Wandering Scribe

At the beginning of April, my friend Karen wrote me an email that said,

"In your last couple of blogs you sound really down and getting fed up with urban camping - I nearly cried when I read that you were sleeping in a 'storage room' (think of the semiotics of your use of the word).

Remember, you are trying to urban camp and hold down an increasingly challenging educational programme; others just urban camp for the fun of it without having to do anything else."

I wrote back to her that it was really not so bad at all!

The storage room was quite cozy after I straightened it up and turned on the little electric heater.

There had been a few times when I had problems going to sleep in my studio or the storage room because I was too cold, but I just put on more clothes or bought another sleeping bag.

There were also times when I was doing homework in my studio while my toes were cold or I could see my breath or my face became a bit chapped.

I was not loving those moments, but I was OK!

I already know from experience that without these moments, I won't get the feeling of "delicious luxury" when settling back into my house.

Those who enjoy camping often also enjoy the contrast of getting back to the comforts of home.

Yesterday, I discovered a very different experience of nomadically coping with the winter.

I discovered Anya Peters's Wandering Scribe blog.

Until last weekend, she has been urban camping in her car in the woods on the edge of London.

She had been doing this for nine months.

Four months ago, she started writing a blog from the library as some way to re-connect with the world.

She has a law degree but no family.

As some things started to fall apart in her life, she was too embarrassed to go to friends.

So she started cutting herself off from them, just until she could pull things back together.

She tried to keep up appearances but kept slipping further and further into homelessness.

There are two BBC articles written about her:

24 April 2006 Park and Write

31 May 2006 Parked up

Just last weekend she was able to move back into rented accommodation as she was recently offered a book deal.

One person commented that she had written her own escape story.

I have just finished reading the February chapter on her blog ...

Technorati tag: urban camping