Well, it’s been ages since I last wrote a blog and, as I’m back on the road next week, I thought I’d do a short one now to kickstart the year.
This is the longest I’ve been in one place for nearly two years now and, at times, I’ve found it quite difficult not to be moving on. I’ve got so used to living out of a suitcase and re-packing every two weeks that it took me ages to unpack everything into drawers and wardrobes and I keep taking my stuff back up to my room at the end of the day so that I don’t lose track of where it is! As someone said to me the other day ‘it’s become a lifestyle now, hasn’t it?’ and I believe that’s true – what started out as a journey of self-discovery and also a journey around the UK has morphed into a way of life that I do not want to give up any time soon. That said, I have decided to do things a little differently this year, at least for the first half, anyway.
I am starting my working year with two weeks back in Somerset at a farm I have not been to before, set part way between Bristol and my old stomping grounds, in the hope that on my days off I can catch up with a few friends that I haven’t managed to see since I started this nomadic lifestyle. From there, I journey back to my friends at Launceston in Cornwall where I hope to stay for nearly a month, then it’s back to Cheltenham for a few days catch-up with Mum before heading to Monmouth for another two weeks at a new place (for me). After that I return to my friends in Oswestry for three weeks staying over for their May festivities that Jeni and I attended last year. The last bit that I have planned so far is a return to the wonderful farm at Llanidloes where I hope to stay for a couple of months, tending the sheep, planting veg, milking the cows, making butter and cheese and perhaps finally getting to work with bees. This takes me up until July – I haven’t planned further than that yet! So – that’s a foretaste of where my blogs will be coming from for the next six months.
I’ve had a bit of a nostalgia-fest in the last few weeks as this is the longest that I have been back in my birthplace since I left home to go to teacher training college when I was 18! Additionally, I have been by myself for the last two and a half weeks as Mum and her friend, Mary, decided to go south for the winter and headed off for a Caribbean cruise while I stayed here to house-sit and decorate the kitchen. Anyone who knows my Mum will know that the only way to decorate the kitchen is when she is out of the country as she spends the greater part of her time in the kitchen preparing delicious food! It seems to have taken ages, but admittedly I have been trying to ration myself to a morning’s decorating followed by something completely different in the afternoon, even if it’s only reading a book.
To stop myself going stir-crazy, I have taken myself off for walks around the area on days when the weather has been OK – hence the nostalgia. My first walk was from this house to the house on the other side of the village where I spent most of my childhood, then around the lanes we used to play in before walking back again – a distance of about 2 miles. I was really pleased that my knee, which had been so painful when doing any concentrated walking for about 4 years, did not cause any problems at all. (This is all down to the inserts that I had made (at huge expense) by a podiatrist down in Launceston last March.) I still find it incredible to think that my sister and I, at the age of 7 and 6 respectively, used to walk from our house to the bus stop (after Mum had seen us across the main A40), catch the bus into the centre of Cheltenham, change buses and catch another bus to the other side of town and then walk about half a mile to our Junior School – Social Services would probably be called in if the same thing happened today! But we did it every day in all weathers and lived to tell the tale! The road where we lived has not changed very much in the last few years – it was originally a private road and was never adopted by the council, hence it has never been surfaced – and it still hasn’t! The potholes were always bad, but now they are horrendous, I certainly wouldn’t want to drive a car down there, and to think my boyfriend used to ride down it on his motorbike!
The other day I had to go to the other side of Cheltenham on a mission to B & Q, and on the way back decided to go and see the house I was born in. I had a few difficulties finding it, at first, as the road layouts have been changed slightly, but when I got there it had hardly changed at all and neither had my old school. However, the green that used to be at the end of the road has now got houses on it and there are speed bumps everywhere so looking around as I drove was not really an option. I was going to take some photos but then realised how weird that would look if there was anyone in the house, and I’d probably be arrested if I stood outside the school gates and took photos!
