Spring has knocked on the door and everyone seems to slowly peel out of their hibernation. The days are noticeably getting longer, birds are twittering in the sunshine and the winter coats are staying hooked more often than not. Remarkable that most cruisers and other voyagers agree that it takes almost an entire year to adjust one’s own pace to the reality of living a dream. Saying that you want to slow down, and actually doing it, are two completely different topics.

Mind is continuously hankering for arrival, and life is a continuous departure and arrival again – but arriving just to depart once more. There is no finality to it. It is never perfect and that’s its perfection. It is a dynamic process, not a dead, static thing. (Osho)

Eight months after leaving Sydney, we’ve settled into a comfortable rhythm. There’s still high highs and low lows, but that’s the way we chose to live life as it makes us feel most alive. There’s no trotting along. It’s breathing consciously every breath you take.

The South of England has been treating us very well over the past three months: The way we’ve become friends with some absolutely gorgeous people; work’s just flying at us and we are loving it too; the more we discover of Hampshire the more stunning we find it (eg above pictures taken during a beautiful Saturday with friends at Dorset’s stunning Jurassic coast). Just today I remembered one of the reasons why we had decided to leave Australia – things were just going too smoothly, too easily, too predictable.

To shake things up a bit we’ll spend a long weekend on our boat in Greece before the end of the month. Bags are packed. Hand luggage is full of bliss balls, kale crisps, spinach muffins, fruit, carrot sticks, tomato chutney, home made chocolate granola, almond cookies and a few new surprise toys for the kids.

Have I mentioned one of the best things about living in a house, I find, is the endless opportunities a ‘normal’ kitchen provides? I’ve been going a bit nuts and one of the items that never turned out in Sydney, but has been a hit from the first attempt is bread. See, I don’t buy gluten, sugar and all those refined nasties. We get enough even while trying to avoid them. So the challenge of making an enjoyable bread is just that little bit harder, but given the journey we are on, you might have figured that I like challenges.

My favourite gluten free bread recipe: