Emily Williams Transcript

 Rhona: okay, Emily, thank you very much for joining me on Rest Days podcast. I'm very excited to hear everything you have to say, even if it's going to be completely off topic and, uh, wonderfully tangential. But, uh, I think you have lots of wonderful things to say. Um, so I've given a bit of an intro for you.

Uh, and the reason that I really fancy chatting to you about this is I heard you say somewhere that you have now made a rule in your life that you want things to be at least 75% type one fun to be worth doing. Um, so I'd love to talk all about that. But first, could you just start with what it were, the types of fun?

Emily: The types of fun. So I think there are, there are three types of fun, possibly four, we might have expanded it. So type one fun is like genuinely fun while you're doing it, and it's just pleasurable and nice. Type two. Fun is not necessarily fun while you're doing it and quite challenging, but it also makes a really good story to tell in the pub afterwards.

Type three, fun is not fun in any context at all. It's like the bit of an adventure that you really wish didn't happen where you possibly almost died. And then, oh, we had, we used, we were on holiday and we were meant to type four fun, which is not actually fun, but you get a really good photo out of the internet.

Rhona: Oh dear. That's, that's definitely like a, it's since Instagram. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 

Emily: So it's like a, A memory day fun. Okay. Like where you get like a really nice family photo and everybody's smiling, but you're like, nah, actually it wasn't that much fun when we were doing it. 

Rhona: I have enjoyed many of the types of fun in my life.

Um, I've not enjoyed some of them too. And I think what's interesting about that was why does type three exist at all? Why, why, why do, how is the word fun? Who in there, 

Emily: where, 

Rhona: who made that? Why? 

Emily: I, I don't know. I think it's just because, so these, for me, have always been in the context of going on an adventure.

Mm-hmm. And there are often unforeseen bits of adventures that are just not fun. 

Rhona: Right. Okay. So you didn't set 

Emily: out to achieve type three, fun. You don't set, you don't, you'd never plan you. Sometimes people, I think a lot in the outdoors when you listen to people talking about outdoors stuff, there's a lot of, almost like.

Slightly fetish idolisation of type two fun. As the proper, in inverted commas way to be outdoors. Because if you're not doing something gnarly and hard and you are not conquering something, or doing a thing with an arbitrary number of hills in it, arbitrarily fast to make it difficult and like it just bores me to tears.

Um, and so I think that that type one fun is massively under-appreciated in the outdoor sphere. Yeah. Because there's so many of the stories that you hear, there's an element of suffering and conquering about them. And I am old enough to not be asked to suffer or conquer anything because I've tried it.

It wasn't that fun. I don't want to do it anymore. 

Rhona: Yeah. I think that's very reasonable. What do you think about that language as well? Do you think, what, where did this, where did the language around it come from? 

Emily: I, I honestly don't know. It's just one of those things where if you are in a group of outdoor people and you say, how was your day?

And say, oh, it's type two fun. Everybody knows what you're talking about. Mm. Um, so I have no idea where it originally comes from. 

Rhona: And then, and then I find it interesting as well. I, I think. A lot of, uh, group sports and activities in the uk. There so much of the language has become, suffer, pain cave, all that stuff, rather than, it's not that common.

You just hear about somebody talking about going for a cycle and it was just a really joyous day and they saw a bird and the sun was shining and there's not Nice. No. 

Emily: And I don't understand why that's not also celebrated. Yeah. So I think there's like, and that's been a lot of what I've been trying to talk about when I'm out, you know, doing outdoor stuff is even challenging.

Adventures, uh, can be made fun by allowing yourself plenty of time to do them. Taking along people who are gonna be a great craic. Yeah, that's like really, really key. It's taking your funniest friends with you. Um, and there is like this amazing that the sense of like joyfully with a smile on your face, overcoming something that's challenging or you know, physically challenging is great, but I don't think you have to suffer to do it.

I don't understand why suffering has got such a, place in at the outdoor storytelling narrative. 

Rhona: I know, I can't tell which came first. Did people, uh, try, re try things that seemed like an achievement? For example, the, a first ascent of a mountain or something, right. And then it was really hard.

So then the lang, so then to have achieved something, you had to have done something hard or was it that they thought that's going to be hard, therefore it will be an achievement? I dunno which one. I 

Emily: think, I think it's both. I mean, I think if you look at the history of mountaineering and adventure literature until, you know, 15, 20 years ago it was really rare to hear a woman write about anything.

Yeah. Um, and a lot of that sort of massive canon of writing has quite colonialist overtones to it. And you know, you've got a team of British mountaineers and they're off to conquer somewhere in their empire. And I just, it's not something that. Vibes with me even in the slightest. 

Rhona: I don't think it vibes with most people though.

How isn't that? But 

Emily: if you go to film festivals, and I've been to a lot of film festivals in last year, it's the story. It's still predominantly teams of white men going somewhere with really big mountains on some big expedition to ski, run bike, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Something that's never been done before.

And it's like, well, has it been done? It's just nobody's documented it and told you about it. But what's so special about that? And you very rarely get to hear anything about them, how it impacted them, or like how it changed them as a person or any of that really interesting like personal stuff. 

Rhona: Yeah, there's been a few stories, I guess told in the last few years where you, you're starting to see a bit of, oh, well actually the whole family suffered and it was terrible.

Absolutely. But not many of them. And I have to say that I'm glad those stories are starting to be told, told a bit because I used to watch stuff and I'd be like, but wait a second, wait a second. What about all the people in this person's life? What, what are they? Yeah. Well, so, so 

Emily: I mean, but as well, if you come with it from a feminist point of view, access to that sort of adventure is massively gendered.

Totally. So, you know, women, especially once they've become mothers, don't have, in general, of course, somebody's gonna point out an exception, but in general, don't have access to a six week long trip to the Himalayas to fulfil an ambition. Yeah. And if they do, they. You will hear about how they organised it Yeah.

In their story. So loads of their story will be focused about how they had to organise childcare. Like no father who goes on an expedition ever gets asked who's looking after his children. Oh 

Rhona: no, I know. It's, it's insane, isn't it? And and the worst part is the women who do do it will be slaughtered in the comments section for Yeah.

This is so irresponsible that this woman left her child at home and went to the mountains. 

Emily: I know. So it's like, yeah. So I find it like the, the, the story, the, the selection of stories that get told and the way that they are told is patriarchal and colonialist. Yeah. And like I say, fetishises, this idea of like having to suffer to achieve something and if you've suffered, that makes it more worthy.

And I don't actually think that is something which invites a broad spectrum of people into the outdoors and makes them feel welcome. 

Rhona: No, it doesn't. And even sometimes I think the super lost voices of this often are like the men who don't want to do that. Because I feel like now there's more of a movement on the women's side to be like, we want to be involved, but also we want to be able to do it our way.

