From fashion to the farm...

from studying for a career in fashion to offgrid farming & how I found myself along the way....

I figured I should introduce myself properly to all you folks how we made it here, because sometimes it all seems so serendipitous that I really can’t explain it. I am about to go on a big ramble about the past me & the me I am today because this Leo full moon energy is reminding me that the purest joy & pleasure in life comes from simplicity so I feel like sharing my journey to a simple life. Right now I am 32 years old/young (I am not sure, young I hope) & writing this from my half renovated barn on a Sunny Winter day in rural Portugal.

I will firstly tell you that my love language is food & clothes. I have loved to cook since I was a young girl baking cookies for my sister & I, we pretended to be Jamie Oliver, the naked chef in the kitchen & found it hilarious. I love food, I love to eat & I love to get together with friends around the dinner table. I have a very strong food memory which will give you an idea of how much I love to eat. I am on holiday with my family in Tenerife, my parents friends & their kids were with us too. I think I was around 9. We went out for dinner one evening, I am pretty sure I ate a whole steak to myself covered in salt & vinegar, much to the adults disgust, trust me it was delicious… I then continued to go around the table scoffing up everyone else’s leftovers, I must have eaten about 2 big old steaks that night. My parents nicknamed me “the gannet” & it is quite fitting.

I actually had ideas of owning my own food truck as a teenager too, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to cook but I have always been interested in food & how it can bring happiness to people. I also loved dressing up my whole life, as you can see below I was a fashionista even in my preteen days.

I am guessing I am about 11 here… with my sister & our neighbourhood friend. I think Avril Lavigne had just released “sk8er boi”.

I have acquired many hobbies over my time here because of my love for clothes… I am completely obsessed with crochet & knitting. I am always making clothes for myself or items to sell online to help fund our project. I also got an ancient sewing machine from a neighbour & have taught myself how to sew, I have made a few dresses & hats so far.

I started jogging a few years ago because I told myself that nobody should reach 30 & not be able to run 5 k… what if a zombie apocalypse happens or we really have to make moves on our feet! I don’t want to be the first one taken because I am a couch potato, I also think that this year my new hobby will be weight training because I can’t do a pull up either… pathetic, I know.

(I am joking about the zombie thing, obviously)

I also started rollerskating during the lockdown as another form of exercise, I need to focus on this hobby again because during the Winter months we don’t go to the football pitch to skate often enough. Marley is really good at skating, he was a skate rat when we met 12 years ago in Brighton & he got me into it as well, it is super fun to be able to roll around together on wheels & a seriously good workout, I recommend honouring your inner child & trying it out some time.

If you had asked me when I was finishing my fashion degree where I saw myself in the future I really doubt it would be living off grid in a foreign country, growing my own food, learning how to raise sheep, chickens & pigs & build myself a house with my best friend & love of my life… even though in the back of my mind I have always thought that this was a dream life. I think I saw myself in a cosmopolitan city, wearing designer clothes, partying in exclusive clubs & hanging out with “cool” people. How pretentious I was actually makes me laugh…..

I left school at 16 to study art at college in Maidstone, it was an amazing few years with lots of freedom of expression & fun trips to Paris with the crew. After those college years I went on to study fashion in London, which meant that I lost my core group of friends & had to start fresh even though I knew a few people in London already. I have always been the person who flits around the solid groups of people, I was friendly with everyone but not super close with anyone, which is a bit sad I guess. I have recently discovered that I am a projector in human design, I need to look into that.

During my time in London I also worked as a model for an agency so my life from the age of 18-21 was all about looks, having great hair, wearing nice clothes, trying to make a name for myself with the cool group of people, Shoreditch house, drugs, alcohol & pretty seedy company. I rode the delusional wave of being complimented about how I looked one day & then the next day being told I needed to lose weight to get more work. I had to run away from a job once because they were going to cut all my hair off live on stage in front of people & had basically lied to my agent about it. Yuck. I developed an unhealthy relationship with food I would say, I was desperate to be skinny & tall like all the beautiful girls in my agency who did catwalk or high fashion modelling. Instead, I got all the hair & beauty jobs, rarely getting fashion gigs which was a little tough for me I must admit.

Photo for Lalilouche SS13 collection, by Gemma Edwards. I have never been a skinny girl, as you can see.

Here I was studying fashion at the same time & I convinced myself that I was capable of having this fast paced life, running on caffeine to castings & photoshoots & working in this cut throat industry. After a few years in London partying with models, celebrities & not eating or sleeping well I got burnt out & my enthusiasm for the course also completely disappeared.

I kept thinking to myself “why am I not studying something to do with animals”

I probably should have cut my losses & quit the course but I didn’t feel like that was an option at the time, I didn’t want to feel like I failed or gave up so instead, I left London for Brighton & commuted to university a few days a week.

I was living a Kanye song & had no idea what I was doing in life or what I wanted.

“Man, I promise, she's so self-conscious
She has no idea what she doin' in college
That major that she majored in don't make no money
But she won't drop out, her parents'll look at her funny
Now, tell me that ain't insecurr
The concept of school seems so securr
Sophomore, three yurrs, ain't picked a carurr”

I enjoyed my time in Brighton, the most liberal city in the UK, the gay capital of Europe. That’s where I met Marley.

