Whisky, whisky all around...............

At first glance (and, to be honest, second and third glance) my next placement was not one of my better choices! I arrived in pouring rain at the Walled Garden between Keith and Dufftown in Banffshire and was dismayed to find SIX other WWOOFers already there: there were two boys and a girl from Wales, who were staying in the cottage at the garden; a young couple from Massachusetts, US of A; and a young French guy from Bordeaux. They were all young students and they were all crowded into the living room of the cottage (known in Scotland as a ‘bothy’) drinking tea. They looked quite surprised when I introduced myself as the new WWOOFer but recovered enough to offer me a cuppa, too. When the rain eased off briefly I was taken on a tour of the garden. My hosts run a gardening business as well as trying to reclaim this semi-derelict walled garden and it is definitely a work-in-progress with shoulder high weeds in many beds, interspersed with vegetable plots and the odd herbaceous border. They also have a startling array of livestock: geese, ducks, turkeys, chickens, peafowl, rheas, rabbits, guinea pigs and two grossly overweight Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs.

I was staying at the house in Dufftown and for the first few days found it very difficult to adjust to my new surroundings. The house was quite large but there were nine adults living there, also two working cocker spaniels, a litter of five eight-week-old puppies and a very talkative African Grey parrot! The noise level was what got to me most and I would skulk off to my room at about 9.30 to read and wait until the house finally quietened down at about 11.30 before I could go to sleep.

We were ferried over to the garden in the mornings in the lorry and left there all day and then picked up again at about 5.30 (although sometimes it was quite a lot later, depending on their gardening jobs). We self-catered lunch from an interesting array of ingredients in the bothy – it was quite a squash when all seven WWOOFers were in there. The first day, I discovered blight in the potatoes and spent most of the day cutting the slimy haulms back to ground level in the hope that it hadn’t progressed to the tubers. Unfortunately, some of the tubers were affected too which meant that they couldn’t really sell them to customers, as they couldn’t guarantee that they were OK. This was a blow, as last year this was one of their major vegetable sales. Most of the work in the garden at this time of year is weeding, although we did get to pick red and white currants and also a few raspberries and strawberries, although the beds were pretty overgrown with weeds – they are going to make new strawberry beds for next season.

The weather for the most part was drizzle interspersed with rain – again I was very glad of my waterproofs! However, most of the others were really cheerful, so working in bad weather was not such an unpleasant experience and we had some good fun. On most days, the cocker spaniel puppies were at the garden in a pen, so that was always a good excuse for a break – the puppies needed to be checked (i.e. played with)! Unfortunately for us, all but one of the puppies went to their new owners in the first week that I was there, so puppy playtime was not quite so boisterous (although the house was a degree less chaotic).

Because there were so many WWOOFers to feed, my host used to go to the local shop just before closing time and buy up all the reduced items (she got Anchor butter for 5p for 250g one day), which led to an interesting mix of food in the fridge at any one time. They didn’t seem to reduce fruit and vegetables very often, and I began to wonder how quickly scurvy could set in! It is amazing how the body adapts to different diets though, and by the second week I hardly noticed the lack of greenery on my plate.

It was only after I’d been there a couple of days that it dawned on me that Dufftown is the whisky capital of the world (it actually says that on the town sign) and there was even a distillery opposite the house, so on my first day off I walked to the Glenfiddich Distillery and went on the free tour. It was very interesting and informative but, more importantly, I got to try three samples at the end – 12, 15 and 18 year old – you try saying ‘three, free samples’ after you’ve imbibed! I did toy with the idea of going back to do the tour again at some point, but never got round to it. Mind you, I didn’t really need to as my hosts were very generous with their whisky which was usually a 12-year old Balvenie, served like a glass of wine!

Set into one corner of the walled garden was a decking area complete with hot tub. The hot tub was heated by a woodburning boiler and this was fuelled by oak staves from old whisky barrels. I only know one person who has a hot tub (Hello, Mary!) and I thought she was a bit weird when she said how fantastic it was to relax in the hot tub, outside, in winter, but my hosts assured me that it was and that I should try it. They always had a hot tub evening when any of the WWOOFers was leaving, but the first time I declined as I felt very shy of getting into a hot tub with a bunch of young students, plus I had no idea what you wear in these situations. It turned out that most people wore shorts and T-shirts, so I would have had to borrow some shorts from someone anyway. However, as I sat on a picnic bench and the rest sat in the hot tub, I decided that it wasn’t really a spectator sport, so the next time that it happened, I borrowed a pair of shorts, donned as big and baggy a T-shirt as I could find and clambered in. It is actually very pleasant sitting up to your neck in warm water, drinking Port Dufftowns (a 50-50 mix of port and whisky, so-named by the American contingent!) and chatting convivially (and eventually, non-sensically!!) to people from different parts of the world. The worst bit, of course, is that moment when you have to get out, clothes dripping, and the cold wind blows your T-shirt against you before you can wrap a towel round you and head off to get dry and dressed in the bothy!

