Isle of Man Holiday

I have just returned from my short break on the Isle of Man. Mum and I went on one of these coach trips that are usually the province of the more elderly and infirm of the population – I think I was probably the youngest by a few years!

The coach left Cheltenham at 7.15am on Thursday morning (its first pick-up was in Swindon at 5.00am!) making its final pick-up in Worcester before heading up the motorway to Heysham, just south of Liverpool. The day was damp with a chill wind and overcast skies that did not bode well for the crossing. The ferry, Ben My Chree, left Heysham at 2.15 and set sail for Douglas. Unfortunately, I'd failed to realise that it is nearly 70 miles to the Isle of Man and the ferry averages about 15 knots (less than 20mph) so it took about three and a half hours.

Mum has the finest sea legs of anyone I know – a few years ago she went on a cruise from Dover to Tangier They never actually got to Tangier as they met a Force 10 gale (or should that be hurricane) in the Bay of Biscay and had to put into Bilbao to off load all the injured passengers! Mum and her friend, Mary, thoroughly enjoyed themselves despite Mum only narrowly escaping injury when a picture fell off the wall, and failing to save all the crockery as it slid off the table where they were dining. Strangely, there weren't many people dining at the time but there were many breakages of crockery! I do not appear to have inherited my sea legs from my Mum despite having a line of sailors on my Mum's side of the family that go back several generations plus my great grandfather on my Dad's side, so it wasn't long before the stuffy conditions below deck and the inescapable smell of chips and vinegar, were having a detrimental effect on my stomach. Just over an hour into the journey we went on deck where, even though it was going up and down quite a lot, at least I could see the horizon and that, and the stiff sea breeze, helped quell the nausea. I asked Mum if the conditions were actually quite rough, or whether I was just a rubbish sailor, and was slightly mollified when she said it was 'a bit choppy'! There only seemed to be a small area of deck for passengers at the stern of the ship so we had a good view of where we'd been but little idea of where we were heading, so it was a while before I realised that we were finally in site of land.

Once off the ferry it was only a five minute drive to our hotel located on the sea front. The hotel was an old Victorian hotel that had 'been brought up to date whilst retaining period features'. This meant that the place was like a rabbit warren as it had originally been several different houses all knocked into one with staircases going up and down every few yards, narrow corridors only about a metre wide and there were five fire doors between our room and the lift! It was not strictly suitable for a coach-load of elderly people as you had to climb six steps from the pavement before entering the hotel lobby, and the fire doors were a real obstacle to free movement. Also the lift was tiny and restricted to a maximum of three people at any one time. Luckily, our bags were delivered to our rooms by a horde of hotel staff who poured out of the hotel on our arrival to collect the luggage from the coach – was this to prevent our escape?

Our room was on the second floor on the side of the hotel and had definitely seen better days – there was wallpaper peeling under the window and one curtain had missing curtain hooks so that it did not close completely, but the beds were comfortable, the room was not too hot and, if we sat on our beds we had a small view of the sea out of the window. Some of our fellow passengers were not so lucky being in tiny rooms at the back of the hotel that were too hot and looked out onto a brick wall! We'd arrived at the hotel at about 6.00pm so it wasn't long before our dinner in the 'self-service carvery'. I think they'd failed to register that the clue is in the name 'carvery', hinting at some form of carved meat being on offer, as the choice for dinner was sausages swimming in a very artificially brown gravy; something that looked like a hotpot; and 'traditional cod in a white wine and cheese mornay sauce'. I opted for the fish and helped myself to peas (frozen or tinned, it was difficult to tell as they were immersed in water) and sweetcorn (ditto). Well, I'm glad that my stomach had not fully recovered as this meal was almost inedible as the fish had been so overcooked that it had curled up on itself and had no flavour at all, even with the sauce in which I could detect no hint of white wine and very little of cheese. Mum and I looked at each other aghast and made emergency plans to check out any nearby restaurants in which to eat on subsequent evenings! Despite the fact that this was a self-service carvery there seemed to be an inordinate number of waiters and waitresses about – we counted seven and the chef at one time, and they paced the room like caged tigers until someone finished a course when they would leap forward and grab the dirty plate almost before you had replaced your cutlery.

