I want to clean up the world and make it even more vibrant, healthy and inspirational. I create my own soil, support local, organic food production, and continue to reduce my negative impact on the world around me by reducing my unnecessary consumption, choosing carefully what I do consume, and attempting to live by my own values more every day.

I’m passionate about nature and the outdoors, and living free, healthy and active. I have a dream to make my home off-grid with a net-positive-environmental-impact, and to travel the world with my family, learning, improving, evolving; sharing our experiences with an interested audience, and helping others to make their own positive impact on their world.

I’m actually proud of a number of things. My sporting achievements, my lifstyle choices, my decision to become a vegetarian, my family and the friends I have in my life. Not necessarily in that order. And of course, I now have a newborn son of my own, who makes me prouder every day to be part of this family.

I had (and still have plenty) of dreams and ambitions, and somehow, particularly over the last few years, I’ve been able to make some of them happen.

I’m proud of the ability I’ve discovered to follow through on goals I’ve set myself, and to test my limits and the realisation that living my ideals, and not just wanting to believe them, is possible, and actually essential to my quality of life.

 

Day three of the daily blog challenge…

What do people thank me for? It’s incredible that I have to think quite hard to answer that question. What do people thank me for?

Those closest to me, thank me for being me. For being understanding and patient, for loving, caring and listening, for being loyal. Others thank me for being quiet, and for being ‘steady’, capable and adaptable. Some thank me for thinking about more than just myself. I’m sometimes thanked for my writing and language skills, and for my jack of all trades (master of none) ability to jump in to a variety of projects. My ability to get along with people; strangers, friends, clients or co-workers.

This is a difficult question that I’m going to have to return to and delve a bit deeper. It’s late and I’ve had a long day! I’ve yet to find the one best moment of the day every day that I can use for writing.

I have decided to force myself to write more. It’s something I’ve enjoyed doing on and off for many years; usually not with much of a direction or focus, nor following through with it for many weeks, or even days, consecutively. Sometimes I didn’t feel that I had anything of interest to share, other times, days would go by, filled with many other things, and I wouldn’t even think of writing.

So I thought the Live Your Legend, seven day start-a-blog challenge might be a good way to kick myself up the backside!

Today’s writing prompt for the challenge is – What really makes you angry about the world?

I’m known for being calm and collected and not getting angry, but on the inside, what really  frustrates me is the way we humans, on the whole, (mis)treat the planet. The rubbish, the pollution, the thoughtless consumption, the lack of responsibility for our actions, destruction of the land and the plants and animals living on it, and the inability, for the most part, to realise that all of our choices, no matter how small they may seem, have a series of consequences that ripple out into the world like waves that are amplified by all the other ripples created by so many others.

I have a long way to go to improve my lifestyle to the degree that I would consider acceptable, and I don’t intend for this to be a rant against ‘everyone else’, because I still pollute and consume unnecessary things, but I am trying, step by step to make less of a negative impact on the world, and more of a positive one.

There are many things to improve on in the world, but with all of the current political and social difficulties and dangers these days, it has been argued that there is no time or money to address species extinction or ocean pollution, when there are wars being fought and terrorists to chase down. For me however, it’s always been the natural world (of which I hasten to add, we are a part, and just as dependent on it as the next monkey) that has had my attention, and that I’ve wanted to do something about. In this desire, I’ve been distracted by many things along the way, and so far I haven’t achieved anything of particular note. I have a good life on a mostly sunny island; we recycle, we buy local organic food, I don’t eat meat, and with my family, we’ve just moved into a house with a garden, where we intend to grow some of our own food. In the spirit of ‘be the change’ I’m trying to adjust my lifestyle to fit my ethics and somehow expand that into insprition for change in those around me.

What also frustrates me is going to work 45 hours per week (including my commute) for someone else, just for the money. I am now the proud father of a six-week old baby boy, who has given me another reality check (work is even more of an inconvenience than it was before!) and I want to change this situation… gain back those lost hours, whilst improving our quality of life by doing something meaningful and useful to humanity and and the rest of the world!

I disappeared from the blogging scene for a while, following a return to full-time employment, a house move and, as of four weeks ago, a baby boy!

It seems there’s nothing quite like becoming a father to remind you of the more important things in life, and give you another incentive to get on with it! So here I am, back again, and ready to share some new experiences.

When I moved to Lanzarote in 2009, I wasn’t planning to settle here and raise a family. Come to think of it, I didn’t really have a plan at all, and as usual, where there is a gap, life steps in to fill it for you. Seven and a half years later, I’m a fiancé, step-dad, and now father, happily living the (relatively) quiet life in rural Lanzarote. Life of course just got a whole lot busier, as the parents out there will understand, but I must say we’re thrilled with our new not-so-little son, and I’m sure we’ll catch up on all the sleep, and recover from the all the worry eventually!

