Trip nearly completed

We have almost finished our travels. Our last wwoof host was excellent, apart from one of the dogs. The dog was lovely, but young and not used to small children. We were planning on going back for two weeks after visiting my aunt and uncle near Turriff in Aberdeenshire but the morning we left Echo asked us not to come back, and we agreed that we were worried about the dog getting over exuberant with the girls as well The girls squeal whilst playing and whine when upset. The noise goes straight through me and sets me on edge instantly, usually making me shout at them. It bypasses thinking and happens, not good. The dogs reacted exactly the same way! Except they would come running from distance, whereas my reaction is only when they are right next to me. The young dog would then think she'd been naughty and go back to her space in the house. I didn't think this was nice for the dog and could also lead to a bad reaction to little people as well.

The farm used to be a commercial success but now it is running at a loss. Echo is more interested in the teaching aspect now. Training the volunteers, weekly locals and longer term from abroad, in growing sustainably. Like many people we have met, she doesn't think current culture is sustainable and we are quickly moving towards trouble.

I am not as pessimistic as I used to be, probably because I have stepped back from normal society into generally friendlier home education and organic circles A few years ago I was thinking contemporary western society only had ten to fifteen years left, now I think it could be twenty something.

My idea of our plan, possibly different to Vikki's, is of building up our own sustainable living space that the girls can come back to. A real long term investment. This means we are seriously considering sea level rises and climatic changes, such as the more extreme weather that we have been seeing in recent years across the world.

There are a few areas we have considered as permanent homes. East Devon is lovely, but too far from our parents South Wales is just too wet for me, though that could change. Herefordshire/Worcestershire is too far from the sea for Vikki.

So far the only place we have agreed on was just west of Dumfries. A mile or two inland from the coast could be twenty or more metres higher than sea level, reasonably close to motorway network to get to our parents. We are now planning on buying a caravan so we can have long weekends in the area through different seasons, try and experience a full year in the area.

Of course if the weather is changing it will only give us a snapshot, but we have to start somewhere, and the journey is only just begun.

A sense of community

As chance would have it three of our last five hosts have been Intentional Communities. An Intentional Community is a place where people have come together deliberately to join other people with some shared ideals, though they may be quite loosely held together.

Each of the communities has been markedly different. My impressions of them range through being of relaxed disorganisation, or very organised but wilfully inefficient or efficient and well organised. All have been very friendly and may tempt us back for slightly longer stays in the future.

I had previously ruled out community living due to my prejudice about decision making and just wanting to get on with things. Whilst working I attended too many unproductive meetings where advice was not taken, or consensus not reached. I really thought concensus decision making would drive me mad, but it doesn't seem too bad. Urgent things do seem to be done, but examples of things taking months to reach agreement on were plenty and would be difficult to live with. I think all the communities had non official ways of preventing someone blocking a decision without good cause more than once.

The many benefits to community living that we saw included shared workload, being able to have holidays whilst livestock are still tended to, not feeling isolated, sharing childcare. Also sharing great meals and not having to cook every night. At Crabapple they ate communally every evening, and most nights we were there it was a banquet. At Canon Frome the members booked us for a morning or afternoon and generally fed us lunch or dinner after the work. Again all the food was great, with the majority from the farm. Not having to cook evening meals was very productive for us, especially as most of the time the children were playing with other children or asking other adults lots of interesting questions.

What I have taken out of spending time in Intentional Communities is that I like the sense of community but without all the complications of communal decision making.

I think what we would like is an old fashioned street/village feel as one friend in Calderdale is trying to create and another friend in Haworth already has. We just want a few acres of land to go with it!

There is a lot more to Intentional Communities, have a look at the Diggers and Dreamers website to find out more.