Hard lessons in Hatherleigh

I headed off to my next host with high hopes of learning more new skills: he worked with wood, doing carvings and making charcoal and also worked the land with heavy horses. I was very excited at the prospect of spending a month learning new things and above all, working with the horses.

It didn't take long to drive from Launceston to Hatherleigh and I arrived just before lunch and was taken to my new quarters - a mobile home. I knew it was a mobile home before I applied to come and I had also made sure that it had heating. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that there were lots of other questions I should have asked, such as:

Does it have a functioning loo? No - the loo is located across a muddy yard in which two large pigs free range, over a three-pole barrier, across another muddy yard, round the back of the house and through the back door. This is also where the washing facilities are housed - there is no hot water in the mobile home:

Am I the sole WWOOFer? No - there are three other people here already, one a young lad will be sharing the mobile home with you and the couple have a timber hut but that is only for sleeping in, for the rest of the time they are also in the mobile home:

Are all meals provided? No - breakfast and lunch are self-catered using food provided (sliced cheap bread, tinned sausages-with-baked-beans, chicken meatballs in tomato sauce, etc.etc - you get the picture) and most evening meals are eaten in the farmhouse with the family.

Will I be involved in the woodwork business? No - there are two full-time employees as well as Ben, so there are no opportunities for WWOOFers to get really involved.

Will I be able to learn to work the heavy horses? No - the horses are not being used at the moment as it is the wrong time of year so they are out in a paddock during the day and in at night.

I was rather disillusioned, as you can imagine, when the young Hobbit inhabiting one end of the mobile home filled me in on all of the above. At least the three WWOOFers were friendly but I think they were a bit taken aback by the arrival of this middle-aged woman who asked lots of questions and didn't particularly want to watch back-to-back Rugby matches on the TV! We were all a little dismayed when one of the chaps revealed that it was liver for supper and he knew for a fact that it had been in the fridge for ten days! They asked how long I would keep fresh liver in the fridge and I said about a week at the most and then I'd need to see it and smell it to check it was still OK. We headed over to the house when the horn was sounded to summon us and I tried to take the smaller bits of liver, working on the theory that they would be the most thoroughly cooked - I wished I'd said I was vegetarian now.

After supper, we washed up and headed back to the caravan and I was furnished with a bucket by the youngsters in case I needed to 'go' during the night, which I thought was very kind of them. The Hobbit also lent me his hot water bottle. However, any number of hot water bottles would have been needed to air that bed - all of the bedclothes were really damp and clammy. I slept in my pyjamas and dressing gown and was still cold and uncomfortable.

At 5.30am I woke up and thought long and hard about what I was going to do - I could be intrepid once more and put up with the conditions for a whole month, or I could leave. By the time dawn arrived I had decided to admit defeat and acknowledge what I am - a middle-aged, middle-class woman who likes some creature comforts including a dry bed.

When my host came over in the morning and offered me the chance to ride one of the Shire horses it took me all of 30 seconds to decline the offer and tell him I was leaving. For anyone who has known me for a while, you will realise how much I would have loved to ride one of those gentle giants, but not enough to stay another moment longer than I had to.

I repacked my car and drove out of the yard without even changing out of my wellies, so desperate was I to leave. I stopped about a mile away where I had some reception and phoned Jo and James whose parting words to me had been 'If you ever find somewhere that you don't want to stay, come back, we'll always fit you in somehow'. I just hoped that they had meant what they said. Their phone was on answerphone so I left a message and headed back to Launceston. Nathaniel showed no surprise at my reappearance as Jo had already rung him to let him know I was on my way back and to tell me that it was fine. We had a bit of lunch (I hadn't stopped for breakfast) and then I had a soak in a hot bath and clambered back into my warm, dry bed where I stayed for the next three hours. It was only then that I realised that in my one day away I had probably caught a cold and been given food poisoning! I had lasted precisely 22 hours in Hatherleigh (I'm sure there's a song in there somewhere!). Now I had to regroup and decide where I went from here..........

