Autumn Arrives In My Tiny Cabin On Wheels

There's a chill in the air now. Here in the mountains, the days have been marked by thunderstorms and rains, washing away the heat of the summer. And with that change, a lot of things have been changing in my life too. For the last three years, I've lived full time on the road with my dog Heidi. And this summer, for the first time, I've been looking for somewhere to stop, a place to call home. And after months of driving around, looking at different pieces of land and getting my hopes up, I needed a break. So this week I decided to drive 500 miles north to a place from my childhood that's very dear to me, to have some space to think and just be away from it all for a bit. So I'm camping in these woods for the week and running away from my responsibilities to an extent, because a lot of you guys know that I'm trying to buy this piece of land in Italy. And I'm now at the stage where I'm waiting for an appointment with a land surveyor who will tell me if the ruin on the land can be made habitable in the first place, which is a very anxiety-inducing stage of the process. It's very much a make or break moment. And I just felt like I needed a break from it all and just get some fresh air somewhere else. And I thought it would be a good time to visit my mum, who lives here with my German stepdad, and receive some posts, which I need to do every couple of months or so, and just go hiking in the woods for a few days and be away from it all. So that's what I'm doing this week. I'm quite familiar with this forest because I went to school in the area, but growing up we didn't have a lot of money, so I didn't have many opportunities to explore here apart from the occasional school trip. So since I've had the van, whenever I visit my mum I make the most of it and just drive around the forest and do as many hikes as possible. It's a very beautiful area, it's just like a very wide blanket of forest and hills, and there's so much interesting folklore here as well. I think growing up with all the folk stories in this area has definitely shaped my interest for folklore to this day, so I'm really looking forward to sharing more of this area with you guys. One of my favourite things about autumn is the smell of damp earth after the long summer heat. I could honestly sit on the forest floor for hours and just breathe it in. There's this brief moment as the seasons turn, when nature comes alive again as the rain arrives, and the air fills with wild heather, chestnuts and autumn herbs. It's finally cool enough to get cosy in the van again, and I just wish I could stop time and keep this feeling forever, which is why I'm so excited for the new autumn fragrance from Fern, who are kindly sponsoring this episode. I've been wearing Fern scents for more than two years now because the idea behind them really resonates with how I live my life, in tune with the seasons and they're natural too, which matters a lot to me. They're made in Somerset in the south of England in tiny batches with only four releases a year on the solstices and equinoxes, made to order for the people on the ledger. Before your full bottle comes, they send you a tester first so you can smell the season and decide before you commit. This season's scent is called Moonlit Heather and it feels like a brisk early morning walk on the moors when the sun hasn't risen yet and the moon is illuminating your path as you breathe in the aroma of heather and peat. I especially love the notes of lavender and fennel which remind me of the wild herbs the moors are teeming with right now. And even on those autumn days when it's too stormy and rainy to spend much time outside, I can always wear this tiny piece of nature here in my cabin on wheels. Fern's Moonlit Heather launches on the autumn equinox on September 22nd. You can use my link below to get yours and there's a free gift waiting for you there too. It's the last hot day of the year today so I'm spending the whole day outside with Heidi hiking in the woods where it's nice and cool and today we're exploring a trail in southern Germany near the French border called Hexenklamm or Witch's Gorge which according to legend is one of the most haunted places in the country so we're gonna see if that's true. According to legend, hundreds of years ago a carter from the nearby village drove from the all loaded up and probably a little bit drunk too. Around midnight the witches who lived in the gorge started to play tricks on him as he was passing through. Like Sisyphus, he kept driving the same stretch of road through the gorge without ever getting closer to home. The witches only released him after a full hour when they grew tired of messing with him and to this day hikers are warned not to walk the gorge at the midnight witching hour. This is definitely the kind of place that feels a little bit uncanny even in the beautiful sunlight. There weren't any other hikers on the trail and because the water levels are so low this time of the year I could feel every sound reverberate around the gorge from unexplained cracks in the trees to wildlife crashing through the undergrowth. If you ask me there were just too many unexplained noises for it not to be haunted and I was definitely glad that I hadn't attempted this trail at midnight. Recently I've been really craving to work with my hands. I feel like when you live in a van you have a lot of freedom to do all the activities you want to do because your living costs are low and therefore you have more time to engage in the things you enjoy. But I've been feeling this urge to create and build you know. I really want to renovate that ruin that I fell in love with. I want to grow food and just try out pottery, wood carving, preserving, all of those things that I simply don't have space for in the van because all of my worldly possessions are in this vehicle. And I guess I also want to work towards a bit more of a goal in the next few years. I really loved just traveling around in my van for the last three years without a clear purpose beyond just enjoying life and figuring out where I want to live. I wish you guys could smell this. In our society there is so much focus on always needing a purpose and always needing to be productive and I found it very freeing to detach myself from that for a few years. But like nature we go through seasons in life and now I'm feeling the urge to learn new skills and take on some bigger projects. I had such a nice day today and I wanted to share with you guys so the other day as I was looking at the map I realized that I was really close to the town where my best friend from college used to live. And when I say college I don't mean university but the three years leading up to university. After college I moved to the UK and we didn't see each other for like 10 years because our lives went in very different directions and we kind of just lost touch. And we ended up meeting for coffee today and spending the entire afternoon together and it was just so nice. It's one of those friendships where you barely talk and you don't see each other for a decade and yet it feels like three months have passed and it just reminded me how quickly time goes by. But anyway my heart feels very full and I'm going to drive to my mum's for the rest of the day and tomorrow I want to harvest the last of the elderberries, make some cake for all of us and then I need to drive back to Italy. We have an appointment with a land surveyor who will be able to do some research for us and tell us whether we are able to legally live in that piece of land in the ruin that we're so in love with and it's a big make or break moment. It's been nice to avoid it a little bit here because I've been feeling a bit stressed about it but I've got to face reality and go back and sort out this stage of the process. I guess if I get my heart broken at least I'll be able to move on and start looking at other places but coming here was definitely running away from that process a little bit because it's scary and I'm very emotionally invested in that place. But I think not knowing is making me even more anxious at this point so I've got to go and sort it out. I just don't really want to do the long drive back. Why are the best ones always so high up? I'm honestly so excited for autumn and winter this year which feels strange to say because I've always been a summer person through and through. I spent the first half of the summer in Norway where it was very cold and rainy and even snowing for a day in July but then after spending the second half of summer back in Italy I felt like I was getting too much of a good thing and I quickly grew weary of the sun and heat. I guess over the last few years I've definitely learned to appreciate every season for its beauty and I've grown especially fond of spring and autumn when it's not too hot and not too cold which makes living in a van a lot easier. I came to these woods with a lot of plans for hikes and a whole list of places I wanted to show you guys and instead I spend most of the week cooking, baking and visiting people I hadn't seen in a long time taking in the last warm days of the year. Meanwhile in the background a lot was happening with the potential property purchase, hours of research, emails, calculations and in between all of that I just rested and slept a lot because my body and mind clearly needed it. There are some big shifts coming both in my life and out here in the wild so for now out here in these woods I just allowed myself to be still for a week before embarking on the next big adventure.