... which led us here! Alftavatn hut/campsite, which offered us a warm, smiling welcome, a snow-free and wind-free place to camp, and a beautiful lake :) We had walked 26km on that first day and were very happy to pitch our tent here at 10pm; thank goodness the sky doesn’t go dark over Iceland in July!

​First photo below, left: day 2 of our walk, with mountains, the volcanic ground covered with black sand, and a glacial snow patch.

Second photo below, right: We spent our second night on the Laugavegur trail at the campsite at Botnar (Emstrur), where this classic trek runs through a desolate grazing area northwest of the icecap Myrdalsjokull. Here’s my trusty e-coffee cup, covered in black volcanic dust (which got everywhere!). Simon and I made it to Thorsmork the following day, and in the last few kilometres we were very happy to see lush green vegetation around us and hear birds singing... refreshing indeed after all those volcanic crags!

Back in Reykjavik, we enjoyed a wander around the city. We were camping – again! – see first pic, below :) Noteworthy monuments in Reykjavik include the white church Hallgrímskirkja, meaning “church of Hallgrímur”. This Lutheran (Church of Iceland) church stands 73m high and can be seen from most spots in Reykjavík. I also loved the distinctive and beautiful “Sun Voyager” sculpture in the harbour, designed by Jón Gunnar Árnason as an ode to the sun.

​Below left: a scenic spot close to Borgarnes, which we drove through in a teeny, tiny rented car en route to the north-western fjords.
Below right: this one was taken at a beautiful spot just off the road near Þingeyri (north-western fjords again), where we stopped for a picnic. I really can’t remember what we did with those tomatoes but I’m pretty sure the stuff I’m happily stirring is coffee!

Next to the awesome Dynjanji Falls... to give a better sense of scale I’ve included a photo of them closer up!

And so – finally! – I’ve reached the end of the story about our travels. At the beginning (January 2016) the mere thought of it all was terrifying... in the middle (early April, end of the “eastern leg”) I felt ready to halt, come home and return to “real life”... but by early August I’d made it through 12 countries, including 6 with Mr Simon Duringer on board! I/we volunteered time and toil in six of those countries to help eight different hosts with their eco-projects. I slept in 91 different locations (51 with Simon – yes, how sad that I counted!) and caught so many trains, buses, planes and ferries that I really have lost count ;)

​But would I have missed it? No way. And do I count myself lucky to have found a fella who would accompany me through 6 countries, walking and talking, laughing and singing, helping me figure out maps and carrying a fair bit of camping/cooking kit to help us keep the budget as low as possible? YES! Mr. Duringer, THANK you for every minute of your company from our reunion in Helsinki onwards... and thank you for introducing me to the concept of super-cute bamboo travel cups! The one in all my travel photos is still in everyday use in our abode in Cumbria :)

​And of course, to everyone who has bothered to keep reading this blog throughout the year, I’d like to say an immense thank you to you too! I hope that this blog has had its entertaining, interesting and amusing moments for you. The plan from here is to keep updating it with occasional posts about any ingenious / super-simple / exciting / inspiring eco-ideas I come across at local scale. On the other hand, it might yet become a way of documenting our very own home-grown eco-project – if we manage to get it off the ground. I’ll bring news on that as soon as we know more... it’s very early days yet!

Hello all, and welcome to one of my last little write-ups about our time in Iceland! This time the spotlight is on Reykjavik’s very green and eco-friendly campsite, where Simon and I ended up staying no fewer than four times :) We simply kept returning to the capital, between treks and visits to other parts of the country, since despite our efforts we hadn’t managed to secure any residential volunteering placements in Iceland. And there aren’t many affordable places for two shoestring-budget travellers to stay during the Scandinavian summer. The campsite cost us about £12 each per night, about double the price we might expect to pay in the UK but still manageable... and well worth it to have more time to explore funky Reykjavik!

Photos above: The "Icelandic Phallological Museum" - yes really! And credit for the photo of Reykjavik campsite: www.alamy.com.

