Posted on February 17, 2017 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures, Teaching English Online

diy, fieldlife, flexibleworking, france, lesvignesbasses, livefree, outdoors, permaculture, ratrace, Straw, StrawBaleBuilding, teaching, working

Once the foundations and box beam of the straw-bale house were completed, we focussed on a quick project to create a beautiful space for yoga, meditation and general chill out. The foundations for this area were made during the summer with lots of help from our friends and they served as a practice ground for the rammed-tyre foundations we used to make the house foundations. Read More

5 Comments

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures, Yoga & Meditation

decking, diy, lesvignesbasses, rammedtyrefoundations, wood, Yoga

It’s Mayday soon and spring has really sprung here at Les Vignes Basses. Despite an odd cold snap, the plants and trees are blooming and everything is turning a lush shade of green. We’ve been busy bees planting out seedlings as well as spring cleaning (and fixing) the caravan in preparation for summertime visitors 🙂

Dan has been busily mulching around our trees, which we planted last autumn to make sure that they aren’t out-competed by the ever-growing grass. Dan was a little overexcited about all the orchids that have popped up this year, including the elusive Vanilla Orchid. I think all flower walkers will understand… Read More

1 Comment

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures, Teaching English Online

awning, bluebells, caravan, charente, collettsmountainholidays, doityourself, Environmentally Friendly, france, fridge, growth, growyourown, lesvignesbasses, Low Impact, orchids, organic, organicfood, permaculture, permaculturedesign, rainbows, seedlings, solarpower, spring, Sustainable, teaching, teachingonline

Before we moved to Les Vignes Basses full time we lived and worked in South Korea teaching in the public school system. Whilst there, we had large chunks of free time to look a the internet, which we used to research, learn, read and discuss what we want from our lives in France and exactly what we want to do on the land. Through various blogs, Facebook pages, pages shared by friends and oodles of trawling on the internet we stumbled upon permaculture.
Read More

1 Comment

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Kungfuflee

Eco-Building, Permaculture, Sustainable Futures

Base Map, Geoff Lawton, Japan, Patrick Whitefield, permaculture, permaculturedesigncourse, Sustainable, WWOOF

The Good Life

Living a sustainable life has become really important to us over the last couple of years. Fueled by a desire to be self-sufficient, we gave up on trying to live in the UK and traded countries to France. We would not have thought about doing this were it not for Dan’s parents who already live in France and adore the place. The thought of getting in debt for 30 years in the UK just to own some bricks and mortar (that we probably wouldn’t like anyway), because the housing market is so inflated, felt like a decidedly incorrect choice for us.

After searching for alternatives we came back to the idea of France which had been planted by Dan’s folks and their wonderful life there. In France housing is not seen in terms of a market but as something to actually ‘house’ people. Much more sensible and the prices are reflective of this.

So we bought ourselves a patch of build-able land in the lovely Charente department in the middle of France, named Les Vignes Basses – The Low Vines.

This blog will document our journey to sustainable living at Les Vignes Basses, please help us along with comments, suggestions and ideas!