EARTHSHIP BIOTECTURE / NM & CO, May 2014
October 29, 2015
HERTFORDSHIRE, May 2015
October 29, 2015

SHROPSHIRE & WILTSHIRE – Why England? October 2014

 

Ok. As I mentioned in a previous blog, we made a decision to try our luck in the UK. It is the place in EU where we can communicate freely (because of our sufficient knowledge of English) and that offers the types of the jobs we had in mind. The thing is – we don’t want system jobs anymore. If we will be doing something for money – it must be worth it. It must be challenging and it must let us be – us. 🙂 It must affect our lives, and we should leave an imprint in other people’s lives too.
I came up with this idea, how to look for jobs in England in the most relax and life experiencing situations. It needed to be cheap (we had about 1000€, a full car with our belongings and our dog). It needed to be flexible in time – so we can stay somewhere for free and for longer period of time (1, 2, 3 months). And I thought of Workaway. This site fascinates me … All this thousands and thousands of hosts from all over the world, sharing their beautiful places and their lives with travelers-strangers like me and you. There are many projects that one can really contribute to the world and in many breathtaking amazing places as well. The arrangement with workaway hosts is – free accommodation and food in exchange for some help (4-5 hours a day, 5 day a week). Awesome.

So, in the Summer of 2014, we were started looking for hosts, who would accept all three of us and who live in the beautiful British countryside. In August 2’14 we found great people, Izzy and Andy (she was a BBC journalist for decades; he was in military; they have lived in 28 different places around the world). They said that we are welcomed to stay with them from October until mid December. It sounded perfect for our situation. We left for England in mid October.

We also made a sleeping arrangements via couch-surfing – http://www.couchsurfing.com (CS). The idea was not to travel more than 600 km per day, as we still have an old car (year 2000) and our dog, which was not to found our her alone time with all the stuff in the car. The first day we stayed in AUSTRIA with Chris. He lives in amazing place near Salzburg. He baked us pizza and offered us beer for dinner. We also talked our way into the night … The next morning, we prepared breakfast, ate on a lovely balcony. From there, we had the most beautiful view on the mountains (Alps), just below them, cows were peacefully grazing the grass.

 

The next day we went on to Siegburg, close to Cologne, GERMANY. The town was lovely – it had this Italian feel to it. We found – or better yet – a couple found us on CS and invited us to stay with them. They were a Turkish and Czech couple, very easygoing. They prepared us amazing Turkish (vegan) food and we had a great time sharing our life events and thoughts.  We made one “mistake” in Siegburg. We parked our car in a shopping mall garage, which was in full lock down on Sunday (our German language is not to good – so we didn’t understand the sign). 🙂 So we stayed an extra day, had a lovely time and moved on the next day.

I can’t express enough how amazed am I with the people on CS. They let complete strangers into their homes  and share their lives with them – and they are all so aware and great company. We love meeting people like that. And if we can change the life of this people by just a fracture, just a little bit – with our personality, our knowledge and our experiences – we have done enough. I love speaking my mind and being completely open and honest with complete strangers. They don’t judge, they accept me completely and I can feel alive. I never ever hide my feelings or thoughts from people anymore … In every situation I try to be me … to feel connected with my inner self.

The forth day we drove through Belgium, The Netherlands, and France. Then took the ferry to England and started driving on the left-hand  side of the road 🙂 It is not as hard as it seems – they have lots of roundabouts and it is not so complicated.  We continued our way around London, and went North towards Birmingham. We made around 800 km the last day and finally came to Wheathill (SHROPSHIRE) to our host family. But driving in the night time, in this specific situation, was a bit stressful and tiring for Hrvoje.

 

The first month and a half, Hrvoje did all the driving and after that I started to drive a bit as well. So far – I’m very good, had no real problems 🙂 I don’t think too much ahead in this kind of situations, well – in any kind of situations – because you can only act in the “now”. So I remind myself – don’t over think – it is a waste of time, deal with the things as they come and go 😉

The family we made the first UK arrangement  own a B&B business, called The old rectory, located in the beautiful settings of Shropshire. With 2 horses, 2 dogs and a cat they were all lovely people and we had good times. Our giving back (for free accommodation and free vegan/vegetarian food) was helping with the B&B, changing/cleaning rooms and bathrooms, preparing the table, helping with breakfast, sometimes dinner, mocking out the stables with 2 horses, riding horses, taking care of the dogs, H repaired the roof of a chicken coop, he build a new wall and changed the roof of an old shed, we were fixing the road, we housesit the house when they were away in Africa for 10 days. Meanwhile we had fun, walking around surrounding hills, socializing with another workawayer from Italy and the host’s son. Some days were also busy, with lots of guests and generally busy. I must say, that I really enjoyed riding the horses again.

 

The days were sunny and the world is just different from a horseback perspective. It felt like a dream almost … I felt very humbled and grateful in those moments. <3 Then, usually in the evenings – we were looking for live in couple jobs on Gumtree and The lady magazine.

In mid November we found something. A family from near Malmesbury, WILTSHIRE wrote us an email, that we seem like a very interesting couple and if we would come to meet them and have lunch together. We drove there (2 hours drive) and met. They had a lovely property, 2 dogs, 2 swans, 12 peacocks and 3 chickens. They needed a live in couple ’till the end of February. We liked each other and they were amazed about Gaia (everyone in England are amazed by her appearance). Non the less, we got the job and this was our new home since mid December 2014. 🙂 OUR FIRST PAYED JOB IN ENGLAND!


