Welcome to Our Relationship With Nature, my personal blog about being natural! Because we’re all subsets of nature, all seven-and-a-half billion people; all the birds, fish and animals, all the trees, mosses and orchids, I feel I can blog about pretty well anything. I hope you find something of interest in these pages. I wrote them with you in mind. And nature, of course.

I’m from the British Colonies. I was born in England and brought up in Australia and New Zealand with three years of childhood in Hong Kong.

Right now you can find my author’s pages on Facebook, Goodreads and Amazon. Oh, and Smashwords for good measure! I’m on Instagram, issuu and Tumblr and occasionally on Twitter. Here’s the Amazon author page.

Currently (2020) staying home, staying well, in Melbourne, Australia. (I hope you are reading this from your home, too.) Check my Pandemic appearance with Inspired Nomad, Heather Markel:

Please find my blog series about my sustainable journey from UK 2 NZ 2 Oz here.

When I began to plan my trip I was living in Brighton, UK, teaching English to folk from Saudi Arabia, Europe and Russia, Brazil and Korea, to name but a few. It’s a great destination for anglophiles to get some fish and chips, try a beer or two and practice their language skills. And vegan food aplenty!

I left Spain in June 2019 where I had been working as an assistant English teacher in a small school in Sevilla, Andalucia.

The year before I worked in a tiny town in the Valle de Nalón, in Asturias. I helped out in two small primary schools and I had my own class of teenagers working towards their Trinity exams. (They passed with flying colours!)

This was the view from my sixth floor window in Oviedo, where I lived 2017/8

The year before that, I worked in a secondary school on the Costa Brava, in Catalunya. I lived in a small town called Blanes. This was the view from my fourth floor window looking out towards Palafolls – you can just see the castle on the nearest peak.

During my holidays I was lucky enough to travel around Spain and you can read blog posts about my adventures in Granada, Cordoba and Monserrat, Valencia, Madrid and Seville.

In 2016 I visited Hong Kong, Spain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark and fleetingly, Sweden. In 2017 I added England and, in 2018, Belgium. Who knows what’s next?

I do! I’m working on a large project at the moment – it’s daunting, exciting and intriguing. It’s getting bigger every research step I take.

I’ll let you know the minute you can read it. For now you might be interested in having a look at my two previous books, EKTEK and Man of Clay.

EKTEK is about endangered animals trying to help themselves. It’s an absurd cross between the Thunderbirds and Colditz.

Man of Clay is the story of a woman trying to save her family. It’s about marriage, ceramics and frogs, also endangered!

They say the first five hundred reviews are the hardest. As you can see, I’d really appreciate your help on that!

Let me know what you think!

WALKING

If you are interested in the lie of the land of the Camino del Norte/Primitivo, you might be interested in watching my boots video, Footage:

PUPPETS

I was lucky enough to attend Titimundi 2016, the best little puppet festival in the world. Set in the old town of Segovia, where a Roman viaduct soars with the swallows, most of the puppet shows take place in beautiful antique patios of ancient palaces. Watching French company, La Perdue’s version of Punch performed energetically (featuring chickens) I was struck by the timelessness of this art. There we were in a thousand-year old palace garden, with the beautifully painted booth set up against a curving wall decorated in fresh spring vine leaves, watching a spectacle that might have played just the same way three hundred, nay six hundred years before. That puppet booth was a time machine.

UNIMA’s World Puppet Festival 2016, which happens every four years, played in San Sebastian/Donastia. I saw some incredible shows there, among them La Licorne’s breathless Spartacus, another French wonder.

After that I went to Puppets in Prague, to spend a month making, rehearsing and performing Popelka (Cinderella) with a talented bunch of artists.

In 2017 I attended the fabulous

Festival Mondiales Theatres des Marionettes in Charlesville-Mezieres

YOGA

Shamballah Yoga Retreat April 2019 – a beautiful group of people beside the dramatic coastline near Sintra, Portugal.

I attended the 2018 Escape Christmas Yoga Retreat at Suryalila, Andalucia

As well as my first Acro-yoga class, we enjoyed a week of two yoga classes a day, great food, walks and warm companionship. Heartily recommend.

Over the last four years I have attended yoga classes in Spanish, Dutch and enjoyed a class in Catalan with Brisa. Oh, and English, too!

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