We retired early to bed and Mum was soon asleep, but I lay awake for a while listening to the music from the bar opposite and the attendant shouting and laughing of the local 'youth', interspersed with the sound of breaking glass as someone (I imagine it was the barman) threw empty bottles into the recycling bin. Just as I was about to drop off to sleep the people in the room above came back and flushed the loo, whereupon a water hammer that sounded like a foghorn started up and carried on for some minutes, causing me to start giggling hysterically into my pillow.

The next morning, after a restorative cuppa, things didn't seem quite so bad, although the weather did not look good for our morning trip to Peel on the western coast, the clouds hanging in grey tatters across the inland hills, and large puddles on the Promenade from the overnight rain. I consumed the obligatory 'Full English' and felt fortified against the trials of the day.

Our coach driver began every announcement he made over the speaker system with a cheery 'Bing bong!', which I thought would soon pall but, in fact became quite endearing – I'm just very glad that he hadn't chosen 'Hi-de-Hi!' as I would have had to kill him!

Peel was a lovely, old town with a castle on a small island at the end of the harbour, and shortly after we arrived, the clouds blew away, the sun came out and it got positively warm! Mum and I walked right to the end of the harbour wall, spotting some oyster catchers dipping about in the shallows and a couple of birds, that could have been cormorants, diving in the harbour, as well as the ubiquitous herring gulls that lined the harbour wall and took off as we approached. We decided not to go into the castle but went to look for the kipper smokery that was in the other direction. Unfortunately, they were not doing tours that day but we bought a couple of vacuum-packed kippers to take home with us – you can't beat a good Manx kipper, and then it was 'everyone back on the bus' as we made our way back to Douglas for a free afternoon, which saw Mum and me, walking miles along the promenade, sampling the local ice cream and finally making it back to the huge Manx Museum only a short time before it closed, so that we only managed to see a tantalisingly small portion of the collection. We wished at that point that we had foregone the 'two course lunch' served at the hotel which turned out to be half a ham baguette and some chips! We headed down for dinner fully prepared to duck out of the hotel and find somewhere else to eat but, amazingly, the menu was much better and better cooked too and from then on, we couldn't really fault the food at all. I wonder if perhaps it had been a different chef on duty when we arrived? That night the 'entertainment' outside our window ramped up a notch with the music continuing until at least 11.30 (I fell asleep at that point), more shouting and giggling and the occasional shriek, all to the sporadic accompaniment of breaking glass! As Mum sleepily muttered,”Why can't he put it all in in one go?” - a good point.

The next day dawned dry but a bit overcast, and after breakfast we were off to the Laxey Wheel. This phenomenal piece of Victorian engineering and ingenuity is a large water wheel, 72' 6” in diameter and so well balanced that it barely makes a noise as it rotates at 2rpm. It was built to pump water (over 20,000 gallons a week) from the deep lead workings further up the valley, and utilised a moving arm, supported on rollers, that ran over a viaduct to the mine pumps. To one side of the wheel is a stone tower with an outside spiral staircase of slate steps, which climbs to the top of the wheel where there is a viewing platform. I was amazed, on turning round at the top, to see Mum not far behind me! There were 96 steps and halfway down my legs became quite rubbery and I was glad to reach the bottom. The next day my leg muscles really ached, but Mum didn't have a problem at all! From there we went from Laxey to the top of Snaefell (2036 feet) on the electric mountain railway, a journey that took about half an hour and, as we started off the clouds rolled away, the sun came out and when we got to the top the visibility was brilliant. This kept happening at every venue – the poor people on the other coach tour that stayed at our hotel had done this trip the day before and hadn't even bothered to go on the mountain railway as it was raining and the visibility was zero.