Learning a new skill in Launceston

When I first arrived at Launceston there were two other WWOOFers already here, so after I'd been shown to my room in the luxurious barn conversion(!) I went out to help them in the soon-to-be-revamped vegetable garden, digging out tree roots and dismantling an old wildlife pond that was in the wrong place. Rosie and Gus cooked supper that night as they were leaving the next day, so I was a bit disconcerted when Jo and James asked me if I was OK to look after things while they went away for a couple of days, starting the next day! Luckily for me there are not many animals left on the farm as they have decided to scale down their farming a bit to give themselves some time off in the winter, so all I had to look after were about 60 sheep, one cow and calf, some chickens, three collie dogs and several cats including 4 kittens. Aaah!

I must admit that it felt very strange to suddenly find myself alone after spending the last three weeks as part of a family, but I lit the log-burning stove in the evening and closed all the curtains and then settled down with a good book and it wasn't too bad, although I was quite relieved when they came home again. WWOOFers aren't expected to work at weekends here so it was almost as if I'd had four days off in the first five that I was here. On the Saturday I went for a walk in the woods at the end of the farm that drop down to the river hoping to see the two deer that the farm dogs had chased the day before but although I thought I heard them I failed to catch site of them. James also tells me that there are kingfishers by the pond and evidence of otters - now that is something I would love to see.

Another WWOOFer arrived on Saturday - he's a young Californian with English parents who is over here for about a year and wants to do a couple of long-term WWOOFs. He is very pleasant and we have had some good laughs, mainly taking the rise out of each other. We spent most of the following week laying the hedges in the vegetable garden - a new skill, at last! However, when I said I wanted to learn hedgelaying I hadn't reckoned on the hedges being on top of five foot banks! Physically it was quite challenging as I was trying to use a bow saw and loppers at shoulder height which is not easy. In the end I used a folding handsaw which was a bit easier but I still had aching shoulders by the end of the day. One of the bonuses of thinning out the hazel prior to laying it was the large amount of brash that was produced that we had to burn on a bonfire. Woohoo! Unfortunately, Nathaniel is not allowed bonfires in California because of the risk of forest fires, so I felt it would be mean not to let him do most of the fire-poking - in fact he has definite pyromaniac tendencies too and we got on like a house on fire!!

The weather has been very changeable since I've been here with quite heavy rain overnight giving way to bright, crisp mornings that make you feel good to be alive. I've found myself on several occasions just grinning with the sheer joy of being out in the fresh air on a beautiful, sunny day - but it's best to have your waterproofs handy as the weather can change dramatically in the course of the day. Overnight on Tuesday the wind got up to gale force and the rain lashed down, so that I hardly slept a wink, but in the morning it was calm again and we continued with the hedgelaying - the bonfire was still going, too. Later on we all walked down to the river as we could hear it rushing from up at the farm and James thought it might have burst its banks. It was a raging torrent and had covered the entire bottom pasture that I'd walked across a few days earlier and floated the little bridge across the drainage ditch off its piers. By the next morning it had completely receded again.

On the Friday evening, Jo and James took me to Lezant church where there was a concert in aid of the roof fund. It featured a husband and wife who sang various light classical songs accompanied by a pianist, and a very talented young pianist and organist. The programme was very varied and included a medley of songs from Les Miserables, 'Bless your beautiful hide' from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and the Flanders and Swann song 'I'm a Gnu'! The finale was the organist playing some Handel on the little church organ and I had to smile at the memory that came back unbidden of accompanying my first boyfriend, Jeremy, to a little church just outside Cheltenham where he sometimes played the organ for Sunday service - the pedals of the organ made the same clacking sound that was so loud that it almost drowned out the music being played! It was a very pleasant end to my stay here as I was off to Hatherleigh the next day and Jo and James were off to a family christening.

A Public Performance and a Hiccup in the Itinerary!

On the last Friday that I was at Lee we headed off to The Grampus for open mic night as usual but, unusually it was very quiet (possibly because it was Bonfire Night although more likely to do with the appalling weather). The usual suspects were there - Bill, the landlord who is an inspired fiddle player and Mark an incredibly gifted guitar player who, I suspect, has perfect pitch. They were joined by two guys who both played the bodrun (Irish drum) and a lady who played accordion. Having done several numbers they looked around for 'willing victims', and Emily, Karen's and Lawrence's daughter decided to tell them that I could sing (Where did she get that idea from? I certainly haven't sung for years, apart from in the privacy of my car). So then began a gentle coercion until I finally broke and named a song that was so obscure that they would never have heard of it and then mentioned that I couldn't remember all the words. I thought that would let me off the hook, but I hadn't reckoned on modern technology - someone with an iPhone connected via the pub's WiFi system to the internet and Googled for the words!! They'd gone to so much effort that I felt it would be churlish not to sing and anyway, they were probably going to regret it far more than me! As no one knew the tune I had to sing unaccompanied and when I initially opened my mouth no recognisable note came out. I swallowed, gave myself a stiff talking to and tried again............and again! Eventually, a vague semblance of the song emerged and I found that by closing my eyes and pretending that there wasn't a bar full of people in front of me (it had got busier by then) I could actually get through it. However, I think it may be sometime before I try that particular form of masochism again even though everyone applauded and Mark asked if I knew anymore (I'm sure they were just being polite).

