I had my first go at foraging for and eating wild food recently. With the aid of my handy pocket sized guide, Food for Free, and a penknife, I advanced into the highways and byways of my local area to see what the hedgerows had to offer.

I found nettles (lots of nettles!), alexanders, cow parsley, cleavers and snails. All within 100 yards of my house.

Foraging

To collect the plants, I used a flat-ish cardboard box – the sort used for transporting fruit. It’s useful to be able to lie things down flat so that they don’t get crushed. A flat-ish wicker basket is probably the ideal foraging receptacle but I didn’t have one.

I was a bit nervous about nettle collection but pride made me attempt it with my bare hands (you could of course use gloves or cake your hands in mud). It didn’t take long to become quite confident with the nettles. After a few initial stings, which don’t hurt really, I was able to collect nettle tops quite happily without getting stung.

My guide told me that the part of the Alexander to collect is the pinkish stem near the bottom of the plant. The plants I found were not very pinkish – perhaps it was a bit late in the year for this? They turned out to be rather stringy eating (though not unpleasant) and I am not sure whether they are always like this or whether, had they been pinker, they would have been easier to eat.

You have to be careful with cow’s parsley as it is very similar to hemlock. I was reasonably confident that I wasn’t picking hemlock and as I’m not dead yet, I must have been right on this occasion!

I also gathered some snails which I put in an old strawberry punnet and fed for two weeks on lettuce in order to ‘purge’ them of any nasties! More on that later.

Eating

Nettles

I boiled the nettles for a few minutes; I didn’t want them to go too soggy. Added plenty of butter and sea salt and they were rather good eating. I’ll have those again.

Alexanders

I boiled the alexanders for 10 minutes but they were quite tough so I boiled them a bit longer. It didn’t seem to make much difference. They are quite sweet and you can chew them and suck out the sweetness from the pith. However you are left with the very stringy tough bits which are not worth trying to swallow!

Cow parsley

I chopped the stems of the cow parsley up into little bits and sprinkled them on new potatoes, like you would with chives. The stems are tougher than chives though. They have quite a nice aroma but feel a bit twiggy.

Snails

Two weeks later it was time to try the snails. I was rather nervous about this to be honest. When you watch wild food programmes on TV, some animals are eaten whole and others have to be gutted or otherwise modified with dire predictions of what might happen if you don’t do this. I’ve never seen anyone eat snails from the wild, on TV or anywhere else, so I was unsure of myself and the information on the internet doesn’t always tally (surprise, surprise).

Having fed my snails on nothing but lettuce for two weeks, I was pretty confident they didn’t contain anything nasty. I put them in boiling water for 15 minutes, spooning off the frothy scum that forms on top of the water.

I took them out of their shells (which was a bit tricky) and chopped them up into small pieces because they are quite chewy. I think I could have eaten them right away but I decided to bake them with some mushrooms, garlic and butter. When I finally got round to eating them, I couldn’t quite detect what they tasted like as the butter, garlic and mushrooms overpowered them!

The main part of the snail (the foot) seemed fine. I was a bit nervous about some of the other ‘bits’ and scraped them off without eating them. Perhaps this was just squeamishness on my part.

I would certainly like to try snails again now that I have got over my first time nerves. I’ll try to eat them on their own this time to experience the taste (but maybe with some butter!).

If you have any advice or tips about keeping, cooking and eating snails - or indeed any of these wild foods - do share them here!

It’s a simple vision and it is one that I have had for a couple of years but I’ve never actually put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) to explain it. My first instinct was to keep it private, just something for me to look at every now and again. But then I decided to post it here, as this is what this blog is all about.

It feels awkward posting something so personal. However if people understand where I am coming from, it will give them a powerful connection with me which is probably worth any embarrassment I might feel about posting it in the first place.

So here it is.

I live in a small home somewhere in the countryside and not far from the sea.

I work mostly from home although some projects take me out and about.

I get up some time between 8am and 9am, get dressed, have breakfast and then start my work for the day.

I am my own boss. I decide what work I do and when. I work either as a freelancer or as a partner with others.

My work mostly involves things I enjoy, but I don’t mind doing work that is less interesting at times, so long as it is something I have chosen for myself.

I do freelance copy-editing and proofreading. I write – for my own projects and for other people. I write articles for blogs, magazines and other periodicals. I also organise summer training camps to indulge my love of fitness and to get out and meet people.

I do most of my work in the morning and in the evening. I like to use the afternoon for household tasks and errands, or go for a surf or a climb. I like to make best use of daylight hours, so if the weather is good then work will be put on hold for a few hours while I go out to enjoy it.

I like to spend time walking, fishing or foraging, giving myself the time and space to be part of nature and understand the environment around me.

I don’t have much money but I have enough. I try to be satisfied with less and less. I also learn practical skills and how to make or do things for myself. I try to become more self-sufficient.

