Author: charnwoodstoves

Dammy Ponnuthurai talks with the founder of Tiny Homes Holiday cabins situated on the edge of an ancient woodland on the beautiful Isle of Wight.

1) Helen, you and your husband have a long history with the essence of providing holiday spaces that capture slow living. What made you so interested in this type of hospitality?

I founded Vintage Vacations with my late husband Frazer – one of the first Glamping Businesses in the UK. We loved the model and it was a success but we were on the look out for a way to take the Glamping ethos a bit further and also be open all year round to be a truly sustainable business. We’d been a fan of the eco mindset of Tiny Homes – live more simply, use only what you need and live sustainably. We opened for business in 2017.

2) How important are the materials you use within your cabins to help holiday makers with their intentions to slow down?

Aesthetically, the internal use of natural materials such as wood does give a sense of calm and blends in with our surroundings. Soft colours are used and also some recycled materials and vintage accessories that imbibe a cosy, almost nostalgic feel of calmness.

3) Why do you think the philosophy of ‘tiny home’ living is so good for well being?

One of the things that our guests notice, especially families, is that living more simply and closer together revives the art of conversation.

In a smaller space you have to be mindful of clutter and be quite organised and you really only can have limited ‘stuff’ – the William Morris “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” is a golden rule. It is very liberating to downsize. Most Tiny Homes, including ours, embrace eco living – solar power, compost toilets, reed beds, waste recycling etc.

4) Why is the stove such an important focal point to the Tiny Home holiday experience?

Our stoves are the only source of heating in the cabins so they really earn their keep. Some guests have never used a wood burning stove before and enjoy getting to understand how they work. It’s so cosy watching the fire gently blaze and creates a sense of well being. It’s a welcome change from screen watching.

5) Do you have any tips for us at home on how to make our lives slower?

Most of us are guilty of too much screen time and I for one certainly notice the benefit of switching off for even a few hours. Cooking even a simple meal from scratch is calming and beneficial and communal eating is surely one of life’s most rewarding pleasures. All our Tiny Homes have full kitchens, and they certainly get used!

For more information about Tiny Homes Holidays you can visit their website here or follow on their socials.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)

Traditionally, January is the month of resolutions. However, the lofty promises we make ourselves often become dashed by the foreboding darkness of the winter gloom that cascades around us. There is something about the stillness of January and February, the time before we can greet the first buds of spring, that helps with a certain stillness. This stillness can teach us a valuable lesson, that maybe doing nothing is to do something. Perhaps there is an opportunity for heightened sensitivity towards not just our immediate environment, but also the wider world . To really make a meaningful resolution, we need to be considerate of that resolution, not just to our individual self, but the people, together with the flora, fungi and fauna that are an integral part of our co-existence on the planet.

This may feel, on the face of it, a mighty task, because with the overwhelming catalogues of information and distractions we have at our fingertips, it can be hard to imagine a time for such thoughtful discernment. The magnitude required to think in a sustainable way seems hard within the daily list of responsibilities and chores we work our way through.

However, as those light filled days arrive, there is a new motivation in us all to spring forward. The light seems almost to be a surprise. It is expressed by passersby on a walk as they mention the blue that can be seen in the sky, as unfamiliar as an alien spaceship. In their voices, the type of joy that is comparable to a child first discovering Christmas. We all begin to smile more, and then as the light touches through our homes, we see the effects of our winter hibernation. For me, I can see dust that has been previously ignored, as if these particles are dancing to the sun’s beams. A kind of resurrected need for action can maybe be applied to our to-do lists. Thus, spring cleaning.

In simple terms, this could be a time to clean our chimneys. Some of us are confident to do this ourselves, but, in the spirit of collaboration, my personal preference is to seek out an expert. I particularly welcome these visits, not only because it is a practical and necessary task that improves our environment, but also as a welcome distraction to those of us who, like me, work remotely. These annual visits allow time for a meaningful exchange with a visitor who I would otherwise seldom interact with. There is something incredibly interesting about listening to those that we don’t share common day to day experiences with. We are all told that reading fiction improves our ability to empathise, but listening to the stories of others is like empathy in action.

