Last updated
05 February 2012
Quest for the Good Life 
About us -
The title of the site sounds very mysterious, or hark back to the TV days of the “Good Life”. To a degree there is some truth in all of that.
There has to be an element of rose tinted spectacles. Looking back at lifestyles and the way the countryside worked does play an important role in what we do today.
“But you can’t keep looking backwards . . . You have to move on”.
Yes indeed, but not all that we move on to is better. Progress is not necessarily improvement. Some elements of past life were tough too. Perhaps we’re picking the best of both worlds, past and present!
There is a mysterious curiosity about living this lifestyle. For many of us in our sterile communities, modern homes, commuting lifestyles and remoteness from the natural world, we have lost touch with food production and in many cases the hard work it can take. Although our healthcare is better, our fitness isn’t. As a world we are consuming resources at rates much higher than necessary. Is this really the progress we should be making?
We are David & Debi Harmston. Husband and wife team living in our modest semi detached cottage in the Lincolnshire countryside. A reasonably sized garden (0.25 acre) with some potential to grow our own food (or most of it). We are under no illusions of farming or small holding. We simply want to do the best for us from the limited resources we have. If we can share that with others and someone else picks up a spade and plants some potatoes for the first time then that would be one of the most rewarding things we have ever done. It’s not about selfishness, it’s not about greed, it’s not about trying to out compete the neighbours. It is simply to have enough to live a good lifestyle in an environment that is less stressful and to let others race around chasing the things they think they need, but really don’t.
In a way it’s reaching some kind of spiritual (not necessarily religious) awakening that makes you realise what is important in life. The global economic clutter is not something to aspire to. To be able to rise above it and live a simple but more fulfilling lifestyle is really what the Quest for the Good Life is all about.
We would love to hear from other people like ourselves who aspire to producing more of their own food. Any interesting stories could be published on the site.
To email us you can use the email address below. Anyone who has their email links on the internet knows that spammers can auto detect your email address on your site and then start sending rubbish to your in box. We don’t want that so we do a simple trick.
In our email address we have inserted the word “[remove]”. If this is left in then the email address won’t work (i.e the spammers can’t get through).
All you have to do is when your email program starts up and our address appears, just go to it and delete the word [remove]. Then it will work (oh and don’t forget to remove the brackets as well !).
So our email address is . . .
Questforthe[remove]goodlife@gmail.com
Many thanks and we look forward to hearing from you.