I take things slowly and try to make time for people. Since I have a tendency to become hermit-like, I make an effort to keep in touch with people.

Online I belong to various lively communities and enjoy the debate and banter. I feel as though I belong to a small group of forward-thinking individuals forging a new type of lifestyle.

I am probably never completely satisfied and always searching for something more, this is part of my nature. But day to day I am mostly happy and gain a sense of stillness from being mistress of my own time and fortunes.

I have just spent a week eating and drinking only food that has been grown, farmed, caught or made in my home county of Cornwall. Read the background to this project here.

It was a great success and I am a convert to locally grown food. I also had the opportunity to do a little foraging for wild foods, which was great fun.

My motivation for doing this was to support the local economy and to pay a fair price for good food. I don’t like the idea of so much of my money going to supermarkets at the expense of the local economy and I am suspicious of their cheap prices and constant special offers as someone must be paying the price for this.

My motivation for this project wasn’t to do with carbon emissions or environmental impact as a whole. This is a very complicated area and it is difficult to calculate the impact of food grown in very different circumstances.

My shopping

There was a great variety of food that I could have bought but since I was only shopping for one and needed to be mindful of how much money I was spending, I made my choices accordingly. For example, I went for sausages rather than steak since there is a big price difference.

Here’s what I bought or obtained from home:

Fruit
Strawberries
Rhubarb (from home)

Vegetables
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Leeks
Potatoes
Mushrooms
Carrots
Red onions
Broccoli
Nettles (foraged)
Alexander (foraged)
Cow’s parsley (foraged)

Herbs & condiments
Garlic
Parsley & coriander (from home)
Sea salt

Dairy
Butter
Milk
Davidstow cheddar
Chicken eggs (from home)

Meat
Pork & apple sausages
Beef mince

Fish
Tinned pilchards

Bread and sweet things
Bread
Anzac biscuits
Sticky fruit cake
Honey
Raspberry jam
Cornish Fairings
Milk chocolate

Drinks
Tregothnan tea
Camel Valley wine

Takeaway food
Cornish pasty

Ironically for someone who lives by the sea, I didn’t buy any fresh sea food. This is mainly because I was intending to go and catch some myself but I didn’t manage to get anything despite going fishing twice. I’ve got a lot to learn about fishing…

New discoveries

There were several foods that I hadn’t eaten for years and never really cooked with but I have discovered that I really enjoy them.

Rhubarb – haven’t had it since I was a little girl and couldn’t even remember if I liked it or not. Have discovered it is delicious (if slightly tart) eaten straight from the garden and even better with honey and strawberries in a little fruit salad.

Leeks – they really are delicious at this time of year. Almost like a very mild onion, they go extremely well with potatoes. In fact, there is nothing like Cornish leeks and new potatoes with lashings of Cornish butter, chopped garlic and a generous sprinkling of Cornish sea salt!

Nettles – I was surprised at how well these work, especially with plenty of butter and seasoning. They are packed with nutrients – vitamins, iron, protein – a superfood growing right on the doorstep. The cooking process gets rid of the sting of course.

Tinned pilchards – first time I’ve ever had these and I actually like them better than tinned sardines. They are not as strong as sardines and mackerel so you don’t get that wave of ‘fishiness’ when you open the tin. Good for a packed lunch.

Wine – Camel Valley wine really is rather nice. It is a bit pricey – I paid £12 for a bottle. But worth it for an occasion. I tried the dry white and am looking forward to trying the Rosé next time. It is quite exciting to drink wine made in England, it makes us seem more exotic!

Things I missed

Although the strawberries and rhubarb were lovely, I did miss my usual variety of fruit, especially apples. This is an unfortunate time of year for fruit in the UK (late May / early June) as most of them don’t start coming through until July. The early strawberries that are around at the moment are delicious but they don’t keep for more than a day or two so can turn into an expensive option if you like to eat fruit every day.

Prices

Generally prices were very reasonable and not far away from what the big supermarkets charge. In some cases they are cheaper.

There are some specialist items that I wouldn’t buy on a regular basis as they are pricey. The Tregothnan tea, whilst very pleasant to drink, is too expensive as an everyday tea at 35p per bag.

Food miles

I had a go at calculating the food miles from each food’s source (i.e. farm or manufacturer) to the shop where I bought it. I didn’t know the source for every single product but was able to identify most of them.

Food miles from source to shop: 348.2

My own journeys to and from shops came to 69.4 miles.

My total food miles for the week, including from farm to shop and my own shopping trips, is the equivalent of a round trip to Swindon.

There’s an interesting dilemma here. Buying food from local farm shops means you are likely to rack up many more miles locally than if you did your entire shop at one supermarket near to where you live. But the difference in food miles of the food you are buying is enormous.

There are some interesting articles about why using food miles to assess environmental impact is too simplistic. Farming and food production methods vary enormously and the methods employed in this country can have a far greater environmental impact than methods used in other countries, which may compensate for the actual ‘food miles’ involved.