After our trip to the top of the mountain we went to Ramsay for a late lunch. Mum had been recommended to go to a restaurant in Ramsay on the quay, called Gophers, by her friend Kathleen from Scotland! Apparently, the owner was the son of a friend of hers so, being a bit peckish and finding ourselves on the quay, we went in for lunch and had the most delicious bowl of home-made ham shank and vegetable soup. I can highly recommend this café if you happen to find yourself in Ramsay! We strolled along the quayside, as both Mum and I love to look at boats, and watched a gaggle of Canada geese on a little sandbank in the middle of the harbour. We also spotted some small wading birds that we thought might be Knots (we're not quite sure now, having looked them up in a bird book) but it soon became apparent that one or two of them only had one leg as they were hopping about in the shallows and on the sand. I began to wonder what was going on as more and more of them appeared to only have one leg as they moved about, but then one of them gave the game away by putting down his other leg! I have often seen birds standing on one leg but I've never seen them prefer to move about using only one leg. Weird!

We came back to Douglas via the mountain road which forms the fastest part of the TT racetrack and is quite challenging on four wheels let alone two! The road was closed when we first got to it and we had to pull over into a lay-by, at directions from the police, until the road was re-opened about fifteen minutes later – presumably some wannabe racer had taken the bends a little too fast for his capabilities and ended up in a heap, hopefully, not fatally.

Saturday night in Douglas is 'live entertainment' night to the (now obligatory) accompaniment of breaking glass maracas but, I didn't find it too intrusive as all of the songs were from my era and I found it quite soothing to listen to 'Build me up, Buttercup' and the like. In fact, I did consider getting dressed and going down to join in!

Sunday was our last day on the island, as we were due to leave on the 8.45am ferry on Monday morning. This time we went to the south of the island to Castletown, which used to be the capital before everything was moved to Douglas. We got there before 10.00am and pretty much everything was closed and there were very few people about. Mum and I migrated to the harbour, as usual, passing the castle on the way. We then crossed an intriguing iron footbridge across the harbour entrance and found ourselves outside the Nautical Museum, which appeared to be closed and with no indication when, or even if, it would open. We walked on a short distance and on our return heard the door being unlocked. Well, what a find! It was a tiny museum housed in an old boathouse that had belonged to the 'big house' next door and we had it, and the curator, all to ourselves. The 'big house' and the boathouse had belonged to the Quayle family, an important and influential family on the island in the late 1700s. George Quayle, a bachelor as the male curator gleefully told us, was on the governing body of the island but he also played a big part in 'running' i.e. smuggling in his specially built schooner, The Peggy. When he got too old to sail her any more, he pulled her up into the boathouse and walled her in. Here she lay, forgotten until in 1935 the boathouse was bequeathed to the island museum, the war intervened, but in 1951 workmen broke down a wall to reveal the almost perfectly preserved boat lying on her side in the cellar of the boathouse. She is one of only a few boats from the 18th century to survive intact. George was a strangely secretive man and when the workmen first entered the boathouse there was neither a staircase to the upper rooms nor one to the cellar – he had made a 'secret' staircase that slid out from some panelling in the wall. He also had a fireplace in the sitting room that was not a fireplace at all – it revolved in the wall to reveal a safe, and there was a hidden drinks cabinet in the panelling of one wall that could be opened only by operating a catch on the opposite wall, which pulled a cord that ran in the ceiling! When they jemmied it open originally (before they discovered the catch) there were several bottles of a very good French brandy inside. We spent so much time in this museum that we didn't have time to get a cup of tea before we were off and away to Port Erin for lunch.

We walked along the seafront to the lifeboat station and then walked back and found a beach side café next to an old wooden lighthouse, where we had lunch, before getting back into the coach for a short trip to the southernmost tip of the island where we were treated to the spectacle of seals basking on the rocks in the sunshine. From there we drove back to Cregneash which is a preserved village where they farm using horse-drawn implements and where some of the cottages are open to the public and still have the old peat fires, open hearth and sleeping platform that were typical of a Manx crofter's house. It was very interesting but I was unable to take any pictures as I'd failed to recharge my camera battery the night before!