And we want to be able to, you know? Yeah. But you know, if you're a guy, you're still kind of, the only people you are allowed to be are the ones going to do the, the hard achievements yeah. You are, you are not guys are even more so not supposed to be going out and just enjoying the sunshine and the birds.

Emily: Yeah. So, and, and it's like when it comes down to this thing that I've thought about a lot over the last few years, it's like, what am I doing it for? What's it bringing me? What am I contributing to the whole state of things and how do I keep my motivation to carry on doing that? 

Rhona: Yeah. 'cause that's a big thing as well.

Yeah. Isn't it? Um, do you have an example of something that you think was an achievement but didn't involve suffering? Or do you think that the two, do you think that now the word achievement just can't, can't be associated with that kind of thing? But No, I, 

Emily: I just think why do we have to achieve anything?

Yeah. Like, if we're gonna be more radical i'm competitive about some of things, but I'm not competitive about sport and being outdoors. Mm. I've never been particularly in invert comm good at it. Um, I've never been fast at anything. I'm quite strong, but I'm not fast and I just.

I just don't get it. I don't get why ticking a list and finishing it is so important to some people. Brackets my husband. 

Rhona: So you know, you've got that in your house for a very long time. You still don’t get it

Emily: Totally like he, to annoy him so much by going on walks with him to not quite the summit of hills.

Rhona: To be fair, I know a lot of people who probably are shuddered when you said that. 

Emily: It's like just deliberately stay 50 meters away from the summit, piss him off. Which brings me a certain degree of joy 'cause I'm quite petty. 

Rhona: But something in that is just a brain type thing. It's like the people who come back at a 99.5 kilometres on their cycle, they have to go around the block to make it a hundred.

There's some, some people need that. 

Emily: Yes, but, and I think this is the thing, like there is sometimes if you choose it, benefit in challenging yourself. And you know, there's definitely, I've learned a lot about myself in the outdoors in challenging moments. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that is definitely something to be in certain contexts welcomed.

Yeah. But, but that's not really why I usually do it. 

Rhona: Yeah. Yeah. I think the important thing is that the, if you want to be outdoors or active it, that doesn't have to be a challenge. And I think everybody in some way needs something challenging in their life. 

Emily: I think there's something to be gained by being moderately uncomfortable.

So I think it's perfectly possible in the modern world to. Remove almost all points of discomfort and friction from your life and that that is not beneficial overall. I think like constantly rubbing up against things, knocking corners off, like is really important. Yeah, but you don't have to suffer.

Rhona: No, 

Emily: no, no. Don't have to suffer to do that. You know? I mean, it's like camping is not comfortable, but you also don't have to sleep on the lightest weight, three quarter length, therma rest mat. You could just buy yourself a big fat. Comfortable one. Yeah. 

Rhona: Yeah, yeah. So no, totally. 

Emily: And you could take a pillow. Yes, absolutely.

So, you know, it's like. The degree of the degree of which the suffering is. The focus of it, I think is for me, the, the thing that sort of 

Rhona: Yeah. And, and, and the suffering sometimes becomes like this badge of honour or something like, you can't get into the club without it. I think it's quite tricky.

Emily: Don't get me wrong, I have a certain admiration for the type of person who will set off on a bike ride with 12 litres of stuff and then sleep in ditches and, eat foods from service stations that's rubbish. But for me, that's not a motivating, it's not a motivating and inspirational story that makes me think, oh, I wanna go and do that.

I think for what I want is more diversity in the story. Yeah. I'm not saying that those stories shouldn't be tell, told and don't have interest, but I don't think it should be such a dominant narrative. 

Rhona: I think that interesting and important part as well is that most people are, are in the same boat as you.

Yeah. Most of my job is persuading people to do healthy things with their lives. And most people think that they can't do that or don't want to do that because that means, well, I have to keep up with a certain speed. I have to be a certain size and shape and fitness. 

Emily: The, the perniciousness of a guidebook time is something I wish I could eradicate.

I mean, it's like way to make anybody who doesn't, you know. I might live with someone who doesn't feel like he's done well on a walk unless he has beat the guidebook time. I never make a guidebook time and I know that and that's fine, but it's really complicated because it presents to people that there is a correct, yeah, a way supposed to doing way of doing things.

And if they're not meeting that criteria and they're not confident in their place in the outdoors, that can be really exclusionary.

Rhona: And even more frustrating. There are people out there who actively voice that. If you weren't meeting the guidebook time, maybe you are not cut out to be there. Which is just obviously complete nonsense and rubbish because why does walking it two hours slower change anything?

Emily: Yeah because maybe like you found a cool frog and you watched him jump along or you stopped and, and found beautiful orchids. Yeah. Or maybe you just noticed more, maybe you were just rambling along, maybe you walked slower, but like, at what point is achieving guidebook time become like this sort of indicator of success?

I know. And why 

Rhona: does it have to even be successful? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. I find that a really interesting thing. So, um, I used to run a the cycling community and we advertised rides and we didn't advertise times, uh, of how long it was gonna take because the idea was it would take what the group needed it to take.

Yeah. But this was a constantly recurring issue because people would say to me, well, I want to know how long it's gonna take 'cause I want to know if I'm able to do it. And I'd say, well, you are able to do it because it takes, you know, it just takes how long it takes.

And they'd be like, yeah, but I don't think I can come, I don't know if I can ride for two hours and I'd be but if we ride for two hours and then we walk the rest, then that's what it took. Do you know, like it was just really hard because everybody's got this idea that there has to be this amount of time and they've gauged themselves on whether they can do that.

And it was all very interesting. And then there was the opposite camp of people who wanted to know how long it was gonna take because if it was gonna be too slow, you know, 'cause it was gonna be maybe too slow and they need to know, well I'm not interested in doing it if I won't be doing it at this.

Emily: Yeah. And everybody gets something different out of being in the outdoors, but I guess getting older, which is rubbish, but better than all the alternative, um, makes you really reflect on why you are doing things. So I think for me it's like I've reached the point 48 perimenopausal and it's like the neatly presented idea that you can just train a lot and get fitter. And that will be an almost linear relationship has majorly broken down in my life, you know? Yeah. Yeah. As previously, it was like, I can decide to do something. I can train for a couple of years, I can get better at thing. And I, as far as I can work out, the last three years have been a constant series of starting again.

And whatever life interruption there is, you know, you're injured, you've got dodgey knee, you know, you are child is doing whatever, your job has gone a bit mental and you can't cope with it anymore. And, and there's all these life things. And it just, the last five years have felt to me like a constant series of like, well, let's just pick ourselves up and start again and.