It is a beautiful setting, amazing property with lots and lots of land. People are wonderful, we can talk about anything, they are nice, giving and thoughtful. I can’t discuss their personal life (who does what for a living …) so I will just say, that this family is in our standards pretty wealthy (the property is worth somewhere between 3-5 million pounds). But this is really common here in England, the majority of people have fair wages and big ass properties 🙂 But the people are really different from our rich people. They are down to earth, easygoing, no sign of superior feelings. The two sons are also very smart, intellectual and have lots of common sense in them. They are able to question things they have learned and are very keen on learning and experiencing Life. The wife went to South-East Asia for 6 weeks, so we are taking care of their 2 dogs – Haidi (German Sheppard) and Sid (Jack Russel). They are adorable and were living with us – in our own comfortable cottage, that came with the job and was rent and bills free. 🙂 Our day to day work was easy – we woke up at 8:30, I went to feed the birds and then I walked the dogs around this beautiful place. I came back to the cottage where H prepared our breakfasts, with smoothie, tea and everything else. Then – we had a list off all the things that needs to be done in the house and outside. So each day we were doing something from the list, listening to the music meanwhile, talking and laughing and living. We had lunch somewhere in the middle and one more long walk with all three, sometimes four doggies.

I never had a feeling that I’m degrading myself because of cleaning someone’s house – it is the opposite. I feel privileged that we get out of this position what we get. And we are doing something useful for the people living in this huge house – and they are openly appreciating it. So we are giving…..giving and that’s why receiving. Receiving exactly what we wanted and hoped for. Too bad, that this position was just till the end of April, I know I will be missing it afterwards – that’s why I try to appreciate it now.

And this cottage – it is lovely – 2 bedrooms upstairs, one bathroom, downstairs – kitchen and living room with fireplace. So very English, but so very cool. We can feel like home here. That is very important – to balance.

 O and another thing – my love (H) got sick after one week here. We first thought it was a cold, but the situation didn’t turned to better so he had to go to doctor for antibiotics (despite the fact that we really oppose this health system stuffing people with pills), there was no other choice. After 13 days of antibiotics, it was a better, but after stopping using them, it got worse again. So back to the doctor – and he diagnosed problem with a tooth (root canal). And to fix it – it would cost us around 400-500 pounds. :O So he just booked a flight back home for 160€ (from London to Zagreb and back) and he payed his dentist 70€. So he went home for a week, greeted the family, friends, visited his new nephew and came back “home” to England.

I was “alone” in England for a week with my furry ass friends. 🙂 These two dogs were soo funny, we got to know their personalities and they have a totally new experience in their life- and you can see the transformation in these dogs behavior. Even the owner said, that it is amazing – what have I done to these dogs.

One of those days I went to a nearby lake with car, all three doggies packed in the back space of the car and very excited. We had a long 2,5 hour walk on sunny day and I felt privileged again. Beautiful nature, clearing my thoughts, sending the messages to the universe – of everything I hope and wish for. I’m so ready, Life just needs to be as cooperative as it was till now. The thoughts that usually have my attention when I’m alone in nature would sound something like this – Take a moment to think, what do I really love? What kind of subject, job, project, ideas am I attracted to? What makes them attractive?

When you feel that driving force pushing you to take certain paths in your life, follow that feeling as it will bring the most amount of excitement to you.

A lot of our goals or dreams seem to be unreachable because of time, its ‘too big’ of a dream, a lack of money or support. Our society is designed to lock us in a job so we can pay off everything else we’ve bought and gathered together. There isn’t really a system in place that supports the very human desire to travel and live off the world in a sustainable way.

When we shift into a higher consciousness, it’s because we’re staying in alignment with who we are. It is a constant flow of receiving and giving energy. You can have your own personal beliefs but as a race we are never going to evolve until we begin to question everything. We are in the middle of a revolution of consciousness and people are waking up. There is a real shift in energy on our planet but we need to turn this energy into positive action.

Not everyone was set to do this, not everyone has a desire to change things, but let’s focus on the ones that actually does want to change the world – at least their world.

Remember – this whole journey – was just an idea once – a year ago. I was gathering information; I was questioning everything and made few changes based on new information in my life. That’s called putting your knowledge to action. And I am in control of changing my reality….and I did. It was an idea – and it did materialize. It took us on a wonderful path of this experience – called Life.

How will the future look like for us? Don’t know…don’t need to. I trust Life.
We have to find another job from May, if we don’t, we will go to another wonderful workaway situation and will be looking for jobs from there on. We don’t stress about it and we don’t tend to have anything under control. We just know, that we will get exactly the right situation for us, to have what we need and to learn what we need to learn. Remember, this is not about earning money (but I can proudly say that we can give around 800€ to a side now every month)….it is about getting closer to a free life, well – my version of free life. 🙂 This is just a beginning – the whole idea is to build up the relationships here and good pristine references. And than we can work around England, living in different places and getting better job each time.

After that – who knows – if I know one thing – I know Life will for sure be very interesting

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