One of the biggest headaches of my adventure has been trying to make sure that all my visits segue seamlessly so that I am not left without anywhere to stay on my way round. So far it has worked well and, apart from the host I was due to go to for the whole of September who thought I was only going for the first two weeks (when I was helping my aunt in Cwmbran), everything has gone according to plan. I was due to leave Lee on Saturday but I had a last minute communication from my next hosts asking if I could possibly come on the Sunday instead, as they had family staying on Saturday which would mean that I would have to self cater for my first night and they didn't think that was fair. Karen and Lawrence were quite happy for me to stay an extra night so I set off after lunch on Sunday to drive to Launceston - about 2 hours away.

I got about one mile from Lee when a warning light started to flash on the dashboard and an insistent alarm started to sound. I pulled over as soon as I could and, being female, reached for the owner's handbook! The flashing light was the Engine Diagnostics Warning Light and to drive further 'might incur damage to the Catalytic Converter'! It then said in big, unfriendly letters 'Consult your Peugeot dealer'. The thought briefly crossed my mind that a) where was the nearest Peugeot dealer and b) the likelihood of them being open on a Sunday afternoon was about as likely as me learning how to mend my own car! I rang Lawrence and asked if I could come back.

Typically, by the time I had made the call, turned on the ignition and done a masterly three-point turn, the warning light and alarm had switched off. By the time I got back to the farm I'd managed to convince myself that it had been water in the exhaust system because I hadn't started the car for three weeks. However, Lawrence pointed out that it sounded as if the exhaust was blowing, which it was so I decided to stay put and take the car into his mechanic on the Monday.

The mechanic couldn't look at it until Monday afternoon, so I followed Lawrence there and then we came back the scenic route via Braunton, Saunton Sands, Croyde and Woolacombe - all places that I hadn't been to before, so that was a bit of a bonus. I spent the afternoon feeling sick with apprehension as the only bit of the exhaust system I haven't had replaced is the expensive catalytic converter end. Luckily, this mechanic is a realist and honest so when we spoke to him later that day he'd managed to weld it for 'forty pounds for cash'. Needless to say it was too late to get on the road then so I stayed yet another night in Lee and finally left on Tuesday morning. My new WWOOF hosts were very understanding of the delay and made me very welcome when I arrived................... but more of that later.

Cheesemaking in Devon

For the last three weeks I have been WWOOFing in North Devon at a farm that Jeni WWOOFed on three years ago. The reason that Jeni came here and one of the reasons that I did too, is because they milk sheep and make ewes' milk cheese. One of the breeds of sheep that they use is my beloved Zwartbles. For all of you who have not met my erstwhile sheep they are Dutch, black with a white blaze, white feet and a white tip to the tail, tall and very elegant looking and very milky - they are to sheep what Holsteins are to cows: the ultimate dairy animal.

Over the last few years, Lawrence has also used a Friesland ram (another Dutch milk breed but it is white) so apart from the Zwartbles ram there are no pure-bred animals left in the flock, but they still produce a lot of milk. This year he is also introducing a British Milk Sheep ram to the flock (this looks very similar to the Friesland), so it will be interesting to see what that produces.

Lawrence and Karen split their jobs in quite a traditional manner - Lawrence does most of the work with the stock and Karen produces the cheese and markets it at various Farmers' Markets in the area, so I have tried to divide my time between the two areas, although there has not been much to do on a daily basis with the animals.