I've never reached the point, like I've never got back to being as fit as I was five years ago . But if I hadn't just carried on starting again, I'd be in a very different place now. And I think what's not often acknowledged is that we are all one medical incident or one year away from a body that doesn't, that you can't just train and make it better.

Like that's just such an ableist idea that you're able to be in control of all of that when for so many people it's not. And it's like, well, so how, if you are not going outside to be fitter and to conquer stuff and to train and be better, why are you doing it? And for me, I'm doing it because I really benefit from feeling connected to the natural world.

I really have massively benefited from my whole life, from these kind of really deep friendships that you cannot have in any other way than by mis adventuring. Yeah. And for me, that's all, that's what I want. 

Rhona: No, and I think that's amazing. You've actually touched on something. Yeah. That's so central to my entire reasoning of wanting to do this podcast.

Um, and this, this like start again thing that I never hear that story told. The thing is the people, occasionally somebody overcame something.

Emily: But that’s it, you overcome. So then I, I watched a whole film about some guy. Overcoming Crohn's disease, you don't overcome Crohn's disease. Mate you learn to live with it.

Yeah. You, it's not going away. It's it's not going away. It's not going anywhere. This idea, but again, it comes back to this like really conquering thing. It's like, why does that keep coming back in? Why can you not just learn to co-exist with a thing? 

Rhona: And realistically that that idea is just gonna lead to like mental suffering.Yeah. 'cause you are gonna think I've conquered at this time. I promise you, you have not. You conquered Just wait. Life is throwing you a curve ball next week and you Yeah, absolutely. And you're gonna be really sad when you realise that you have to, to start again. Yeah. It's, it's all about the, it's, it should be about this, sustainable, how can I be healthy and happy amongst whatever life is gonna throw?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, 'cause yeah, I don't really, yeah, I don't, and, and most of the time the people who are able to do the really craziest things that films get made about and get written and things get written about. They have had such a lucky journey and pathway to get there. Yeah. And, and, and health is one of those things where when you have it, you, you're not grateful for it because you don't know what you have. Yeah. But nobody but barely ever. Do people talk about the fact that the people who got to these places just, you know, they just were so lucky and they didn't have to start over and over. And most people are starting over and over because their relationship broke down.

Their finances went skew with something weird happened with their health, anything. You know? 

Emily: And I think like that, the power and motivation to start again, even acknowledging that you're not gonna be as good as you once were is something that's really difficult. Yeah. I haven't been this summer, I really need to go back to the gym and start lifting weights again 'cause it's really good for me.

But it's the summer, it's quite hard to do in the summer. Um. And I'll go back and I'll be able to lift half of what I could lift when I was, you know, doing it. I, I haven't done it regularly for a year because I got knocked off my bike and I've got a knee injury, but , I now need to start again. And starting again is really tough. 

Rhona: It is.  I focused a lot in my life about how some of the questions you asked, like, why am I doing this? You know, when I start again, if it's really tough, do I need to start again? And then I would always come back round to the similar thing to you where actually I need the outdoor connection and actually moving my body makes me feel good.

It does. Yeah. And if and if I don't do it, I realise. 

Emily: Yeah. 

Rhona: And, uh, but if I do it all the time regularly. I can take it for granted. 

Emily: Well, absolutely. It's like my relationship with yoga. I know full well that doing 20 minutes of yoga four to five times a week. Makes my back much happier.

Hmm. And I will maybe do that for like six to eight months and then I'll be like, oh look, it's great. It's worked. And then I'll stop doing it and like three or four weeks later I'll be like, no, I need to carry on it’s a maintenance activity and I need to carry on doing, and you know, you just seem to be stacking up massive lists of maintenance activities, right.

That I need to do on a really regular basis just to stop myself seizing up. And so it's like I can't do as much outdoors because I'm quite, like, I've just come back from five days of canoeing and I'm quite stiff and I need to now concentrate this week on doing yoga. And you know, but it's like that. I think there's just that balance. I probably realistically need to make peace with the fact that that's just how it's gonna be. In a phase of managed decline. 

Rhona: I spend a lot of time talking about this with people at work that, um, I think we all have to accept that life does require a bit of maintenance, you know?

Yeah. Like your house, you can't just leave it, it will eventually crumble. And your body will do the same eventually. Yeah. We have to do a little bit of maintenance to it, unfortunately. Um, but in life, and I talk about this a lot in another episode, there's pushes and pulls. So the pull is, oh, it's a beautiful sunny day, and my friend's going for walks I want to go with them. That sounds joyous, but there is pushes of like, oh, actually I've spent the whole day on the laptop working and, and my, I'm not really feeling good. It's, that pushes you outside as well. Yeah. And the maintenance is a bit of a, you know, it's not, it's not a pull. You don't really want to do it, but you're being pushed to do it because you kind of need to.

Emily: Yeah. It's like one of my really good friends lives in Edinburgh. You know, we quite often just to make ourselves leave the house in the morning, phone each other, put headphones on and go for a 20 minute chat together.

Rhona: I love that. 

Emily: Like this morning we are going to, we prearrange it whatever time we have to get up this morning, we are going to go for a walk at eight o'clock together in separate cities.

Rhona: I think that's, that's such a good idea.

But that's also, you know, that we're in the super privileged position that we have people who want to do that stuff. And if you are not, if you've not grown up around that and you don't already exist in that, then, how do you get into that? How do you meet the people that, that, oh, so this 

Emily: is, this is not anything.

Terribly like, 

Rhona: no, but you have a friend who wants to go outside, right? Yeah. Some people don't have that at all. Yeah, 

Emily: absolutely. But I, I think you can grow that. 

Rhona: Yes.

Emily: I think growing communities that want to do like-minded things is one of the really powerful things that you can do in your life that leaves some legacy if we're interested in a legacy.

But, and it also, I kind of quite like the rebellious, anti-capitalist streak of that. So, um, I've spent, one of the things I've tried to interest myself in this year is some alternative economic theories Oh, yes. About how the world might work. And so read is something that's really interesting and it is that capitalism.

Has sort of granulised and commodified , things and stripped us of our community and in order to sell it back to us. 

Rhona: Yes. I so agree. 

Emily: Meeting up with friends can be commodified by this idea that you meet up with friends in a cafe and you sit around and you chat. Mm-hmm. And you spend money while you're doing it and exercise has become a thing that you go to the gym and that you do.

And you, and then your nature experiences can also be commodified and sold to you through , some package, but actually you could just take a flask and a friend and go for a walk and do all three of those things at the same time. 

Rhona: Mm-hmm. 

Emily: You know? So I think one of the reasons we all feel so starved for time.

Is that we have to exercise, we have to cook, we have to do all of these things, but they've become individual activities that we do on our own. And that actually by combining them and doing them communally, you can overlap a lot of those functions and build community. 

