Ik heb Arnold gesproken, we houden afstand, geen zoenen, geen knuffels, gek hoor. Met de dag wordt het duidelijker dat het Coronavirus Frankrijk heeft bereikt en dat we rekening moeten gaan houden met afstand houden en verspreiding van het virus tegen te gaan. We leven hier met één jonge vrijwilligster via een Duitse eco organisatie en vier stellen waarvan twee met kleine kinderen. Momenteel zijn er ook twee vriendinnen van Liese op bezoek, Sophie en Birit, leuke stoere meiden. En er is een Quintin met zijn dochter Salome en hun hond Lilou voor een weekend in de gite om even bij te komen en buiten te zijn. Soms gaan er dagen voorbij dat we haast niemand zien, we zitten allemaal op zo’n 50 tot 100 meter afstand van elkaar.
Liese, Sophie en Birit zijn dit weekend naar de geisers in de Puy de Dome.
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First night out
In the first weekend in november we went for our first trip to test the camper. There was a lot to be done and to check, was it waterproof? Did the gas work, could we cook? The simple things. We drove to Brussels and parked at a parking in Tervuren, next to the entrance of the Arboretum of King Leopold. A beautifull parc/forest with a large variety of pinetrees. King Leopold seemed to be nog kosher, to say at the least, but he did leave us in this century a great parc!
It was a rainy day, not very special, but that didn’t matter, we only wanted to test the camper. When we arrived Roy began to do some diy in the camper, we didn’t have any food with us and so we went on our bikes to the villagecenter to do some shopping. And in Brussels they speak both French and Dutch, and the food is slightly different then in Dutch supermarkets, more culinairy and so we had a great meal. The bad thing about old Belgian cities is the cobblestones everywhere. They look very charming, but with the bike you are all shaking! The other thing is that we, as Dutch people are not used to hills and mountains so our little bike trip downhill for just 2 kms, was allready quite a climb, which actually a good thing for our muscles, but we need to train, because we will cycling much more hills in the future!
In the camper everything worked very well! There was no need to turn on the stove, so we have to test that on the next trip. We were happy as little children when we woke up on sunday and we went for a walk in the arboretum, afterwards we drove to the parc of the Africa museum, more King Leopolds pride, we didn’t visit the museum because we didn’t have time, we had an appointment with my four sisters and my mother to visit the textile museum in Tilburg.
So all in all, a perfect weekend!
Subscribing or not?
Hi, ho, hi, ho, it’s home from work we go…..hi friends! This month I have been working on location, like leaving the house to work, something I haven’t done for years! Normally I work at home. But I miss the social contacts, so I decided to leave the house more. The work feels good, cooking with a bunch of enthousiast hobby-cooks in a district kitchen in the really lovely city Gouda, you know: Home of the famous Gouda cheese (which actually comes from surrounding villages) and home of the stroopwafels! So yes, good food!
I teach these friendly cheesy (not that kind of cheesy) Gouda people about cooking like a pro and give them advise for healthy food choices. Working with people feels good and it balances me with my online work. I do need both. We all do, being an online entrepeneur can be quite lonely. So doing some jobs here and there is nice and so is driving hard on the motorway! Next month, in october, I will host music salons, playing vinyl on a portable recordplayer, for elderly people, do some dancing with them, I love these small local social activities, the simple things in live that mean so much! So many interests, so many jobs…They also provide in some extra money to save up for buy that camper we want. Like I said we have to be creative since we don’t have savings.
That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into!
That’s what I do think sometimes. I do not blame anyone but ourselves, and I don’t mind really. Our livingroom looks like we are a goodwillproject for Romania or something like that, there’s stuff everywhere, toys, clothes, books, all the things that have to go, I am trying to sell them. But it takes time and if it’s on thing I’ve learned past 1,5 year with being a lot on the French countryside is that time flies and things always go slower then you want them to go, simply because we have many different things to do and I do not want to just throw everything out, we need the money. So it’s either fast with a lot of money, or slow with just a little money: we go slow. We will get there, and it gives me time to prepare and think about doing business while travelling.
Subscription funding
One of those things that I am thinking about these weeks is “the modern cultural business”, that’s what they call social media and the subscription-based media platforms like Amazon, Netflix, HBO, Spotify. The business model is not really modern, subcribing to new content started in the 17th century where people could subscribe to newsbulletins and books.
