Life update October 2020

Tags

agent hunting, clean living, detox, epicurean, karezza, Minimalism, Narrowboat living, Rumi, Travel memoir, Vegan, Voluntary simplicity, writing

After several days of rain, the sun came out in the late afternoon, lighting up the red berries

The wood burner is going- it’s not that cold, I’m sure when I eventually go out for a walk and get it together to fill up the water tank, it will be okay with a nice warm coat on- but sitting writing it feels a bit chilly.

#NoSextember Year Two (where my husband and I have a month of clean living including no sex) This was completed with no breaches; it was a lot easier having done it last year. This time we approached it more confidently and with more seriousness and it seemed to go better. That said, it wasn’t always easy. Week one we were both suffering from one last blow out in August. Week two we both seemed a little cranky with each other. That can be difficult when you can’t just make up with sex or flirting, or cheer yourself up with chocolate or a drink. The second half seemed better, and even more productive. I got my book done, and even booked a day off work in early October to make sure it got sent off (I think that’s called ‘honouring my craft’)

My husband has been working on planning our new website: Further. As with all things tech related, this has been slower than we anticipated. However, we now have a new laptop, lots of ideas and my son on board to help with the technical side.

We are both increasingly distant from- and often dismayed by- the polarisation which people seem so involved with at the moment- people we know with otherwise quite lovely lives, who could be really happy, full of hate for politicians on the opposite side or lost in particular conspiracy theories and calling everyone else ‘sheeple’ and falling out with friends on social media about whether or not to wear a mask.

Further will be a place for anyone who feels similarly to us, who is able to look at it all without getting completely caught up in it, who values human connection and kindness over ideology. Best summed up by Rumi’s famous quote: ‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.’ ‘Seeing beyond boundaries and meeting heart to heart’

We’ve also found the ideal underpinning philosophy, to the Further site and to our lives: The teachings of Epicurus. In a stunning example of synchronicity, as we were discussing this, a boat went past called The Epicurean! Nowadays the term is used to describe a ‘foodie’ someone who enjoys good food and wine. But Epicurus himself lived on bread, olives and the occasional slice of cheese. He devoted himself to the search for what makes people happy, and his conclusion was, a simple life with few possessions, shared with friends, while also having plenty of time for alone time and quiet reflection, and really appreciating what you actually have.

As the videos explain, it can be used nowadays as an antidote to the relentless dissatisfaction human beings naturally seem to have (the craving, addressed in Buddhism) which is mercilessly exploited by advertising, marketing, and the forces of capitalism. People always want more, but material things don’t give you happiness.

So naturally I have abandoned my longing for a stone cottage in Yorkshire and have moved onto a house in Italy whereby to create an Epicurean community- we live there, and people on the same path/with the same outlook come and stay.

Self portrait, Pushkar, India 2020

About the author

In 2018 in our forties and fifties my husband and I sold up, gave away most of our possessions, and went travelling for a year, mainly in India, and also to Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam. My personal/spiritual/travel memoir of the year is completed and out with agents. I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire UK with my husband and two cats.

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

Thank you very much for reading

#NoSextember Year 2

Tags

detox, diet, food, giving up sex, Greggs vegan sausage rolls, losing weight, purification, Vegan

A woman at work was talking about going out to eat with her friend, to be sociable, rather than about the food, and about how it was hard to get a table, and then super cheap because of the Government’s Eat out to help out scheme (where they pay half the bill Mon-Wed, I believe, to help the hospitality industry recover from lockdown.) The woman, a beautiful slim woman in her early thirties said: “My friend, she is this big (miming very overweight person), “She LOVES food; it’s like she lives only for food. Me I can take it or leave it, one toast two days, no problem.”

I felt a little envious. I am not like that, unfortunately…. I am a Taurean, a lover of food, with a lack of discipline, and sometimes hedonistic. My husband talks about how important it is to have control and not be addicted to anything, to be able to pick things up and put them down again. This only works if you can put them down again, which is why we are doing this programme. It’s as much to prove to ourselves that we can do it as well as to get a bit healthier physically.