After a shaky start, when I wondered if I would stick the two weeks, I grew to really like my hosts and their challenging walled garden and have not ruled out the possibility of returning next year – as long as I get to stay in the bothy so that I can be quiet in the evenings!

I am currently doing an unofficial WWOOF for a family friend who lives near Aberdeen and then, on Tuesday, I head off westwards to Dunoon, a journey of at least 5 hours, to a smallholding 5 miles up a glen.

From stately home to statelier home!

I had been asked not to arrive at my next host’s until after 5.00pm as there would be no-one there to greet me so, to kill some time and to break up the four hour journey, I diverted to New Lanark on the way. New Lanark was a cotton mill and workers’ village set up in the early 19th Century by a forward-thinking mill owner. He provided the first crèche for workers’ children and schooling for all children up to the age of 10 and beyond with evening classes for those who worked in the mill after that age. He also formed the first co-operative store on which the whole co-operative system was modelled and was an all-round good guy who was, typically, disliked by his fellow mill owners for his philanthropic ideas. It was a very interesting two hours and I was glad I’d gone, but I didn’t have time to stop off at any other places (like the Falkirk Wheel) afterwards.

I was glad that I’d read the book about Kincardine that Maggie had lent me as it gave me an inkling of what I was going to, but the reality of turning in through the Lodge Gates, driving up the three-quarter mile driveway and then arriving outside the house, was still awe-inspiring! I found ‘The Laird’ in the Walled Garden mowing the grass and he quickly showed me to my room before returning to his mowing, because he needed to get it done before 6.00pm when he had a prospective wedding party turning up to view the place. Later on, Nicky returned from the funeral that she had had to attend, and we all had supper together. I knew I was going to enjoy this placement when we had globe artichokes and melted butter for starters followed by homemade chicken kiev! Two other WWOOFers were due to arrive later in the evening – Amanda and Owen from Canada. They had been here about three weeks before and then gone off to Skye and on to another host.

Our first job was weeding the rose beds in the Walled Garden, which is a wonderful space – it has a series of hornbeam hedges which screen off areas of the garden so that it is like a series of rooms, but it has a central fountain with gravel paths radiating from it. The water for the fountain comes from a spring up on the hill behind the house and although at no great pressure it is constant and crystal-clear. The beautiful herbaceous borders and the well-planted vegetable garden are all managed by Nicky, her sister, Verity, who works one day a week, and WWOOFers and it is amazing how well-tended it all looks. Andie has recently had to take on all the grass mowing on the estate as the elderly man who did this has become too ill to continue, so that is an extra burden on top of all his other work. The estate lands (all 3000 acres) are mainly leased to other farmers, but Andie and Nicky host quite a few corporate events, as well as weddings. In Scotland, it is the minister who is licensed to carry out weddings, not the venue, which means that you can choose to get married virtually anywhere.

The main reason that Nicky chose to have WWOOFers at this time was to help with the Deeside Suzuki Piano Festival which was being held at the castle for three days during the first weekend that we were there. Nicky is a Suzuki piano teacher and gives lessons in the music room at the castle. It is a very interesting method of learning a musical instrument as the child learns the sound of the piece before ever seeing the musical notation and the parents are heavily involved, too, in reinforcing the lessons at home with much praise and enthusiasm. This will be the seventh festival that she has hosted and it involves about 30 children and their parents who come to stay – not all of them stay in the castle, some just come for the day-time events. However, there were about 24 for breakfast each morning, more for lunch, and about the same for dinner. Our jobs were to be the behind-the-scenes help: making sure that the tea/coffee/squash station, outside by the marquee, was always topped up; laying up and clearing away the meals and generally helping to keep things rolling along like a well-oiled machine. It was great fun, but very humbling as some of these children were only about five, but played the piano really well.

Nicky gave us a quick guided tour of some of the rooms before people arrived: the Chinese Room contains a beautiful carved bed and there is only one other known version in the UK and that is in the Victoria and Albert Museum; the Queen’s Room – so called because when the Queen came to dine they thought that she might be going to stay the night, so hurriedly prepared this room for her! – contains a large four-poster bed that Andie made himself; and in the bathroom of one of the other rooms are some original William de Morgan tiles (he was a contemporary of William Morris of the Arts & Crafts movement). That is what I like about this house – although there are many precious and irreplaceable items, they are all still in daily use.

On Thursday we took delivery of a lorry load of provisions for the weekend but, unfortunately, they failed to deliver the chicken that we were supposed to be having on Friday evening, so Andie got out of the freezer the fifteen pound salmon that he had just put in there. It had been caught in the river and could not be put back, as they normally are, because it had swallowed the hook and would definitely have died. This fish was too large to fit into a normal fish kettle, so they pressed into service a turbot fish kettle which is rounder than a normal one, and the salmon sat in that curled round on itself and was poached gently across two burners on the gas stove. I contributed to the meal by making an enormous amount of mayonnaise. Twenty four people sat down to this meal and there was still enough salmon left over to make kedgeree later in the week and some lunchtime sandwiches.