I was thinking, could we do something like this? To make some extra money while being on the road, to get paid for all the creative hours we make. Social media is ok for me to post something now and then, but not on a daily basis, and you can’t make money from the platform itself. Subcription-based media could be a be a better option. With subcription media you let people pay, or better say ‘fund’ you on a recurring basis. It’s like Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform, but that’s only for one-time projects like: Help me to raise money to buy a camper. In return we give you art or whatever.
Patreon is such a subscription based platform where creatives and podcasters upload content on a regular basis for their audience. You can upload illustrations, tutorial video’s, podcasts,these are mostly digital products. It’s the same as having a subscription on a magazine, like we used to have on the Donald Duck when we were young, but instead of real products, you get your stuff digital. On Patreon you can find podcasters, comedians, Youtube stars, novelist, illustrators and comic book artists.
Roy is anything but digital, we could make video’s from Roy while he is working. So subscribers can see how a drawing or painting is being made. Roy draws something once a week. You support him with €2,00 per drawing. He will upload his drawing on his channel where you can download it. Only patrons (subscribers) can see the drawings. When you fund more, you can also watch video’s of Roy working, or insight of his mind: where do all these ideas come from? I don’t know, everything is possible.
For my business as a nutritionist it could be a subscription for extra content, like new recipes once a month. I see it happening all around me. The businesscoaches I follow want me to subscribe for a monthly payment so I can access all kinds of extra video’s, and it’s true, it’s easier to pay €10,- a month for a subscription, then to pay €300,- at once for a package of video’s or a training.
I do like the idea that you can spend more time on creating products for your audience. I know from my own business, that I have been working months on a e-book and eventually it will sell to a small audience. The time and effort is so much greater then the profit. So yes, I would like to get paid for the work that I do. This way I can support myself while helping others. In the end we still need to eat, pay health insurance and fuel the stove.
To get an idea what Patreon is like and for some inspiration about camperlife you can visit Bob Wells’s Patreon. He is like the campervan guru of the U.S. and a good source of inspiration.
And if it all doesn’t work out, we can always learn to be a magician by joining magicstream.com
Space: the final frontier
“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It’s a five year mission: to explore new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
No, we won’t be orbiting earth. Our private jet is not running on durable batteries yet, so we will have to put that on hold for a while. But boy does it feel like going out in space! It would be nice to get out of the microwave oven we are slowly fried in.
I just checked my phone to see check our wifi signal and it seems that we receive twenty five WiFi signals from the neighbours. Twenty five! I mean, some people already have radiation troubles with one wifi signal, what will happen with twenty-five? This worries me, especially because I am an internet entrepeneur. I couldn’t live the life I live now if I would have wifi. I don’t have the idea that wifi is troubling me and I hope I am right.
Roy is much wiser when it comes to the use of technology and wifi. He is more a lowtech person, that’s why he’s yearning to go out in nature, away from technology. He used to be one of those people who refuses to use a cellphone and to certainly not to take that thing to serious. I made him use that thing.
“Have you checked your phone? Why are there still unread textmessages? This mail is one week old, read or delete please.” Yes, I was one of those nagging women with a phone phobicman. But it worked, I’ve got him hooked. And now I am sorry.
I think it took him a year or maybe two, to get used to using the phone, to check messages and mails everyday. People were complaining he didn’t answer calls and mails. He really didn’t want that phone dictating his life. Nowadays he wakes up, looks on the weatherapp, starts to ‘app the people he works with that day and looks at some news items. For me as his partner, it’s still a bit strange to see he is using it so frequently.
It shows how we easily we can get addicted to things we don’t want. Roy needs the phone for work, we both have an app for our accounting. And well don’t we all have all kind of usefull (and not usefull) apps on our phone that makes life easier? The question is, do we need them?
O well, the computer is a whole different story though, he only uses that to write invoices, and nothing else. (So yes, this blog is totally Lisa written, but you never know what may happen in the future…) and I am working on it everyday.
We live in a digital era with a lot of technology. It’s one of the reasons we want to get away. To balance life. We are not the lucky ones who live on the countryside, we thought about it. But we both strongly feel that we don’t want to settle down in a house, it would mean we wouldn’t be free, we would still be stuck in the system of making lots of money to survive.
And just for some inspiration…