My second walk took me up the hill on a network of footpaths, skirting the local golf course, and finally ending up on the lower slopes of Leckhampton Hill where I slipped and slithered my way to an odd little road with fabulous views over the town. I knew a girl from school who lived along here and I came up once to ride her pony – it was not an auspicious memory as the stirrup leather broke, the pony bolted and I slid gracefully(?) to the ground over the pony’s left shoulder – I never did get the hang of this riding lark. Anyway, this lane is a strange mixture of very expensive, architect-designed houses and the original tiny bungalows that don’t even look like they’ve been painted since they were built, in some cases. It must be ‘prime real estate’ as they say in America, and I’m surprised that more of the original houses haven’t been swallowed up by the wealthy and turned into futuristic pads with glorious views. I slipped and slithered a bit more down muddy footpaths to the bottom of the hill and then back to the house via the many ‘drangs’ that seem to exist in this area. This walk was about 4 miles long – and still not a murmur from the knee!
Building on the confidence that my pain-free walking had engendered, I went for another walk yesterday. I started off by crossing the village to the area that I knew from many childhood adventures, when my dog, Bunty, and I would go off for walks across the fields and along the lanes. I had intended to do a circuit of my old haunts but, feeling still quite fresh at the point furthest from home, I decided to carry on and turned uphill to go past the riding stables that I used to frequent, when funds allowed, when I was a horse-mad young’un. It was a much steeper climb than I remembered and the stables are no longer there – I imagine the house is a very impressive country home for some wealthy person now, as it has a commanding view over Cheltenham and the race course towards Cleeve Hill. However, I could almost hear the ghostly hoofbeats as I walked along the lane past the stables – we would sometimes come out for rides along this route and then turn down another lane that went out onto Cleeve Common. Another of my horsey memories (why are they never good ones?) was of going to the stables one Saturday and being put up on a roan gelding, appropriately called Scamp. We then all left, in convoy, with the more experienced riders at the front and the novices (including me) at the back. We climbed up a steep and rutted bridleway onto the lane and then set off past open fields towards the turning to Cleeve Common. Everything was going OK until we turned towards the Common when Scamp suddenly woke up to the fact that we were probably going to go a bit faster than a leisurely walk when we got there, and pre-empted the ‘off’ by taking off down the hill at speed with me clinging like a limpet round his neck as he overtook every rider in front of us – I think he must have been talking to an ex-racehorse or something. I was mortified, but I didn’t fall off, so that was an improvement but I don’t ever remember going back to the stables again, so that was more or less the end of my riding career! When I got to the turn to the Common on my left, I took a right hand turn to follow the Cotswold Way back across country to the A40 and thence via the back ways to Mum’s – a distance, when I measured it, of approximately 8 miles! I think I can safely say that my knee is cured! I was tired and my feet ached but not a single twinge from the knee. Hooray! I must pop in to the podiatrist when I’m back in Launceston and say a heartfelt ‘Thank You’.
I didn’t see much wildlife on my walk, in fact I’ve seen more in Mum’s garden recently. She puts out scraps for the birds but, until recently, didn’t buy any commercial wildbird food or have any feeders, just her bird table. Well, I took part in the RSPB Garden Bird Survey on her behalf last weekend and in the space of the allotted hour I saw umpteen blackbirds, a wren, two pairs of blackcaps (they used to be summer visitors, but not anymore), a lone fieldfare (strange, because they usually go around in large flocks), two magpies (I call one of them Duncan, because he has learned to dunk stale bread in the birdbath before eating it!), wood pigeons, robins, house sparrows, dunnocks, chaffinches, blue tits and an LBJ (Little Brown Job) that I think was a Garden Warbler as well as the usual tribe of jackdaws and the resident pair of crows, one of which is so splashed with white that it is almost speckled. I thought that was pretty impressive until a fox meandered across the garden later on, in broad daylight, and just strolled past the patio windows!
Well, I think that’s about it for now – I’ve just got a few more handles to put on the kitchen cupboard doors and a short piece of fencing to replace before I start my WWOOFing year in earnest.