There was a barbeque on the Saturday evening followed by an informal concert. The BBQ was in the marquee and just after the two oil drum BBQs were lit, the heavens opened and monsoon-like rain fell for about forty five minutes – I have never seen rain so heavy for such a prolonged period of time – every time we thought it couldn’t get any heavier – it did. I was very glad that traditionally BBQs are a man thing – Andie was outside, well partially under the cover of a gazebo, holding an umbrella over himself and the BBQ with one hand and cooking with the other. Amazingly, the meal for 50 people was a great success and we then all trouped indoors for the concert at which several children played piano and violin and Andie sang and Amanda performed a Highland Fling (she learned Scottish Dancing in Alberta!) whilst accompanied by Nicky’s and Andie’s son, Charlie, on the bagpipes.

After everyone had gone home on the Sunday, we all went in the estate Land Rover, to the River Feugh, a tributary of the Dee, to watch the salmon leaping. The river was in spate after all the rain we have had and was a dark brown peaty colour, and we watched for about half an hour as several salmon attempted, and failed, to scale the rocky barrier at this point on the river. Andie told me that they could and did wait until the river dropped to a more manageable level if they couldn’t get up it at the moment.

I have been made very welcome by this family and Andie is a great raconteur, but you know you are moving in elevated circles when, in one evening, Andie received a phone call from the Lord Chamberlain inviting him to some ‘do’ with Prince Charles (a fairly regular occurrence from what I can gather) and another phone call from a local landowner inviting him to come for a day of grouse shooting. We were also watching High Society on DVD the other evening when they dropped into the conversation that they had once met Grace Kelly, when she was Princess Grace of Monaco, at a party!

On our last Saturday here, we went to the Banchory Farmers’ Market with Nicky because, as well as all her other jobs, she runs Kincardine Castle Kitchen with another lady, producing homemade preserves and biscuits that are sold in local shops as well as at the market. The Shortbread Biscuits are amazing as is the rather interesting Champagne Rhubarb Chutney – not only made from the rhubarb variety called Champagne, but containing champagne, too! After the market finished, Amanda, Owen and I continued on to Aberdeen in my little car and went to see the final Harry Potter film in 3D – a fantastic film with lots of really good special effects.

I think my tour of Scottish stately homes is coming to an end now as tomorrow I head off to another Walled Garden but it is leased from the large estate, and I will be staying in much humbler surroundings.

The week after Jeni left was a sad and pretty unproductive one. I spent nearly all of Sunday and the greater part of Monday in bed feeling very sorry for myself as I snivelled and coughed and used up most of my supply of tissues. It is very embarrassing to be ill in someone’s house when you are there to work for your keep! Luckily, Mary and Terry were lovely people and very understanding (Mary felt guilty for giving me the cold in the first place). Once I was up and about again Terry went down with mysterious stomach pains and had to retire to bed for several days so I was pretty much left to my own devices. I planted some more seeds and repotted the cucumbers before weeding the flower beds and planting out some tobacco plant seedlings, which promptly nearly all succumbed to the pounding rain and the onslaught of slugs! I also did some interior painting of a window frame and door on the days when it was too persistently wet to even venture outside – the weather has been atrocious for all but two days of my stay. When Terry was feeling better and the weather was a bit drier, we spent a day with the digger and some large straps moving huge rocks from a pile to put along the side of the stream which only flows intermittently in wet spells. It took all day to manoeuvre these stones into place and backfill behind them and we thought we’d done a pretty good job – until the rain came back. It rained torrentially for twenty four hours and when I went outside on my last morning it was a scene of utter devastation – the burn had moved two of the biggest stones into the stream bed, it had then overflowed its banks and filled the still-to-be-finished pond, and had completely destroyed the area we were about to turn into a little waterfall. I couldn’t believe how a tiny trickle had suddenly become big enough to do all that damage, but we had had an awful lot of rain.

On one of my last evenings there, a group of friends turned up with wine and instruments and we had an impromptu concert in the kitchen – there was one guy on guitar, one girl on fiddle and another guy played piano accordion. His name was Pete and he is using one of the barns at the house to store his old showman’s wagon while he does it up as he’s lived in it for fifteen years but it now leaks like a sieve and needs a new roof. He’s a professional musician and plays in a band called Moyshe’s Bagel who are performing at this year’s Priddy Folk Festival, if any of you are thinking of going. It was a great evening but I left them to it at about 11.30 and went off to bed – apparently they continued playing until about 2.00am!

