Author: elizabethdhunter

The secret power of soils

It’s the last few days before winter really, finally, hopefully settles in and the snow blankets the ground. My garden is a brown, muddy mess. Looking at it gives me the same alarmed feeling as I get when driving past barren fields anywhere. I can feel the soil eroding, I can almost see the dust…

By elizabethdhunter December 23, 2020 Off

Crossing the divide

I write this post from Canada, savouring the last few drops of my sabbatical year and reflecting back on it. At the core of the Vu d’ici blog has been the idea of seeing the world from a new and different place. My experiences of being such a stranger have included a year spent in…

By elizabethdhunter August 19, 2020 3

The well-connected life

Xavier works in a cigarette paper factory in the heart of the beautiful French region of Ariège, near the charming Soueix-Rogalle. But every day he isn’t working, he gets up at four am and heads for the majestic Pyrenees mountains. An amateur wildlife photographer, he packs his camera, telescope and tripod in his backpack along…

By elizabethdhunter May 5, 2020 Off

My transition town

Upon our arrival in Sète last August, we started to notice announcements for a Forum des Associations. A good opportunity, I figured, to get to know some local activities. From the height of my previous status as a citizen of a city of 3 million, my expectations for Sète (population: 44,000) was to see twenty…

By elizabethdhunter April 15, 2020 Off

Spring in the time of Corona

I think a lot about systems and how large scale change happens in society; one of my favorite frameworks is the ‘multi-level perspective’ developed by Frank Geels. A simple version looks like this: It says that change generally happens on the outside of the dominant structures, usually beginning with a ‘niche innovation’. It could be…

By elizabethdhunter March 24, 2020 Off

1.5 degrees and me

Over the past year or so, there has been much ado about whether we can and should aim to keep the global temperature rise to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius. In daily life, half a degree isn’t even enough to help decide whether or not to put on a sweater to go outside. But in…

By elizabethdhunter February 28, 2020 Off

The rhythm of a day

Back in the fall, we spent a weekend in Avignon —  yes, we danced sur le pont. We also biked out to La Chartreuse, a 13th century monastery today transformed into a centre for artists in residence. At its height around 1650, the Chartreux community here counted some 100 souls: 24 Pères, 30 Frères and…

By elizabethdhunter February 6, 2020 Off

Do good fences really make good neighbours?

Last week, my son Majdi and I attended a meeting of the small but feisty local chapter of Alternatiba, a citizen climate change movement. Among the eclectic range of topics discussed, from film screenings to climate marches, was walls.  Walls? One of the members, Thierry Arnaud, explained that in his village of Montbazin, 25 years…

By elizabethdhunter January 13, 2020 Off

A drop in the ocean

A few weeks ago, I was telling my friend Chad how we were living without a car here, despite living in a hilly town of 44 000 people with patchy bus routes and frequent train strikes or breakdowns. We do have a scooter, I said proudly, an electric one. He looked at me quizzically. You…

By elizabethdhunter December 9, 2019 Off