Welcome dear reader – get to know me

Hello dear reader and welcome to MishMash Odyssey, the blog that follows my journey to sustainability, motherhood and seasonal homelife. I’m an ordinary person, dealing with obstacles life throws at me and enjoying the beautiful moments.

I love cooking, crafts, books, animals, beaches and forests. I enjoy spending time by myself and can always find a way to entertain myself, whether it is making lists, setting up new goals for myself or finding a new hobby to try. Often I have to remind my busy mind to slow down and just breathe or enjoy the moment.

If I could I would have a homestead where I would raise animals and children next to one another and grew my own vegetables. Instead I live on a tiny island in the Atlantic ocean next to a pub with my partner Nick and our unborn baby girl. Life here is good and different from what people imagine, but more about that later.

My story begins in Czech Republic 29 years ago where I was born and raised. In my teenage years I realised that I didn’t want to live in my home-country and all the following decisions led me to here and now.

What qualifies me to to write this blog?

You might be asking what makes me an expert on eco-friendly living, raising children, cooking and all the other things I want to talk about here?

Environment

I’ve been taking steps in the environmental direction for a few years now. I’ve become vegetarian four years ago, then vegan for almost a year and now I try to choose food from natural and ethical sources and stopped defining myself in one way or another. I choose plant-based where I can and make allowances where I can’t.

I’ve changed the way I shop and choose products. I started noticing where and how things are made and what from, how they are packaged and who they support. There is still a lot to learn but I want to help others to start asking questions and find the sustainable way that suits them.

Motherhood

When it comes to motherhood, I’m an absolute newbie. My baby is due in May and I’m trying to prepare for my life to be turned on its head. With a crazy amount of anticipation, expectation and advice, I’m navigating changes in my body, mentality and life in general.

In this sphere I want to share experience with a bit of honest humour, hoping it will make some of my dear readers going through the same times feel a bit better. As I go along, I will share what did and didn’t work for me and the baby and the adventures we will come by together.

Seasonal life and other skills

There are many ways one can live a seasonal life. I’ve been making my living as a seasonal worker for over five years now which allowed me to make my money in summer and travel in winter. With baby on the way that lifestyle is going to change a bit. Living seasonally will be more about eating the food that grows that month and adhering to the laws of nature.

To be able to travel as much as I could I’ve taken plenty of jobs, each of them teaching me something useful for everyday life. I’ve turned my passions like cooking into a job and expanded on knowledge I already had with trade secrets. Working predominantly in hospitality has prepared me for managing a home while volunteering abroad had given me an insight into lives of different cultures and ways of doing things.

I want to share my tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years with you, dear reader. There will be recipes for dishes that work me and my family and are versatile, adjustable and easy. I hope to give you a guide to a meal that you make the way like it and that fits your diet and budget, no rigid recipes using never-heard-of ingredients.

The life I live now

Somehow, following my heart in my early twenties has led me to some extraordinary experiences and to a life I have now. Life is a funny thing and if you asked me ten years ago where I would be, my answer would be a complete opposite of where I am.

I’ve never been afraid to try new things. I lived in a tent when working on a campsite, made some questionable decisions while traveling through India, volunteered in Indonesia, spent first lockdown in Cambodia living in hotels, hostels and bamboo shed on deserted island. All of that prepared me not to be picky with where I live.

The island of St. Martin’s is a part of Isles of Scilly archipelago off the coast of Cornwall, UK. We live a beautiful, simple yet difficult island life dependent on weather and sea conditions most of the time. In summer the Scilly isles are bustling with tourists and in winter we enjoy the quietness and emptiness of our home.

Where I live accommodation is hard to come by and so we make due with yurts, sheds and other inventive ways to live. Because we are so far away from the accessible world offering takeaways, entertainment, shopping options and get-it-now attitude, we are in the old ways with one foot and in the modern world with the other.

Living on the island leads me to think of how I use my resources and provokes the sustainable approach of repair, reuse and recycle. As not everything is always available we have to allow change and be scrappy with what we’ve got. I hope I can show you more of this life which seems so foreign to many people.

Conclusion

In the end I’m just like everybody else, dear reader. I like and dislike things, have good and bad days and live life the best I can. I hope to give you a glance into a real life where things don’t always go as planned while offering useful advice too.

Misha xx