This is the longest I’ve been in one place for nearly two years now and, at times, I’ve found it quite difficult not to be moving on. I’ve got so used to living out of a suitcase and re-packing every two weeks that it took me ages to unpack everything into drawers and wardrobes and I keep taking my stuff back up to my room at the end of the day so that I don’t lose track of where it is! As someone said to me the other day ‘it’s become a lifestyle now, hasn’t it?’ and I believe that’s true – what started out as a journey of self-discovery and also a journey around the UK has morphed into a way of life that I do not want to give up any time soon. That said, I have decided to do things a little differently this year, at least for the first half, anyway.
I am starting my working year with two weeks back in Somerset at a farm I have not been to before, set part way between Bristol and my old stomping grounds, in the hope that on my days off I can catch up with a few friends that I haven’t managed to see since I started this nomadic lifestyle. From there, I journey back to my friends at Launceston in Cornwall where I hope to stay for nearly a month, then it’s back to Cheltenham for a few days catch-up with Mum before heading to Monmouth for another two weeks at a new place (for me). After that I return to my friends in Oswestry for three weeks staying over for their May festivities that Jeni and I attended last year. The last bit that I have planned so far is a return to the wonderful farm at Llanidloes where I hope to stay for a couple of months, tending the sheep, planting veg, milking the cows, making butter and cheese and perhaps finally getting to work with bees. This takes me up until July – I haven’t planned further than that yet! So – that’s a foretaste of where my blogs will be coming from for the next six months.
I’ve had a bit of a nostalgia-fest in the last few weeks as this is the longest that I have been back in my birthplace since I left home to go to teacher training college when I was 18! Additionally, I have been by myself for the last two and a half weeks as Mum and her friend, Mary, decided to go south for the winter and headed off for a Caribbean cruise while I stayed here to house-sit and decorate the kitchen. Anyone who knows my Mum will know that the only way to decorate the kitchen is when she is out of the country as she spends the greater part of her time in the kitchen preparing delicious food! It seems to have taken ages, but admittedly I have been trying to ration myself to a morning’s decorating followed by something completely different in the afternoon, even if it’s only reading a book.
To stop myself going stir-crazy, I have taken myself off for walks around the area on days when the weather has been OK – hence the nostalgia. My first walk was from this house to the house on the other side of the village where I spent most of my childhood, then around the lanes we used to play in before walking back again – a distance of about 2 miles. I was really pleased that my knee, which had been so painful when doing any concentrated walking for about 4 years, did not cause any problems at all. (This is all down to the inserts that I had made (at huge expense) by a podiatrist down in Launceston last March.) I still find it incredible to think that my sister and I, at the age of 7 and 6 respectively, used to walk from our house to the bus stop (after Mum had seen us across the main A40), catch the bus into the centre of Cheltenham, change buses and catch another bus to the other side of town and then walk about half a mile to our Junior School – Social Services would probably be called in if the same thing happened today! But we did it every day in all weathers and lived to tell the tale! The road where we lived has not changed very much in the last few years – it was originally a private road and was never adopted by the council, hence it has never been surfaced – and it still hasn’t! The potholes were always bad, but now they are horrendous, I certainly wouldn’t want to drive a car down there, and to think my boyfriend used to ride down it on his motorbike!
The other day I had to go to the other side of Cheltenham on a mission to B & Q, and on the way back decided to go and see the house I was born in. I had a few difficulties finding it, at first, as the road layouts have been changed slightly, but when I got there it had hardly changed at all and neither had my old school. However, the green that used to be at the end of the road has now got houses on it and there are speed bumps everywhere so looking around as I drove was not really an option. I was going to take some photos but then realised how weird that would look if there was anyone in the house, and I’d probably be arrested if I stood outside the school gates and took photos!
