Whilst now my hips are fine, my elbow is now unusable, the tendons and muscles in my arms protesting if I use them. The last few days have been all about ordering Jamie about, my proxy body that is functional and turns the compost and collects seaweed and the tub of coffee grounds out the back of the beach kiosk. He even mashes a poultice of comfrey for banagaging my arm.

I can walk, however (even typing this is hard) and we spent the morning admiring all the views from the posh houses we can't afford.

Still, we love our house, and there is more to life than staring at views, like collecting pine cones to light the fire and finding pine mushrooms in a secret spot close by that serious foragers would not think to look, a spot I refuse to tell even a close foraging friend about because there is just enough for me.

We fry them for breakfast, with olive oil and garlic, lots of parsley, and butter, with a smear of cream cheese on focaccia.

They are good. Life is good, in our humble home in the kitchen where the light streams in.

I feel like now all the major jobs are done (the fire is being installed as I write this) we can relax into things like pickling home grown radishes, with vinegar, water, raw honey and salt. They are so good with spiced rice for lunch.

In the afternoon I lay in the back room, a veritable sun trap, the comfrey poultice and an ice pack doing it's job as I read. It's hard to read about how badly we have destroyed the waters of life we depend on in so many ways. I wish we could all be like Ecuador, putting nature first in its very constitution. After a while I switch to fiction.. sometimes reality is too much, even if it is poetically written.

Next week work begins for the term so I might find myself hiving more. I'm online less these days, setting limits on my phone, spending more time on the earth, for the time being. I eat mushrooms and absorb salt water in the ocean, separate leek seedlings and shift worms aside for the task, talk to the parrots and currawongs thieving fruit from the olive trees.

I don't know where to put this post, a ramble, a humble poem to life just as it is, right now, today.

With Love,

Are you on HIVE yet? Earn for writing! Referral link for FREE account here