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Scotland in Lockdown - How I’m Using My Daily Exercise

So the first three weeks of lockdown has passed, and reasonably fast, too. We are now entering the next three-week lockdown period here in the UK, and part of me is really enjoying it.

Of course, I say that, but the reality is there is a lot of sadness in the world just now, and I’m very aware of that. My heart breaks for all these souls who have needlessly lost their lives and those who have lost their loved ones. Whilst I’ve mostly been able to tune out and focus my energy elsewhere, seeing people, even close friends, flouting lockdown rules has really aggravated me. That being said, it is incredibly easy to social distance yourself properly when out and about, so why are people not abiding?

Generally from my observations, I can understand people do not want to be away from their families, or perhaps think because they are family that they will somehow be safer? I feel the same is true for friends. Meeting with friends often is normal to us as humans, so when that opportunity is removed from us, we get needy.

“We always want, what we cannot have.”

Scotland doesn’t seem to be having as big a problem as England, yet. I really hope we can get control of this before it gets worse than it needs to be, and for that to happen, we all need to follow guidelines as closely as possible. Meeting friends for our daily exercise does not fall into that category.

On a lighter note, for the time being, we are still allowed out once a day to exercise. How have you spent your time? I’ve personally been exploring my local area of Renfrewshire, seeing where I can explore by foot safely. My Mother and I were supposed to walk the Glasgow Kiltwalk next Sunday, a gruelling 23-mile walk from Glasgow Green to Balloch (Loch Lomond), and it was unfortunately postponed until further notice. Getting out-and-about in my local area and racking up some foot-miles has been therapeutic for me, and I’ve found some amazing hidden treasures on my travels, too. I stumbled across this mysterious Stonehenge looking installation (pictured above) whilst walking along the NCR7 route near Kilbarchan, Johnstone, there were no plaques to say what it was exactly, so a little online searching later, I found out it was merely just leftover rocks from a local dual-carriageway build. There are many interesting sculptures on this route, as well as the friendly wildlife. Although, as most people are not working right now, and the good weather, it’s busier than normal. However it’s mostly a wide path, and easy to distance yourself from others.

I discussed in my last post that we are grateful to have a lovely park right outside our home, and with Spring well underway now, there is plenty of life around us! Over the past two weeks we have welcomed two new families of mallards to the pond, all ten born within days of each other, and our resident swans (who were introduced to the park in 1902) are nurturing two eggs in their large nest. This year we have seen an influx in geese arriving daily to the pond too, they normally reside in an inaccessible reservoir nearby, but we reckon they are aware that the public will feed them here, so they visit during the day, and leave at night time. I’ve also observed that they don’t show up in large numbers if either the park is quiet, or the weathers poorer, these geese are incredibly smart!

I look forward to my daily exercise now, and I’ve found time to get my life back on track during my time off. I know not everyone is feeling as calm as I am, and believe me, if I think too deeply about it I go a bit mad too. There’s no right way to deal with our feelings right now, but being outdoors for my daily exercise has really helped me, although I long for the days when I will stand on a mountain once again. What calms you from the madness of todays’ world?

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Scottish Quarantine Life - and a Glimpse of Better Days

Phew, what a weird couple of weeks, right?

The UK was put under lockdown roughly two weeks ago. It was only a matter of time, and there’s definitely good reason for it, with ludicrous numbers of fatalities being announced daily across the world. Both my boyfriend and I work in hospitality at the moment, so we are, unfortunately, out of work like many others. However, we have been trying to make the most of the time off, we are lucky to have a park right across from our flat, and two local shops which have been well stocked, I don’t think I’ve left the area for three weeks! I’ve been busy with my crocheting  (check out Wee Wooly Cactus Co), and university assignments (the free time thankfully helped me to catch up!). I’ve also been making use of some great free fitness apps like Nike Run and Nike Training, highly recommend.

Whilst overall, I have been enjoying my time indoors, and savoring my outdoor time, I am missing ‘real’ nature. This video came out last Friday from BBC The Social (an online short video spin-off for social media here in Scotland). I helped my friend Giulia with her university project last Summer, and BBC Scotland ended up picking it up instead. It was a hit online, and you can view it here. It was such a hit, in fact, that BBC Scotland picked it up to do more van life videos, a small docuseries, in which other vanlifers were involved. We shot this ‘catch-up’ video back in December, and it’s been a wonderful reminder of my connection to travelling, boy do I miss it.

It may be a little quiet over here in my blog, as we all wait for this weird, unusual time to pass us, I will have some van build things going on, so content will veer in that direction for the time being.