We liked this campsite a lot, and it came to feel very like a home from home. The camping area is huge, and was pretty full each time we visited, as you’d expect in July! The kitchen is a generous size too, and there are several washrooms (with free showers), a number of outside tables, places to watch TV with other visitors, charge electronic devices, do laundry and so on. As we didn’t have a car or any other place to lock valuables away, we knew it was risky to just zip up the tent and walk away for the day, leaving items inside that we wouldn’t want to find missing on our return. However, that’s a risk that we (and hundreds of other fellow campers) took time and time again, and fortunately not one we regretted.

​I was impressed when I heard what happens to salt left behind by guests, too; at any given time there are probably six big chunky bottles of table salt languishing in the huge kitchen. Apparently these come in very useful in winter, when the campsite is quiet but the hostel is busy... and the paths and car park need to be kept ice-free! Et voilà, no need for the staff to buy salt to de-ice the surfaces :)
 
As well as things left behind in the kitchen, there's a wealth of fantastic stuff literally up for grabs in another area, much of it left by people who clearly came over with a trek in mind but no equipment. I’m guessing that once in Iceland, they bought lots of gear, did the trek (at least, you’d hope so – there's some mighty CLEAN stuff in here!) and then couldn't take it back on the plane with them. So you find walking boots in really good nick. Camping gas canisters of varying levels of fullness... these pressurized, flammable containers are prohibited on flights, of course! Plus there are sleeping bags, camping mats, the odd tent, guide books, groundsheets, toiletries... all absolutely free and just there waiting to be claimed, whether for a week's stay in Iceland or for years to come! I remember being really disappointed that a particularly good pair of trainers didn't fit me, but never mind... they will have been perfect for someone sooner or later. 

So there we are! When travelling in Iceland and visiting the capital on a budget, we recommend staying at this superb “eco campsite”. You could have a pretty comfortable time of it... weather permitting. All the more so if you splash out on a “safari” yurt! These are stunning and looked sooo comfortable, but after a little hesitation we decided not to book one, as they cost about £80 a night, and you still have to walk outside to go to the washroom! There’s always the less expensive indoor option of a bed in the hostel, which adjoins the campsite.

​Here we learned that the water is captured at about 82 degrees Celsius, and is then sent along 27km of pipelines to reach the capital, where it is still at about 80 degrees on arrival! Literally just a couple of degrees are lost during that long journey, and Icelanders can take as many hot, full baths as they like... there's still way more hot water than they need or can use! So much so that many gallons are discharged into the sea every day.

​Iceland is an amazing place to jump on a boat (with ticket in hand, of course), glide a few kilometres out to sea and spot minke whales, humpbacks, orca whales, dolphins and all sorts of sea birds! Husavik and Akureyri, in the north of the country, are apparently the top spots. In the south west of Iceland, however, half a dozen boatloads of tourists head out to sea daily throughout the summer, from Reykjavik harbour. 

Our whale-watching tour guides spoke passionately about the issue, and requested that anyone who also felt strongly about it might avoid restaurants serving whale meat, and instead go for "whale-friendly" ones (which have a sticker in the window). Alternatively, visitors could make a point of going into a whale-meat-serving restaurant simply to tell the staff that they would not want to eat there knowing the eatery supports the whaling industry, and that whale meat should be taken off the menu. We thought this was a brilliant idea... much more effective than just walking on past without telling the restaurant why. So of course, we did!

​Hi all, and welcome along to the next (very late) instalment of my travel blog – kind of a "panoramic view" scanning the surface of a land that's home to giant waterfalls, dramatic geysers, creaking glaciers, myriad volcanoes, other-worldly hiking trails, gentle-natured horses, the dairy product "skyr" and traditional hand-knitted woollens... Iceland.