My second walk took me up the hill on a network of footpaths, skirting the local golf course, and finally ending up on the lower slopes of Leckhampton Hill where I slipped and slithered my way to an odd little road with fabulous views over the town. I knew a girl from school who lived along here and I came up once to ride her pony – it was not an auspicious memory as the stirrup leather broke, the pony bolted and I slid gracefully(?) to the ground over the pony’s left shoulder – I never did get the hang of this riding lark. Anyway, this lane is a strange mixture of very expensive, architect-designed houses and the original tiny bungalows that don’t even look like they’ve been painted since they were built, in some cases. It must be ‘prime real estate’ as they say in America, and I’m surprised that more of the original houses haven’t been swallowed up by the wealthy and turned into futuristic pads with glorious views. I slipped and slithered a bit more down muddy footpaths to the bottom of the hill and then back to the house via the many ‘drangs’ that seem to exist in this area. This walk was about 4 miles long – and still not a murmur from the knee!
Building on the confidence that my pain-free walking had engendered, I went for another walk yesterday. I started off by crossing the village to the area that I knew from many childhood adventures, when my dog, Bunty, and I would go off for walks across the fields and along the lanes. I had intended to do a circuit of my old haunts but, feeling still quite fresh at the point furthest from home, I decided to carry on and turned uphill to go past the riding stables that I used to frequent, when funds allowed, when I was a horse-mad young’un. It was a much steeper climb than I remembered and the stables are no longer there – I imagine the house is a very impressive country home for some wealthy person now, as it has a commanding view over Cheltenham and the race course towards Cleeve Hill. However, I could almost hear the ghostly hoofbeats as I walked along the lane past the stables – we would sometimes come out for rides along this route and then turn down another lane that went out onto Cleeve Common. Another of my horsey memories (why are they never good ones?) was of going to the stables one Saturday and being put up on a roan gelding, appropriately called Scamp. We then all left, in convoy, with the more experienced riders at the front and the novices (including me) at the back. We climbed up a steep and rutted bridleway onto the lane and then set off past open fields towards the turning to Cleeve Common. Everything was going OK until we turned towards the Common when Scamp suddenly woke up to the fact that we were probably going to go a bit faster than a leisurely walk when we got there, and pre-empted the ‘off’ by taking off down the hill at speed with me clinging like a limpet round his neck as he overtook every rider in front of us – I think he must have been talking to an ex-racehorse or something. I was mortified, but I didn’t fall off, so that was an improvement but I don’t ever remember going back to the stables again, so that was more or less the end of my riding career! When I got to the turn to the Common on my left, I took a right hand turn to follow the Cotswold Way back across country to the A40 and thence via the back ways to Mum’s – a distance, when I measured it, of approximately 8 miles! I think I can safely say that my knee is cured! I was tired and my feet ached but not a single twinge from the knee. Hooray! I must pop in to the podiatrist when I’m back in Launceston and say a heartfelt ‘Thank You’.
I didn’t see much wildlife on my walk, in fact I’ve seen more in Mum’s garden recently. She puts out scraps for the birds but, until recently, didn’t buy any commercial wildbird food or have any feeders, just her bird table. Well, I took part in the RSPB Garden Bird Survey on her behalf last weekend and in the space of the allotted hour I saw umpteen blackbirds, a wren, two pairs of blackcaps (they used to be summer visitors, but not anymore), a lone fieldfare (strange, because they usually go around in large flocks), two magpies (I call one of them Duncan, because he has learned to dunk stale bread in the birdbath before eating it!), wood pigeons, robins, house sparrows, dunnocks, chaffinches, blue tits and an LBJ (Little Brown Job) that I think was a Garden Warbler as well as the usual tribe of jackdaws and the resident pair of crows, one of which is so splashed with white that it is almost speckled. I thought that was pretty impressive until a fox meandered across the garden later on, in broad daylight, and just strolled past the patio windows!
Well, I think that’s about it for now – I’ve just got a few more handles to put on the kitchen cupboard doors and a short piece of fencing to replace before I start my WWOOFing year in earnest.
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