My leap year thoughts

For all of you used to reading paragraph upon paragraph of wending tale, this blog entry is entirely different.  I finished my last ever job as a doctor one month ago today.  That is a big deal. Despite never really wanting to be a doctor (long story involving rejection from veterinary school) I have poured my heart and soul into it for fifteen years.  Over these last 29 days I have felt an unfurling, a me that isn't really sure what's going on but is excited by the prospect of finding out.  The next few lines are just jottings of thoughts and things that have found their way to the surface of my subconscious and onto the page. 

I am bitter. Not theatrically so, but I am surprisingly resentful of having wound up in my mid thirties not really having a clue who I am or where I am going.  Everyone else's lives seem so 'sorted'.. (of course I know the latter part of this to be absolute rubbish, but my brain can't help tormenting me with that notion).

I adore baking bread. Who knew?

Nobody cares that you are changing direction, but the ones that care about you are proud of you.  And that feels good.  If you are proud of someone, say so, it could change the trajectory of their life.

The more you talk about what you are going through, the more you realise practically everyone has been in the same boat somewhere down the line. Most people have at some point in their lives changed career. And the vast majority do not do at sixty what they did at twenty two. 

Freecycle is awesome.

Night shifts and 14hr weekend shifts are not normal work hours. Crying at work because you are too tired to think is not okay.  Absorbing emotional turmoil from patients, relatives, colleagues and co-workers is not what we were designed to do nor are we supported to cope with.  None of the bad sh*t that went on in hospitals was ever okay. It was traumatising and crushing and stressful and silenced.

Dog walks in the sunshine are about as restorative and healing as it gets.

So is wine. Particularly when drunk with best friends. 

Having the whole world as your oyster seems at the beginning harder than walking a single path. But secretly, if you hang in there long enough to find out, having the whole world is magical.

Creativity blossoms when it is given space to breathe.

Breathing is good.

Baking my way across Europe, amongst other things..

Over the last week I have sanded, sawn, drilled, painted, swept, glued and more..  in fact at one point I almost set fire to the truck through a misplaced vigour, an angle grinder and some rather ignitable dust. I am having the best time. I really can't believe how much fun I am having, and how much satisfaction I get out of this process.  Dad joins me in the truck each morning and nods approvingly at the progress, much to my delight. We take a tour of the previous days work, coffee in hand, and problem solve the issues that are set to challenge me in the day ahead.  He is not only a wonderful companion to have alongside, but he is also a fountain of great engineering wisdom, and an endless font of stories that start with "Well, you probably want to...." which usually include advice as well as an anecdote about how badly it went for him in the past when he tackled a similar problem...

Alas, to most people the truck today would look almost identical to last week, such is the visible pace of progress! Things are moving along and my mind is constantly busy planning the next stage.  When I don't have a power tool in my hand I am doing my best to drink in any knowledge that will aid my quest for life without money.  This week's spotlight goes to one of mankind's greatest inventions: bread. Stay with me! This is not any old bread - but a slowly fermented, easy to digest, crispy on the outside, springy and hearty on the inside, oh so good with any topping, king of breads: sourdough.  

How did I end up here? Well, one of my very good friends Alix is a master sourdough baker, so much so that she won a competition whose prize was a 60 year old sourdough starter.  Now to most people (myself included before I read up on the subject) that sounds old and undesirable.  But it turns out that sourdough has this magical ability to live forever, and these super aged starters are the bees knees and uber desirable amongst keeno sourdough bakers.  How curious.

What's more, to make a sourdough starter (which is basically a gloup with live yeast in it that you have to feed and cull to allow it to grow and paradoxically also not kill itself in a bath of self-made acid) all you have to do is leave flour and water out in a bowl - the environment, as in, any environment anywhere, has yeast spores wafting around and miraculously somehow they arrive at the flour water mix and start doing their thing, becoming sourdough starter. Oh I am hooked!  So here began a foray into the world of starters, sponges, kneading, dutch ovens (no sniggering!), and the illustrious search for the 'perfect' loaf. 

So we return to Alix and her prized (literally) geriatric sourdough starter Llud. I have explained one way to make a starter, the other way is to lure one to your house with the promise of a slow roast lamb supper for it's owner.  Much to my delight not only did Alix bring Llud but she also brought with her enthusiasm enough to write me an idiots guide to sourdough whilst we sat, bellies full of roast, by the fire.  