​We had the luxury of time in this amazing country: twenty-five days! However, we hadn't managed to secure a volunteer placement – not for lack of trying. So in order to keep our food and accommodation costs down we took every opportunity to take ourselves away from Reykjavik. We camped quite a lot ;)

​Early on in our visit we enjoyed a "Golden Circle" tour, where we saw a blue lake-crater surrounded by red ash; geothermal geysers and steaming sulphurous pools; deafening waterfalls; Icelandic horses galloping in fields not far away. We did a couple of long treks – again aiming to get out of the city! The classic 55km-version of the "Laugavegur trek" was the first (see the complex landscape in the first pic below...), and later came a 90km trek down a central section of the country, between two huge glaciers and dozens of volcanoes (second photo, below).

​On an ecological note, we were told that Iceland has one of the highest rates of car ownership in the world; the figure is 1.67 cars per person holding a driving licence. We're sure this car (below) isn't making a statement in response to the statistic, but it did make us giggle! There are no trains, but lots of buses and, for tourists, passes that offer flexibility for your return journey from the middle of nowhere, and a tour guide commentary en route. We took a fair few photos through bus windows... such as this one. See the purple flowers?

That's it from me for now, but I'll be back soon with short posts about Iceland's whaling/whale-watching conflict, its abundant geothermal energy and the capital's very eco-friendly campsite! For now, I'll leave you with this excellent article about the Mid-Atlantic ridge: http://www.livescience.com/31566-iceland-tectonic-plates-meet.html. Iceland is the only place on earth where this ridge rises clear of the ocean... meaning you can stand at the edge of it without getting your feet wet :) More on the effects of this in a later post... bye for now and thank you for reading!

Hello all, and welcome to the latest instalment of my blog, which I feel I should point out I am now writing retrospectively, having been back in the UK since August! But let's go back to mid-June, when Simon and I left behind the balmy climate of Bergen, Norway (?!) and flew north west to the Faroe Islands. We had no volunteering lined up here, though not for lack of trying!
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So, with ten days to play with in this beautiful collection of islands, we decided that to save on funds, we'd do lots of trekking and camping. We knew the average temperature so far north would be about 12°C, and that the sky wouldn't go properly dark at all – no problems there! However, we were also aware that the Faroe Islands – in their ultra-exposed location in the north Atlantic – are often lashed by ferocious storm-grade winds that can easily blow a tent off a cliff... making them a less-than-ideal camping spot! We were exceptionally lucky with the weather, though, and enjoyed some superb vistas from the comfort of our little tent...

​My overall impressions as a tourist? Firstly, I'd expected things to cost more than they did, and that very few people would speak English. However, as a local lady at Torshavn's ferry port pointed out, "there are only about 50,000 of us, so we have to learn other languages". Out of all the places I've been privileged to experience this year, the Faroe Islands is definitely the country least prepared for tourists, basically because mass tourism has yet to arrive there. I actually loved this; Faroe was the only country where we didn't constantly feel surrounded by other travellers (everywhere else, it's been hard to get away from young French and German people, Americans and Brits!).

​I reckon that'll all change soon, though. When we chatted to a lady at the tourist board, we realised they're aware that a big influx of tourists may be imminent and know they need to make some changes! The transport infrastructure is excellent; travel between all the islands is possible via roads, tunnels, bridges, ferries and even helicopters (which barely cost more than the bus!). However, it’s a real exercise of coordination getting all the times to match up so you don’t end up stranded somewhere for hours, or even overnight! In fact the tourist board lady kindly gave us a lift when the last bus of the day hadn't turned up... we were waiting at a "request stop", which meant somebody needed to ring the driver in advance to ask him to come and get us.

​Certain things I associate with times past are very much the norm here, for example hanging sheep up for three months to rot (in a very well ventilated hut-type thing – see picture, below) after which the meat will be consumed as a sort of local delicacy. Most of the men-folk go out and fish for a living in the daytime while the ladies stay at home; hand-made woollens are essential wardrobe items in a place that rarely gets warm; high numbers attend church on Sundays, and also on that day the shops won't sell you alcohol! I remember being informed that I'd have to wait until tomorrow to enjoy a beer... but this news was broken with such a cheery smile that I really couldn't grumble ;) 