This small, practical task is one example of so many that stretches to serve our own home, but also to improve the planet we share. My children love to mock me with the sing-song catch phrase “sharing is caring”, but actually, deep within that hackneyed platitude is a deep truth that in itself creates light and simple daily resolutions. Puerto Rican artist Soffia Gallisa Muriente describes the value of these more unpredictable encounters, as she speaks of their transformative quality of how we find community in unexpected, rather than controlled ways.

Maybe part of the language of our own resolutions are trapped in the words themselves. Many indigenous languages have rooted within them a connection to the senses and the stories of the landscape itself. In his book The Spell of the Sensuous, author David Abram says that this connection to our senses may be captured by the telling of oral stories which connects us back to the natural world. He says, “in hearing or telling the story we vicariously live it, and the travails of the characters embed themselves into our own flesh.”

So, as I consider a spring clean of the dust, it is with new consideration that I address those resolutions of January and reach out to share them in a way that also helps nurture the world around me. Starting with, maybe, a storytelling morning breakfast or one after a shared dinner, most ideally by the flickering flames of a wood burning stove.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid”. John 14:27

Some days, it is impossible not to feel the pervading anxiety of the long to-do list of life, not only the one in front of us, but all those other things we may have forgotten. In 2024, we are surrounded by an ever increasing mass of information and there is always a pervasive anxiety about what we might be missing. Friends recount films, books and podcasts all of which hold infinite interest to me, but when will I find the time to watch, read or listen to these nuggets of recommendation? There is also a sense of guilt that comes with this. I find myself feeling a sense of how little I know about anything. However, so much of our days are spent quite trivially, and it is hard not to be subsumed with day-to-day living, with its strain of rich information that doesn’t allow much time for thinking more holistically about the concerns in the world we all share.

There is some ingrained richness within me from the privilege of childhood time spent with my dad wandering around museums, libraries and bookshops. So now in my middle years, just glancing through a bookshop makes me realise how much of life is spent distracted from thoughtful silence and learning. A friend visited Edinburgh Fringe this year and listened to a set from a comedian who jokes that between the school run, and when he was supposed to be writing he was really responding to messages and social media. A whole day can be spent not getting to the point. The addictive nature of feeling connected via our phones makes them a relentless force in our day-to-day living.

We may simply say the answer here is to switch off our phones and create good routines. I appreciate and don’t discount the advice of every health and lifestyle guru here, but being as I am like a small child at Christmas, I always want to take a peak. Alongside this there is also the happy act of multi-tasking that our phone has given us. It is no longer like the 1950s when dictating a letter was a singular task in itself. We now find ourselves in a time when the cat is out of the bag, and our phone has given us the infinite pleasure of multi-tasking and thinking about or exploring so many things at once. It’s almost now a quest to hit the go slow key, or imagine that life is built on steps. Like stepping stones across a river, the pathway is not straightforward and you have to concentrate in order not to slip.

There are, however, the beginnings of a realised backlash. Schools such as The Ormiston Academy, which runs 42 schools in England, are prohibiting the use of phones at school so that pupils can focus on their learning and teaching. There are cases though where parents have found this difficult, for instance, those children with health needs where the app on a phone works to manage a child’s diabetes. In these moments we can see how technology has worked so effectively as a pairing partner to live our lives more safely and with time sensitive efficiency. The danger though is that these advancements are perhaps making our ability to make intuitive judgements harder, as we are so focused on precision rather than feeling the moment.

Perhaps we can look to animals for a little guidance here. It is said that, for instance, a dog’s sense of smell not only sits with what is current in the world of smell but also smells from the past all wrapped together heightening its enquiry. There is something so interesting about the sensory focus, many a dog owner will tell you that there is no such thing as a quick walk as dogs want to stop and smell everything. Maybe we could all take a leaf from that book, as we light a candle or a fire during the colder nights, just allowing ourselves the time to absorb our immediate environment and see what our surroundings can imbue in us, unaided by any kind of external information or entertainment.

As we give pause to our distractions, that in itself brings us the peace to stay still and be held in the moment by the lightest of touch, anxiety-free and content.