I'm painting big canvases again! Paintings by Kirsteen Lyons BA (Hons)

I'm so enjoying the freedom of painting big canvases again. I have put down the controls of design and picked up the freedom of fine art! You done need to think about how people will use them that will use them to be happy! You just five in and "art puke" all over the place!!! So liberating!!! I'm so excited about me new project with these, I'm just waiting for some things to go live and I'll tell you all.

These are mixed media on canvas, original paintings by Kirsteen Lyons.

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Seventeen days to go!

Last night was stormy, rain beat the flowers down and wind rocked the campervan. Inside it was warm and quiet, three cuties slept in the soft light of a string of fairy lights. One was awake! My daughter tells me it is 17 days until we set off for a tour of Spain and Portugal that will last over five months. A pilgrimage in search of education, wildlife, adventure, culture and a lot of ice cream. My daughter has recently made the jump from reading when I tell her to, to reading for fun, and I couldn't be prouder, but there is more to be learned out there in the world, I want to set an example of participating in life, even better throwing yourself at it, but some nights that seems hard. My husband is feeling it too, he came home with enough plasters and antiseptic cream to supply a war zone! Getting nervous dear? Here we go! The kids can read my blog when they are older and go "Oh! They got scared sometimes!"

We may return through France, then we will explore Scotland. My van is ready and my new headlights look spanking! I know that apart from the 24 hours on the ferry I can potter around the coast as slowly as I like but I've never driven this far and I've only spent a handful of hours driving overseas. On the flip side, I've taken to watching videos of beautiful Portuguese coastline and food and thinking, come on 17 days get done!

I'm looking forward to sun silvered palm trees, wide spaces, new people, new words, mountains and medieval towns with castles. I'm not looking forward to missing my family (although my mum is hanging out in a Chateau in France right now) missing the play dates for Jasmine and trying to get the kids to eat strange food, or searching for chicken nuggets in exotic places!

We are also trying to solve the problems of working and travelling. Tim has done splendidly at changing his tutoring from face-to-face to skype. I have a little slot in the van for my art and have to try to paint (as I have a very promising new outlet for my fine art) and design textiles as we go. Tim needs wifi for his lessons. I need time and a flat table. I have to post work to my studio from places along the way. Fortunately for me, my design studio think my travel is inspiring for my design and are very happy to be helpful. 

I'm so very lucky I can fill my life with these self-chosen challenges, I'm not tied to a sick relative, committed to supporting family in a collapsed economy country, or simply not allowed to be an adventurous woman by culture or law. My circumstances and my healthy family are a gift of vast wealth. I'm going to have adequate imagination and courage to take advantage.  

Wish us a smooth crossing to Spain, but you can bet your bottom dollar we will be ok either way!

Are you cut out for institutions, or otherwise? Where to otherwise?

Are you cut out for institutions, or otherwise? Where to otherwise?

I was recently given a survey to answer about one of my old schools, when asked about the experience I wrote it was “By far the least painful school I had attended”. That is nothing less than the truth. I have met plenty of people who loved school, but it was not for me. I felt stupid because I only excelled at all the skills they did not measure. I was articulate, social, a good leader, creative, confident among adults and older kids, fair mind, determined and hard working, organised and entrepreneurial, I was pretty poor at English, French, Maths, Sport, History, Geography and Science!!! I am also one of these people who goes grey and pukes if made to sit tests and exams. Friends at uni (which was an institution I loved) used to ask me “Why do you nearly faint in the line to go into an exam when you always get an “A” and are better prepared than any of us?” Well getting “A”s in design related subjects was something I could do at last, but I still felt like I was back at school!

My daughter started out ok with school but gradually turned the colour of her grey school skirt and I realized we would have to change something.

So here we go off to Spain and Portugal in a ford van. We have been half living in the van and half in my mum's house and it's worked ok. I took it to Birmingham and we had to live in it fully, it worked ok. Everyone asks: How will you live in such a small space? But hopefully we will live in big forests, open meadows, wide beaches, and sleep in the van. When we drive up to the Ashdown Forest everyone piles of of the van and disappears into the trees. I have to round up me happy, rosy, good-tired kids to get them to get in the van and sleep. If you think about it quite a lot of your house used to store your stuff. Anyway I will let you know how it works long term in practice. Wish us luck.

How will we live in that small space when it rains all day? No idea!! Wish me luck with that!! Spain has the lowest rainfall in Europe but it still rains, mostly on the mountains. My kids and I used to go crazy in a five bedroom house when it rained all day! I cannot imagine what it will be like in a van. Art, games, stories, reading, then murder daddy with the camping  potty I guess!!?