Rhona: Definitely. 

Emily: So I have a standing afternoon date with one of my friends where we spend two hours together in each other's garden and we swap round weeks and we just do garden jobs and outdoor things that we've put off for a long time together.

Often the person who's gardening is not just sort of stands around there and chats and hands them tools and it's like you sometimes feel like you're not really doing anything in that situation, but actually I would never be doing it if she wasn't standing there. But again, it's socialising, it's getting something done.

We would never make that much time to get together and be social. If we were not also getting stuff done. Yeah. Yeah. And to my mind, that's as much about being outside and connecting with the world as going up a hill or going canoeing . like they've become much less separate. Yes. For me. 

Rhona: Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, so much of what's missing now in the world is, community and things that we got from community. And I really think with, um, giving ourselves spaces to do things that are good for us, but we don't value maybe. 

Emily: Yeah. 

Rhona: A lot of that was lost with, with community, I think. Um, now.

'cause now , everything does have to be kind of productive. You can't just do things with people anymore. But that, just sounds very lovely doing a garden with somebody else. 

Emily: But yeah why does socialising with your friends have to be this thing where you get together, you know, sort of stereotypical we get together and have coffee and a chat and catch up, but you actually do anything together.

You just chat about things that have happened to you separately. And I think you build much better friendships when you have joint endeavor and you do stuff together. 

Rhona: Plus also, just before we started, I was saying to you that you know, that you shouldn't, uh, sit directly opposite somebody if you want to have a proper conversation.

Um, and if you do, but proper conversations come out a lot better when you're doing stuff, especially side by side. So running, walking, cycling. Gardening. Yeah. Whatever you're doing side by side, you, you'll get people's real true feelings out.

Emily: I know I feel better if I go out and do these things regularly. Yeah. But how do I motivate myself to do that? Mm-hmm. And so really thinking about, and for me. Company is a big one. I'm, I'm rubbish at doing things on my own.

Uh, I live with someone who loves to go for an 80 or 90 mile bike ride on their own. For me, that sounds so utterly tiring. Spending that long with my thoughts is just awful. Mm-hmm. Um, and I, you know, I would just come back as an out an hour extrovert. I would come back feeling really depleted. Yeah, yeah.

Like mentally from that kind of thing. Whereas if I've just got someone to chat to even sometimes I could probably go and do that and it would be fine. 

Rhona: Yeah. And I think we also have to recognise those parts of ourselves as well. Um, but again, there's still most things that are made to look really beautiful and, uh, achievement worthy, um, are often the, the more solo it is.

And the more suffering you went through on your own, the more it seems to be worthwhile. I'm not involved in the ultra cycling community at all, so don't hate me, whoever I offend by saying this, but I struggle with this. Like real angst about this self-supported thing, you know?

Yeah. Because I get that that is a thing. And yeah. Don't get me wrong. So impressive. If you did whatever crazy challenge you did, self-support, it clearly is harder, but like why?

Emily: It's the thing. It's like I would just, I just couldn't do it. , I need people around me. A lot of people are like, oh, you know, my social battery's been used up.

And I'm like, my social battery's basically infinite and charges me for the rest of my life. Yeah. And if I spend too much time on my own, that's actually really bad for me. 

Rhona: Yeah. Yeah. So therefore, I would say for your health, for everybody else around you's happiness, it sounds like it's a good idea.

You do stuff with people. So we should celebrate that instead of being like, do you know what though, Emily, you didn't really do a good job today 'cause you need you, you got snacks from other people. So actually that was a bit of a rubbish job. Yeah. 

Emily: But I, like I say, I find, I find the sort of pervasive idea that you have to be achieving something in the outdoors.

Really, really interesting. I don't know quite why it has so much power and dominance, because, I mean, there's no doubt that all of these , peaks of physical achievement are. Peaks of physical achievement, but that is all they are. 

Rhona: That's what exactly they are that, yeah. Yeah. 

Emily: And that's not to take anything away from the people who clearly dedicate vast amounts of their time and resources to doing it.

But it's not the reality for the vast majority of people. And I, I just think that if as the outdoors community, we want to bring more people into it, we have to change what we're talking about slightly. Yeah. And include things that seem inspirational to people who are not yet in the outdoors.

If you are intimidated by the idea of going for an hour long walk on footpaths, because you've never really read a map before and you're not quite sure if you can walk that far 'cause you've never done it. Then being presented with the idea that, oh, I don't know, completing, I don't know, the Skye Ridge in eight hours or whatever it is, that's the record, is what being a true outdoorsy person means.

It just seems so far from your place that it actually puts you off starting, it becomes a barrier rather than an inspiration. So like everybody is always inspired by people who were like one or two or three levels above them. So if you are already really into the outdoors, then some of these massive, great big adventures can seem really inspirational.

But actually, if you are like seven or eight levels different to that person, it just seems so unattainable. Yes. That you are put off by it. 

Rhona: Yeah. I agree. And I think if you think that that's what all of everybody in the outdoors is doing, yeah. Then you think that, well, I'm not gonna be able to join in on that.

Emily: And it's like, you know, you go to, for example, you go to a cycling club. Right. And you go on a social ride with a cycling club. oh my words. 

Rhona: It's not, they should, the word social shouldn't be in there. It confuses me. Yeah. I mean it's 

Emily: like, okay, if your social ride is going, uh, an average of 16 to 17 miles an hour, it's not social ror 98% population in the UK.

Rhona: No, it's not, you know, it's not even sociable for people who are genuinely really good as well. Often 

Emily: it's, and, and that was at the point where I was cycling really regularly. I was regularly doing, you know, quite high volume of cycling, maybe a hundred miles a week.

I'm not afraid of distance and I'm not afraid of bit of effort, but I was like, there is still no ride offered by my local cycling club that I can keep up with. Yeah. Because. I can average 13 miles an hour and I know that,, and again, it comes down to like, what are all these sports clubs for?

And don't get me started on the let's fund sport to make the population more active, rant like somehow we have to broaden the definition of sport Yeah. To remove competitiveness from half of it. Yeah. I was traumatised by PE at school. I hated it. Um, I was quite good at music, so I used to tactically organise instrument lessons to miss. As much of it as I could. Um, was quite talented at shot put, but that was my only talent.

Rhona: Um, you still had a talent That's great. That's least, yeah, 

Emily: it was, don't talk to me about high jump. Oh my God. But you know, why are you traumatising children who are not sporty by making them do high jump? Yeah. It's like surely core PE at school should be about teaching people to enjoy or experience a variety of movement in their bodies.

And watching my son grow up primary school, lots of sports clubs feel very focused on participation. You know, mixed boys and girls, um, every so often there would be like, oh, there's a competition coming up. So we will select a few people to go as team. But then it's almost like the minute you get into secondary school, it all becomes actually quite competitive.

