Wendyl Nissen - A Natural Year: Living Simply Through the Seasons

A Natural Year follows writer Wendyl Nissens life in the peaceful New Zealand countryside over one year.

Its the story of what happens in her garden, her kitchen and her life over twelve months, and the thoughts inspired by each passing season.

She writes about the freedom that she has found in ageing and the joy that comes along with it. She addresses her depression, anxiety and the mental well-being shes gained from her back-to-basics lifestyle and the practical things she does to live in a sustainable, natural way.

With photographs taken at her home in Northland, Wendyl shares 100 new recipes, including how to make yeast from grapes, yoghurt using chilli stalks and many others she has discovered.

In a world which can be full of stress and confusion, A Natural Year is a guide to a simpler, less complicated life.

Wendyl Nissen is a journalist, broadcaster and former magazine editor who is the author of nine books, mostly about living a chemical-free, old-fashioned life. She left the corporate world nineteen years ago and now lives in the Hokianga with her husband, ten chickens (and counting), two dogs and two stray cats.

To my girlfriendsfrom the toddling to the middle-agedwho shared their opinions, listened to mine, gave me great advice, gossiped over many bottles of wine, but most importantly made me laugh until I cried: Fiona, Demeter, Samantha, Belinda, Paula, Louise, Sido, Susan, Deborah and Kerre.

Introduction

When I started writing this book it was meant to be a simple tale of a life lived full-time in the country. We bought our place in the Hokianga five years ago, but this was the first year my husband Paul and I had managed to sort out our work commitments so that we could live full-time in the country with only occasional visits to Auckland.

I looked forward to sharing with you my new, improved lifestyle spent hugging cows after breakfast, gathering blackberries before lunch and making jam in the afternoon. Harvesting homegrown veges for dinner and mastering the making of bread, cheese and sauerkraut.

The gorgeous Emily Hlav Green, who beautifully styled and shot my most recent book, The Natural Home , came up north and we spent a day shooting pictures to illustrate that lifestyle. It was all going so well.

To get started with writing I set myself up in my old 1968 caravan where I wrote my book A Home Companion and parts of many other books. The caravan had been towed up to our new home a few years ago and sits at the top of our wildflower meadow with a splendid view of the sea. I figured it had good vibes, and most importantly it was away from Wi-Fi and distractions like Paul and my parents, who lived with us. On my first day I sat there with a lit candle for good energy, a vase of freshly picked wildflowers, a pot of coffee, my dogs at my feet and a whiteboard to keep track of my ideas. I wrote the worst first chapter in history. I never went back in there.

Instead I spent my days in the kitchen, testing and perfecting recipes, digging in my garden and seeking out the hens eggs where theyd laid them in nests in the bush. And it came to me that this year of supposed tranquillity was also a year of realisation.

I was coming to terms with the politics of ageing. The fact that so many women my age were turning themselves inside out and upside down to prevent the unpreventable. I realised that I was unusual in that I found myself feeling very free at 57 and was enjoying it immensely. I started writing about that.

I realised that depression and anxiety, which so many of us deal with in our lives, should be talked about more openly instead of hidden away as I had all of my life because I was ashamed. I started writing about that. When my publisher, Jenny Hellen, read this book for the first time she said: Its hard to believe that someone (you!) who appears so confident and out there can feel like that. Exactly.

I spent time thinking about how much menopause sucks for women my age because for many of us there is not much we can do about the debilitating symptoms such as hot flushes and wild hormonal moods. So I wrote about that.

The climate crisis got real thanks to a teenager called Greta Thunberg, and I realised that after 15 years of being called a mad, hippy greenie by a legion of pale, stale males in the media, finally all the stuff I had been talking and writing about had turned into a movement that could save the world after all. I wrote about that.

Then my mum had a stroke and was in a very bad way for three months in a care home. She died in late July. No writing happened then.

In the end this book was written loosely around the seasons because it seemed best to write it as they were happening around me, but please dont get confused when I talk about roses in autumn but mention that they are best in summer!

It was written in my sunroom while our stray kitten, Dickie, snuggled into me. It was written on a table in an apartment in New York during a heatwave and in a cabin on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean while I grieved for my mother who had died a week earlier. I appear to write very easily while overseas in trying circumstances.

By the time it was finished I found it hard to describe what it was. A series of essays written over a year that was not the year I expected, I suppose. When friends asked about it I mumbled something about the book recording a year of learning to live in the country but also being about positive ageing and other stuff like that. Positive ageing! they would say. I need some of that.

As I said in the introduction to The Natural Home , Im not interested in evangelising a new way of living anymore. But I am interested in sharing everything I know about how easy it is to lead a much healthier, happier life. In this book you will find lots of lovely nutritious, easy recipes and some hopefully funny stories about living with two cows, ten chickens (and counting), two dogs and two stray cats. I hope that you also find some stuff to think about that might help you live in this world, which is confusing and unsettling for so many of us.