I've driven my van around all Summer, not to mention Birmingham and back and I'm getting pretty good at parking and reversing the big vehicle. It broke a couple of times, oil leak and the turbo pipe came off, but being a ford transit we could get normal parts and a normal mechanic to fix it. My time with classic vans is so over!!!

Then the electrics started playing up, headlights not working on full beam, radio going off at random, I began to fear that the headlights would go off all together when driving at night! I got the mechanic to look and apparently I had set the bar on what to worry about way to low! I should have been worrying that it might catch fire at any moment!!! I assure you that it is fixed and safe now!!

I have worked out what it is that is good for us about our change in lifestyle, it continuously stretches our compliance. Get the van and you have to learn to drive it, then you have to learn how to convert it to a campervan, then you have to learn to live in it. Even the kids, Jasmine has to learn to live in a bedroom approximately the size of the hutch we used to have guinea pigs in! My husband describes middle class life as find a rut and volunteer to get in it! Well we are out and some of it is a bit crazy but some of it is good.

My kids are growing up such individuals, who knows what they will be, but I am sure it will be something of their own, not an institution's creation.

We leave end of September, boat to Spain then around the coast of Spain and Portugal to Malaga or something, an adventure is by definition not set in stone.

Picture from the front page of the still empty travel sketchbook I made myself. Yes I will share every page of you like?

Hugs, Kirsteen

I love it when a van comes together!

What it cost and test camping!!!

So I've almost finished the van. It needs some more sockets and a few little edits inside. I've worked so hard and I have done no textile design, I should be very proud of it but it's still going to be a lot more rough to live in than a swanky big proper camper - some fan of my blog should buy me one!

What did it cost?

The van was £2,500, I got it down from £3,000. It came lined with wood and with an extra battery (for running devices and not running the van battery flat) also the man who sold it gave me two free seats with seatbelts but not bolted in.

Some costs not related to turning it into a camper were £90 to fix the window that smashed itself while I was driving! Yikes!

And £50 for a new battery because that is a good idea on older vehicles.

What the conversation cost, seats bolting in, glue, hooks, screws, wood, varnish, curtains, curtain rails, storage pockets, storage nets and fairy lights..was about £400.

We used a lot of reclaimed wood from old beds, shelves and even decking.

We slept a few nights in it then I took a few things apart and changed them. We still need more 12v sockets but it's looking good. Now we embark on a strange nomad life around Sussex sleeping different places until September when the plan is to get the ferry to Spain and Portugal.

I'm not fully sure how this life will work, cooking and getting water, also Tim is going lots of face to face tutoring so we are stuck to East Grinstead and close by, but we want to be here with family at the moment.

Sorry, I don't think I've made this post very funny but here are some pictures of lovely places we have camper recently. XX

Adventures: Change of idea: I love driving my van and it works perfectly!

Adventures: Change of idea: I love driving my van and it works perfectly! It's easy and fun to drive and nothing is wrong with it...

I had a bit of an annoying two days. I feel a bit like Huck Finn after he touched a snake skin, although I don't really believe in bad luck. And I should add I have not found any dead blokes or silver dollars.

Yesterday someone scratched a word on my van and all down the sides too, but the lovely man next door got it off with some tcut. Then today I was driving Jasmine to her friends house when there was a massive bang and my driver side window smashed itself to tiny bits and showered glass all over me. I admit, I literally screamed! Like a stupid blond in a B Horror film. Then I pulled over, talked calmly to my daughter, brushed off the glass and drove my daughter to her destination, drove home and cried from delayed shock! So I guess I messed up when I told my friends, "can I stop driving now?" Please wish me lots of safe successful driving to fun places I intended to be! Thank you!

The window is all fixed now and it's looking better inside. I've been working.

In five days it's my birthday, I will be 41, and I'm ether "sleeping on my stepdad's floor at 41 with all my family and a total wash out in life" or  "shedding all the complexity and going after the truly worthwhile" depending on how you spin it and if I've had my coffee or not! You can make up your own mind. 😂🚐

Adventures: I made it to the supermarket, can I stop driving now please?

I have my new van. I love it. But it's proper terrifying to drive!! It's bigger than the last one and you can't see out the back at all! It beeps when you reverse, like a delivery van. It is 14 years old, half the age of my last two vans but it has some old van eccentricities. It rolls back on hills!!! All you drivers who drive a manual are going "so?" But it's an auto and they don't! You just sit there till you go. It's so unusual there is a warning sticker about it on the sun visor. It looks like a funny airplane safety card drawing, and when you slam the hand break on your two ton van in shock to prevent rendering two-dimensional any car that may, or may not be behind (who knows), you mentally go "0h! That's what that is supposed to mean!"

