the moneyless man

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The Moneyless Man by Mark Boyle, read by David Thorpe

From Audible:

Imagine a year without spending – or even touching – money. Former businessman Mark Boyle did just that and here is his extraordinary story. Going back to basics and following his own strict rules, Mark learned ingenious ways to eliminate his bills and discovered that good friends are all the riches you need.

Encountering seasonal foods, solar panels, skill-swapping schemes, cuttlefish toothpaste, compost toilets, and – the unthinkable – a cash-free Christmas, Boyle puts the fun into frugality and offers some great tips for economical (and environmentally friendly) living. A testament to Mark’s astounding determination, this witty and heart-warming book will make you re-evaluate your relationship to your wallet.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

This is the first book that Mark Boyle wrote and the start of his journey that culminated in his living completely without technology as well as money. This was covered in a previous review of The Way Home.

I did enjoy listening to this and definitely didn’t find it boring. However, I felt it was a bit light on the day to day details of life without money. The main reason for writing the book was to promote the Freeconomy concept and to encourage others to give it a try and get involved. He spends a lot of time explaining the Freeconomy concept and the ethos behind it as well as giving tips and information. He also goes into detail why he feels that society needs to change. He doesn’t come across as preachy in any way and does a good job of promoting the lifestyle but I was expecting something more along the lines of his other book and was disappointed not to get the details of life without money.

The best section for me was describing how he managed to get from Bristol to Donegal for Xmas without spending money or compromising his ideals. This involved an appearance on RTE’s Grainne Seoige Show. The narrator is English and it did make me giggle listening to him trying to pronounce her surname. I think I heard at least 4 different attempts and none of them correct!

The narrator was good but had a slightly irreverent tone throughout the whole book. This suited the early chapters that are written in a very self-deprecating style but I found it a bit jarring in some of the more serious later sections.

Overall a good book and I’d recommend reading it before The Way Home.

Finally, I only realised this morning that I saw Mark Boyle being interviewed on The Tommy Tiernan Show a few months ago. The video clip below is short piece of that interview.

Header image source: fossbytes.com

darkness into light

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This is an event organised to raise funds for Pieta House in Ireland and similar charitable organisations in a few other countries. It’s now in its 12th year and there are events across the whole country.

Pieta House provide mental health support and counselling for suicide prevention and for those affected and bereaved by self-harm and suicide.

Normally it’s a massive organised event in a specific location at the beginning of May. It’s usually a 5km walk and starts shortly after 4am. Dawn is shortly after 5am so the walk symbolically starts in darkness and finishes in daylight.

In 2019 we took part in the Letterkenny event along with Catriona’s sister.

In 2020 the event was almost cancelled due to the Covid19 pandemic but was changed to a virtual event with everyone walking in their own locality. Somehow we managed to drag two teenagers out of bed at 4:30am to join us. I’m still not sure if Owen woke up enough to remember it!

This year was also a virtual event but with a very wet and windy forecast we decided to leave the boys in peace and just do it ourselves. Despite the cold and wet it was special to do it alone but knowing that so many others were doing it at the same time as us.

2020 was supposed to be the inaugural Ballybofey event (our nearby town) so hopefully we’ll be able to take part in that next year if the world has returned to normal.

inspire: life lessons from the wilderness

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Inspire: Life Lessons From The Wilderness by Ben Fogle

From Audible:

The latest adventure from best-selling author Ben Fogle explores what we can learn from nature about living well and living wild. 

What can rowing across the Atlantic teach us about boredom and about patience? Can coming down from Everest take more resilience than climbing up in the first place? How can the isolation of the South Pole highlight what’s most important? And how can we tap into the same reflective state in our daily lives? 

Writing during the unprecedented period of the coronavirus pandemic and drawing on a wealth of personal stories, Ben reflects on the significance of nature to all our lives and shows us how we can benefit from living a little more wild. Drawing on his greatest adventures, he shares what his time spent in the wilderness has taught him about life. Ranging across seas, icecaps, jungles and deserts, Ben’s stories are filled with wonder and struggle, with animals, adventure, wilderness, friendships, unexpected acts of kindness and heroism, and are bursting with inspiration directly from nature. Ben’s epic stories reveal a new side to his adventures and show how everyone can find meaning in the wilderness, even if it’s just outside their front door. 