It’s about attachment, practising what we preach and ultimately, it’s all part of the lifelong preparation for death, can you pick it up and put it down? Worldly pleasures, and ultimately, when the time comes, life itself? I’m misquoting George Harrison, but he said something like, You don’t want to have to come back because you left the cat out, or whatever. Or haven’t finished your book. The moment it comes, all that ceases to matter, and the focus is on letting go. When he was attacked by an intruder in his home he realised ‘This is it’ and had started letting go when Olivia hit the guy over the head with a lamp stand and saved him.

The programme:

No cigarettes, no alcohol.

No pointless food- crisps, biscuits, cake, teacakes, etc

We did this last year, a made up month of purification/self improvement, prompted in large part to my terrible addiction to Greggs Vegan Sausage Rolls. Regular readers may be surprised to know that I have completely conquered said addiction. Just before everywhere locked down, I was in my home town of Diss, Norfolk, UK, buying GVSRs with my husband, having first been to Grapetree to stock up on nuts, seeds, dried fruit, maca powder, cacao powder, hemp protein powder (like all people I am a mix of apparent contradictions.) The young lad at the counter and us were bemusedly talking about Corona virus, and the lad mentioned Greggs might close down. I was disbelieving, “Close down Greggs?” I said, “Never!”

Of course I was wrong, and spent much of the first part of lockdown grieving for my occasional trips to Daventry (my current home town) and Greggs for an Americano and a VSR (or two), or same on the way to Norfolk for our regular three- four hour drives to see friends and family. But when we did try them again, they tasted horribly salty and we ended up throwing them away! We overheard meat eaters saying the same about the meat ones. Was it a change of recipe? Or had our palettes just changed over lockdown? Anyway, for my body it’s a blessing.

However, we’ve managed to put on weight via plenty of other means: crisps, teacakes, and for me, alcohol, starting with my lockdown birthday and sliding into regular G&T or beer on the deck after work.  And cigarettes. I love being outside, but what to do with myself? The last couple of days after work I sat on the deck and had a glass of lemon water and a bowl of trail mix or a banana, and it really was okay.

Walk/yoga daily

I really slacked re exercise during this big period of writing/editing.

Increase cooking from scratch and Avoid eating so much processed food

With the boom in ready made vegan food it’s tempting to go to Aldi or Tesco and pick up something ready made, new potatoes and a pack of salad for ease, rather than, what can I make out of what we have, and the more fiddly things/things that require going out of the way to shop for get sidelined or forgotten.

No caffeine- no coffee, no fizzy drinks, decaf tea, herbal/fruit tea, lemon water, water only. (from around 10 Aug I went to just caffeine tea first thing then no more tea or coffee or fizzy drinks, to help with the headache of abrupt coffee/caffeine stopping.

“Can I do it if I drink decaff coffee?” Someone at work asked me. “Yes of course, it’s just a made up thing,” I said. No real rules, other than what you make up yourself.  We’ve focused on our biggest weaknesses- last year, GVSRs, this year, crisps, smoking, and lack of exercise. Some things are fixed for us- no cigarettes, no alcohol- some are more general not 100% e.g. I’m sure we’ll have the odd processed meal, and processed is a definition that can be strict or loose- we’re reasonably loose- but we know where we need to make improvements.

So if you want to join me, I’m giving you some notice- particularly useful for caffeine as if you go from four cups of coffee to none in my experience you get a banging headache for a half a day- just make up your own programme but we could do it together, and share a blog about it? Do I need to tell you I am not a doctor? And that stopping excessive alcohol consumption abruptly can be dangerous and you need to seek proper advice re coming off that.

Talking about sharing the blog- if anyone would like to write a guest post for this blog do get in touch via the contact box. Promote your blog/ book/ music; tell us your story, about the detail of your daily life, comment on something on the blog that interests you…

No sex- this is the one I don’t tell people at work when I’m telling them about my September purification month, and the one people find most weird. But I refer you back to the intro re attachment.

Thank you very much for reading!

Rachel