Spring Alone In My Van In the Mountains

When you live in a van or any space that forces you to spend a lot of time outside and be responsible for gathering and managing all the resources you use, winter can often feel never-ending. I've definitely struggled a bit at times spending the darkest days of the year alone in a tiny space with most of my time and energy dedicated to staying warm. And although the winter just passed taught me a deep appreciation for the things most of us take for granted, once the evening started growing longer and the sun finally made its return, I was so happy to feel as warm for my skin again and return to all the things I love about this time of the year. Swimming in rivers every day, foraging ingredients for my meals and going on long afternoon walks. It really feels like my nervous system is taking a deep exhale and I'm finally coming home. If you're new here, I'm Jessica and I travel solo and full-time in my campervan Frodo with my adventure pup Heidi. Three years ago I had enough of spending my young years working just to make ends meet and changed my life to a simpler one in nature guided by the seasons. Join me for this next chapter where I welcome spring here in the mountains and grow roots in the wild. This week I visited my favourite wild garlic patch in the area. It's only accessible via a three mile hike through a bluebell forest and along a few farmer's fields which means that it's usually undisturbed. I used to come here every spring when I lived in Wales and it's one of those places that whatever happens in the world or in my life remains unchanged and ignorant of the world outside this patch of woodland. And I find something very comforting in the fact that no matter what these green fragrant leaves will always be here waiting for my return every April. Wild garlic and bluebell season is probably my favourite time of the year here. I'm always a bit torn between wanting summer to be here as soon as possible and also feeling like spring doesn't last long enough at all. And I guess as I started spending more of my time outside in nature it really taught me non-attachment because regardless of our feelings the seasons will march on and we have to make peace with that so that we can make the most of each of these fleeting wonders and truly appreciate being in the moment. Hello friends I hope you had a lovely spring so far. It is nearly bell tone which is crazy because I feel like winter was really really dragging on forever this time and then spring has just gone in the blink of an eye and it's nearly early summer which is so exciting and I'm really excited for my summer travels. I'm in the Welsh Mountains at the moment. I've been here for a few weeks and I've just been doing all my MOT services, repairs on the van. I didn't have to do anything dramatic. I had some worn down suspension parts which is not surprising really because I was on some really bad roads in Greece and probably did more off-roading than I should have and I did actually have to spend the night at the industrial estate as well because my mechanic was working on my van all day and then had to continue the next morning as well but Frodo is in great shape now and there's only one more thing I have to do. I have to reinforce my suspension which I'm going to do next week and then I can wrap up and be on my way again which is very exciting. For now I'm just spending the week in the mountains for some downtime because every time I'm in the UK it's a pretty busy time because I'm cramming all of my to-dos and life admin into as little time as possible so I can be off on my travels again and it does get tiring after a while so I'm just having a bit of a break this week. I'm going to do a bunch of hiking and just enjoying nature and then go back to town and wrap up everything. So for now I'm going to make a risotto with the wild garlic I foraged and then probably visit some of the places in Wales that I never had the chance to see in the years that I lived there and also when I've been coming back in the van so I'm very very excited for that. One of my favourite things about winter ending and going back to long evenings is that I can cook most of my meals on my little induction cooker again without worrying at all about my battery which is just so convenient. Both my cooking setup and the rest of my conversion are powered by Bluetti who are kindly sponsoring today's episode. I've been using Bluetti products the entire time I've lived in this van and I've been really happy with them. I recently swapped my power station because my partner needed one for his van conversion and the one I've got now is the Bluetti Elite 200 V2 which is 20% smaller and has the same battery capacity so it frees up lots of space for my camera gear which is amazing. I attach two extension leads to the sockets which lead to my charging cabinet where I keep all of my devices plugged in permanently which keeps things nice and organised. It also has both USB-A and USB-C outlets for charging my phone and laptop as well as 12 volt which I use to power my water pump and ventilation fan. I also have a Bluetti alternator charger which charges my power station by about 30% per hour of driving which is a complete game changer especially in the winter when I don't get a lot of solar. Bluetti have some great promotions running on their website right now including a spring sale across their camping and power station range and I'll leave the link in the description below. A big thank you to Bluetti for sponsoring this episode and for powering all of my adventures on the road. Wild garlic was first recorded as a healing plant by Welsh herbalists in the 13th century and in Ireland wild garlic bulbs were woven into the roofs of thatched cottages for good luck and to keep the fairies out who are said to be particularly active at this time of the year when the bluebells appear serving as little homes for them in the human realm. I like to add a bunch of it to my food whenever I get the chance because it's packed with vitamin c and has a range of medicinal benefits just what our bodies need after a cold and dark winter. I get asked very regularly if I'm not scared traveling alone and I always respond by saying yes of course I'm scared but I do it anyway so I don't miss out on the things I love to do and especially whenever I'm back on the road after a bit of a break I tend to get a lot of anxiety around wild camping in isolated places but this time something felt different. I felt just fine. It was a beautiful reminder that the things we want to do but are scared of get less and less scary every time we expose ourselves to that fear until eventually they become second nature and we can just fully enjoy the experience. I'm just so happy that it's spring guys. It just makes me so happy to wake up early in the morning I've been waking up at six in the morning and the sun is coming up and just little things like being able to have the doors open all day and being nice and comfortable and yesterday I had a hot shower in the evening and I came out of the shower and I was a comfortable temperature I feel like in the colder months of the year I always have to preheat the van with the wood burner so that I don't feel freezing when I come out of the bathroom and just being able to leave the curtains up overnight obviously I still use them for privacy but yeah just being able to leave them up when there's no one around and not having to worry about the insulation and the curtains keeping the heat in it's just all so nice them all my mums definitely make van life so much easier Heidi and I are gonna go on one last hike today and then we're gonna drive back to town to get all of our remaining van chores done and Rissi and I have decided to go on a tent camping trip for three days without our vans retracing some of our favourite hikes in Wales because we're probably not going to come back here for an extended period of time for a long time so just want to retrace our steps and revisit some of our favourite wild camping spots so gonna do that for the next few days before I wrap up all of the other things I need to do so that's gonna be fun and then we're gonna begin our next adventure are you ready for another adventure or are you tired from hiking probably a little bit of both thank you so much for watching friends and a special thank you to my patrons and channel members who make these videos possible I'll see you next week for a camping trip and until then as always take good care of yourselves bye