The good life!

We have been gently thinking about moving to Spain at some point in the next few years and a chance look at a finca in the foothills of the Sierra de las Nieves in Andalucía has kick started us to think about planning where we might live and how we might live once we are there.

Over the last year or more we have been thinking about sustainable living and more so, living off the grid. This blog will be about the thinking around how we manage that.

We went vegan about two and a half years ago and I have been interested in growing and cooking our own food. We’ve had many tomatoes, a few cucumbers, salad leaves, peas, blackberries, wild strawberries and herbs from the garden. We are cultivating a lemon, on a tree that we’ve now brought indoors for the winter.

I am taking sewing classes and I now plan to no longer buy new clothes. I will either make them or buy in charity shops to wear as is or alter to suit.

We have an electric car which is used mostly by Jonathan to make the 40 mile round trip daily commute to work, but we still have our fossil fuel car for longer journeys. I travel to work in London on the train. The cost of car use has gone from £50 per week to £8 per week, and we use a renewable sources energy provider.

We are looking at how we can improve on all this with our move to Spain by growing the majority of our own food and generating our own power. We will need an income to cover other expenses because if nothing else we would like to have internet and phone.

There are many more considerations, investigations and calculations to be done. We hope you enjoy our journey as much as we hope to.

Emily & Jonathan