Yeah. And quite selective. Yeah. And he's lucky because he is really sporty and he wants to do football and he's always chosen to be on the team, but on a societal level that cannot be beneficial. We fund sports clubs both to produce athletes that can feed into elite program, but we are also relying on them to deliver mass participation in activity.

Rhona: Yeah.

Emily: It's just not gonna work. 

Rhona:No, I think a lot about this. Whose responsibility is it?, I think about so individually. I do believe we all have a bit of responsibility to look after ourselves, but we can't take all the responsibility if the access and the services and stuff isn't there.

I think if you take cycling, as an example, if I already am lucky enough to have the basics and I have a bike, do I know where to cycle? Do, am I able to read a map? Well, is it my responsibility to have to learn that or should somebody provide the services for that? I don't know. It is a, it is a complicated, situation.

Is it the cycling club's responsibility to make sure there's definitely a ride that I can go on. I, again, I don't know, maybe that's not the service they provide, but then who is providing that service and who's thinking about that? And then is it just some random person's responsibility to step up and make that space for everybody?

But like, why did that have to be on them? Yeah. And, and and do they then have to carry that forever?

Emily: Yes. I mean I started a cycling club for mums at primary school. Nice. Right. And when we started, I can remember maybe two or three months in, we cycled 20 miles.

And that was a really big achievement for a lot of people. 

Rhona: That is a big one

Emily: Then later on that year we cycled to Cromarty for lunch and back and that was 50 miles. Whoa. That's really big. And it was a massive amount of chat about pants under cycling shorts before we went on that ride. 'cause a lot of people bought cycling shorts and I was like, you can't wear pants underneath them.

And they were scandalised 

Rhona: this, I have to say. And anybody who's come into cycling as a woman will have faced this conversation topic at some point and potentially had their mind blown. 

Emily: Yeah, absolutely. I really remember it in advance. One of, one of, one of them was like, my husband is scandalised by the fact that there are 15 women with no pants on today.

Rhona: We're not for people who call trousers pants, by the way. We mean they're gonna be wearing like shorts. They're not got nothing on their bottoms underwear. Yeah. 

Emily: But, and so, and a lot of us got really into it for some reason we decided we'd do Ride the North, which is 180 miles in two days. I'm not quite sure.

Yeah. I'm quite sure why we decided we were all gonna do that, but, oh, well Julie had done it before. That's why we all decided we were gonna do it. Um, so a lot of us got really keen and that is still my core group of friends. And you know, like I've made the best friends. But with, you know, circumstances have changed.

We've all got different jobs. We don't all have Fridays free to do a bike ride every Friday. So it's fallen a little bit by the wayside now. But , that has still resulted in me having an active group of friends and you can just go out and build that, it's hard work. Yes, very. Um, and you've got to stick out, like being the person who turns up every week, even though there's only two or three other people there because it's raining and, you know, so 

Rhona: that's interesting, isn't it?

I think, oh, it's super hard because now we come back to this set. Are we taking achievement out of it fully? Um, I was thinking, as you said those things, I realised that I reacted very positively to the fact that you, the group existed. I think That's awesome. That was, that's my main positive reaction.

Yeah. But then as you said, numbers for distances, you guys did, I reacted really positive. And I was like, yeah, it just was a gut, it was just like an automatic reaction. But again, 

Emily: that was, none of that really fell under the definition of type two fun. 

Rhona: No, 

Emily: all type one. So, you know, so again, it's that thing that you can, you can challenge yourself.

Yes. Like physically and test your limits and learn new things about your body without being miserable. Yeah, exactly. So we are all going to cycle as a big group. We are gonna stick together. We're gonna stop and drink and have little breaks along the way. We're gonna sit down in a restaurant and have pizza for lunch halfway round.

Yes. Are they gonna feel sick? That gets the biggest Yes. Slightly sick cycling up the hill outta Cromarty afterwards. , I just think that there is a, there is a softer, gentler way to. Challenge yourself and learn things about yourself. Yes. Than becoming totally focused on what a, you know, because by probably broad definitions of cycling success, we didn't cycle that fast.

Rhona: No. But that sounds like that those bits were an achievement. Yeah, absolute. The people who did it. And so there is a, we don't, you know, achievement doesn't have to become this, I guess, bad word either. It's just so complicated. It just has to be something that makes you feel good. And there is definitely something in achieving something physically that you thought maybe you couldn't do.

You, the confidence you gain in your whole life from doing something like that can be huge.

Emily:. And most people are way more capable than they believe they are in the outdoors. 

Rhona: Yeah. I think basically everybody, even, even really, really, even the people who are pushing themselves right to the limits are probably can do even more.

It's normally our brain that stops us a long time before our bodies. Yeah, absolutely. 

Emily: And so that's all about self-efficacy, which is something I only learned about this year. 

Rhona: Uhhuh, tell me more. 

Emily: So self-efficacy, is a sister to self-esteem. So self-esteem is your, innate belief in yourself, your self worth and your self as a person.

Whereas self-efficacy is your belief in yourself as capable to do a task. Okay. So it is task specific and context specific. So you might have an abundance of self-efficacy in some areas of your life and much less in other areas of your life. Um, it's not something you hear about very much. No. Uh, it's apparently something I have in spades and I regularly get myself into quite a lot of trouble by believing that I can do all sorts of things, not do them.

But, it is something that a lot of people in the outdoors, women especially, and I mean I do a lot of. Advocacy for the plus-sized community. And I think that somewhere where people really are lacking in that. And there's lots of, it's a well studied topic. There's lots of proven ways that you can improve people's self-efficacy.

And one of the ways that is really effective is seeing and hearing about people like them doing things. Yeah. And I mean, the most effective one is being taught to do it and, and doing it. Yeah. You know, so the more you do stuff, the more you believe you can do it. But you've got to lead people into that situation.

And the first step is often seeing someone who they identify with personally doing it. and that's where that idea is sparked. I think that's why I've got so passionate about how, which stories are chosen to be told, and why they're chosen to be told.

Rhona: Yeah. I think there's so much value in that.

I mean, yeah, basically , the two things that have driven most of what I've done in the last few years are the, that I think that there is a failing on, we can all be happier and healthier if we have access to the outdoors and movement. But also there is this, you can't be what you can't see thing that is just so true.

You just can't imagine that something is possible. And right now, the kind of women's football revolution is absolutely showing that, isn't it? All these, yeah. Like I'm constantly hearing about young girls who now who, 

Emily: aI am way more interested in women's football than I'm in men's football.

Rhona: Oh yeah. 

Emily: Mostly because my son is slightly disparaging about it and I'm just like, well, I'm not listening to your stupid men football. I'm only going to talk about women's football.