Full of exciting adventures and practical guidance, this primer on positivity is a story about overcoming obstacles, surpassing your expectations and inspiring your journey of adventure. 

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

I must confess that I knew very little about Ben Fogle before I read this. I knew he rose to prominence because of the BBC series Castaway and that he had done some TV presenting including Countryfile. I was totally unaware of the amount of TV he has done though and had no idea of his achievements by rowing the Atlantic, taking part in the Marathon Des Sables or climbing Mount Everest.

Anytime I’ve seen him on TV I’ve liked his laid back style and lack of arrogance. On TV he comes across as confident and happy so it was interesting that he has fought against imposter syndrome and self esteem issues for most of his life. This is a very honest book and probably wouldn’t have been written only for the Covid19 lockdown.

I particularly enjoyed the second half of the book from when he talked about the Wild Folk. This was also my favourite chapter of the book and I was pleased to see Mark Boyle get a mention too. I didn’t know of the TV series that he made and will be making an effort to get a chance to watch it.

I’m not really sure about the title of the book. I don’t really think it’s written to inspire and it sounds a lot more pretentious than it is. The secondary title “Life Lessons From the Wilderness” is much more accurate and the biggest lesson for me was the impact of taking yourself away from the stresses of modern life, even for shorter periods of time. I’ve found the benefits of this recently myself.

The book is also read by Fogle and unlike Steve Backshall’s audiobook this time it worked really well. The writing styles and personalities of the two are very dissimilar though.

Header image source: fossbytes.com

fool’s errand

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Fool’s Errand (Tawny Man #1) by Robin Hobb.

From Goodreads:

Fifteen years have passed since the end of the Red Ship War with the terrifying Outislanders. Since then, Fitz has wandered the world accompanied only by his wolf and Wit-partner, Nighteyes, finally settling in a tiny cottage as remote from Buckkeep and the Farseers as possible.

But lately the world has come crashing in again. The Witted are being persecuted because of their magical bonds with animals; and young Prince Dutiful has gone missing just before his crucial diplomatic wedding to an Outislander princess. Fitz’s assignment to fetch Dutiful back in time for the ceremony seems very much like a fool’s errand, but the dangers ahead could signal the end of the Farseer reign.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is a fantastic return to Fitz’s story. The Farseer Trilogy, while very good, suffered at times from an overly complicated story that was far too wide ranging. This books strips away the complications and distills it down to a much simpler story.

Much of the book is given over to reacquainting us with Fitz’s life and what has happened to him in the 15 years since we last saw him. During this time he has travelled far and wide, has spent time with folk of the Old Blood and has cemented his relationship with Nighteyes. He has cut himself off from the political world of the Six Duchies but still stays connected via his Skill knowledge of Burrich, Molly and Nettle and his infrequent visits from Starling.

I found it very poignant that while his relationship with Nighteyes pretty much completed the two it was only when the Fool returned that they were truly “Pack” once more. There was a very subtle suggestion that they almost met in Bingtown with Fool in his Amber persona that was cleverly woven into his story of their travels but not picked up on any further.

Three things made this book for me:

  • the focus on Wit magic or Old Blood. This is a much more understandable and easily related type of magic than the Skill. It’s almost believable from a modern point of view. We all know someone that seems to have a special relationship with animals. In this book the author delves much more into the details of the Wit, explains how it works and develops the relationship between Fitz and Nighteyes, sometimes with difficult and heart breaking developments.
  • the Fool is given centre stage. His previous Farseer character was a clever subterfuge to hide his true importance but he was a difficult friend for Fitz to have. In this book he and Fitz are given time together to be themselves and to show their true friendship together. The time at the cabin is one of happiness and fun and I especially enjoyed the transformation of the cabin by the Fool’s almost compulsive carving and whittling. The eventual end of this time transformed him back into the flamboyant Lord Golden who has to be one of the best fantasy characters ever created. His antics and machinations are a joy to read when you know the true character behind the mask.
  • the development of Fitz. He is no longer the surly young man of the previous trilogy. He has grown up and accepted his role and how he was treated. He still carries his ghosts but in a much more mature way. His handling of his complicated relationship with Prince Dutiful and his new relationship with Chade is particularly good and it seems that happier times are also ahead for him.

I’m pretty sure that I have read this second trilogy in Fitz’s story but I can’t remember the other two books. This makes me anticipate reading them even more.