Turf roofs are a phenomenon we saw in Norway and Iceland as well as in the Faroe Islands, and an integral part of the "urban" landscape here. Also known as "sod" roofs, they consist of turf laid down over several layers of birch bark, which is very strong, water-resistant and can tolerate the weight and moisture of the soil and grass overlying it. A turf roof can last for several generations, and offers a number of environmental benefits aside from simply providing a rain-proof house covering! Thermal insulation, for one; also absorption of rainwater, reduction of runoff, and provision of habitat for wildlife... especially if you throw a few handfuls of wildflower seeds up there (which looks beautiful, by the way :)
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The turf roofed-houses in the first three photos below are a) centuries old and derelict, b) "rustic" in a village, and c) modern (the white one), on the outskirts of the Faroese capital Torshavn. The fourth shows "Roykstovan", a 900-year-old farmhouse/museum in the village of Kirkjubøur which has been home to the same family for 17 generations, and is thought to be the oldest wooden dwelling still inhabited today. See http://visitfaroeislands.com/see-do/sightseeing/ for more details on this and all the islands!

As for turf roofs in the 21st century, it's even possible to have an immaculate lawn topping your house rather than a tangle of wild flowers, as long as you don't make the roof too steep! Sooner or later somebody will need to get up there and walk around on top with a mower... or you could get a sheep to graze up there, if your house happens to be built into a hill! And yes, we really did see one :)

Most of the houses we saw in the Faroe Islands actually had metal roofs: cheap, easily replaceable and usually painted in a nice cheerful colour contrasting brightly with the white-grey sky. The corrugated metal is MUCH lighter than turf, so for modern houses this is a far more practical option than shoring up the house framework to cope with the weight of turf plus bark plus rainwater... plus snow in winter! However, looking at some of the flimsy-looking roofs and houses, I did wonder how they withstand the ferocious Atlantic gales and storms that are part and parcel of life in the Faroes...

​And then there are the sheep! Far outnumbering people (70,000 sheep for 49,000 people), and here's Simon chatting with one or two ;)

​There's great potential in the Faroe Islands for exploiting tidal, wind and hydro energy, thanks to the country's high hills, windswept cliffs and many miles of coastline. There's a brand new wind farm, and there has been extensive research into the sea currents around the islands, not least by foreign investors and companies seeking test sites for tidal power projects. SEV, Faroe's main energy supplier, has its sights set on 100% renewable energy production by 2030, and won the Nature and Environment Prize in October 2015 at the Nordic Council Awards, Reykjavík, for its ambitious targets and innovative efforts in producing and promoting renewable energy. I don't know how this country will be able to generate substantial amounts of energy from tide movements while also protecting the stocks and breeding patterns of the fish that are the lifeblood of its main industry. Let's hope they'll find a way though, and then maybe other countries with abundant coastline (like the UK!) will start taking notes!

Hi again all, and I do believe it’s time to check in with my old faithful Ecoffee cup again! Shall we see where it managed to sneak centre-stage in photos in Norway?
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While staying with our lovely HelpX hostess Amy, on the island of Helgøya, we were treated to a couple of great days of hiking... here are a couple of snaps taken at the top of a peak called “Tuven”.

Amy took us to visit the town of Lillehammer, where the Winter Olympics took place in 1994... here’s the view from the top of the ski jump, Lysgårdsbakken, which stands proudly overlooking the town. We climbed 930-odd steps to see it for ourselves! ​On another day Simon and I spent a couple of action-packed hours up in the trees at Helgøya’s Klaftrepark, a “GoApe”-style tree park, and of course the Ecoffee cup came along:

We did also do some work at Amy’s ;) This was one of the finishing touches to the chicken coop we helped build – fun and games with a chisel! And here are two of the cats, just minding their own business and then some idiot goes and sticks a cup and a camera in front of them J And the third photo: anyone fancy trying a moose burger, with lingenberry sauce? It was extremely tasty (and I’m pretty sure moose must be free-range?!).

Eventually our journey took us to Oslo, where we enjoyed four lovely days of exploring this great city (and it was 28 degrees Celsius – wasn’t expecting that!). We visited Frogner Park and strolled among the dozens of sculptures there (first 2 photos), and the cup also had an airing in a pretty city square, by this fountain.