I left Tynron on 23rd June and drove for literally five minutes down the road to my next WWOOF host – no need to factor in the usual twenty-minute-getting-lost margin that I usually include! I turned in by the Lodge and drove over the balustrade bridge over the river and up the half mile driveway, finally arriving at the gravel sweep in front of a huge pink sandstone stately home! Maggie’s email had merely described it as a large Victorian house and garden and that she required help with hedge-trimming and topiary. Maggie met me at the front door and decided to take me for a stroll around the gardens first to calm the dogs down: two black (thank Heavens!) Labradors and a young black cocker spaniel puppy. Later she showed me to my room which is on the third floor. It is really pretty with high ceilings, plaster cornice, yellow striped wallpaper and a Victorian half-tester bed (basically it has a wooden canopy that extends over half the bed and side curtains). I’ve never stayed in a stately home before! There are stuffed birds in display cases all the way up one staircase and stuffed and mounted deer heads on nearly every wall, plus lots of family portraits. The magnificent wooden staircase that ascends to my room is at least 10’ wide and the family kitchen could easily house my entire cottage floor plan.

Once I’d brought my bags inside and carried them up the fifty stairs to my room, we went outside via the impressive Orangery to start work on the box hedges in the Italian Garden. Between us we managed to trim all of the box hedges, using an incredible electric hedgetrimmer/hoover device, in two days as opposed to the two weeks that it normally takes Maggie – she was very impressed and I scored numerous Brownie points.
At the weekend, Robert wanted me to help him with some jobs so I agreed to have a day off on Tuesday, so on Saturday we went off to clear bracken. This involved walking for what seemed miles through the forest plantations to where some new oak trees had been planted and then cutting down the bracken within a metre of each tree with a hand sickle. The day was very hot and humid and I worked in a cloud of constantly buzzing flies and was soon extremely damp – from drizzle and sweat! Between us we managed to clear the bracken from around 300 young trees in an afternoon, and then we had to walk back again. They own 2000 acres of land; some farmland but most is down to woodland and I felt like I’d walked through all of it!

On Sunday I was coerced into attending a religious service in a marquee to celebrate the start of the annual Gala Week in the village. Maggie was playing piano and her daughter was playing the cello, so I felt I should go along and support them in their endeavours. After lunch, Catie and I were persuaded by her Granny to go and ride her ponies – it was sort of assumed that I could ride. I did try to explain that I hadn’t ridden anything for years and I had never been a competent or confident rider but these excuses were just ignored and I soon found myself mounted on Nutty, an Exmoor pony. It was only as I nervously set off down the road that Granny pointed out that she was not insured for me to ride her pony and, more importantly, it was not unusual for Nutty to buck unexpectedly and then take off at a canter! Before I could dismount I found myself in a field of just-cut silage and luckily, Nutty was far more interested in grabbing huge mouthfuls of lush green grass than with tanking off with me aboard. Phew! That was a narrow escape – I had visions of trying to drive my car or carry on wwoofing with a broken arm or leg.

On my day off I went to Wanlockhead which is the highest village in Scotland at 1,531 feet above sea level, and home to a Leadmining Museum. Part of the experience was donning a hard hat and being guided into an old drift mine to see how the miners had worked and then touring some old cottages that were furnished in the periods of 1750, 1850 and 1900. It was all very interesting and the guide was excellent. I had lunch there and then drove to Drumlanrig Castle, home of the Dukes of Buccleugh. It actually felt a bit silly going round a stately home, albeit on a bigger scale, when I was already staying in one, but it passed the time.

Quite a lot of the rest of my time at Capenoch was spent in the walled garden, part of which is rented by a lady who lives in the old gardener’s cottage and runs a plant nursery business, but part is used by the family to grow vegetables. The main job was to try and cut back and weed the box hedges that surround these beds and this took a couple of days of back-breaking work and then I completely rearranged and rebuilt their compost bins, thereby creating Jan’s Compost Corner!

I was Maggie’s first official WWOOFer as she only signed up this year and I told her I’d set the Gold Standard for other WWOOFers to aspire to. She has two French students coming at the end of July and I shall be quite intrigued to find out how they got on.

Yesterday I drove over two hundred miles North East to a village about half-an-hour from Aberdeen, but I’ll tell you about that another time. I really missed my little navigator on the journey but she is still recuperating at my Mum’s. The doctor has diagnosed Costochondritis which is damage to the cartilages connecting the ribs to the sternum (probably caused by the over-enthusiastic mucking out of the goat stable in Cumbria). It can be excruciatingly painful and the only treatment is painkillers and rest, and it can take a few months to sort out completely, so I shall be without her for the foreseeable future. Thank you to everyone who got in touch by email after my last blog – it was much appreciated.

A bit of a downbeat blog - sorry

Jeni and I set off to drive from Lancashire to Cumbria in light drizzle which quickly became torrential rain, and by the time we reached the sign announcing we were in the Lake District we could barely see it through the blinding rain – even with the wipers on full speed I couldn’t see a thing. It gradually eased off and I decided to make a short diversion at Ambleside and take Jeni to Coniston Water where I first met her Dad. However, Fate decreed otherwise as, after negotiating several floods across the road, we came to one that I deemed too deep to try and we turned round and headed back to Ambleside for a lunchtime pasty. There was water everywhere; surging down the fellsides, across the roads, over walls, through walls – it was awesome!