But, you know, and I think representation is like that. Why is there such a lack of diversity in the outdoors? Because historically it was presented as being, or again, the correct way of being outdoors was presented as being something that was probably relatively middle to upper class and only accessible if you had loads of money.

You know, we go back to Victorian times. All sorts of people went outdoors, but that wasn't presented or talked about or written about in books. They just went outdoors because they worked outdoors or they had to walk from A to B. And all of those things are really important.

And anyway, I, I still think that if you want to improve activity levels on a population basis, we have to change the infrastructure of the places that we live. 

Rhona: Oh yeah. We just need to make the world a less friendly for cars and more friendly for everything else. 

Emily: Absolutely. I spend a lot of my time talking about that which I think also brings back to the other bit that I think that's often not talked about, that outdoorsy, sort of podcasty things, is that we almost, again we've spoken loads about all of the massive benefits of being outside but you not that often hear about the great playground of the outdoors is not just a playground, it's a place that's suffering and under threat.

Yeah. And I think it's kind of incumbent on our all us all to take. Some interest and advocacy and actually preferably practical action. Yeah. In doing something to contribute to making that a little bit better. And so that's been for me, immensely rewarding in the last few years. 

Rhona: Yeah. Well I was, yeah, we kind of earlier talked about, we were talking about where you live and we both live in, well, I think it's anamazing and very lucky place to live, uh, up in Inverness.

Where you live has a lot of impact on that right here we have the outdoors thrown in our faces. Yeah. Um, so you can't really not care about it. And you also, , have insanely easy access to it. And a lot of people who are here moved here for it. So how much do you think where you are positioned, which for many people is not something they're lucky enough to choose, makes a difference to your ability to enjoy being outside or be active?

Emily: Well, again, I think this is, you know, this is when we come down to the difference between sport and activity. Activity is really, really, really vital. But fundamentally, a, you know, 40, 50% of the population may be engaged in sport. The other 40 or 50% don't have the time or the resources.

And it's not a choice. It's a lack of facilities, lack of time, lack of money, lack of mental energy, because everything's hard work and so it's like, well, how at a population level, unless you are embedding activity into your everyday life, you're not gonna change it.

Rhona: Of course. 

Emily: So, but you can take that on a more individualised level. Well, why is driving somewhere to go for a walk up, a specific hill that's on a list. So much more venerated than being able to fit in a 45 minute wander round the path that you can go to, you know, round the park.

And I think this is where all the different ways of engaging with the outside are really important. It's why like I've been campaigning for years for Play Streets. 'cause I think it like doorstep play is a really vital part childhood development. And I think people should have the power to be able to close their road for a couple of hours to let children play on it.

Yeah, I love that idea. Then you know, also maybe possibly my next campaign parklets are amazing. The idea you can take a parking space, which quite frankly is the. Biggest waste of urban space ever. Um, and transform it into a place where people can grow something, meet, socialise, talk to them, and it's like these kind of smaller interventions in urban areas, they're gonna be really important in engaging.

And those sorts of things can act as a spark and maybe somebody's inspired to do something else afterwards. Yeah. And I spend a lot of my time campaigning about it. The research is irrefutable Yes. 

Rhona: As often as it is with all these kind of things.  

Emily: Yeah absolutely. And it's just like we're lacking in the political courage to do it.

Rhona: Yeah. Yeah. 

Emily: I said, somebody said the other day, we were talking about climate anxiety and it was actually a really good point. And it's like, I don't actually, it's the same, I don't feel stressed so much by. Climate change and the climate as by the lack of political will to do anything about it.

Yeah. And so actually I've decided that I no longer have climate anxiety. I have political inaction, anxiety because quite frankly, the people who we are voting in spend more time listening to large corporations and business interests, and they do acting in the interests of the population that they're supposed to represent.

Rhona: Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? I think may, I think I feel the same way there. I think I have political anxiety about all subjects. Yeah, absolutely. But 

Emily: you know, it's like the, the evidence is a refutable yet we're not changing how we act. 

Rhona: Oh, I know, but I know, and it's always the same with these set.

It's always the same in these things. , The sort of best guaranteed way to cure, uh, somebody's high blood pressure is to do some activity? 

Emily: Yeah. 

Rhona: But it's so, so much easier to hand people out tablets. 

Emily: Yeah. 

Rhona: And that doesn't cure your blood pressure. It means you're on tablets for the rest of your life and it's gonna be really annoying and probably I'm gonna cause you side effects and loads of issues.

Emily: Yeah. But people go to the doctor for a quick fix, not to be told to make effort. Yeah. 

Rhona: But we've co but, but, but our society has caused that issue. If it was a normal thing that people thought that you would go to the doctor and you would get sent home with an exercise plan, then maybe people would be open to the idea.

Or if it was just a nice, if there was a draw to do it, if there was a nice space to do it. If there was a, a way that it made their life more efficient, you know, if cycling to work was the more efficient way. 

Emily: Yeah. Or even just apparently safe way. I mean that's, that's the big thing for all of this. But I think it's really interesting when you start drilling into that.

So there's lots of research that the, over the past 80 to 90 years, the amount of time people spend commuting to work has not changed dramatically, but the distance people commute to work has increased. Ooh, interesting. Yeah. So people are always willing to make a sort of time sacrifice to travel to work.

And by building more roads and making car travel easier, all people do is choose to live further away from work. So they're interesting, lock themselves into car dependency. , This is what I mean by society, like political inactivity. Like why are we not taxing large cars out of commonplace existence on our roads?

Why are we not have graduated parking charges? You know, all of these things. That would make absolute sense if you were focused on population health and population safety. So I think it's very important to recognise that people make choices within a system that is stacked against them doing the best things.

Rhona: Yeah, definitely. You're already kind of at a disadvantage. 

Emily: Yeah. 

Rhona: Even if we take out actual sport and we just say, let's move more. 

Emily: Yeah. But yeah. But the fact that PE that every time somebody in the government says, oh, population needs to be more active. They fund sport because they're fobbing themselves off from having to make different choices in other areas.

Rhona: Are you still a bicycle mayor? 

Emily: I am still a bicycle mayor of Inverness. 

Rhona: Wonderful. Um, do you have a, a term, how does it work? 

Emily: Um, I've just come from my second. I'm starting on my second two year term. Wonderful. Um, I think it's very much something that, yeah, there is a two year term, but I think it probably just rolls over.

Unless you can think of somebody else, you would,I don't think there's a queue of other people knocking on the door to be in Inverness' bicycle, mayor. Darn it. Darn it. Um, yes. Um, no, I enjoy it actually. It's, it is been really rewarding. 