We took a ferry to the Bygdøy peninsula on Oslo’s south western side, to visit a museum housing several incredibly old Viking Ships. This one is called the Oseberg ship, named after the place it was found in the nineteenth century, and it was built in 820 AD?! It was used as a grave ship for two prominent women buried in 834 AD, and rested over the centuries in blue clay on the sea bed, hence the vessel’s incredibly well-preserved state.

Here’s a rather blurry shot of the inside of Oslo’s Telenor arena, where Simon and I watched the mighty Muse in concert! And lastly, after a beautiful, high-altitude train journey through snowy mountains, we arrived in Bergen, where of course the famous fish market was top of our “to-visit” list!

​Looking forward to telling you about the Faroe Islands soon... a truly special place to visit. I would advise anyone to go – with minimal fanfare – before mass tourism hits!

In Norway we were to be the first HelpX volunteers for one brand new host – exciting for all concerned! Amy grew up in the USA but has lived in Norway for 21 years, during which time she has had three kids, enjoyed sharing their Scandinavian childhoods and seen the first two fly the nest. Simon and I had a chat with Amy over Skype before we all unanimously confirmed our volunteer placement at her lovely house :) The call also meant we could say hello to Amy’s 18-year-old son and younger foster daughter, as well as getting a glimpse of some of the many animals wandering around!

There were three cats, two dogs (one of them big enough to count as three!), fourteen chicks (at that time “homeless” and living in a cage in the bathroom!), two feisty geese, half a dozen grown-up chickens and a hamster. Simon and I were to help build a chicken coop for the current brood of chicks that had nowhere to go, as Amy also had an incubator full of eggs due to hatch in a week’s time... so there would soon be a further 20 or so tiny chicks in need of a place to call home!
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All in all we had a fantastic stay with Amy and co. The chicken coop was duly built, including a few key developments designed and built by another HelpXer – a skilled young carpenter and woodworker – “on loan” from Amy’s boyfriend’s farm. The chicken coop soon grew in scale and scope, earning itself the name “Cluckingham Palace”!

At Amy’s Simon and I found a lovely balance between volunteer hours and our own time... in fact we probably weren’t working nearly enough to justify the amount of food we were being given and the number of breaks our hostess encouraged us to take! We were able to go out and enjoy plenty of walks in the sunshine, plus runs in my case... Amy lives on the island of Helgøya, in the middle of Norway’s largest lake, where there are brilliant forest paths and plenty of good training hills within a compact area, about 18 sq.km. We went on longer hikes too, with Amy and others and the dogs, and everyone (animals included!) soon seemed to feel like we were part of the furniture of the house, which was lovely.

At Amy’s I found myself thinking a lot about all the people we’d spent time with recently who had made the decision to be more eco-friendly... they’d all found out from somewhere how to go about it. Some had been raised by very environmentally-conscious parents, so for them it was absolutely the norm to have, say, a solar collector on the roof or to grow unusual edible plants. Others we’d talked to had caught onto the idea later, as adults, through the infectious passion of a partner... and then casual wonderings of their own followed up with a great deal of research. Either way – brilliant! But what if someone wants to start making changes towards a more eco-friendly lifestyle but has never spent much time in places or with people who are putting it into practice? Would they know where to start looking?

I’ve already mentioned lots of eco-ideas in previous blog posts... feel free to read them if you’re interested in biogas cars, compost toilets, solar-heated water, food from nature, etc.!

Here, though, I’m just going to go over the basics! Changes anyone can make without buying new technology or changing anything intrinsic to their home :) Interspersed with all sorts of photos from our time in Norway...  
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A key first step is to reduce waste... preferably in several areas! For example, there’s no need to leave taps running and let clean drinking-water drain away unused. Speaking as someone who has recently completed a few very long, multi-day, back-to-basics hikes in remote places, I can assure you of one thing: you become hyper-aware of the value of every sip of water if you’re not sure how many hours lie between you and the next hut/spring/clean river! On a similar note, there’s no need to fill a kettle to the max level to make just one or two cups of tea... save the electricity!