Interestingly, in neither of these articles is the option of not eating particular foods raised. The relative merits of apples from the UK and apples from New Zealand are discussed but no mention is made of the fact that we could simply not eat apples when they are not in season. In other words, number of foods and availability are not to be compromised.

The ‘seasonal/wild food’ contingent would argue that we need to be more in tune with the seasons and what they provide. Supermarket food relies on standardisation and the many varieties of a particular food are simply not on offer. Apples may be available all year round but you’ll only be able to buy a handful of varieties in the supermarket when there are actually thousands of types of apple.

Conclusions

Making the break with supermarkets and buying local food from local producers is really quite easy and worth doing from an economic point of view. Without a working countryside, we could be left with only a handful of national parks to enjoy nature, everything else being built upon.

But there’s much more to food and farming than just buying local. As I alluded to above, the environmental impact of food, farming and shopping is complicated and if we also care about issues like climate change, biodiversity and organic growing, we need to consider more than food miles.

Further reading

Eat seasonably – new campaign in the UK to raise awareness of seasonal foods

The time is ripe - Manchester based seasonal food website

How the myth of food miles hurts the planet

Why there’s no mileage in food miles

Everything always seems so simple and so positive. Five ways to have the most brilliantest life ever! Ten steps to complete and utter fulfilment! How to earn a comfortable living while only working for 5 minutes a month!!

How the hell does anyone manage that? Are they telling the whole truth, or are they just leaving out the bad bits like the rest of us do?

Unless you are lucky enough to hit on the perfect solution for you, what usually happens is that you feel dissatisfied, want to do something about it but don’t quite know what.

You read a few books or blogs, try a few things. Often they don’t work out nearly as well as they did for the original author. Sometimes this is because you don’t believe in them quite as much as their originator – which is natural enough.

Sometimes you launch yourself into your brand new life but, like wading out into a deceptively shallow stream, you can suddenly find yourself in deeper water than you thought and have to flounder unglamorously back to the shore.

Yes, it happens to a lot of us.

At times I detect a certain lack of sympathy among successful life hackers. If you are not doing fantastically well then you are apparently just not trying hard enough, or not believing hard enough, or maybe you are not ruthless enough.

I guess this blog, trying to ingratiate itself into the niches I mentioned above, is in a similar vein. I suppose much of the time it is indeed chirpy – quite possibly irritatingly so!

I can tell you now that I don’t feel like that all of the time, and maybe the blog should reflect that.

There are times when you don’t want to read something positive. You don’t want to know how jolly and easy it has been for someone else to have their dream life while you are struggling with yours. Sometimes you just want a bit of a moan and some sympathy.

Well, if you are feeling a bit grumpy you are welcome here. Plonk your bum down, have a cup of tea and a biscuit.

So I’m going to test this out by spending a week eating only produce that has been grown or made in my home county of Cornwall – preferably as close to my house as possible.

I am only going to buy local produce from local companies. So no food from the big supermarkets, even if they are selling produce from local providers.

This is an opportunity for me to find out exactly what Cornwall has to offer. It is also a way of supporting the local economy. Cornwall suffers from rural poverty and is the only county in the UK that still qualifies for EU support because its economic output is so low.

Background to the project

I have lived most of my life in the city. Two years ago I moved to a rural area and now live on the edge of a village in Cornwall. There is food in abundance all around me but the supermarket habit is so deeply ingrained that it never occurred to me to break it until now.

I have become increasingly concerned with the way supermarkets source and sell food. I’m not an activist and I don’t know much about the inner workings of the food industry. I see the same as you do when you go to the supermarket – food from all over the globe, often extremely (suspiciously) cheap and intensively farmed. You don’t have to be a genius to work out that someone is paying the price for the food that is available to us.

Sources of food

In order to do this project properly I needed to do some research. Having been a supermarket drone for so long I was not quite sure where to find all the food I needed.

Fortunately I can make a start right at home. My landlord keeps chickens so there is a regular supply of fresh eggs. We’ve got a lot of stuff growing in the garden but most of it is not ready yet – too early in the year. However the rhubarb is delicious right now.

There are several farm shops in the area, including the wondrous Trevilley Farm Shop in Newquay which stocks practically every food stuff you could want, all grown or made in Cornwall. A bit further afield there is a food hall called Kingsley Village which stocks a wide variety of Cornish food produce (including chocolate made in Cornwall, yum!).

Obviously there is an abundance of fish in this maritime county. I am a pretty poor fisherwoman but I do have a rod so you never know, I might be able to catch something! Otherwise I will have to rely on the local fishing industry.

You might be surprised to learn that Cornwall also grows its own tea and makes its own wine. I haven’t got around to trying Cornish wine yet so I’m looking forward to that. Naturally there is plenty of Cornish cider and great local beers so I will definitely not be short of something to drink.