We eventually found our way to the hill farm in north Cumbria, overlooking the Solway Firth and about fifteen minutes from Cockermouth, that was to be our home for the next two weeks. We were greeted by our host who then introduced us to Emma, a WWOOFer from Hong Kong, and she showed us around the farm. The ‘blurb’ on the WWOOF website was slightly inaccurate as things have changed since it was last updated, in that they are no longer going to be open to the public or concentrating on Rare Breeds. The farm is mainly devoted to milking goats and one of our regular jobs was to feed the young kids three times a day. They also had some Tamworth pigs that we had to feed and muck out every day – this was quite a challenge, the knack was to feed them and then nip over the barrier, scrape up all the dirty bedding and remove it and then nip back over the barrier before they finished! Jeni and I were amazed at how Emma, a city girl with no experience of animals at all, had managed by herself for a week before we arrived.

It was a strange set up on the farm as our host, who had had a hip and knee replacement done in the last year, spent all day in the farm office working on his computer and his wife spent all day in the cheese dairy making cheese, so we never saw them during the day at all. We did our regular chores and then had to find Michael, the stockman, to see if he needed anything else doing, otherwise we just mooched about until the next feed time. Another odd thing was that despite dropping subtle hints and then outright asking, we never got to taste or see any of the cheese that was made on the farm!

During our first week there, Jeni became ill with a mystery illness that seemed to drop on her from out of the ether – in the morning we were all mucking out a stable with gusto and in the afternoon she retired to bed feeling exhausted and complaining of pains in her chest and never really picked up again. After the weekend she went to see a doctor in the nearby town who thought that she might have pulled some muscles and prescribed Ibuprofen (with little or no effect) but this wouldn’t have accounted for the sheer exhaustion she was feeling all the time – every day became a harder and harder challenge.

After much discussion and heart searching Jeni decided that she would probably have to go back to Mum’s and try to get some detailed medical investigations done, but that she would travel with me into Scotland first and see if things improved.

We did have a couple of good experiences while we were there: the first was when we took Emma and went off to explore a bit of the area. We went to Maryport, just along the coast, which is pretty rundown now but has a fantastic Aquarium where I got to stroke some rays and poke about in their ‘rockpool’ setting! We then went on to Whitehaven which is much more affluent-looking with an impressive marina. We took Emma for a ‘typical’ English tea in a very nice cafe (Cafe West – if you’re ever in the area). For £5 we had a round of sandwiches, a large scone with butter, jam and cream, and a piece of cake! Poor Emma was suffering from a surfeit of cream afterwards and we had to walk around for a bit until she felt better! The second was when Jeni and I went for a walk in the woodlands on the farm and saw, at very close quarters, a red squirrel. We stood and watched him for ages as he posed on a gate post and had a bit of a wash and brush up.

We left Cumbria on Saturday, 4th June and drove to Thornhill north of Dumfries, to our next hosts. Their smallholding is just outside a small hamlet and consists of an impressive double fronted Victorian house and a marvellous stable block, complete with original stalls and loose boxes that are all listed. They no longer have any ponies but they do have some Shetland sheep and a large vegetable garden.

On the day after we arrived they took us to Appleby Horse Fair, back down in Westmoreland, where we had a lovely day watching the gypsies and travellers showing off their horses (and themselves) along the ‘flashing lane’ which is an area of roadway cordoned off so that they can drive their ponies at breakneck speed up and down to show off their paces. They also take them down to the river in the centre of Appleby and ride them bareback into the deepest part to bathe them – I can’t imagine why they’d want to – the weather was distinctly chilly and the water must have been freezing – all very macho! Later on we went to have refreshments in the church and found that there was a christening going on. It was the christening of the head traveller’s grandchild and was being filmed by Channel 4 for their documentary series ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ which will be shown next year sometime.

Jeni and I have been working in the vegetable garden planting out peas and beans and salad vegetables, but we realised that she was no better and so, with heavy hearts we said goodbye to each other yesterday and our hosts took her to catch a coach to Cheltenham from Dumfries (I couldn’t take her as I have been laid low with a ghastly cold – the first I’ve had for over a year) a journey of over eight hours.

I shall continue the Scottish leg alone for the time being, but there is now a question mark over the whole enterprise as my wonderfully, trouble-free tenant has given in her notice and, if the agents can’t find another tenant, I will not be able to continue after the end of August, as I will have no funds available.

I hope that my next blog is more upbeat, and that I can give you good news of Jeni.

Chooks Away! (sorry - couldn't resist)

For the last two weeks Jeni and I have been living on a narrowboat on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and working on a smallholding alongside. As I have mentioned before, I seem to be drawn to canals whenever I am working near one, so to be actually living aboard a boat and working on a smallholding seemed an ideal scenario.