I drove it to the supermarket on Saturday morning then panicked! The car park was filling up by the minute, and I had left my 10 year old babysitting my 2 year old, what if they box me in and I NEVER get back to them? How can I possibly drive around the cost of Portugal if I panic in a supermarket car park? I only got half my list and left in disorder.

The van also leaks. I'm sure I can fix it but in the meantime it drips when it rains, exactly into a little cup holder on the dashboard! So you drive around with a tiny dash board pond! I'm thinking of adopting a tadpole. And it's developing a lake inside the left hand headlight unit, perhaps a little carp and some water lilies too. My brother says; drill a small hole and it will pee in the street!

It's also a huge project on a tiny budget. If we had lots of money for this (My husband is paying debs so we have lots of money for debt repayment, and not too much for anything else.) I still would not want to spend a lot converting a van worth about £3,500. So it's got to be done for a few £100 which means, I do it myself. I'm still a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work for me. Easy if I was not also full time mum, homeschool teacher, and freelance textile designer. I always have my kids in tow, and I'm always behind on design. More of a textile non-designer to be honest at the moment. 

I'm so loving seeing my friends and family. It's so so good to be back where I get help, listened to, understood, hugs. We have had to be a unit of four and count on each other, good for us in some ways but exhausting. Everyone is seeing as much of our family as we can. I am a full time social secretary to my daughter! Although I don't want to drive her anywhere. Also the van still only has two seats. Right now only me and one other person can travel in it. Give me till September and I'll be ok, but for now I've lost my nerve. I just want to get someone else to drive for me. It probably doesn't help that the last time I drove anywhere was breaking down in a multi lane roundabout in France!

On the other hand I have not lost my nerve about worldschool. Why did I do worldschool? For my kids, but it's paying off and paying off for me. I have only made one trip so far but I've got the idea I can. I no longer own tons of stuff I don't use, I don't have a wardrobe full of clothes I never wear, I don't have a wardrobe! Or an iron, or scales, I don't know how heavy I am, I don't care, I own luggage scales instead! Much more exciting priorities!

I used to look at the worldschool community and think "Oh! My! I hope I could get organised enough, and brave to do that one day! Wow! Those people are in Bali learning local crafts, gosh! They are in India with elephants!" Now I find I look at it more like a menu! "We will have a double helping of Bali please with a plate of India on the side!" I would go lots of places with my kids. Why not? Lots of people do.

Goodbye Spain, hello squalor!

So nearly six months ago we set off in a classic Chevy to road trip around France, Spain and Portugal. It didn't go anything like the plan but it did go brilliantly! We set off too late in the year and were worried that ice and snow would make the driving dangerous and the living miserable, but two days in we broke down and were told the can was scrap. After expecting to go home a friend of mine offered me her flat in Spain for winter and we flew to Javea, via the train to Paris. Shipping the broken can home, three nights in hotels and flights to Spain were all covered by my Europe wide breakdown cover for £90 a year! It totally saved us and is my top road trip tip. Also my only road trip tip, as we didn't actually go on a road trip!

In the end the Chevy was not scrap. It needed an expensive repair and we sold it for £1,800 to a lady in rural France who is very happy with it.
So it was off to Javea. We had never seen the place, I hadn't been in Spain since I was 16. We promised to stay all winter and hoped we would get on ok! I think I knew I'd love it within 10 minutes of landing. Javea felt like we had walked off the edge of the world and got Spain to ourselves. It's filling up now. In the next three months its population goes up 10x! It's shops are all open and it's getting the feel of a busy holliday town. It has a different buzz like this.

We have learned a lot, we have relied on each-other, with no one else we know around. We have played on the beach till my kids are fed up with it! Who knew that was possible?? Now we are for home. First week in May.

We have bought a van to convert into a basic camper. As we are going to live in it while we do this we will be starting out with mattresses on the van floor - living in squalor! Hopefully we can start to turn it into a cosy home quite quickly.

We could of course sell the van, use it as the deposit on a flat and resume being responsible, normal grown ups. But I don't want to. I've got my heart set on coming back here next winter. I want to learn more Spanish, see more cities, see Portugal too. But I've learned from my late-in-the-year dash across France in an unusual van. We will leave in September, we will bypass France and take the ferry straight to Spain, we will make no promises to be anywhere specific but potter south at our own pace.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'm also going to be able to solve all the problems of living in a van bit by bit in a familiar country, hopefully get a little tour of Scotland and see my dad, then by September we will be old hands at living in a van and I will be used to driving it. Then we can face the new country problems having solved the first set. It will be a more manageable adventure.

Though Javea is warming up for the season we are all willing and happy to wish her goodbye as we want to see our families and friends.

Here are what will hopefully be before pictures on a wonderful before and after project! Our new home!