Cost

Cost is a key issue for me, being challenged in the funds department. I am willing to pay more than rock bottom prices for quality produce but prices have to be reasonable.

This is in any case an important issue in getting people in general to switch to local food. There is a perception (well this was true for me anyway) that local food is more expensive and harder to get hold of than supermarket food. But let’s find out if that is really true.

Results

I will be reporting back how I get on eating exclusively Cornish. I will be keeping track of where all the food comes from and how much it costs.

In the meantime if you are visiting Cornwall this year, check out Food from Cornwall to see where to source the delicious local food while you are here.

5 June 2009

The results are now up - read them here.

I enjoy well written and thought provoking posts from smart people. I generally prefer articles that are on the longer side as I like getting my cerebral teeth into something meaty.

I am writing about blogs that I really rate, not just as link love or promotion but because you can learn a lot about a person from knowing what they like to read. When you go to someone’s house for the first time, you can’t wait to sidle up to the bookcase (or CD rack) to see what they’ve got!

The five blogs I highlight below have all entertained me, made me think differently about the world and in most cases actually ended up influencing my life in some significant way. This is one of the things that I love about blogging: that a post you write can - somewhere, sometime - influence a person to do something differently and lead them down a new and exciting path.

Steve Pavlina

This is the first blog I read at any length and the blog that got me into blogging. I suspect millions of bloggers around the blogosphere can say the same thing. How many of us have read his article 10 reasons you should never get a job and changed our life’s path as a result? I know I did.

I like the fact that he writes long, detailed articles. He can be rather didactic but gets away with it because the content is so good and he has the knack of teaching and explaining. I am happy to be a pupil for the duration because I truly feel I have learned something.

Favourites: The Best of Stevepavlina.com - see menu on the left hand side of the homepage

Skelliewag

Skelliewag is one of the websites I read most frequently. For me, it is the most useful blog about blogging on the web. She’s a fine writer but what never ceases to amaze me is her clarity of thought and expression. At her best she is like the light in St Ives which has inspired generations of artists with its brilliance (see the picture above). If you are a blogger yourself, she is like your favourite teacher when you were at school.

Skellie is one of the few people who can write good list articles (10 ways to do this, 5 things to do that). She doesn’t do them very often and when she does, she packs them with value (see, that’s Skellie terminology right there!). She gives great advice and I often find myself emulating here without realising it.

Favourites: Be the best, be discovered, How to start (or start over) building your personal brand

Seth Godin

I was turned on to Seth Godin’s blog by Skellie. He writes about marketing, sales, getting people to do, say or believe in things. That makes him sound like a cult leader but he isn’t. His expertise lies in understanding the great range of human impulses, emotions and responses to the world and knowing how to make the best of them. He seems to be one of those people who can make others feel good.

Seth keeps his posts relatively short and sweet. He has an amazing talent to capture interesting thoughts and light bulb moments in a handful of sentences. Really, so few people can do this.

Seth rarely resorts to lists, he simply distils his argument into a few sentences. He tells a good story, leads you from one thought to another until he has laid out his whole argument.

I like the way he makes me feel clever. He shows me what is behind simple human responses, things I don’t have the vision to see or the empathy to understand by myself.

Favourites: Self promotion, How to organise the room, The banal brazenness of telescammers

Ran Prieur

I love this guy’s writing. It makes my brain fizz, opens doors, makes me feel that life is worth living and weird things are worth doing.

Ran is kind of a drop out, a geek, a writer and philosopher. It helps that I share many of his values. He is the kind of thinker who will probably only ever appeal to a relatively small number of people who ‘get it’.  He looks at the world in a unique way. He swivels concepts around so that you see them from the other side. He also writes very well.

My favourite parts of the site are his essays. They are lengthy – you want to settle down with a cup of tea for a good read. One favourite prints to 20 pages. But not all the writing is as lengthy. He offers a variety of writings, from essays to old zine snippets and regular blogging.

Favourites: How to drop out, Beyond civilized and primitive

Squat Rx

I found this blog through its author, Boris’ popular youtube video series of the same name, practically a video encyclopedia of the squat exercise. I blog about strength training myself over at gubernatrix.co.uk so I am very familiar with this niche.

Squat Rx is different though from the normal run of strength and fitness blogs. Not only can Boris write, he’s also something of a philosopher. My favourite posts are those where he talks about how training makes you feel or how your whole attitude to life can reflect and be reflected in your training.

Training is more than the thirty minutes that you spend in the gym. Boris opens out the topic and introduces big ideas. He tries to get to the heart of things, not just show you how to swing a kettlebell.

Favourites: Motivation is overrated, Drinking the Kool Aid Part 2

Do you have any favourite blogs that you want to share?