Which brings me up to last night.  With Alix's generous gift of some very prestigious, highly sought after starter gloup and her personal recipe tweaks, I began measuring and pouring, mixing and kneading with gay abandon. You can imagine my absolute delight when out of the oven came a truly magnificent looking loaf.  It literally took me sitting on my hands to prevent myself from slicing into it immediately (Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall frowns upon this, advising to leave the bread to rest for 20 minutes or so http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/may/10/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall-recipes-sourdough ). So, having gathered my mother, some salted butter and a carton of hummus, at last I sliced into the loaf.  

Now, I, as much as anyone would expect the first pass at any baking attempt to be a bit of a disaster, much like the rubbishy first pancake of a batch that you always end up feeding to the dog.  But I have to say, I managed to impress myself! It remains to be seen whether I can reproduce the same quality of product next time round, or whether it was beginners luck.  But whatever the case, today we have dined handsomely.  All that Puck needs now is a wood burning stove with an oven compartment to allow me to continue this adventure and bake my way across Europe..

Knife ready, obediently waiting for the torturous twenty minutes to be up:

That's right, half the loaf has gone. Into my tummy.

One or two truck snaps of what I have been up to this week.. the back door frame is now caulked, the doors are sanded and repaired.  The double glazing unit I had made is now fitted and I have fashioned an insulated panel that fits below.  All the bare wood is now primed with aluminium primer, just waiting for me to decide on colours...

The aftermath of priming with aluminium..

And the obligatory cute shot of the doggie curled up by the fire :)

Friends, friends of friends and friends of friends of friends..

Six degrees of separation. That used to be the rule of thumb.  You could reach anyone in the world through a chain of six contacts. I read an article recently that says, with the explosion of social media, that six degrees has now shrunk to three.  That is mind-blowing to me, completely mind blowing.  But perhaps quite useful...

You see I have two schools of thought jousting for top spot in my head when it comes to organising my year ahead.  One says 'be free!!' 'just go without a plan and see where the journey takes you'.   The other has an almost German sense of efficiency and planning, wishing to thoroughly research countries, opportunities, places of interest etc...it's bordering on spreadsheet territory.  And I think we all agree that is distinctly uncool and is in desperate need of being reined in.

One thing I know from previous travels is that friendly faces - the best being friends of friends - are the most important glue to keep loneliness at bay and help maintain a good sense grounding and purpose.  The added benefit of local insider knowledge and the promise of an occasional hot shower make a scribbled note with a name and address on it all the more precious.

So here it is. My plan. And it relies in it's entirety on you, my friends and family, to start the chain reaction.  Over the next couple of months I will be compiling research on countries in mainland Europe.  What I would like from you is a goldmine of little nuggets.  Nuggets like locations of cathedrals in unheard of cities that just have to be visited so as to stand there mesmerised by their beauty and solace.   Apothecaries whose shelves stock the same ingredients as one hundred years ago and whose methods remain unchanged.  Hidden gardens.  Enchanting forests. An unmarked wooden door whose paint is bleached and curled by the sun, that leads you to the finest food imaginable.

But most, from you all, I would like the most precious gift. Your friends. For those of you who feel comfortable, I would love you to introduce me to friends of yours in Europe, friends who you know would be completely relaxed and open armed when a wind blown, sun-bleached, callous handed girl, her curious dog and her big ol' truck bowl up the road and knock on their door.

My pie in the sky intention is to set up a private website (I am a complete technophobe! but trying! any advice there too would be amazing!) to which you can go and enter their details on a little interactive map and a little about them and I can go online too, and plot my travels to incorporate them.  The bit about the website is all in my head still so the reality is more likely that we do it all by email.  But wouldn't that be amazing?! To travel in the old fashioned sense, handed from friend to friend.  I wouldn't ask anything of these lovely gentlefolk, just company, kindness and juicy little secret local facts about nature and exploring, and perhaps the next place to stay.

So here is step one. Letting you all know!

I would appreciate your thoughts, ideas and help...

Welcome 2016! Who are you? What are you going to bring? And where is that horsebox?

January didn't seem significant to me this year, that is, right up until the very end. I know it is the traditional month in which people scrutinise their lives and promise themselves all sorts of new good behaviours but I've never been one for New Year Resolutions. As it happens, 2016 looks set to be a very interesting transition year for me. It feels big, bold, intimidating and exhilarating. I hope this blog entry will introduce you to my 2016 and the wondrous adventures that await.