It’s too easy, in the rich West, to be wasteful with food... to go shopping every day, to forget what’s in the fridge before you head to the shop “just for a few things”, and then to cook too much of what you’ve bought and not know what to do with the extra. The solutions are so simple, though, and you’ll save money! Personally I NEVER, ever throw edible food away. Sometimes I try an “experiment” if I really can’t think of a way to reuse something... and even if these fail miserably I usually eat them anyway! If anyone knows how to transform leftover porridge into delicious cocoa-covered oaty balls, I’d love to hear from you ;) My creations remained soggy... but they were tasty enough and none went to waste :)
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So it’s worth having a look in the fridge before you go to the shop. You might have been about to buy a new sauce for dinner... but if there are already three open jars in the fridge, do you need an extra one? Also, check the bread bin before buying bread, as bread doesn’t keep well at all and is not a good thing to suddenly find you have piles of! I don’t eat much bread – a few slices a week maybe – so a new loaf goes straight into the freezer and slices are taken out when I need them. The freezer is also your friend when it comes to leftovers; if you have a huge pan of delicious stew left over after a meal, it certainly shouldn’t be chucked, but it doesn’t need to be all you eat for the next four meals either! Put it in pots in the freezer. Oh, is your freezer full to bursting? Then you probably don’t need to go shopping at all – why not take some yummy food out for tea and save the cash for another time?

Other little changes...maybe you live within 10km of quite a few places you go to regularly? That's a bit far to walk both ways each time you go out, but it’s a lovely distance to cycle! Not with heavy shopping, of course ;) I agree it’s much less appealing in winter, when the nights are long, evenings are dark and the roads may be icy. And yes, if there are hills it can be tough, but heck, you’ll burn lots of calories and get fitter, all the while saving petrol (and money!). I think it feels great to leave the car at home whenever possible.
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Something I’ve noticed here in Scandinavia is that people living away from major towns can find it hard to recycle. They’re often happy to take the time and trouble to sort glass from paper, card from plastic and so on, but then the council may only collect from their home once a month or so, if at all. So their recycling bins are overflowing and becoming more of a hindrance in the kitchen than a help. However, there are often recycling stations close by, and anyone should be able to find their nearest one by using the internet. In that case, it’s just a question of remembering to put the recycling boxes in the car before going out, and then remembering to stop as you pass the recycle point! An easy habit to keep once it’s started, surely?

Another simple idea that works well for anyone who has a sunny outdoor space is to have a bash at growing things outside – herbs, for instance! It’s a great first foray into the world of gardening (and potentially growing your own veg), and if you don’t enjoy it there’s no major expense or loss. On the other hand you may love it, and go from watercress and rocket one year to twelve herbs, plus tomatoes and peppers the next! Another brilliant thing to try and grow would be bright, colourful flowers, which while making your terrace/hanging baskets look beautiful, also attract bees and butterflies and help their numbers grow.  

So there we have it... a handful of ideas for simple changes that might help streamline certain areas of life and keep some cash in your wallet until you need it for something unavoidable (or purely pleasurable :)

We had SUCH an amazing time in Norway. Amy was a truly kind, caring hostess and a whole lot of fun, and we felt really sad to say goodbye to her and all the gang in Helgøya. Here are a few more photos from our time in Norway (the Olympic ski jump in Lillehammer – thank you again for taking us, Amy!), sculptures in Oslo's Frogner Park, a high-altitude train journey through mountain snowfields - in June! - and Bergen).

​Thank you for reading, and see you soon in the Faroe Islands!