Header image by Kaboompics .com from Pexels

metric challenge 2021: april

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After my motivational crash and mental reset in the middle of the month my reduction in activity had a very detrimental impact on my cycling. After a strong February (568km) and March (558km) April has been quite poor. Up until yesterday I only had 133km across 5 rides. In addition I hadn’t sat in the saddle for 2 weeks! True to form I was also leaving my 100km to the very last possible day seeing as I’m working the last two days of the month.

Time was a precious commodity yesterday. Our normal car pool arrangement fell apart this week as the neighbours’ girl was off sick. This meant I had to collect the boys from school and of course it’s a half day finish at 1:20. My normal preferred mid morning start (10ish) was out the window meaning no lie in and no dawdling on route.

A 7:15 alarm was set with the aim of hitting the road by 8:30. I was eventually out the door at 8:45 and almost cancelled due to a bit of an upset stomach. Not sure if it was the larger than normal breakfast or anxiety. I was definitely feeling nervous, whether it was stress due to the time pressure, performance anxiety worrying if I was fit enough, anxiety about being so far from home for the first time in 8 months or a combination of all of that.

The route was Derry via Lifford and Carrigans, through the city and back home via Bridgend, Letterkenny and Ballybofey. The wind was from the Northeast which made the 45km to Derry a bit of a slog and also pretty chilly straight into the cold 18km/h breeze. However, leaving Derry I had the benefit of a tailwind most of the way back as far as Stranorlar at 95km.

Coming into Derry I had the only rain of the day. A short 15min shower just heavy enough to justify stopping to put on my waterproof gillet. As it’s also HiViz I kept it on through the city to help make me a bit more visible to both cars and pedestrians. I managed to avoid the majority of the traffic by jumping on to the cycle path that runs along the Foyle all the way to the bottom of the Buncrana Road. This is partly shared use but a lot of it is segregated for walkers and cyclists. A lot of pedestrians are clueless about this though as there is no physical separation, just a change of surface colour and signage so it’s slower and requires constant vigilance. It’s still a lot safer than playing in the traffic though.

I had chosen this route partly because I was able to stop at 52km and enjoy a welcome cup of tea and a bun at my brother’s coffee van (#curiouscoffeecompany). I was also able to top up my water bottle removing the need for 2 today.

Business was good and the clock was ticking so I wasn’t able to hang around for much more than a short chat. However, refuelled on sugar and partly rested I made great time to Letterkenny and the only real climb of the day. Good route planning meant that I also had some wind assistance most of the way to the top.

The heat of the climb, loss of windchill with a tailwind and the re-emergence of the sun meant I was able to remove the leg warmers and enjoy air on my legs for the first time this year – I decided to spare you any photos!

Shortly after this I had my worst bad pass for a while. I was on a very slight descent and nipping along at 45km/h in the hard shoulder. A Nissan Micra passed me and straight away indicated to take the left turn less than 100m ahead. We drive on the left in Ireland meaning he was about to cut across in front of me. I slammed on the brakes with no hope of stopping without crashing but he stopped dead in the left lane. I figured he either didn’t see me when passing or totally underestimated my speed and somehow had the presence of mind not to turn left allowing me to pass on the inside. I gave him a good bollocking through his open window as I went by, followed a few seconds later by a long honk on the horn responded to by the most universal of hand signals🖕

Arriving in Stranorlar at 95km I was flagging. I was tired, the sugar had worn off and I was getting hungry again. I was also turning back into the wind for the final 10km. A quick stop to eat a cereal bar helped but the next 15min were not much fun! Arriving into Killygordon there’s a short, sharp climb to the traffic lights. I decided to stand up to power up it and my left leg just said no! The muscle in the back of my leg felt like water resulting in a quick rethink and a very quick downshift to keep my momentum going.

Exiting the other side of the village I ticked over the 100km mark at 3hrs 41min which I was very pleased with considering my mileage this month. I finished up the last climb to home (no standing attempted here) with the wind fully behind me again and rolled in home with 105km in 3hrs 54min at 1:10. A quick change, a handful of nuts and I was picking the boys up just 10min later than normal. Of course in moody teenager world this was a terribly unfair amount of time to be waiting, despite a warning that morning that it could be up to half an hour 😆

click the image to view on strava

Dead pleased to get that done, I really thought I was going to miss this month! Not a bad time for me either.