It's been a roller coaster: disillusioned by my career - 15 years in the making, with the weight of 'should' and 'ought' laying heavily on my shoulders. Finding myself at my wits end from struggling to support someone very close to me in a deep depression. Calling out to my soul, searching for my mission in life. My 'something' to pour my passion and talent and energy into. With all this I am breaking. Quietly.

I wanted to collapse and fall into oblivion. Float off into timeless, weightless nothing.

This is how I felt only last week. Too weighed down to even be able to get out of bed. Motionless with a million worries whirring through my head. My logic dictating that I should, and can, get up and get going. “Reach out” it says encouragingly, “Flip the duvet back, sit up and get up. It's not too much to ask” But nothing happens. The connections in my brain are gummed up with some kind of thick syrupy quagmire and I just can't seem to fight through it.

This can't be right. This can't be happening to me. I am young, bright, successful. Ask anyone – I am a happy go lucky bouncing ball of light. So why am I lying on my bed on a work day finding myself calling in sick because I can't seem to get out of bed.

This isn't the first time I have been here. I laid in bed almost motionless for three days when I lived in New Zealand. And if you knew my life then you'd be hard pressed to find fault with it. Beautiful weather, stunning scenery, gentle, energetic, explorer friends and a perfect career path carved out. But that's the point. It can happen to anyone. At any time.

On the third day I managed to get myself up and going again. Purely based on the knowledge that I had it in me to overcome whatever I was feeling. I literally tore myself from this comfortable, destructive womb I was hiding in and forced myself to wash, get outside and coax myself back into functioning. I had no idea what was going on with myself. I'd felt 'down' in the past, but this was a new level for me. The following weeks I struggled to function at work. I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't multitask, I struggled to retain information in my head – things that usually I had at the tips of my fingers. Senior colleagues became irritated which made me feel even more guilty. I walked around in a veiled reality, almost dissociated from my body, floating along, numb. It didn't occur to me to ask for help. In fact this is the first that anyone in my life will have heard about my experience.

Not long later I was working a night shift, and sought out a quiet spot to sit for a while. On the table next to me was a leaflet entitled 'Are you stressed?' For want of anything better to do I picked it up and read the 10 bullet points inside. I answered 'yes' to almost every one and as I read on it slowly dawned on me how incredibly stressed I was. This may sound ridiculous, but it came as such a relief! Maybe some of what I had been feeling was a product of stress! It's not me failing! There is a reason why I have seemingly ground to a halt. That was six years ago and I still remember that absolute feeling of elation and gratitude upon recognising how much stress I was carrying. There was something tangible, something constructive that I could get to grips with to help get myself back on track. And I did. And it worked.

So, lying paralysed on my bed in Devon last Friday, I reflected back to this experience and began to look at my life now. So many parallels, so much stress. So insidious. So destructive.

Ironically that was my last day of work. I had put my resignation in several months earlier, having recognised that a small English hospital was never going to be able to provide me with the challenges and opportunities that my life demanded. The big question of 'What next?' loomed.

I have been struggling with being a doctor ever since I entered medical school. Not that it's too hard – I love the challenge and the detective work, I thrive on extremely challenging intellectual problems and I have been encouraged and congratulated at every turn. I have just never really, passionately, wanted to do it – I sort of fell into it after failing to get into Veterinary School. But how do you leave a profession that is really all you know? By virtue of the fact that it has taken me 15 years, you can imagine the gravity with which I consider this decision. Questions like, who am I? What do I want to do with my life? What are my priorities? How do I want to express myself? What part of the world do I want to live in? vie with the more nerve wracking questions like why are you giving up a secure salary? What happens if you fail? What on earth are you going to do? Are you mad? What happens if you decide you want to go back to medicine?

All of which makes for a stressful inner dialogue. I am a very bizarre mix of happily throwing myself outside my comfort zones (cue moving to Panama to run a medical charity without speaking Spanish..) whilst simultaneously fearing failure. And this has led to a lifetime of trying to let go of the two words that featured very early on in this blog: 'should' and 'ought'.

So here I sit at the beginning of February contemplating the year ahead.  Intimidated by the enormity of the possibilities out there, exhilarated by having actively made the space and time to find out what I truly want, knowing that the choices I need to make are big and bold.

But voices are clamouring in my ear.. 'all very interesting, but what about the horsebox???'

At this point I will change gear. Lift off the deeper, more thoughtful layers of myself and return to the effervescent excitement of creating a wondrous home on wheels. Puck the Magic Wagon as she is now affectionately known is emerging like a butterfly from a chrysalis.