The day after I arrived I helped to milk the sheep which is very similar to milking cows in that the sheep all come into a milking parlour where they are given some pellets to keep them happily occupied while we clean their teats and afix the clusters. Then, when they are milked they are allowed to leave and the next bunch file in. There is one big advantage to milking sheep that I can see at first glance - you do not get swished in the face with a dung-covered tail as you put on the clusters! Unfortunately for me, this was the last milking of the year as the rams were due to go out at the beginning of November so the ewes were 'dried off'. I was very pleased that I got to see it done, though.

Wednesdays are Cheese Making Days, and Karen kindly allowed me to help her in the dairy ( a concession not offered to all WWOOFers, apparently). The whole day is taken up with the cheese making taking an average of eight hours from when the milk is put in the vat to finishing putting it in the moulds. Also, you have to be scrupulously clean so this means completely clean clothes, no touching the dogs or cats, and putting on a white coat, disposable apron and hair net in the dairy. First of all the milk is heated and stirred until it reaches a set temperature and then starter culture is added. After a short while (in which we usually made it back to the house for a cup of tea) the rennet is added and within a short space of time the curds appear. the whole mass is then cut with curd knives into small cubes which gradually sink into the whey. The whey is then drained off and the resulting mass cut into wedges and heaped up to drain for a bit longer. (At this point, we would go in for a quick lunch). The solid curds are then broken up into small pieces by hand before being pressed into cheesecloth-lined moulds and weights applied. This, however, is not the end of the process as the cheeses have to be turned for several days and each time they have to be removed from the moulds, unwrapped, turned over, rewrapped with clean cloths and put back in the moulds until they are ready to go into the cheese room for storage where they still need to be turned every week. I really enjoyed being involved in this task and we had some wonderful wide-ranging conversations as we worked.

On the animal side of things, I have helped to move the Devon Red cattle to their winter fields across the lane from the farm, and I also helped to sort out the lambs from the flock and take them to the same fields as the grass is quite lush and will easily sustain them all for a while. We then divided up the ewes into four groups for the various rams (they also have a flock of Shetland sheep) and put them in seperate fields. All of this work has been made much easier because Lawrence has three border collies, two of whom are pretty good sheep dogs (the third is a bit too keen at the moment and tends to cause a degree of chaos if not watched closely!) I have also been helping to look after a couple of poorly lambs by cutting ivy for them. They are both now doing much better and may be fit to rejoin their mates in a week or so.

I have also been included in Lawrence's and Karen's lives in other ways too, as they have taken me to the open mic nights at their local pub in Lee on Friday evenings and also to a folk concert in the village hall which was very good. Karen and I also went to the monthly Stitch 'n' Bitch evening in the pub too, where I started knitting squares again (not sure my knitting capabilities are up to much more, especially if I'm chatting at the same time!). On the first Sunday that I was here I helped Karen at the North Devon Foodfest in the Barnstaple Pannier Market (so called because the goods for the market used to be brought in from the farms in panniers on horseback) and then again at her regular Friday Farmers' Market in the same venue. She not only sells cheese but also organic knitting wool and organic sheepskins all from their own animals.

I have loved my time here and feel quite reluctant to leave this Victorian farmhouse and its various occupants - perhaps three weeks is too long to stay as I start to feel as if I belong, and that would never do! Ah well - onward and upward - or in this case - southward as I continue my journey by going to Launceston in Cornwall for the next two weeks.

Poem

MORPHO

The butterfly flitters past in the dappled forest light, blue wings in flight

Irridescent, glowing, going on its journey through life.

I run, I follow, through glades of singing green and sandy tracks, and scrubby tracts of land.

It shows me white stuccoed villages, long, sun-drenched vineyards, distant blue mountains, fountains in ancient squares.

I run, I follow, intent on the chase

At last I catch it in my net and hold it, fold it in my hand lest it escape.

I feel its fluttering life force trembling, morse code of panic sending vibrations through my fingers

I linger to admire its perfection, each wing scale a perfect mirror of the world, radiant blues and greens like peacock feathers.

I could gather it, snuff out its life, pin it to my board and bring it home.

Alone, it would hang, sharp mockery of its life, scales fading in the cold English sun, an empty husk, no longer an 'unformed being' as in Paraguayan folklore.

Before I can form reason, I open my hand and let it go.

It glows, flies, flickers and shimmers through the dimness of the forest, where at last, it turns, changes and morphs into a red-haired girl who lifts a hand in acknowledgment of my love before disappearing.

No unformed being now, but a free spirit.