Rhona: But is it sometimes. I, I am, I can totally see where the reward would be, but I could also imagine that sometimes it could be quite banging your head against the wall, or are you, well, 

Emily: again, it is, yes.

I've banged my head against plenty of walls, but I have also achieved some things. That's really good. This is very nice. The first thing that I campaigned on was the Riverside Way. It was a very narrow vote to keep that and to make it into permanent cycle scheme.

Wow. Um, academy Street was unfortunately, totally derailed by legal action, by the shopping centre. 

Rhona: Um, and so, so that was to basically make a really busy polluted street. More access, well, less busy and polluted with car vehicles. 

Emily: So basically it was to introduce a short section of bus lane in the middle of it so that.

While you could still access the whole of the town centre by car, you would not be able to use that street as a through route. 

Rhona: Okay. Which makes sense, right. In the, the centre where there's lots of pedestrians and people with bikes. 

Emily: Apparently not. 

Rhona: Apparently not. No. I'm sure. 

Emily: No. Yeah. Sorry. I'm so mistaken.

Yeah. Um, so, but yeah, you know, there, there's still lots, like I say there, there is now, there is now a Highland Play Street scheme. 

Rhona: Yeah. I love that. That's brilliant. That's 

Emily: taken that out. Six years of campaigning. 

Rhona: Six years. Wow. But it's a big win for us. Six years 

Emily: and a traffic management qualification. 

Rhona: No way.

What does that qualify you to do? 

Emily: Uh, it qualifies me to design and implement traffic management for community events. 

Rhona: Oh,

Emily: so interesting. I am equipped with enough traffic signs to close the street. 

Rhona: How did you, um. Access that qualification, 

Emily: uh, that was very kindly funded by the active travel team.

Nice. In the council. So good. Possibly mistakenly trained, a few cycle activists and traffic management. So we now go around diligently monitoring temporary traffic measures for their compliance with the pedestrian rules. 

Rhona: Brilliant. 

Emily: Tape measure. Is your best friend 

Rhona: and is the council regretting this? 

Emily: Yeah, I think some other bits of the council might be.

I think we're fine. It's not a meter of clear space on the pavement next to this sign. You will need to move it into the road. 

Rhona: Brilliant.

Emily: But yeah, so like I say play Street's a magic. And again, you talk about this thing about activity and community and all these and making that available to all places. If you close a road to cars. Even very briefly. So we, we are closing the road for two hours on a Sunday. Um, and you give over that space to children to do whatever they want.

It is actually genuinely magic how the atmosphere of the street changes. And I think it's one of those things that's actually really important because it's not, it's pretty non-confrontational. We've not had, you know, there's one street that we've been sort of pursuing as a, as a trial street.

It's reasonably busy because it's got car park at the end of it. Ah. Um, but it is still like a minor . Road. But you totally change the sound, the atmosphere, the feel, everything. And I think it's actually really important to let more people. Feel the benefits of a lower traffic environment. 'cause I guess you get caught up in campaigning and you get totally into this idea that if there were fewer cars, the world would be a better place.

But, and on a personal level, I'm willing to put up with quite a lot of inconvenience in that to pursue that goal. Yeah. And I see the benefits of that. Yes. You know, yes. It's maybe slightly less energy to do your shopping by car, but actually it's an awful lot more fun to do it by cargo bike.

Um, you know, I love turning up on a cargo bike to places where people expect you to have a car and not having a car. 

Rhona: Yeah. But that's really fun actually. So like 

Emily: one of my favourite ones is going to the local agricultural merchants for my chicken feed. And there's no cycle parking there. And so every time I go there, I tell them that they should maybe get some kind of parking.

And they tell me that I'm the only person who cycles. And then they're very, very specific in the car park that you should reverse park. So I reverse park my bike in the middle of one of the car, one of the, uh, parking spaces. And then you again order your sack of feed and they bring them out to you by forklift truck.

So you reverse park and there's a little forklift truck delivery of all the things that you paid for. And then look at your bike. And then they're like, yes, I would like that in there. And sometimes they ask if they want me to empty the sack of feed into my panniers, to which the answer is no. The whole sack will fit in.

Just put it in. And then sometimes they're very worried because if I've only bought one sack, they think that I might be quite unbalanced. I might not be able to manage, but I'm like, alright, I'm about to go and do some other shopping, just round the corner to fill up the other one. 

Rhona: This sounds so entertaining

Emily:It's so fun, so, so entertaining. Cracks me up. And then keeping people on their tails. So the other one you can do. So the actually the easiest larger supermarket cycle to from here mm-hmm. Is the one on the A 96. Yeah. 'cause you can go through all the little cycle bridges and the pedestrian crossings and take back cuties.

It's quite quiet. So I quite often order my shopping online and go to click and collect on a bike. 

Rhona: I bet. They're just like, why didn't you get it delivered to your house? Yeah, absolutely. So they're just like, why? You're just doing this to prove a point? Yeah. I 

Emily: say I'm doing it to prove point and it makes me very satisfied to do it.

Uh, you can, I have discovered tie quite a lot of lumber to the side of a cargo bike. When you're b& q take, take again much to some people's consternation. Yeah. 

Rhona: I love this. I love this. I have been telling my husband for a while that in the n plus one of bikes, the next one is a cargo bike. It 

Emily: absolutely must be a cargo.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Rhona: I really especially think this because we have a dog and it really annoys me sometimes that we wanna take the dog somewhere. Um, at the moment it's you that's further than, we can walk. Yeah. Then we have to take the car. And I just, that, that does kind of frustrate me.

Emily:  I again, cargo bike, electric cargo bike. One of the most joyous things I have brought into my life. Sounds so good. Whizzing around town because there are so many journeys that are not actually that long or not actually that fast that you do because you need to carry more than you can fit.

Rhona: . Okay, so you have managed to curate a life where you have quite a lot of flexibility. You're working on these projects that.

Also get, help other people get, uh, rest days in their life where they get, they get to access the outdoors, they get to enjoy being active. Um, what were the, what were the bumpy points along the road where you, you worked out that this was what was important? 

Emily: Um, uh, lots, I guess. Uh, so I guess we are at a point in our lives where we are reaping the rewards of having been very sensible when we were younger.

I graduated from university. I didn't have a year out. I got a job and I was very sensible. And then I had the same job for nearly 20 years. Um, and similarly, my husband's had quite a. Sensible career, and I gave up two weeks into the first lockdown. So I was already reasonably disenchanted with my life.

And then three of us stuck in this house trying to work, two of us trying to work and homeschool our child. It was like, okay, the wheels have massively fallen off and this is like this, it was just like, this is completely unsustainable. So I, I gave up really soon into that. 

Rhona: I have a lot of respect though, that you didn't go two years further and find yourself in a much deeper, darker hole.

