All things come to an end

So here it is, the end of tent life for now. I've been graciously accommodated in Peter's garden for six months and once I finished my final exam at the end of May, I packed away. So the question I hear on your lips is, "Where are you living now?" The answer is - nowhere. I've been travelling intermittently in England and Western Europe and will continue to be without a fixed address until I move back to the US at the beginning of August. My travels have already taken me to a ten-day Vipassana meditation course in Belgium (which I would recommend to absolutely everyone) as well as Stonehenge for the summer solstice.

The past six months have been some of the best in my life. Far from being a lonely hermit at the bottom of the garden, my social life has flourished. The community of Peter's house and surrounding realms of excellence has been enriching to the soul. I was not to be the only squatter at Peter's; for a few months the lovely Amy (henceforth known as the Van Fairy) was camped out in a van at the front of the house and of course there are as always the weird and wonderful couch surfing clientele. I've been able to introduce so many people to the idea of freeganism and (I hope) make people consider where their money goes. In fact I have two friends who are now living in tents! Though my intention was not to convince people that tent living is superior to four walls, I must admit that the fact that people have followed in my footsteps a little bit swells my ego to dangerous volumes. Dumpster diving moved on to the institution of the Freegan Feast every couple of weeks at Peter's whereby I invited all manner of ruffians to the table to eat vegan dumpster food. This was facilitated by lifts to the trashy treasure troves of Nottingham and the cooperation and leadership of friends in food preparation. It has been wonderful to be able to feed the hoards for free. Thank you to all who came to help or eat.

Freegan Feast!

I feel accomplished. I set out to do what I planned and had a great time of it. Yes, the winter was hard and I really did think of giving up at some points (there was a possibility of a house in February), but ultimately I can't imagine having completed my master's degree in a different way. I was able to more actively undertake creative pursuits such as poetry writing and life drawing due to not being stuck in front of a television or laptop.

I must admit that after this point my freeganism may dwindle. Upon my return to Oklahoma I will undertake the daunting task of working for money and possibly buying food (depending on the fruitfulness of my dumpster exploration). I will also be living in a house! So goodbye my readers and thanks for stopping in. I may publish further things in other places but this is the last of Living with[in]tent!

What I've learned so far

It's come to my attention that I've been rather poor at disseminating information about the chaos and madness that is my life. This is for two reasons; firstly my life is chaos and madness and secondly I deleted Facebook. No, I'm not getting it back. Anyway, I'm here to rectify the situation and thought I'd give a brief overview of what has occurred since my last update as well as some of my observations so far (this is an experiment after all).

So I did the very un-freegan thing of travelling to the United States of America in a fuel guzzling machine for the price of £500 in order to celebrate consumerism. This meant a brief respite from tent living for approximately a month divided between houses in Oklahoma and Cardiff, the former involving seeing my wonderful relatives and having what I think was some rather unnecessary surgery on my mouth followed by copious opiate consumption. I attempted to partially offset the environmental impact of the transatlantic journey by undertaking a sleep-deprived hitchhiking adventure all the way from Manchester Airport to Cardiff (essentially door-to-door) to see other people who's friendships I value enormously and to celebrate the new year. New year was also marked by the completion of a friend's eco-home, incidentally; a New Yurt Party really. Party and hangover passed and finally I made my way up to Nottingham and back into a bigger, better, bluer tent for a brief period while I did some exams - they went well, thanks. Oh yeah, had a hitchhiking first that day too - got picked up by a tractor!

Old tent - new tent; green tent -blue tent; 

Itching to get back on the road after exams, I packed up my tent and ran away to North Wales on a snowy day through Snowdonia to Caernarfon where I stayed on a boat for a couple of nights before doing some quite freegan exploration of the country in which I grew up. I couchsurfed, rough camped, hitchhiked, walked and dumpster dived my way back to Nottingham before my longest stint in the tent yet. I even made it to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobollllantysiliogogogoch; an actual place, really. I've since become quite involved with the local music scene in Nottingham, started creative writing (no promises of a story yet) and done some significant damage to my left index finger with a pen knife. Pictures of the latter are available on request. University stuff is coming to a head a wee bit, dissertation is being written and samples are being made and analysed. In a word I'm busy.

Waking up on boats and back to the lab.

So what have I learned from this experience so far? Here's a few things off the top of my head.

1. Layers are key - a couple of times I've overestimated the nights temperature and woken up cold.
2. If you live in a tent in the winter, its insanely easy to make friends. They'll probably all think you're crazy though.
3. I don't know if I fully believe in the freegan ideology, but it's a hell of a lot more fun living in a tent and eating out of bins rather than sitting in front of the telly each night. I get itchy feet and money is boring. 
4. Living in a tent through the British winter is probably the least practical method of attaining free accommodation. I recommend squatting or working directly for accommodation.
5. It's nigh on impossible to be an ideologically purist freegan when you're doing a master's degree in chemistry. I'm okay with being as true to the ideology as I feel I can. 
6. This experience has allowed me more time for pursuing creative activities. Goal achieved! 
7. Cutting large potatoes with a pen knife and no chopping board is an awful idea and will land you in hospital. 

PS. Many of you may have heard of plans for upgrades to a shed. I've had a lot of pitfalls with this and put a lot of time into this idea and not managed to make any progress, it's most likely that I'm going to stay in the tent.

Bonus pic - 30 unopened cans from one dumpster!

I'd also like to say that I'm undyingly grateful to Peter for his continued gracious provision of the grass for my tent to lay on. None of this would be possible without him. 

Are you an icicle yet?