Our final excursion was to return from the south of the island to Douglas on the narrow gauge steam railway, a trip that took about an hour and went through some lovely countryside, again bathed in late afternoon sunshine. As someone in our carriage remarked, it looked like early September (and felt like it) rather than late October, so we had been really lucky with the weather. Our final dinner was, at last, a proper carvery with roast pork and apple sauce. I think they'd made a special effort as we were the last people booked into the hotel before it closed for the winter.

Mum and I thought that we'd be safe from 'entertainment' on our last night, it being a Sunday, but we were wrong! Sunday night is Karaoke night and all I can say is that there is not much in the way of X Factor talent on the island! It was very loud and raucous and had all the usual suspects 'Proud Mary', 'Don't Let the Sun go Down on Me', and, the one that nearly finished me off, an incredibly out of tune rendition of 'I did it My Way'! Things finally quietened down at 1.15am and as we had to be up before 6.00 to catch the ferry home, I was not feeling very charitable at that point and slept badly, finally giving up at 5.20 when Mum and I had a cup of tea!

Not daring to risk the innards of the ferry on the way home, I wrapped up warmly and went up on deck as soon as we were allowed off the coach. Mum, who had contracted a very bad cold two days into our stay was feeling too ill to come with me so remained below in the seating area. When I got up on deck I realised that there was a whole other deck area open to passengers that had been closed off on our trip out – I can only assume it was because the sea was so rough on the outbound crossing, so I took myself up there and watched as slowly but surely the Isle of Man disappeared into the distance, although I could still the light from the Douglas lighthouse more than an hour into our journey. The crossing back was much calmer and I didn't feel remotely ill, but it still took three and a half hours and then we had the long drive home. The coach was very quiet for most of the way and I, for one, slept a good deal of the time. I felt quite sad waving goodbye to the first passengers to disembark at Worcester – our short holiday was well and truly over, but we'd had a wonderful time and I would love to go back one day and explore more fully all the places that I glimpsed on this visit. However, I don't think I will be staying at the same hotel!

Autumn in Oxfordshire

I apologise for the lack of a blog in the last five weeks – for the first three weeks living off-grid, I had internet connection via my dongle but had to conserve my battery because I could only charge up once or twice a week, and the last two weeks my host's WiFi hub refused to connect me to the internet and my mobile dongle thought I was abroad and wanted to charge me extra! Since when has South Northants been 'abroad'?

I have just spent a very interesting and enjoyable three weeks next to the Oxfordshire Canal, a few miles north of Banbury. I had briefly visited my host one very wet morning two years ago when I was staying with another WWOOF host nearby, so felt able to extend my normal fortnight with a new host to a three week stay.

Top Lock Cottage is all that is left of a little cluster of houses that originally stood next to the canal at this point. I thought, at first, that it would have been a lock keeper's cottage but it was originally a forge and joinery workshop, where all the hardware for the canal was manufactured, and stands on the opposite side of the canal to the site where a couple of cottages and stabling for the canal horses were demolished in the '60s. It was never built for use as a house and consequently is only of single brick construction. Phoebe, who has lived there for six years, has had a couple of the walls insulated as it was perishingly cold in the winter!

There were several things that I didn't notice or register when I made my brief visit two years ago: the cottage is situated on the opposite side of the canal to the tow path, so has to be accessed by walking across the lock gate; it has no vehicular access at all, so my car had to be parked in a car park a quarter of a mile away; it is completely 'off-grid' apart from mains water supplied courtesy of the local farmer via a meter. All these things presented challenges for living at the cottage. Last year Phoebe had a solid fuel Rayburn installed – it was delivered in the front loader bucket of the farmer's tractor – and burns coal, which is easier to get to the property than wood as there are still coal merchants plying their trade up and down the canal. Anything and everything has to be brought the quarter mile from the car park, up the tow path to the cottage, unless there is a convenient boat going up the lock system that is prepared to carry it for you.

When I arrived I had to carefully think of what was 'essential' to take from my car, and then we loaded it all into a wheelbarrow and pushed it up the tow path. (Apparently, you can always tell the 'live-aboards' from the hire boats by the presence of the ubiquitous wheelbarrow strapped somewhere on the roof!) I began to regret the size of my bag on that walk up the path, especially as I then had to carry it across the narrow lock gate without falling in!