More from dropoutdiaries

• 6 life changing books
• What dropping out means to me
• How to change your life - three lessons
• Professional blogging as a business model

The monastery discussed in detail below is a place my father used to take me and my sisters as children. We lived in a nearby town and in the autumn our favourite destination for collecting conkers was the monastery grounds, which had a magnificent range of chestnut trees. The monks didn’t seem to mind; we never spoke to them of course but they looked on from a distance while tending their gardens or their beehives.

My father once went on a retreat in this monastery. It was an important experience for him and gave him an insight into the life of these holy men. This article is adapted from one originally written by my father for the website h2g2.

The Carthusian Order

The Carthusians are a Roman Catholic Order of monks and nuns. The Order was founded in the 11th century by St Bruno in the wild and rocky Chartreuse valley (near Grenoble in the French Alps) from which it takes its name.

A Carthusian monastery is known as a Charterhouse. There are Charterhouses in France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, the US, Brazil and Argentina. But it may come as a surprise to learn that the largest Charterhouse of all is in England. It is known as St Hugh’s Charterhouse, Parkminster.

Photo of Parkminster by Catholic With Attitude

St Hugh’s is set deep in the green and pleasant countryside of the county of West Sussex in southeast England. The buildings, cloisters and courts that comprise this monastery cover ten acres. The cloisters, nearly a mile in length, are the longest monastic cloisters in the world.

St Hugh’s is the only Charterhouse in England to have replaced those destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries (in the reign of King Henry VIII during the 16th century), when clergy in religious houses up and down the land were thrown out and the valuable lands and buildings sold off. Catholics who refused to recognise King Henry rather than the Pope as supreme head of the Church were tortured to death.

St Hugh’s was built in the late 19th century at a time when, owing to religious persecution in continental Europe, it was felt prudent to provide a safe haven in case the Carthusians were forced to flee.

The life of a Carthusian monk is physically and materially very austere, and such austerity is reflected in the buildings of the monastery, whether it be the large church, the library stocked with many ancient tomes, the refectory, the cloisters or the monks’ cells. All is cold and hard, stone and wood and iron - and no heating except within the cells themselves - but beautiful and inspirational in its austerity, as a cold, barren, rocky mountainside can be magnificent and uplifting to the spirit.

One particularly special place within the monastery enclosure is the monks’ cemetery. It is lovingly maintained in a very simple style and is a cherished spot for prayer and contemplation.

Produce

At St Hugh’s there are extensive kitchen gardens for the vegetables (the Carthusians are vegetarians). They also bake their own bread and make their own mature cheese. They keep bees and so produce honey. They also have apple orchards, from which they make their own rather potent cider. This produce is entirely for their own consumption: none of it is sold.

Silence

The Carthusians embrace silence as an important part of their way of life. Most people, when asked to name an order of silent monks, would think of the Trappists. The Trappists, however, are not Carthusians but a particular branch of the Cistercians (called Trappists after the place of their original monastery, La Trappe, in France).

Both the Carthusians and the Trappists lay great importance on silence yet, contrary to popular belief, neither Order requires a vow of silence. Silence is an integral part of their lifestyle, so no such vow is necessary. A Carthusian monk spends a great deal of his time alone in his hermitage, where there is of course no occasion to speak. Much of the rest of his time will be spent in church, where personal conversation is also not called for. And apart from two important recreational periods every week, specially set aside for the monks to talk to each other, he will avoid all but the most necessary speech.

Whether silence is a boon or a penance will no doubt depend on the individual, and of course at different times it could be either or both. But it was obviously considered a rare and precious commodity even in the 11th century (when both Carthusian and Cistercian Orders were founded) and now 1000 years later its special value for some people has hardly diminished. Silence lies at the centre of Carthusian spirituality.

The Cell

The cell of a Carthusian monk is simple, as you would expect, but substantial. It is really a self contained cottage on two floors, entered from the cloister and with a garden with walls ten feet high.

View of the cells at Parkminster by Catholic With Attitude

The layout of the cells is designed in such a way as to isolate each cell from all the others. There is a hatch between the cloister and the cell, arranged in such a way that food and written notes can be passed through without human contact.

There is a simple bed and a small washbasin. Near to the bed is the Oratory, the area set aside for prayer and furnished with a simple hard kneeler or prie-dieu. There will be a few shelves for books, and a study table with a hard chair, but also space to walk around while reading, praying or meditating when it is too dark or cold to do so in the garden (fortunately, St Hugh’s’ cells now have electric lighting installed). There is also a dining table.

There is a stove to provide some heating and hot water and a store of wood for the stove, with an axe for chopping the wood. Then there is a work area, probably with some simple woodworking tools including a manually operated lathe. Bookbinding is also a common labour undertaken by the monks, as is tending the garden, and there will be simple tools for these or other suitable labour-intensive pursuits. At the bottom of the garden is a latrine.

The Habit

The habit which is worn is plain thick white serge, made in the monastery, with a pointed hood. Boots and shoes are also made in the monastery. The monks’ heads are shaven, and they are not permitted a beard or moustache. This makes it much easier to wash and dry within the restricted facilities available in the cell.

