporate all of that, but even that is really only used by me and I spend most of my time on Football Manager and as we'll later hear, fishing websites.

You spend more time with 'yourself' in an environment like this, you can't escape as easily, its like living in a mirrored box at times, everything is more direct, combined with the peace here, and living so close to nature, its a very reflective, thought provoking place.

I'm still finding nature mind blowing, the ducks mated, produced ducklings, and now the little ducklings aren't so little anymore, and are legging it about the place full of confidence, we've even had a few in the awning having a look round.

There are literally thousands of tadpoles, all swimming around in the edges of the pond, I haven't seen a frog for ages, they have done what they needed to do, and, so it seems, normal life has resumed.

A heron visits daily to the pond, a tall graceful bird that comes and perches on rocks, blending in to the background, waiting to grab its lunch with its long pointed beak, regularly pulling out little fish snacks. It also likes duckings! Yes, herons, for all their apparent grace and nobility see little cute fluffy ducklings differently to we do, to a heron, its a tasty lunch and a break from fish, it also likes birds eggs and has been seen in numerous trees around the site pestering nests for a eggy breakfast. Whenever Heron is around, Crow closely follows, I've been studying the behaviour for a while. Crow obviously knows what Heron is up to, and follows Heron almost everywhere, you can guarantee when Heron arrives, Crow will follow. It seems Heron is scared of the crow and will often be chased away, especially when the ducklings are around.

It is almost as if Crow is the 'Security Guard', not just looking out for the safety of its own offspring, but seemingly for the offspring of others, the good of the whole, like some sacred feathered policeman, maybe pigs do fly?!

As witnessed many times here now, things judged as evil and wrong in our Human world play themselves out on a daily basis in the natural world. Murder, rape, theft and violence all occur in the animal world, life it seems continue to goes on. When the ducklings were first born, you could count the litter. Of the three or four sets that have been born, everyone has lost ducklings a long the way, whether eaten, lost or even knocked over by a car or caravan. Life goes on.

The caravan site looks absolutely beautiful, the bare frost bitten trees of our arrival in March have been replaced by an umbrella of leaves and blossom, the whole place is a blend of shades of green, with the regular showers we have been having, every day there is a growth spurt, every day looks different.

Of course the time will come where the sunlight decreases, the leaves will start turning brown, eventually falling to the ground, and the whole cycle will repeat itself, life, death and rebirth.

Where will we be when that happens?, well, that is the question Jodes and I are asking ourselves. The thought of leaving here isn't good, we have both settled, adjusted and are now in the groove of living here, I think we would love to do the whole cycle living here, but, humans, unlike the animals and birds around us,aren't especially good with the wet, and cold.

The caravan we live in, isn't especially big, we use the awning for all cooking, eating and a lot of hanging out, you would imagine in Winter it would be difficult to heat, and keep dry, leaving us living just in the van, with it going dark everyday at 4 o clock, I think we could potentially go stir crazy.

It means we have been looking at other ways of lives, or other caravans, yurts, tipi's etc that we could live in, I feel this experience will take us down an alternative lifestyle road as in opposition to going back to the ratrun battery farm of living in a crowded street in a back to back house. Its one part of nature i don't miss, nature living in disharmony with itself.

All in all, living like this serves as a reminder that there is an alternative way of living that is different to the social norm. We can't all be suited to living in houses, working hard every day to 'keep a roof over our head' 'putting tea on the table', it isn't natural, it is an idealism that has been sold to us as being the way to live life, in order to contribute to society.

I take one look out side of the window here and I know, living life like that, isn't natural to me, I need to connect to my environment, I am a part of nature, a nature that has been here for thousands of years, and will be here for thousands of years after I have gone, and whilst we share this planet for the time of my life, I feel I need to spend as much time as close as possible to all the other living things that make it so fascinating.

But..... we need money, and we need to survive, everything has a price these days, and nothing is for free (except nature) (oh and love). It'd led me to lots of different websites, documentaries, photos, blogs etc. Gypsies, Romanies and travellers from all all over the world have been consistently persecuted through history for their different lifestyles.

I'm going to post this link, if you have a few minutes please look through this site, if for nothing else than to see some beautiful pictures of old vehicles. However, most of these vehicles are/were peoples homes

http://www.travellerdave.co.uk/?s=21

The Criminal Justice Bill was passed in 1994, amongst it was Part 5, which had catastrophic effects on the lifestyle of 'New Age Travellers'

Have a listen to this track whilst perusing the lovely photos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsTK2LHZKPQ