CURRENT MISSION

Project Bulgaria!

ABOUT ME

I am a Mum to 5 wonderful children, 4 older ones (24-31) from my first marriage, and one girl (11) from my second (I also have 5 beautiful grandchildren). I immigrated to Israel from England over half a lifetime ago and work with primary school children which means I am lucky to have the whole of July and August off work every year. We spend many of our vacations in Bulgaria where we have a place that we are hoping to turn into an educational resource and activity centre for people who are travelling with children. When we are there we are more than happy to host people, particularly families, who share the vision of what we are trying to do there (check out my website/blog).

My partner (Dani) and I enjoy having guests and we get on well with people of all ages (we are 55 + 66). Dani also has 4 older children and is a grandfather to 12 grandchildren.

PHILOSOPHY

I believe that you make your own way in life. Things don't just happen, you have to help them happen. When stumbling blocks seem to get in the way I like to treat them as challenges that make me stronger. We don't always know why some things happen, and I don't really need to. I believe that in the bigger picture of things "hakol koreh l'tova" - every thing is for the best.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We used to be very active hosting, arranging get-togethers, trips and other events to bring the community members together. The last three years we have been living in a much smaller home to we are not able to do that at the moment. We spend most summers in Bulgaria and there we are able to host, and particularly are interested in hosting families with children.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Around October 2005 met a lovely girl from Brazil, via a travel forum. Found over several months of email contact that we had a lot in common & couldn't wait to meet. She's been a very frequent and welcome sharer of our loft matresses since she arrived. Seems like a great way to meet interesting people from all over the world.

In August 2006 I couchsurfed for the first time via CS in Wales. Absolutely amazing experiences. I shall never forget my very first host who helped me in my search for family roots. In December 2006 Lielle and I went on a 6 day CS trip in Greece - especially to meet people we had corresponded with through CS. They have become real friends who we have returned to visit several times and are still in regular touch with them today. This was a heart-warming experience for us both restoring my faith totally in the inherent goodness of people the world over.

We have hosted people from Brazil, USA, NZ, Poland, Germany, Greece, Sweden, Israel, Russia, Australia, Italy, France, UK, Lappland, Peru, ... and looking forward to meeting more wonderful, caring people from all over the world.

JUNE 2008 - Met some AMAZING couchsurfing families in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Bulgaria.... and paid return visits to our CS friends in Greece who by now feel like family.

Update: 3 years on and CS has been a life-changing experience. We've met, hosted and surfed with some amazing people and have had not one bad experience.

UPDATE: 4 years on.... it's just getting better and better! :-) As a result of CS and meeting people who have influenced our lives in a big way we are making a big lifestyle change. I feel a deep connection to the community and our lives are freer and more socially-aware than before. We have learnt to be less judgemental, more caring and giving and have an acute awareness of the abundance in our lives.

Interests

Travelling), gardening, permaculture, donkeys, photography, art & crafts, languages, reading, hiking, music, homeschooling/alternative education, alternative building techniques, all kinds of co-operative systems: collaborative consumption, voluntary simplicity

• arts
• photography
• education
• cheese
• crafts
• gardening
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• blogging
• music
• guitar
• hiking
• communications
• teaching
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: mostly things like building instruction manuals, interesting autobiographies or personal stories, child psychology books, etc..
Music: Listening to my kids, singing, playing, composing their own music and lyrics, Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, soul, folk, hip-hop, reggae ... quite varied depending on the mood... (not too keen on loud thumping techno music though).

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

During the birth of my last child (with no intervention or drugs) I entered an amazing meditative state where I could "see" the endomorphins flooding my body to ease the pain of each contraction. I was actually waiting for each contraction with excited anticipation quite oblivious to the fact that it was probably supposed to be painful. For me this was incredible since I'm not the meditating type and had never experienced anything like it before (or since!) - I wonder if I could find the recipe for that and bottle it??

... and now I can add, being at the birth of my grandson and feeling a close woman-to-woman connection with my daughter.

Teach, Learn, Share

I would like to learn some traditional crafts such as weaving, dying, cheese-making, etc. And I would love to learn to play the guitar properly, and the ukulele. I'm also starting to get into editting of digital media (photos and videos) and would like to learn from anyone who knows more about that. I have become very interested in permaculture and try to apply it's philosphy to various aspects of my life.

I have a lot of different skills I could share with people, though maybe not any one thing to any degree of depth. I'm pretty creative though and know how to combine a few great ideas together...

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania, Switzerland

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Israel, United Kingdom

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