So I'm one month into my foray into moneyless accommodation, graciously provided by Peter. There have of course been some challenges, but I'm very happy that I decided to do this. As yuletide approaches I am about to fly to see my family in the US for Christmas. This is of course completely opposed to my whole ideology (the way of getting there, I mean), but I hope I can be excused just this once. I won't be back in my tent for almost a month, so I think this is a good place to stop and give an update.

An unintended result of living in a tent is the local interest! I've had an interview for a local magazine as well as with a TV station (both of which I'll find a way of sharing online). I'm rather surprised at the lack of negativity towards my chosen lifestyle. People do of course point out my inconsistencies but usually seem to be encouraging and inquisitive as to why I'm doing this. A result of this is that I feel under pressure to be more freegan, as I seem to be depicted by some as a sort of bastion of frugality and moneylessness. Unfortunately that's not what what I am at all, I'm just trying - and daily failing in many ways - to live with less money. Incidentally if you're looking for people who are more dedicated to the lifestyle then check out Daniel Suelo or Mark Boyle.

I want to come clean on something else. I have not slept in my tent every night since the last post. This is not due to any physical challenges of living in a tent, but instead due to a quite unexpected and mind blowing circumstance. That is, I'm seeing someone. And yes, she has a conventional home. I could wax lyrical about all of that but I don't want to go off on a tangent and I don't want to embarrass said person. The upshot of this staggeringly unlikely event is that I've only spent around 50% of the nights in my tent. I am still nonetheless rent free.

Peter's garden is probably one of the best places that one could live in a tent. Peter and his partner Lee are avid couchsurfing hosts and as a result I get to meet new faces most mornings or evenings. I even had a tent buddy for a couple of weeks (in separate tents)! Being the socialites that they are, Peter and Lee host parties with live local music which bring in people from all walks of life (including crazy chemists who live in tents). My 'homelessness' has brought me into contact with far more people than I could have imagined.

Thanks again to Peter for agreeing to let me do this. It's been an adventure so far. See you in the new year!

I thought I'd answer a couple of FAQs - mostly to do with the practicalities of living in a tent.

Aren't you cold?
When I'm sleeping, no actually. I have some decent gear. Sometimes I have to put on an extra pair of socks. It can be difficult to coax my body out of the cocoon and into the cold morning air though.

Where do you shower/use the toilet/charge your phone?
Uni, or of course if I'm at a friend's place then I do it there.

Cooking?
Often on my small gas burner. Incidentally I burned a small hole in the tent a couple of days ago which I should repair when I get back.

Where do you study?
I find this question quite funny. Universities by their nature are extremely well equipped for studying... so I study there.

That's all for now, Merry Christmas!

Have you gone mental?!

This is... pretty much everyone's reaction when I tell them my plans to live in a tent for the winter - and hopefully longer. Why would I, a white middle class 21-year-old student who has sufficient money to live quite comfortably... decide to live in a tent? In the middle of winter?!

Well the answer is not as simple as I'd like it to be. But I'll try to be brief.
I believe that human society, as well as all non-human societies and those living creatures who are not in society would benefit if we humans were a teeny bit less materialistic. I think that our use of money places far too many degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed. I think that having less and sharing more is the key to happiness. I don't think that money is evil or anything of that nature, I just think that it has a rather addictive quality - like Pringles or methamphetamine. Like all addictions they can have both negative and positive consequences to the user and wider society. Most people would agree that the best way to avoid the risk of said negative consequences of addictions is to simply abstain or reduce usage of the substance.

Having thought about these ideas, I realised that I needed to actually put them into place a little bit more if I don't want to be a hypocrite. Unfortunately it is not within my comfort zone to go all John the Baptist/Buddha/Mahatma Gandhi... yet - i.e. give up everything and wander about the place. I've got a degree to finish and family to see who live on another continent.

For now I will use money. But I'm limiting my use of it in a number of ways while I can. The first of these ways was transport - hitchhiking and cycling. The second of these is food - as much as possible I try to take food that would otherwise go to waste. Now the third and possibly most expensive thing that I consume is accommodation - and of course that is where the tent comes in handy. I need not do a calculation to impress upon you how much of a difference this makes in terms of my contribution to the financial economy, but you can do it for yourself if you like.

I am, of course an enormous hypocrite. I quite like to spend money and go for a beer with my mates (although sometimes you find unopened cans discarded too), and I like to see my family sometimes so I spend big wads of money on flying in a tin can on fossil fuels across the ocean. But I'm trying and I hope that's what counts. At the very least it will make my transition into moneyless (or money-light) living a lot easier.

There are secondary reasons apart from the hand-wavingly-philosophical ones that I've mentioned above - for my living in a tent. One of the more paradoxical ones is that I will save money this year and therefore be able to travel once I finish my degree without having to work as much prior to that (I hope). Another is that I will spend less time on habits that I abhore - such as staring at a screen of some form; and more time on tasks that I think are beneficial - my degree, community work, exercise etc. There's no telly or WiFi in my tent. Further, I will learn what sort of weather I am prepared to face while travelling in a relatively safe environment.

I moved in, with the help of Daisy and spent the first night in my new abode yesterday. It would be a lie to say that I wasn't a teeny bit apprehensive, especially with the night's all too British weather. Actually, several times I asked myself the same question as everyone else "Are you bonkers?" after thinking about this for a while I realised that yes I suppose I am and always have been a bit out there, and as such it wouldn't make much sense if I didn't go through with it - or at least give it a good go.

Surprisingly, I was quite warm and comfortable in the tent. I of course woke up much earlier due to the sunrise and the songs of birds but felt very refreshed. I'd like to say a thank you to Peter and his partner Lee for offering their back garden for my experiment. Here's to the next three months!