A hairshirt is worn continuously, even in bed, and removed only for washing. This is a very simple garment worn next to the skin. It consists of two pieces of rough material made from horsehair, one to cover the chest and the other the back, joined by simple shoulder straps to keep the whole thing in place. This is always uncomfortable, and its purpose is to act as a constant reminder that physical pleasure must be subordinated to the love of God.

The scourge or discipline, a form of whip or lash used for self-mortification, may also be used, in moderation, especially during the penitential seasons, at the monk’s own discretion.

Meals and Association

Most meals are eaten alone in the cell. There is one main meal per day, typically some soup followed by a vegetarian main course and perhaps biscuits and some kind of pudding. Later in the day there is a light supper, which during the penitential winter period would consist of bread only. There is no breakfast. On Fridays and other fast days food is restricted to bread and water. A drink of water is permitted at any time, and salt if needed. On Sundays and major feast days the monks take lunch together in the refectory, but do not talk during the meal as one of the monks will be reading to them from a spiritual text.

The monks get together to talk twice a week. This is for a period after Sunday lunch, and during the Monday afternoon walk. The walk is considered very important and always takes place except in the most severe weather, when it may be postponed for a day or two until the weather improves. The walk lasts a whole afternoon, when the monks may be seen walking in pairs through the surrounding countryside. Every 20 minutes or so they swap and pair up with someone else. Once a year they are driven out to some isolated area for a walk lasting all day and including a picnic.

They are permitted to write four letters per year and may receive letters at the discretion of the Father Prior. Their family can visit once per year for up to three days and relatives can stay at a guest house in the grounds of the monastery. Apart from such family visits the Carthusians, unlike other monastic Orders, do not normally offer hospitality, and anyone wishing to make a visit must have a valid reason for doing so and needs to apply well in advance for special permission. Men only, of course.

The Liturgy

A great deal of a monk’s life is taken up in prayer. The form of liturgy used by the Carthusians, particularly the liturgy of the Mass, is very ancient and used only by Carthusians.

At St Hugh’s there is a vestibule behind the church, where members of the public may gather to hear the liturgy, through a small grille, at Sunday Mass. A Father emerges at the appropriate time to distribute Communion.

In addition to the Conventual Mass celebrated by all the Fathers in church every day, they will each say a private Mass. The other major part of the liturgy is the Hours, or the Divine Office. This consists of sets of prayers and psalms for the different hours of the day, said at approximately three-hourly intervals. Some of these Offices are prayed privately in the cell, others are Conventual, where the monks join together in church for the service.

A Day in the Life of a Carthusian Father

• 06.30 - Get up
• 07.00 - Prayers and meditation in cell
• 08.15 - Conventual Mass in Church
• 09.00 - Private Mass and spiritual reading in cell
• 10.30 - Manual work in cell
• 11.15 - Prayers in cell
• 11.30 - Lunch (the main meal), followed by light work in cell
• 13.15 - Prayers in cell
• 13.30 - Study in cell
• 15.00 - Manual work in cell
• 15.30 - Vespers in Church
• 16.00 - Meditation in cell
• 17.30 - Supper in cell
• 18.15 - Examination of Conscience in cell
• 18.45 - Prayers in cell, then chores
• 19.45 - Bed
• 00.00 - Matins and Lauds in Church
• 03.00 - (approx) Bed
• 06.30 - A new day begins

So apart from the great night-time Offices of Matins and Lauds (which can account for anything from two to four hours, depending on the day of the calendar) nearly all a Father’s time is spent alone in his hermitage, praying, meditating, studying, working or sleeping.

Fathers and Brothers

So far the term ‘monk’ has been referring to the Fathers, the ordained Priests. But as with other monastic Orders, it is also possible to be a Carthusian monk as a Brother.

The Brothers also live in cells along their cloister, but spend six hours or so per day in manual work around the monastery. Therefore they spend less time in liturgy and prayer. When you join you have to choose whether to be a Brother or a Father - it is not usually possible to change later from one to the other. The Brothers tend to be the less academically-inclined monks who would rather be working on the land or in the workshops or kitchens than spending most of their time in study or prayer.

Admission, ‘Profession’ and ‘Donation’

Candidates are not normally admitted until the age of 20 or after the age of 40 or so. Once admitted, the candidate becomes a Postulant for a period of between six and 12 months, to decide whether he should proceed to become a Novice. As a Novice he becomes fully a member of the community, and remains in the Novitiate for two years. He then takes Vows of obedience and conversion of his ways, which implicitly includes chastity and poverty, for three years. He thus becomes a Professed monk.