However, the reality is not quite as idyllic, although it has been quite an enjoyable stay despite the appalling weather, as our hosts are lovely and have provided us with some wonderful ingredients from which to produce meals, for example: home-cured streaky bacon, home-cured boiling ham, home-produced lamb chops, fresh eggs, homemade bread, homemade sausages and a whole bantam chicken for a pot roast!

The boat itself is a work-in-progress (our hosts live on the boat next door), so has no running water and a chemical loo but it does have electricity. It is a ‘butty boat’, and was originally used for hauling coal along the canals. It is sixty foot long and 6’10” wide – this is exterior dimensions – I would guess that it is only just over six foot wide inside. The family would have lived in a small area at the stern of the boat and that is, basically, where Jeni and I live. We have been sharing a double bed which is the full width of the cabin with a small seating area and a coal stove to the stern end. Scrambling across the bed and through a doorway is the ‘bathroom’ currently housing one Portapotti and a sink with cupboard under (the waste is connected, but all water has to be brought in in 5 gallon containers from the canal side), through another doorway is the ‘galley’ although it only has a small tabletop stove and a couple of floor cupboards with a narrow walkway through the middle. Beyond that is the original hold area, part of which is used as a greenhouse, with clear polythene-sheeted sides and part as a general workshop area, with original tarpaulin sides.

Our hosts breed pure-bred chickens as well as raising a few Tamworth pigs, and we share our living accommodation with two table-top incubators in the galley and, what Jeni and I both thought at first was a fridge, a large three-tier incubator under the work surface. In the greenhouse area there are two brooders (small cages with heat lamps over to keep the chicks warm until their feathers grow) and in the workshop area, another two brooders. Our days (and sometimes our nights, if it is hatching time) are filled with the cheeping of many, many, many chicks! I had a quick, approximate head count the other day and there were 90+ chicks and many more eggs imminently hatching.

The cramped living arrangements have tested the mother-daughter relationship quite severely but miraculously, we are still getting on well and have perfected the ‘narrowboat shuffle’ to enable us to pass each other on the boat without injury! The weather has also not been kind to us, as it has rained on most days and, of course, there is no ‘inside’ work to be done here, so we have just had to grit our teeth, don full waterproof gear and fight the elements while we feed and water hens and once a week apply surgical spirit to their legs with a paintbrush (to prevent/treat a parasite called scaly leg mite) and inspect their rear ends for chicken lice and red mites! As with any mention of lice/mite/flea, you immediately start itching at the very thought, but as you are dolled up in dust mask and surgical gloves (we looked like some chemical warfare clean-up detail with our wet weather gear on as well!) it was nigh on impossible to do anything about it. We have also mulched quite a few pathways and other muddy areas with chipped conifers that a local tree surgeon lets them have, as the ground is clay and gets supremely slippery when it rains. In between all that we have helped prepare some new raised beds in the vegetable garden and turned two compost heaps to improve the rate of breakdown of the compost.

Last weekend we had both days off and set off to ‘do’ the Yorkshire Dales as the canal runs round the edge of them and we are only just in Lancashire here. We are staying at a place called Barnoldswick (pronounced Barlick by the locals!) and I discovered that there is a Rolls Royce factory here where the famous RB211 jet engine was developed and produced (the RB bit refers to Rolls Barnoldswick) It’s amazing the amount of useless(?) information I am accumulating on this journey! First of all we went to Settle for a look round. While we were there it started to rain so we had to take shelter in a tearoom (a pot of tea, a currant slice and a chocolate caramel shortbread) until it eased off! The town is very quaint but seems to be inhabited by a tribe of older folk dressed in natty, outdoor clothing and fell boots, all looking scarily fit and striding about in a purposeful manner (some even had those walking poles)! We stocked up on chocolate crème eggs (for Jeni – she’s addicted) at 25p each (as opposed to the 80p each they tried to charge her at Llanrhaeadr Falls!) and struck off up a steep, minor road into the Dales proper. Jeni (aka The Navigator) may feel that she did not inherit the ‘engineering gene’ from my Dad, but she certainly inherited the one that makes her go up tiny, unmarked roads in out-of-the-way places, ‘just to see where they go’! She did it in Wales the other week and she did it again in the Yorkshire Dales – we literally went ‘up hill and down dale’ and I have no real idea of where we went except that we nearly reached Leyburn in Yorkshire before turning west up the Wensley Dale to Hawes. At Hawes we got out to stretch our legs and bought some speciality cheese from The Little Cheese Shop (Wensleydale with Hendersons Relish and a smoked goats milk gouda) and then wandered along to a cafe/bar called Chaste where we had tea and cake number 2! This time it was white chocolate and raspberry sponge cake! Well, we didn’t have lunch so decided that two teas and cakes was OK. The cafe/bar was very nice with a wood-burning stove and relaxed ‘shabby chic’ sofas for lounging in, It seemed to have a mixed clientele of young people and the same tribe of fit, older people in boots that we’d seen in Settle. If you ever find yourself in Hawes, I would recommend both the cheese shop and the cafe! Eventually, we struck off south and came back to the boat via Settle again. I have no idea how many miles I drove but it must have been well over a hundred.

