Hi, and welcome to our life. On these pages is everything we’ve learnt over the years, whilst travelling a path towards finding meaning to why we exist. Stuff like – having our own ideas, living without a job, being responsible for our own health, making/growing all we need, and above everything, doing it in a way which is as sustainable as possible.
We are Maureen and Phil Rooksby. Originally from South London, but quickly moved to the lovely village of Stony Stratford in Milton Keynes (during the city’s formative years). Followed by the wilds of North Yorkshire, where we first became inspired by the ideas of self-sufficiency. Then sold that, lived in a van, spending the next nine years travelling in search of the one place in the world perfect enough to live the rest of our lives. Exploring: NW Spain/ Portugal/ an island in British Columbia (Canada)/ and finally SW Spain. In the last of which we found El Pocito, where we could:
- live without debt. No mortgage/ rent/ utility bills/ or any other charge on our time, and the natural resources to build not only a home, but provide all our own food/ fuel/ other building materials/ electricity/ medicine/ plus earn us the small amount of cash we would need.
- have our own water supply. We wanted a spring, but they are hard to find so settled on a borehole, where the water is as natural/ unpolluted/ and plentiful as possible.
- be way above sea-level. +/- 600 metres. A lot less extreme climate (all-year-round)/ humidity is lower/ pollution less/ and there’s absolutely no risk from flooding.
- south-facing. Having tried all the other options this is undoubtedly the best. For crops / minimising frost damage/ solar & wind power/ as well as being a lot warmer and lighter indoors.
- have the soil as sandy as possible. All the others just make the job a lot harder.
- put a distance between us and the neighbours. The minimum is 200 metres, here we are currently 2 km from our nearest. The local town no further than walking distance. With +/- 500 people. The nearest city at least 100 km (60 miles) away – Sevilla.
- be well away from roads and all the other health hazards.
- enjoy a climate where we could grow the widest range of crops all-year-round.
- have the perfect house. Create the most practical/ healthy/ and inspirational living space possible.
many thanks to Ignacio J. Suárez Obel who provided many of the photos for this site
“…each world has a song that is begun with the first life on a world, a song that sounds within the world to foster life and variation. All living creatures are a part of the song which shall be sung forever, until the last star goes out… sometimes living creatures do not wish to be part of the song, they do not hear it, they rise up against it, they cry that they are larger than the song and more important than the music, and when their words drown out the song, then the world begins to die…”
(Sheri S Tepper)
“Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear”
(Jerome K Jerome)
“The rule of thumb for sustainability is simple. If it involves money, any amount, then it is still responsible for destroying yet more of what is left of our precious ecology”
(Phil Rooksby)
“The longing for Nature, strong, silent and healthy, is the vital phenomenon of our time, and is the counterbalance to an inorganic civilisation, which we mistakenly describe as culture.”
(Viktor Schauberger)
“…by making the choice, not to have or do what everyone else considers right, you not only no longer have bills to pay but can experience that unique freedom of being able to live your own life …”
(Phil Rooksby)