( This is not Marley, by the way. )

I guess the story of us is for another post, but basically we became really great friends, we spent a lot of time together, we kind of fell in love at some point but then he left England for a working holiday in Australia 6 months after we met.

We spent 2 years living in Melbourne, I worked a few jobs in hospitality which has always been my strong point. Australia has such an amazing food culture that I became a foodie again, spending my lunch hours exploring the best Asian food in town with my work friend, a Thai girl called Bright. I love you Bright! I found work in a few restaurants & cafes in the city during our time there, I also spent a few months working in the casino which was an interesting experience… we had an amazing friendship group, a rad house in a great location, a beautiful garden & we got to travel around a bit too. Australia was so epic that I will probably write all about it another time.

After Australia we moved on to New Zealand, the land of natural beauty. It is here that we felt a profound connection to nature & discovered how happy you can be with very little. We lived in a self converted camper van, we fished for our dinners most evenings, we hiked, we cooked outside on fire, we had hardly any money & during this time we realised that we have no desire for the rat race. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one to shy away from hard work, I have had a job since I was 14 but my mindset for life & the human experience had changed. We had no reason to be stuck in a 9-5 we dislike, we had nobody depending on us, we were free.

The thought of moving back to the UK when our VISA ran out was pretty depressing, I must say. We had discovered the Aussie way of life, they earned great money, they had good weather, they enjoyed their free time thanks to the beach, food, cafe & drink culture there. It was an expensive place to live but they all seemed so stoked on life, it was contagious. This is the life we wanted. Marleys parents told us they wanted to buy a piece of land in beautiful Portugal & did we want to go & live there. We had no idea where the land was or what it was like but we obviously jumped at the chance to do that.

We got used to the freedom of owning our days, working seasonally or occasionally when needed, meeting likeminded people along the way & carving a new way of living that we didn’t get taught about in school or offered as an idea when graduating. Before this new experience I was convinced that I would have to work & pay rent or a mortgage for the rest of my life, get married & have children & be content with my lot, hopefully earning enough money to live a fairly comfortable life. But, realistically, what did a degree in fashion get me other than a bucket load of debt.

I didn’t want to work in the industry any more because so many of the people were mean, it was hyper competitive which does not suit my personality & it also seemed very unethical to me to just make clothes & clothes & clothes & have young children or disadvantaged people working in sweatshops in the third world so I can feel like I am good enough or I fit in with the people around me. So here I was with a huge amount owed to the student loan company & zero skills for decent employment. I wanted to live in a van & travel around doing markets with my handmade goods, it sounds so cliche doesn’t it.

So we built a camper van in England, we worked & saved money for 1 year before we headed off on the drive down through Spain to this magical area called Beira Baixa. I don’t think people believed that we were actually going to go & live in a field in the middle of nowhere, but we proved them all wrong. Since we have lived in Portugal I have discovered my resilience as a human being. I found that I don’t need all of those creature comforts or material things that I wanted or relied on before. We have managed to live here for 6 years without hot water, without a fridge, with no electricity on the weeks without sunshine, without a new phone every year, with a macbook thats 11 years old & barely functioning, with clothes that are found in the bin or handed down from others, with dirty hands & feet every day from playing in the dirt & with a van that’s older than myself. We have had to learn the skills that humans have needed throughout history. We learnt how to grow our own food, how to build a house, how to forage, how to make clothing, how to preserve the harvest, how to care for animals, & even how to process our own meat.

Our first ever Kaori pumpkins grown on the land, a huge moment for us!

The journey of discovering myself & what makes my heart sing since arriving on the land has led me to practicing yoga as often as possible & trying to create a connection to the earth. I have learned about trees & plants & animals, I have come to care deeply for all of them. I want to turn this small patch of the earth into a paradise for both us & the life around us. The cycles of the moon & the defined seasons have altered my state of being for the first time in my life. Since I now see her so clearly thanks to the lack of light pollution & feel her pull so strongly it can keep me awake at night & yet give me so much energy in the days after. I now honour my own biological seasons too as a woman. This has never been the case before living here, I allow myself to rest when I need it & rather than running on adrenaline constantly to keep up with the world, I take time for myself & use my herbs & plants to aid me. Marley & I have also started our own wood fired pizza business in our local area, we travel & attend local markets with our portable oven, I have spent the past few years perfecting the dough recipe & inventing new toppings that align with the seasons. I have also been able to create a successful market in our local village that is attended by lots of people, so I have realised this dream as well & I am so proud of us. I am able to feed people & bring smiles to their faces as they share a slice with friends or family.

I guess I have also become a bit of a hippie & gone back to my childish self, the girl who played in the mud in the woods with her family, which makes me laugh actually, thinking about the 18 year old me dying to live in a city like London. Basically I have discovered that I am a nature loving, caring, creative, adaptable & slightly shy human being just trying to figure out her purpose in this crazy ride we call life. I am a projector in human design

& my numerology is 9.

Nines are defined by their desire to maintain a sense of inner peace and harmony, and to avoid conflict or other emotional disturbances. They are typically agreeable, calm, and easy to be around. Nines rarely rock the boat, but they can be stubborn.

Sounds familiar!

Collecting the walnut harvest.

Until next week, friend, thank you for reading, I would love to hear your thoughts on my ramblings so leave me a comment below