Header image © Strava. 100KM Gran Fondo April.

pollan strand, ballyliffin

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It’s Catriona’s birthday this week and as we’re all at work and school she wanted to celebrate today with a family day away, especially as we appear to have temporarily skipped straight from Spring to Summer.

On the way down we stopped at my brother’s coffee van (#curiouscoffee). I’ve stopped a couple of times already on my way to work but as they are only open 9 weeks now it was a first visit for Catriona and the boys.

Coincidentally Mum and my sister plus kids had a similar idea and we met them there and sat having a chat for a good while.

The main aim of the day was to go for a family walk. We had chosen Glenevin Waterfall outside Clonmany but the car park and trail were closed. According to Google it’s “temporarily closed” so it must be a victim of the lockdown restrictions.

Our next choice was always going to be a beach walk anyway so we headed for Pollan Strand less than 10 minutes away and walked pretty much the full length of the beach. It was 6km in glorious warm sunshine, as close to Summer as it gets in this part of the world.

On the way back we stopped at the Four Lanterns in Buncrana for burgers and chips topped off by 99s in Raphoe. An extravagant day of spoiling ourselves but a lovely family day out.

the way home

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The Way Home by Mark Boyle, read by Gerard Doyle

From Audible:

It was 11:00 pm when I checked my email for the last time and turned off my phone for what I hoped would be forever.

No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio, or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce. 

The Way Home is a modern-day Walden – an honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life lived in nature without modern technology. Mark Boyle, author of The Moneyless Man, explores the hard-won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the stream, foraging, and fishing. 

What he finds is an elemental life, one governed by the rhythms of the sun and seasons, where life and death dance in a primal landscape of blood, wood, muck, water, and fire – much the same life we have lived for most of our time on earth. Revisiting it brings a deep insight into what it means to be human at a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I find it hard to explain why I enjoyed this so much. It’s far from exciting and the story jumps around a lot, not just within the author’s own life, but also between his development of the smallholding and the islanders of the Blaskett Isles. I think my enjoyment stems from the openness of the author. He is very aware of his faults but also proud of his achievements. He doesn’t try to glorify his struggle without modern technologies but neither does he romanticise his new life.

He also openly acknowledges his struggle to live his new life without technology but also exist in the modern world. At times he must make compromises in order to see his parents and to help his neighbours. He’s also starting from scratch so in order to become established he needs to use the proceeds or results of modern technology.

The reader in this case brings a lot to the experience. I believe I enjoyed this more as an audiobook than I would have as a regular book. Once I became used to his pronunciation and tone, his voice added to the story making it a richer and more enjoyable experience.

Header image source: fossbytes.com

killeter forest: bannadoo trail

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Yesterday morning was fabulous. Very calm and sunny and despite an early frost it was lovely. After the school run I came home and organised my bike and kit all ready for a late morning spin. First though I had to wait for the guy to come and replace one of our worn out electric showers. With two teenage boys back at school and both of us working one working shower is no longer enough in the morning!

The shower man came about 10 and left about 1130. I don’t know if it was spending the morning making small talk and listening to his stories or if it was the change of weather from sunny and calm to overcast, cool and breezy but my cycling desire had totally evaporated and the thought of dealing with traffic was totally unappealing all of a sudden.

I was rattling around the house trying to think of something to do when a flash of inspiration brought to mind Killeter Forest and the marked trails. A quick perusal of the pdf established that the 10km Bannadoo Trail was the best option.

Over the last number of weeks I’ve been drawn more and more to the woods. Something about woods and forests and being in the trees is helping me mentally, a form of forest bathing as referenced above. My go-to place for many years has been Monellan Woods. It’s local and relatively quiet until the last year or so. Over the years I’d rarely meet anyone else while walking there, occasionally another walker or runner. Since Covid and an explosion in outdoors activity word has obviously spread and now it’s a lot busier. Tuesday evening for example I met at least 6 other groups/solo walkers and runners. It’s still a beautiful spot but it’s lost a lot of it’s calm and solitude.

I didn’t have this problem in Killeter. Almost 7.5km is on forest roads with the rest on a very rural road. Apart from the surface there isn’t much difference between the road and the forest tracks as the road also runs through the same mix of mature Spruce plantation and clearfell. The only company I had for almost two and a half hours was the trees, hundreds of singing birds and insects. Not another person or car the whole time.