The next day I decided that I didn’t want to do so much driving so we were going to go to a National Trust property near Keighley called East Riddlesden Hall. Rather than go by main roads, we took the hill roads again and headed for Haworth as I wanted to see where the Bronte family had lived. It was all very ‘Wuthering Heights’ on the way with mile upon mile of moorland all intersected by massive dry stone walls. These walls are not the gentle, neat golden dry stone walls of the Cotswolds, nor even the slightly more rugged ones of Mendip, they are huge, stolid thugs of walls, made of stones so large that I would struggle to lift any of them, and they march everywhere – straight down steep ravines and across scree-strewn crags, cutting the countryside up into manageable portions. Jeni came up with the theory that that is the only way the locals could cope with living in such openness, by walling off bits of it to make it feel more manageable.

As we neared Haworth we started to see yellow roadside signs that said it was Haworth’s 40’s weekend and to expect queues, so we looked on the map and spotted a preserved railway line nearby so decided to go and see what that was like. It was only when we got to the station and saw some photos that the penny dropped – we were at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway where they filmed the original ‘Railway Children’ film. It was also very weird as a few of the passengers waiting on the platform were obviously going to the 40’s weekend in Haworth (one of the stations on the line) and were in full regalia. Where else could you see an SS officer rubbing shoulders with an RAF officer, two American pilots and a ‘lady of the night’? We were quite intrigued and, being in no particular hurry, brought return tickets to Keighley and waited for the next train to steam in whilst drinking tea (no cakes today!) in the buffet car at the station. The one and a half hour train trip was great fun and we took a few photos of our fellow travellers as they embarked or disembarked at Haworth – it was very strange to see a lady in forties dress complete with fox fur, seamed stockings and a nifty little hat chatting on her mobile phone. We ate our picnic lunch in the car at the station car park as it had started to rain again and eventually drove on to East Riddlesden Hall which turned out to be quite a small and cosy manor house dating back to the 1620’s. I quite like going to National Trust properties but find it a bit intimidating that there is a steward in every room watching your every move and, occasionally, leaping in with unwanted information that you’ve just read on the helpfully-provided laminated sheet in each room. Again, we were there almost at closing time and were eventually shepherded from the premises by a rather surprising guy dressed all in black with a long grey ponytail – I hadn’t realised he was an employee until I saw his identity card – just goes to show you shouldn’t judge by appearance!

I have been amazed at the beauty of the countryside round here, which just goes to prove what an ignorant Southerner I am, as I expected it to be all grey, neglected villages and abandoned ‘dark, satanic mills’ being so near to the industrial towns of The North! Jeni and I took a late afternoon drive into the Forest of Bowland yesterday and it is stunning. By the way we can heartily recommend the tea and cakes at the village shop/tearooms in Bolton-by-Bowland – a tad expensive at £2.30 a slice but delicious and beautifully served on a plate with a dusting of icing sugar and half strawberry! He also opened up especially for us as we got there at 4.30pm and the tearooms were officially closed. What a nice man!

We are here until Monday and then it’s off to a hill farm in Cumbria for two weeks before, finally, crossing the border into Scotland. How did I ever think one year would be enough to do a circuit of Britain, even in two week instalments?

Anniversary Blog

Today, the 15th May 2011, is the first anniversary of my WWOOFing adventure! I would like to share a few highlights of the last year with you, if you can bear with me. Obviously, those of you who have read my blog from the start will be familiar with some of these!

• To date I have stayed at fifteen different hosts (albeit one of them was only for 22 hours!) and three of them I have been back to at least twice.
• I have been to seven different counties: Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Oxfordshire, Devon, Cornwall and Lancashire.
• I have stayed in many different types of accommodation: Semi-derelict cottage, Georgian manor house, Grade II listed thatched farmhouse, old mill houses, barn conversions, damp mobile home, country cottage and narrowboat.
• I have weeded many vegetable and flower beds
• I have helped make jams, jellies, wines and cordials
• I have collected some lovely recipes from some of my hosts: a bread recipe that really works, a breakfast granola, a very superior apple tart, several soft cheese recipes, to name but a few
• I have looked after calves, pigs, sheep and poultry
• I have been instrumental in saving the lives of three piglets, five lambs, one goldfish and (most recently) a chick, using such unconventional tools as the clear outer case of a Biro, a sports water bottle and.....my cleavage!
• I have eaten great food, good food and some cooked by myself!
• I have experienced all of the seasons in whatever weather they chose to throw at me
• I have made new friends, who will be friends forever, no matter where I end up.
• I have visited places that I would never have got to see otherwise
• I have seen some of the most breathtaking scenery that Britain has to offer such as Snowdonia National Park, the Yorkshire Dales, beautiful parts of Shropshire near Clun, the Forest of Dean and the lovely area around Launceston in Cornwall.