A Brother may instead opt for Donation. This means that instead of vows he makes a promise to the House and the Order, of obedience, chastity and living without personal possessions within the monastery, although keeping the ownership of any outside possessions. He is then a Donate. This simple Profession or Donation is then renewed for a period of two more years. During this period, if he is a cloister monk he is then no longer a Novice, and now lives as do the solemn Professed; this is a way of slowly forming him to the maturity expected of a hermit. At the end of this period, if all concerned are satisfied that he is able to live the Carthusian life and is genuinely called to it, he makes his final and solemn Profession or Perpetual Donation. This includes disposing of all his worldly possessions, inside or outside the monastery. If he is a Brother (who is now a Donate) he has the option of renewing his temporary Donation every three years without making a permanent commitment to the Order.

The Carthusian lifestyle does seem to be conducive to health and longevity, and many monks go on to live to a ripe old age.

The Chartreuse Liqueurs

In 1605, the monks of the Grande Chartreuse at Grenoble, France, received from the Maréchal d’Estrées the secret formula for an elixir or health tonic believed to have strong curative powers. It was white and something like 200 proof alcohol. Today Chartreuse comes in green or yellow, both made from a combination of 130 plants and herbs found in the French Alps. Brandy and neutral spirits provide a base for the liqueur. Green Chartreuse is 110 proof and packs quite a punch, while Yellow is 80 proof (similar to many vodkas), sweeter and less alcoholic.

In 1815 the Carthusians were expelled from France during the French Revolution. After returning to France they were expelled again, in 1903, under a law forbidding all religious Orders. Religious vows were seen as a crime against liberty and equality. The state considered the monks as criminals and at best these monastic men were ‘useless’ to society.

Monasteries have always been the first targets of revolution: a freshly-guillotined monk’s head was once a highly-prized trophy. The Carthusian monks had been the first martyrs of England’s Anglican Reformation, too, and now at the turn of the 20th century France enacted a law requiring them to renounce their vows in order to become ‘useful citizens’.

Some of the monks went to St Hugh’s in England and others to Tarragona, Spain, where they started a second distillery. In 1932, the Carthusians were allowed back into France but they also kept up the distillery in Spain. Both distilleries are still in operation, but Chartreuse is produced in only six weeks out of each year by three monks who have taken a vow of secrecy. They each know two-thirds of the recipe. To ensure secrecy no-one knows the whole formula.

St Hugh’s today

St Hugh’s seems still to be going strong as a community, judging by its elegantly produced website. I haven’t been there myself since I was a child although the first thing I thought about when I was reminded of the place was the bees! I think it was the first place I ever saw beehives or beekeepers and of course I was fascinated. At the present time though, we are having great problems with bees in this country (and I believe across the world) as bee communities are dying. I do hope the bees of Parkminster are thriving.

Further reading

The sound of silence - interview in the Independent with Parkminster’s cantor on the occasion of the release of a CD of chants by the monks of Parkminster

An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World’s Most Austere Monastic Order

It’s not often we get such positive news in a credit crunch but recent research has been filtering through that expensive running trainers don’t help your running and may actually be causing injuries.

Before you react too sceptically, let’s remember that running trainers were only developed in the 1970s. Before that, runners wore a much simpler foot covering. Roger Bannister broke the mile record in leather slippers. So you don’t have to have modern trainers in order to run.

But do trainers actually help? Do they correct your gait? That’s the story that the manufacturers have been telling. ‘Motion control’ corrects inefficiencies in your gait and cushioning protects your feet from impact.

But recent work has shown that adding cushioning to shoes actually encourages heel strike, making the running more impactful than it would otherwise be. When we run barefoot we strike the ground not with the heel but with the midfoot.

Actually this style of foot strike, either with shoes or without, has been popular for a long time. It is known as POSE running and organisations like Crossfit promote it. The barefoot argument takes it a step further, maintaining that when you run barefoot you naturally adopt a POSE running style instead of having to learn it, because that is the way your foot works.

The story is similar with motion control. Anyone who has bought specialist running trainers has probably heard about pronation. I was always assessed as an ‘over-pronator’ meaning that I land on the outside edge of my foot and then roll inwards. The prefix ‘over’ apparently indicates that I do it too much than is good for me! But we are supposed to pronate to some extent and perhaps the motion control shoe is working against my natural gait rather than with it.

Clearly we humans have been running for much longer without shoes than with shoes. But the argument that most sports professionals make against barefoot running is that we modern individuals are not used to it because we’ve been wearing shoes our whole life.

Of course everyone is different, but when I went for my first proper barefoot run I did the same sort of distance I usually do (around 3-4 miles) on the same surface I normally run on (grass) and had no problems. My calves ached a little more than usual but I was fine the next day. I was surprised that I suffered no ill effects when all the advice is of taking it easy, spending days working up to it. To me, it felt natural and comfortable.

Now I’m an outdoorsy person. I’ve been running for years, including plenty of off-road routes. I surf so I’m used to bare feet and I rock climb so my ankles are reasonably strong. Another person, maybe someone not as used to running or with weaker ankles may find it harder – I’m not sure. On the other hand, it may feel as natural as it felt for me. It is definitely worth trying.