The walk turned out to be almost 11km including the short walk from the car park area to the start of the loop. Most of it is through mature plantation so the views are minimal but there’s a beautiful lake in the last couple of kilometres as well as the site of the former Derg Lodge. Although I missed out on a cycle it was a worthwhile change of plan.

international appalachian way
damaged during the “troubles” = blown up by the ira
appropriately named “big bridge”

expedition

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Expedition by Steve Backshall

From Audible:

Shine a light into the unknown.

There are still dark corners of our planet that are yet to be explored. In this remarkable book, Steve Backshall offers an unflinching account of his adventures into these uncharted territories around the globe, in search of world firsts. Each location brings its own epic challenges – whether it’s the first climb of an arctic ice fall in Greenland, the first recorded navigation of a South American river, or the first exploration of the world’s longest cave system in Mexico. But all of them represent new tests of the limits of human endeavour. 

Accompanying a major 10-part series on BBC and Dave, Expedition is a breathtaking journey into the unknown, and a brilliantly written celebration of the pleasures of genuine discovery.

My Rating: ⭐⭐

I had high hopes for this thinking that hearing the book narrated by Steve himself would bring a sense of authenticity to the story and the experiences within it. However, his constant, breathless excitement and constant over exaggeration of even the smallest happenings soon wore out. The quality of the writing is pretty poor and the narration does nothing to help it. He must have set a personal target to use every over the top metaphor possible and exaggerate every description to the nth degree. Nothing was just large, it was gigantic and so on with over descriptive depictions of scenery and conditions on a continual loop. Rather than create excitement it became bland and uninteresting.

I made it through 8 of the 10 expeditions and barely remember anything of them. I do believe that they were true adventures but trying to explore undiscovered places on the modern Earth is surprisingly uninteresting when described in this book. The book was also a BBC TV series and it was probably better in film than print.

A constant irritation was his references to his family, how much he was missing them and how guilty he was that his son was missing him at the very beginning of his life. In one freak kayak accident he almost dies in a rapid. His lamentations about the possible effect of his death made me quite angry. Why the hell expose himself to these dangers and choose to leave home on these extended expeditions if he was worried about the effect on his family! Selfishness of the highest order and absolutely no right to then complain about it.

Header image source: fossbytes.com

reloading spring

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Wednesday morning started unseasonably cold and frosty with a fog hanging over the valley. However, the forecast predicted the sunshine to quickly burn off the frost and fog for a beautifully sunny and warm day.

On Monday our travel restrictions were eased allowing us to travel outside our 5km limit for the first time since early January. We can now travel as far as we like as long as we stay within our county boundary. If we live on the county border we can travel up to 20km from home into another county.

During this third, and hopefully last, lockdown I’ve been very lucky to live so close to the border with Northern Ireland. My 5km takes me over the border and there were no cycling restrictions there. This allowed me the opportunity to build a number of routes so long as I stayed within my RoI 5km limit. Most if not all of the local cyclists I know have paid scant attention to what was an arbitrary and nonsensical limit and I really don’t know how others managed to obey it completely. From my own point of view I was getting really sick of the same roads and I was using a much bigger area than my 5km radius.

With my new found freedom I decided to pay a visit to Raphoe and cycle familiar roads that I haven’t been on since the beginning of November, almost 5 months to the day. I waited until after lunch to maximise the benefit of the sunny day and left the house with temperatures around 11°C – it was glorious.

My halfway point was Raphoe and I decided to stop for a cup of tea and a cereal bar. I bought from a girl staffing a horse box coffee shop, one of the many roadside coffee vans that have sprung up in the last year or so. She was in or around 20 and, although very friendly, I think I was a lot more enthusiastic about the lovely sunny day than she was. I’d like to think she thought I was a happy man but she probably though I was a middle aged weirdo!

I parked my bike and grabbed a bench in the very pretty Diamond with a great view of the “Earth Mother” statue from the HEART Project. I sat here for about 10 minutes, basking in the warm sunshine but could have sat for an hour easily.

I’d once again dropped layers with the promise of warmer temperatures but couldn’t quite give in totally. I was still in my Perfetto and leg warmers but definitely should have gone for arm warmers instead of the full Perfetto sleeves and by the time I sweated my way to the top of the hill to home I was regretting not taking the risk of the first bare legged spin of the year.

I’m really hoping that we’re now through this very weird and mixed up start to Spring and that the warmer weather is here to stay. I’d love some more days like this sometime soon.

click the image to view on strava