I’d like to give a little insight on what it’s like to start and raise a family as a foreign national in the Canary Islands, which at times has it’s complications, (mostly concerning paperwork), but on the whole, is a great experience and one I would very much recommend.

We chose home birth over hospital birth, and are pursuing what some might call ‘alternative’ health and environmental considerations, which in turn bring their own challenges and rewards. I’ll spread this journey over a few blog posts as our son grows and we learn more.

To start with however, I’ll outline the rather tedious, but necessary paperwork that needs to be completed after the birth, and then we can get on with the more interesting stuff.

Step One: Civil Registration

Your newborn must be registered with the Registro Civil. If you had a hospital birth, then you can do this at the hospital. You must of course have chosen your child’s name by this point, and present the ID documents of the parent(s) as well. In most cases, this will mean your NIE and passport. Already being familiar with paper chasing in these islands however, for the last three weeks, I have carried with me in a folder, everything I owned that I thought might be useful, just in case.

If you had a home birth as we did, you can still register your baby at the hospital if less than 72 hours have passed since birth, but if this time has lapsed, you will need to go to the office of the Juzgado de Paz in your local municipality, with all your ID, and a signed document from the midwife that delivered the baby, confirming the date, time and location of the birth, and the details of the parents. The midwife will know what form he or she needs to complete.

You will then receive your Libro de Familia, (in our case, later the same day), which is an important part of your child’s ID documentation.

A little note about surnames… In Spain they would usually take the father’s surname followed by the mother’s surname as the child’s two surnames, regardless of whether or not the parents are married, and this is how we registered our son. It may be however that when we come to step three below, the fact that we are a mixed nationality, non-married couple might mean we have to register his surname differently. We decided to cross this bridge at a later stage however, when there is less time pressure on completing all the paperwork.

This first part needs to be completed as soon as possible as after birth.

Step Two: Empadronamiento

This is where you register your baby as living with you, in your home. With the Libro de Familia, an official copy of your own Certificado de Empadronamiento, and all the previous ID documents already mentioned, you then need a trip to the local Ayuntamiento. Aside from having to wait an hour for the lady to come back from her coffee break, it was a very quick and easy appointment, but they then require 2-7 days to complete the process, and for your child to appear officially in the system. At this point, you can return to collect your child’s Certificado de Empadronamiento, which you will need for the next step.

Step Three: Passport

It may seem a bit early to be applying for a passport, and we weren’t intending to do so until the Seguridad Social requested it as proof of our son’s nationality. They require either a passport or, proof from the Consulate that we’ve applied for one.

Being born in Lanzarote doesn’t automatically qualify you for Spanish nationality if your parents are not Spanish. I’m British and my fiancée is German, and we chose, purely for administrative ease, to apply for a German passport. We’re a little short of Embassies and Consulates in Lanzarote, but the German Consulate sends a representative to a doctors clinic in Playa Blanca once a week, and you can apply for a passport in person there.

British passports however have to be organised through the passport agency in London (it’s apparently no longer a service offered by Consulates), and with all the other things to think about during those first couple of weeks, I didn’t want to waste any more energy investigating at that stage. Now I’ve done everything that needs to be done, I’ll call London and see about a British passport too.

Step Four: Registration with the Seguridad Social

For this, you’ll need to get an appointment by calling 012, and following the instructions. You can’t just turn up to the office and wait in line. Even with an appointment you will most likely need to wait a while once you get there, but without one, you won’t even get through the door. You could even book this appointment before you’ve completed steps one, two and three, because it’s unlikely that you’ll get one from one day to the next. You should have enough time to complete the first three tasks before your turn at the Seguridad Social in Arrecife.

Take your proof of passport application, Certificados de Empadronamiento (yours as well as your child’s), Libro de Familia and your passports and NIEs to your appointment.

I arrived still a little confused about the process, but they were very helpful, and once I’d got to a desk, I was done in ten minutes. I understand that there are forms that you can download via the internet to complete before you get there, but it wasn’t a problem for me that I turned up without them.

You then receive yet another a document, that you now need to take to your local Centro de Salud to collect your child’s Tarjeta Sanitaria.

It’s worth knowing that although your child must be registered with the Seguridad Social, prior to this they can still receive medical attention if necessary, because by default they will be covered by the mother’s registration.

At this point, your child is fully registered and officially part of the Spanish system.