Emily: Uh, honestly, it was, it was awful. Okay. It was like, I, I would say that that safely say, uh, that has had was after a number of quite. Stressful years. Mm. So my, my husband's mother had brain cancer and died. Oh gosh. And they were in the czech republic, my, my dad who I didn't have much contact with. But anyway, he died like the Christmas just before that lockdown.

And so, you know, and we've been staying for a long time. We just want a year when nothing big happens, code and then a global pandemic happens. And then a pandemic happens. And we were like, we still haven't had that yet. So we were both, we were both pretty at the end of our tether at that point. So that's when I gave up my, sensible engineering job.

AndI did sort of say, I just can't do this while there's lockdown. And then two years later I was like, no, I'm never coming back. I'm never doing that again. Um, and because it was lockdown and we weren't doing anything. Actually financially that was fine. Yeah. You know, like, yeah. Yeah. So there's a, I guess a realisation that really crystallised then that you, what you expect to be able to do grows with the amount of money that you earn.

And that you don't have to tie yourself to that forever. You can choose less and work less.

Rhona: and sometimes for your own sustainable life

Emily: it's made me think very differently about things. And so we recently had a big splurge holiday, which we maybe do every eight or nine years, and it was amazing.

So we had a really amazing time, but it cost us lots of thousands of pounds and. When I think about it, I'm like, oh, that was actually would've been five months work. You know what I mean? It's like when you start distilling these things down. I was like, that holiday was absolutely amazing, but would I rather do that or not work for five months?

Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I quite often, like more and more I'm coming down on the side of, I would rather just not work. Yeah. And so actually like deciding quite proactively to do without things mm-hmm. Gives you a lot more. Flexibility and freedom. 

Rhona: I think that's so interesting. 'cause I think we're driven automatically into this.

Right. You know, follow the path, do the next step. Study till the point you need the thing, do the job, the full-time job. And if you work less than full-time, what are you doing? Why would you, you know? Yeah. Nonsense. You know, you, so 

Emily: my husband really struggles with that because he's working two and a half days a week.

Yeah. And he's constantly like, I feel like I should work more yeah. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, but I feel like I should work more. And I'm like, why? Just go out on your bike? Yeah. Yeah. 

Rhona: I struggle with that because I have a contract for three days a week.

I end up working the other two days. But because I can't say to people that like it's, you know, that I officially. F definitely work those two days a week. I feel like such a fraud to people as you know, I feel very uncomfortable about it. And I'm like, why do I feel so uncomfortable about this? What? And it's like, 

Emily: you know, I was say to Francis, it's like you've got to the position where you are an expert in your field and he, 

Rhona: yeah, he, he, you 

Emily: should feel 

Rhona: chill about it because, you know, he's worked for a lot longer than I have.

Yeah. So you've got, you've 

Emily: got 20 years of like experience that's led to you being able to do this. So just do it. 

Rhona: But something has made us believe that we should be like, and 

Emily: I, I still find it quite confronting, not having. A job. Yeah. But working on projects, some of which might make me money later on, some of which make me a little bit of money now

Rhona: but if they don't make you money, that doesn't, that shouldn't matter.

Again, this is like a, some kind of weird achievement thing that's come out. 'cause I, I think that is a very interesting, I have no doubt how I'm having met you fairly briefly, that you are always working on something. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure of that. But whether or not those are things that society validates, I don't know.

That's not, you know, but yeah. This is just, but that's where it's super complicated and I think, it's the same thing in all of the parts of our life. We're expected to always be working to the absolute most to, but, but that's 

Emily: another really interesting game is, is if you meet somebody or introduce, or as a challenge to people, is to introduce yourself by not defining yourself as any ofthe things that you do.

Yeah. And it is actually really challenging. To, oh, what do you do? I'm an engineer and I'm like, to not have that easy answer was, was quite difficult. Um, but, but you know, there's, there's loads of, you know, sometimes we sit back and go, oh, we're really lucky. And I said, well, there's loads of choices that go in that we live in a slightly unfit house that we've had for 25 years.

And moving house to another bigger house is really expensive. And I've watched a lot of our friends go, well, we can afford a bigger house. And it's like, but, 

Rhona: but do you need to move to a bigger house? 

Emily: You know, but what are you giving up? 

Rhona: Yeah, yeah. To 

Emily: get a bigger house and what you're giving up is freedom from a mortgage.

Yeah. So, you know, we will live in a slightly cramped, slightly not fixed house mm-hmm. Because it gives us freedom in other aspects. Yeah. Um, and that and a bigger house would just be more cleaning. Yeah. More places to put things, more places to lose things and more tidying up, more things that need to be fixed, not interested in.

Yeah. It's really hard to just say, actually this is enough.

I'm not sure that many people have this conversation about like, what am I spending money on?

What does it cost me to earn the money in terms of freedom? Yeah. And. Could I be more free by having less? 

Rhona: Yeah. I really, I think that's super interesting and so topical for this. It might not be a specific rest day activity, but this is all about the balance in our life and how we're looking after ourselves.

Are we just endlessly chasing something for a reason we don't really understand that it's actually taking away from us and stopping us from being able to be as healthy and happy as we could be. 

Emily: Yeah. 

Rhona: There's a lot of that and, 

Emily: and you know, I mean, it's like, it's like the catch 22 now that I don't have a job that I have to go to every day.

Um, and we have more time and we spend less money. Yeah because you don't have, you don't ever get in a rush and have to go and buy yourself lunch somewhere. We cook from scratch for the majority of our things. Because what we wanted to do that anyway, we didn't have time or energy to do it before.

Rhona: yeah, so all, it's not even just in giving yourself time to do some activities, you're also able to now make yourself eat better by the sounds of things. Yeah. There's so many extra little wins that you gained yourself. Absolutely. And we are, uh, but as a society, we're generally being conned out of because we are told you need to do.

Yeah. Well I think that this whole ethos has kind of brought us back around to the 75% type one.

I think your life, you've managed to, I think you've pretty much embodied it well in, in your life, I'd say. Yes. Um, and, and I, I appreciate that you're practicing what you preach. That is always a good start. Sometimes I like to find out if that's the truth of behind news. Great message is, is it achievable?

Well, yes it is apparently so. Um, I really, really appreciate everything you have told us about your life, about your ideas. Um, and I think that I will be taking the, uh, 75% type one into a lot of the stuff I do.

Emily: I think it's really worth asking when you go out in the morning and you're like, I've got a day and I'm gonna do something.

What, at this point will bring me the most joy. Yeah. Because we are all, quite frankly, lacking in joy in life in general at the moment. And I think if you can go and find some in a non-destructive way in the outdoors, then that is the way forward. 

Rhona: Thank you, Emily. That's, uh, that is great.

Great advice.