You will not be surprised to learn that sports shoe manufacturers have lost no time in bringing out their own versions of nature’s bare foot. Any chance to make some money off a new trend. Popular brands include Vibram Five Fingers, Vivo Barefoot and Nike Free. Personally I would rather do barefoot running in, well, bare feet. Call me crazy.

I am very attracted to the idea of barefoot running – and not because I want to be some kind of earth mother. When I first started long distance road running some years ago I had a lot of problems with ‘runner’s knee’ and my shoes. I got blisters on the insides of my feet and painful, damaged toes from bumping against the front of the shoe. My toenails are now ruined. Without shoes I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this – although perhaps barefoot running long distances brings its own problems. I will be finding out in the future as I am embracing barefoot running for the time being.

The prospect of running barefoot in the winter is rather unnerving. But people become adapted to open water swimming throughout the winter, which sounds much colder. Anyway if the idea of running barefoot through the snow and the cold rain is too much for me I suppose I could always ask for a pair of Vibrams for Christmas!

Further reading

You walk wrong - New York Times Magazine
What ruins running - Boston Globe
The painful truth about trainers: are expensive running shoes a waste of money? - Daily Mail

Just recently I ran out of money. It was a shock because it crept up on me but it also made me take a good look at my kitchen. As I looked around, I realised that I almost always cook with what I’ve got in the fridge and hardly ever open the cupboards. It turns out I’ve got plenty of food even when the fridge is practically bare!

So now I’m on a mission to use up my tins. I still need to buy a few fresh vegetables but my weekly food shop cost has plummeted. It is actually quite fun to think up new ways of using tinned produce.

One of my new favourite dishes is chickpea curry (see recipe below). It’s cheap and delicious and it can be heated up easily in the microwave so I can take some to work for lunch. It’s the easiest thing in the world to cook and I can leave it to simmer for ages on the stove if I need to go and do something else.

Tinned food is not always seen as a ‘healthy’ option but this doesn’t have to be the case. For example kidney beans, chick peas and other beans in tinned form are very good for you, being high in protein and relatively low in carbohydrate. If you have tinned tuna, make it into a salad with tinned beans rather than pasta for a much healthier and lower calorie option.

Tinned chopped tomatoes are brilliant. You can make anything with them – pasta sauce, chilli, curry. These dishes are also great for using up odds and sods like vegetables that are left over or a bit old. Plenty of spice and seasoning brings any dish to life. Even cauliflower and cabbage can be interesting in a curry!

By the way, don’t forget to recycle or reuse your tins.

Got any good tinned food tips to share?

Simple Chickpea Curry

1 tin chick peas
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1/3 teaspoon turmeric
1/3 teaspoon cumin
1/3 teaspoon nutmeg
Garlic (1 or 2 cloves), finely chopped
Cabbage, roughly chopped
Red onion, chopped
Fresh coriander (if you happen to have some lying around!), finely chopped

Heat some oil or butter in a saute pan (or any deep pan)
Fry the garlic and red onion over a medium heat for a few minutes
Add the tomatoes and turn heat down to a simmer
Add the turmeric, cumin and nutmeg and stir in
After 5 minutes or so, add the chick peas and cabbage
Sprinkle coriander on top
Simmer for at least 20 minutes but longer if you want

Variations: you can also add carrots or peppers if you want. Add them at the same time as the cabbage.

Serve with pitta bread or cous cous

Further reading

Cereal killer - making your own cereal

I have just been on holiday in Turkey, visiting my sister who lives there with her Turkish husband and their little boy. It was while on holiday in Turkey a year and a half ago that I came up with the notion of giving up my career and moving out of London to a faraway rural corner of England.

Being on holiday does give one time to ponder, and the complete contrast of my sister’s life with mine was food for thought indeed. Last week I once again found myself on a beach in Turkey going through a similar thought process.

Of course I am in a different position from last time: the dream has partially been realised. But it is now clear that my dream was really only the beginning and that upping sticks and moving to the other end of the country is only the first step. My action was a ‘suck it and see’ exercise, accompanied by no clear vision of how it should pan out.

I am still a free spirit but not a free agent. I have had to submit to a nine to five job to keep the wolf from the door. It’s not a job I find deeply fulfilling but it must serve for now as I am now low on funds and in debt again.

I will be honest: I buggered up the financial side. I had no real financial plan and spent a lot of money. My next priority therefore – dull as it sounds – is to bring the finances back on track. Unless I can do this, I will continue to be a wage slave, albeit one who lives by the sea.

As for the rest, I’m still working on it. I lost sight of the dream for a few months whilst trying to keep body and soul together, but I’m back and focussing on the long term once more.

Read more:

• What dropping out means to me
• True signs of success
• Drop out interviews