Hours and hours of behind the scenes work have been going on. So many hours! So much dust! So many splinters! Endless little bits of grit in my eyes. The squeaking of insulation foam being cut. The pure satisfaction as it slides perfectly into place. Or the pure aggravation that it doesn't and you have to saw half an inch off, leading to powder and particles spraying up and covering everything from head to toe in cream coloured little fluffy pieces. The yards and yards of caulking squeezed from tubes and smoothed into shape. The umpteen trips to the hardware store, mulling over which drill bits or screws or plywood to buy. Oh how I LOVE IT!! Only in rock climbing do I feel the same kind of pure joy and sense of achievement.

Much of what has been done is invisible to the eye as it has all been covered over with plywood, and even that in places has been covered over with oak. So you will have to trust me a little on this one.

Now, when you last saw her she looked a bit like this:

Gutted, holes repaired, with the 2x2 and 2x4 batons going in for the insulation and walls. 

After all those trips to the shops for materials:

And the squeaky sawing of insulation and precision sawing..

 We ended up with an insulated floor and walls, ready to decorate for summer parties!:

Complete with an enviable larder/booze cabinet:

 Even Buddha joined in..

And come nightfall, out came the candles..

But no amount of magic could distract from the reality of rain and the embarrassing eventuality of being towed out of the field when it was time to go home! 

Hosed down, packed away and home from a summer frolicking, I received the BEST birthday present a truck dwelling girl could ask for... a digital radio! 

And so onwards went the work.. more insulating, more panelling, lots of discussions with carpenters, caravanners and endless hours reading forums online.   My attire has even lent itself to the country style since living in Devon and absorbing the wonderful ethereal ancient energies that permeate the land.

Something I had always wanted was a beautiful, show stopping floor.  And through UKHardwoods I found what I was after - they are a wonderful father and son sawmill in North Devon who not only work with sustainable, responsibly managed woodland, but their entire set up (huge machines included) runs off solar from their solar farm.  I went to visit them and decided on beautiful full length (4.3 metres) 20cm wide English oak planks that were sourced from an Estate only 20 miles away.  

Upon their arrival I enrolled the help of a lovely local builder and general handyman of amazingness, Simon, to help me cut and lay them.  I think it took us the best part of an hour just to decide in what order to lay them down! So many lovely grains and patterns and colours.  Eventually we decided and cut them to length.  But I was still in for a treat, the wood was unwaxed so I had the enormous pleasure (absolutely not being sarcastic - it is so satisfying!) of waxing the floor and watching the colours and markings come up so beautifully.  

Following this timeline it is now November and Puck has moved to North Devon.  I had a bit of an ebay spree (as you can see by the sideboard in the previous pic that will become the basis of my kitchen!) and purchased a pair of gorgeous French windows that I wanted to fit to the back of the truck.  However, I was not going to balls it up.  This was a job for a real carpenter.  It just so happens that my darling godfather has an equally lovely, generous friend living in North Devon who owns a farm.  He also happens to manage woodland, has a very comprehensive woodworking shop, and a resident carpenter. It can't get any better than that I hear you say! But yes it can.. this carpenter is (as you would imagine) also lovely, and after eagerly accepting the challenge, was on a time limit and wanted to get it completed ASAP.  So there I was, surrounded by interested lovely people who were eager to get the job done quickly.  

Well, the woodwork was beautiful and now I have not only a charming pair of doors hung, but a beautiful frame and the space for a window too:

The last few weeks have been absolutely torrential rain in Devon, so the poor little truck has been having quite a winter.  Fortunately she seems to be holding up just fine, and last week she moved back to her old spot in Ashburton.   Now that I have stopped work, the plan is to drive her up to mum and dad's so that dad and I can potter together and hopefully get all structural projects finished by the time Spring really springs. 

So it's farewell for now! I promise to send much more regular updates! On both the truck and life.. One of my thoughts for the summer is to drive over to mainland Europe and challenge myself to live without money for six months.  Working on the ethos of exchanging goods and services instead of cash, I hope to learn about myself, the communities around me and develop every and any aspect of my life through the challenges and moments of inspiration.  I'd love to know your thoughts!

PS for those of you who have not met the latest member of the Parker family - this is Skyla my dog!! She's a staffie/whippet cross, 1.5 yrs old.. I've had her 4 months and she is an absolute dream.  She has a pet passport so will be joining me on my adventures!