At Stjärnsund, Eliza and David have sown edible plants in lots of patches over their gardens, and these provide salad every day! A few that we picked and threw straight into the salad bowl most days were Spanish chervil (pic 1: almost sweet with a liquorice-y flavour); currant leaf, ground elder (pic 2: the smallest, youngest, lightest-green and still-unfolding leaves were the best); rucola (peppery rocket); and some delicious little succulents. The third photo shows one of the 600 species of "sedum", a peppery, slightly bitter-tasting plant that produces pink flowers. ​

Hi folks, welcome back to Stjärnsund, Sweden, and thank you for sticking with me! This post is about the amenities and sleeping spaces we experienced in the ecovillage, and I reckon I now know what kind of house I'd like to live in... one with an unconventional appeal, naturally :) 

But let's start by looking at washing and loos... at Stjärnsund, as in our Finnish host's home a month earlier, the use of compost toilets is de rigueur. Here there are several, offering varying degrees of comfort, knee room, decoration and natural light! In one block, volunteers and kids have clearly been let loose with a pack of wax crayons, and adorned the cubicle interiors with fun pictures and quotations. The Fridhem building (which we were welcome to use) has standard loos and showers, which we did appreciate :) There’s a laundry room, which has a single washing machine for twenty-odd people. The rota system for using it seems to work well, as long as you remember to book a slot two days in advance! If your day happens to be rainy, it’s no major problem as there are metres and metres of washing line in a wonderfully warm room :)

As regards the internet, Stjärnsund is a Wi-Fi-free zone except for in Eliza and David’s “tiny house” and kitchen. This is no accident; one or two of the eco-villagers claim heightened sensitivity to “electro-smog”, which they feel affects them physically. One lady goes so far as to put on a protective mask before sitting down at the computer... so she may look like a bee-handler who means business, but I guess she feels safe.
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While at Stjärnsund Simon and I had the chance to try out two different sleeping spaces :) For the first eight nights we were in a tepee, a new experience for both of us! 

​It was spacious enough for us to put pallets around the edges to raise our mattress and bags off the floor, and there were also some basic wooden shelves, hammered together by David :) We took care to cover as much of our stuff as we could, especially in the evenings, as with a fire burning in the centre of the tepee there was a fair bit of ash flying around! The smoke was a mighty good mosquito-deterrent though :) 

On the eighth night it rained. Heavily, from about 2am. We closed the hole in the tepee roof (or rather, Simon went out in the rain to wrestle with the 4m-high poles and close it!), but it wasn’t long before the walls were soaked and the saturated rope frame began dripping in all over the place! The rain was set to continue for a couple of days, so for our last two nights we were upgraded to a “tiny house”, whose owner, Micke, happened to be away. With his permission Simon and I moved our things into a type of accommodation that was, again, new to both of us, and completely brilliant!

​The idea of living in smaller dwellings, as an alternative to increasingly large ones that reflect an individual’s or family’s social progression and prestige, was put forward by two pioneering US authors, Lloyd Kahn and Lester Walker, in their books published in 1973 and 1987 respectively. When the financial crisis hit in 2007-8, the appeal of these mini-houses as a more affordable, environmentally-friendly housing option was clear, and the US “tiny house movement” began to attract more attention. Tiny houses still represent only a tiny proportion (about 1%) of US house purchases, but they offer streamlined, low-maintenance living spaces, they are inexpensive to build... and in many cases you can MOVE them! There are thousands of pictures online of beautiful tiny house properties, and personally, as someone who likes to keep my “stuff” to a minimum and is in the market for an ultra-cheap place to own, I love the idea of building one of these! David built the one that he and Eliza currently live in, a project that took a couple of months from start to finish.

The bed is in a mezzanine at the top, with a sofa, table and shelves beneath. All around the walls are little alcoves, drawers and places to store things, with space used in ingenious ways that remind me of a camper van! There’s no grid-supplied power here; light comes from paraffin lamps, and there’s a wood-burning stove that radiates heat while providing the means to cook. As mentioned in my previous post, there’s a gas cylinder too, for days when it just wouldn’t be practical to keep a fire going. I have yet to see a tiny house with a built-in shower, toilet or washing machine, but I’m determined to find out more about how this is done... and then get busy designing my own dream mini-home :) Or rather, start thinking about the interior of the one my lovely partner has already designed and sketched – hooray!

​Next time: food from nature and a tour of Stjärnsund’s beautiful produce patches... thanks as always for reading!