And

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL – I have enjoyed myself immensely. OK there have been times when I have wept for things that are past, I’ve worried (but only a little bit, surprisingly) about the future, and I have worried about my children and how they are doing. But, for the most part, this last year has been like one long, self-indulgent, working holiday.

And another thing:

I don’t foresee giving up this nomadic lifestyle any time soon – there is still so much to see and do. The Scottish Leg is almost planned completely now – I just have one more week to fill or perhaps Jeni and I will allow ourselves a holiday? Jeni is going to continue WWOOFing with me until at least the end of August, when I go off to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival with my sister and her husband.

Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to take the first monumental step this time last year, and especially to my Mum, who by allowing me to use her home as ‘base camp’ between hosts, really freed me up to take off and discover who I really am.

Maytime in Moelfre

Travelling with Jeni is a different experience to travelling alone, and a very nice one, too! For a start, we packed a picnic to have on our way from Cheltenham to Oswestry – something I would never have thought of myself. Secondly, I didn’t have to try and memorise the Google directions (the reason for many a strange, dog-legged journey last year!) and that was an enormous help. The weather was glorious, not a single cloud in the sky and we eventually stopped for our picnic at the Severn Valley Country Park near Bridgenorth overlooking the Severn Valley Railway – we even got to see a steam train labouring up the incline in front of us.

We arrived at Moelfre near Oswestry by mid-afternoon and were made very welcome by Dawn and Tony. After a cup of tea we went on a walk round the garden to see how things had progressed since last year. They have managed to trim back a lot of the overgrown shrubs and the herbaceous borders were looking a lot more under control than they did last year. Tony’s vegetable plot is a thing of beauty even this early in the season with most of the raised beds already full of onions, shallots, peas, broad beans, spring cabbage etc, and many more pots and trays waiting in the greenhouses for the threat of frost to pass. They had also created a new area on one of the levels where you can go and just be quiet amidst the trees, and our first job was to build some rustic steps up to it: this involved staking half-round rails at each end and evening out the slope to create flattish steps. Jeni proved surprisingly good with a sledge hammer having greater accuracy and stamina than me – a fact which I think pleasantly surprised her.

For the most part our work here has involved digging and weeding in the vegetable plot and flower borders, planting seeds, transplanting seedlings and general tidying up, although we have also been involved in the construction of a new decking area outside the cottage as any flat space is at a premium on this Welsh mountainside. We have both found it challenging working on a permanent slope and it is surprisingly tiring when you have to climb several flights of steps to get to the level you are working on – I found myself muttering little mantras as I walked along – ‘spade, fork, watering can’. ‘spade, fork, watering can’ as it was very annoying to get to your chosen spot and realise that the tool you needed was down a 45 degree slope in the potting shed!

The weather has been incredible all the time that we have been here (nearly three weeks) apart from the last couple of days when it has been heavy showers and sunny spells. The rain is really welcome as, despite Tony’s elaborate water catching systems, we had emptied nearly all the water butts and were having to carry watering cans further and further to nurture the new seedlings.

On our days off we have been to Chirk Castle, a National Trust property on the way to Llangollen, which has the most elaborate clipped yew hedges. I kept expecting to see figures from Alice in Wonderland playing croquet on the lawn! We also walked across the Llangollen Canal aqueduct at Chirk which is breathtaking and had another picnic sitting by the canal watching the narrowboats going back and forth. The next day we went to Lake Bala and took a trip on the Bala Lake Railway, a narrow gauge steam railway that runs along the banks of the lake, and then had another picnic on the mountain road to Trawsfynydd. There were just us and a few sheep and one house that could be seen in the distance and mile after mile of mountain terrain. The reason that we were on the mountain road was that we fancied an ice cream and the only place to get a really good ice cream is at Beddgelert!! I don’t know how many miles I drove that day but it was worth it for a double scoop of crème caramel and cheesecake ice cream in a waffle cone! This week we went to Erddig, a country house near Wrexham which has the most stunning formal gardens and more espaliered fruit trees than I have ever seen in my life. It is also very interesting in that the family who lived there kept detailed records of all their servants and had portraits of them painted and, more recently, photographs taken, so that there is a tremendous amount of ‘everyday’ history chronicled, which is unusual. From there we went on to visit my aunty who lives nearby, and had a lovely cuppa and catch up, as I haven’t been in touch with her for some years.

Also, we were invited to some traditional May Day celebrations that Dawn and Tony and their friends go to. Everyone takes food to share and a maypole is erected for dancing round to traditional tunes. Again the weather was fantastic and we all wore bright colours and the girls made flower garlands for their hair – a really joyous occasion and celebration of friendship. All in all we have been made so welcome here that it has been a great pleasure to return – so much so that we may come back this way again later in the year to see how our recent endeavours have progressed.

Tomorrow we repack the car and head over 100 miles north to our next hosts who live on a narrowboat and run a smallholding nearby................