I wish you all health and happiness, and please try not to be scared, I know its very strange! I’ve found stepping away from social media (mainly Twitter’s trending section) has been amazing for my mental health, as someone who has used a computer almost daily from the age of 6, I know how easy it is to make fake things look believable, and that can be extremely damaging to the untrained eye. Heck, even I sometimes fall into the trap! We live in a strange time were everyone thinks they are an expert, if you really must see the news, make sure it’s from reliable sources, and always fact check EVERYTHING. My inbox is always open, on here, and on Instagram if you want to vent or chat about things that are worrying you. 

I can’t wait to get back out on the road.

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We Forged Our Own Bottle Openers.. and it Was Amazing!

My boyfriend, Ryan, has shown a keen interest in bladesmithing as of late, so for Christmas last year, I decided to look into getting us both a introduction course, to perhaps make a small pairing knife, as we both love to cook.

That was.. until I seen the prices. £200 each to create a small chefs knife in most places! I can obviously understand why, but it was well outwith my budget.

I did a little more digging around and eventually I can across a local workshop in Glasgow, close to where we live, which was offering a taster session where we would forge our own bottle openers, how cool would that be? We are both huge beer lovers so this was shaping up to be a great gift!

Feather Forge in Ibrox, Glasgow, is run within a wonderful multi-use workshop which hosts all sorts of classes, from woodworking, to boat making, you can even come along with your guitar on a Thursday night to have a jam with the crafters, or bring along something to make using the tools in the workshop! We popped along today to forge our bottle openers, and we were a little nervous, but Andy the blacksmith was such a welcoming host. He made us coffees and we got cracking straight away. We learned some basic health and safety precautions, put our PPE on and we grabbed our steel. We watched Andy demonstrate what we were to do and then we got on with ours. We were doing pretty good, but as we are a chatty bunch, talking too much ended up in us burning our metal a few times, Andy was so patient with us and after the second burning (it happens in the blink of an eye!) he got us back up to speed with new material and we finished them off at the most crucial part, which thankfully, we didn’t burn!

In the end, Andy cleaned them up using the belt grinder and we polished them up using some beeswax, and the whole journey home we could not stop admiring them, they are unreal. We are still absolutely buzzing about our day, and hope you are inspired to look into learning a new craft.

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What It’s Like to Drive a 35 Year Old Van from Scotland to Europe

We arrived safely in Hoek van Holland, NL, on the 26th of August 2019, after a short seven-hour ferry from Harwich, EN. The ferry was wonderful, we traveled with StenaLine, which meant Moo here had to either go in the kennels or stay in the van, I chose the kennels. I was a little worried the entire time that she would be uncomfortable down there, even though she had water and some doggie friends, but when I collected her I could hear her barking from the lift! She was  thrilled to see me, and even more thrilled to step outside into sunny HvH.

Our trip down to Harwich was nice, we took the roads less traveled as I was worried about breaking down on the M6, we stopped overnight in the most beautiful little down around Yorkshire, called Settle. I could have stayed there for two weeks instead. The following day we set off for Harwich, we drove for hours and hours, I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to the port before dark, but we did. We settled down for the night along the coast, and fell asleep to the sounds of the waves crashing against the wall.

We parked up in HvH at these little Dutch motorhome bays, where you can park freely for forty-eight hours, right next to the beach, it was bliss. Well.. that was until I really needed the bathroom. Sure, I had a portaloo on board, but I’d stupidly forgotten to make curtains for Olive, and I was exposed to the public for two days, this meant having to find a bush or a cafe, none of which I had nearby. After four days of this torture, I gave in and booked a lovely campsite in Maaldrift, near Leiden, and settled down for the duration of my holiday, my kidneys could rest once again.

Moo and I spent most of the holiday cycling to the beaches, cycling through towns, we went to the dunes, and when the rain came we found a cosy cafe nearby to have a coffee, or we crocheted in the van to the pitter-patter of rain on the high-top. Which was mostly relaxing, if it hadn’t been for the door leaking.. I’ll post some photos here from the rest of our holiday.

The return to Scotland was a breeze, we blasted up the motorways like we had a new lease of life, I was too sad about having to come home that I was no longer interested in the scenic routes. We did have to tackle a little bit of rain, but luck was on our side and it subsided before we ended up stranded on the A1.

Overall, this was probably the best holiday I’ve been on, and I’m super proud of myself for managing, next time I’d like to take a companion and wild camp properly, as campsites aren’t really my thing. Unfortunately I got a bit too comfortable this time round to care. I highly recommend you take a trip like this sometime!