Home really is where the heart is

The question of ‘where or what is home?’ seems to be a huge theme for me at the moment. In a way, it has been with me my whole life as I have frequently felt plagued by a strange homesickness even whilst sitting in my own home, felt as a visceral nausea in my body

Touched by the stones

Chris and I are a week into our road trip around Pembrokeshire and already we’re falling under its magical spell. Before we left, pretty much everyone to whom we mentioned our plans had something positive to say about the place – eyes lit up as happy memories were recounted. And, now we’re here, I’m sure our own eyes

Unveiling the heart

For the last month, my partner and I have been happily living on the side of a beautiful mountain in a remote part of northern Portugal.  The reason for this change of address has been to try out community living for the first time, with a relatively new community venture called Merkaba Community.  I’ve been

The benefits of al fresco yoga

‘Asanas keep the body healthy and strong and in harmony with nature.’ BKS Iyengar. I’ve always been an outdoor girl, so it’s no surprise that I love doing yoga outside, feeling the sun on my skin and a gentle breeze in my hair, birdsong in my ear, blossom nectar tickling my nostrils.  And there’s no

Dolmen hunters

We’ve spent the last week or so meandering through the rocky river gorges and stony plateaus of the southern, Mediterranean fringe of the Cevennes region. This area is a hotspot for what we’ve taken to lumping together as ‘stone age secrets and megalithic mysteries’ – I confess we’ve given the phrase its own cheesy theme-tune, and have gone as far as wondering whether we

Flying pencils

We’ve spent the last week in the cowboy wildlands of Camargue, where white ponies and black bulls roam the flat marshes in between large saline pools and lakes fringed with whispering reeds, all teeming with pink flamingos, white egrets and grey herons. It’s a strange, enticing landscape, where nature and human influence have conspired to

Reluctantly moving on

We did it – we finally left the very beguiling Luberon region of Provence. We were trying to for a while, but somehow another beautiful village perched precariously onto the side of a cliff or another ancient-looking footpath kept diverting our attention and we found ourselves lingering for ‘just one more night’. We managed to

Mistaking the stick for a snake

I am fascinated by the Vedas – these are a collection of four ancient Indian tomes covering a huge range of esoteric subjects, including some of the earliest known references to yoga. It is said that the wisdom that they contain was received directly from the divine by enlightened beings, or ‘seers’, and, for thousands

Learning from the mountains

We’ve just spent two lovely weeks exploring the southern Alps in France. It has felt like a real treat to have the beautiful, honeypot towns almost to ourselves, the eerie off-season emptiness only adding to the mystery and romance of the narrow, cobbled streets. We’ve enjoyed the bright blue winter clarity that still lingers in

Blowing a gale

Post written on 04/03/16 This post is brought to you from the beautiful little mountain town of St-Vallier-de-Thiey in the maritime Alps, around 30km north of Cannes. Following immense indecision after our breakdown in Italy, in the end we tossed a coin to decide which direction to head – east to Greece or west back