Living off-grid is a very different experience, too. The lighting in the house is all 12 volt, run off a series of storage batteries (they are old milk-float batteries) that are charged by a small wind turbine situated at the end of the garden. Luckily (in a way) this part of Oxfordshire is quite windy so the turbine works most of the time and we never ran out of 'juice'. Eventually, Phoebe is hoping to install a PV panel on her roof to supplement the wind turbine as she would like to run her fridge on electricity. At the moment the fridge is run on Calor gas, but this is becoming increasingly expensive, the fridge uses quite a lot and all the large cylinders have to be delivered, across the fields, by the farmer and then manhandled (or in this case, womanhandled) down the entire length of the garden, using sack trucks, and they are very heavy and unwieldy. Cooking is also done using the bottled gas and there is a gas water heater for hot water in the kitchen sink. Obviously, once the cold weather sets in and the Rayburn is alight, the cooking can be done on that, but we only lit it a couple of times in the evening when I was there. The Rayburn will also heat the hot water in the tank and radiators. At the moment the water for the bathroom is heated using a generator and this is only fired up a couple of times a week to enable Phoebe to have 240V power to run a washing machine and her computer. This is certainly a challenging way to live and not for the faint hearted – I admire Phoebe tremendously for sticking with it and carrying on alone after her husband died five years ago. Having said all this I have probably given the impression that we lived a Spartan existence, but the cottage is delightful and very snug, and was no hardship at all – just a different experience.

Phoebe works as a furniture restorer and has a workshop in the nearby village of Claydon where she went on several days a week, she also works one day a week on an organic vegetable farm a few miles away, so on several days I worked in the garden alone except for my constant companions, Flame and Cromarty, Phoebe's two remaining hens. The canal was still quite busy with several boats going up and down through the series of five locks that make up the Claydon run, so every few minutes I could have a conversation with complete strangers! As it takes a while to negotiate a lock some of these conversations resembled the sort that you have on train platforms while you're waiting for the train to depart and end up being excruciating, but other people were more naturally chatty and then their passage through the lock seemed all too short.

One Saturday some of her work colleagues from the farm came to give us a hand in the garden, so that we could try and advance some of the more major projects, such as moving the greenhouse. During the day we managed to lay most of a brick base for the greenhouse to move onto, as it was being re-sited from its original position (on a brick base) in the middle of the wall, to a corner position where it could take advantage of two warm brick walls, be more sheltered and free up some space. Other people mended door latches, gutters and set up a water butt as well as cutting up some logs, and the in the evening we had supper sitting round a fire in the firepit in the garden, chatting and drinking wine. A very sociable occasion and a good idea if you have a large project on the go.

The next day I continued with the brick base and then managed to 'walk' the greenhouse into its new position (don't worry, I haven't suddenly developed superpowers – it was only glazed with Perspex sheets, not glass, so wasn't very heavy) so that Phoebe could see it when she came home. We then decided that it would be a very good idea to join the two bits of hard standing together to create a brick patio-cum-potting up area. Luckily there was no shortage of bricks for this project as there had been several workshops on the site that had been demolished so there were bricks everywhere! Of course, as with all jobs, they throw up other jobs that need doing, or make more sense to do, before the main one, so I also did a lot of weeding and had to move some of the raspberry canes, before I could complete the patio.

On another day, we painted the caravan at the end of the garden. This caravan was 'free to a good home' at the side of the road, and although it looked a little jaded from the outside, was weatherproof and clean on the inside and is intended for use as additional WWOOFer accommodation in the summer months, if needed. When I first got there it stuck out a bit like a sore thumb as it was white and could be easily seen from the canal and also a bit from the village, so we painted it green with a grey roof so that, hopefully, it will blend in a bit. We did get a bit carried away on the side facing across the canal though, as we made stencils from Fablon in the shape of a sprig of ivy for the side panel next to the door, several flower shapes for the door and along the top edge, and then some cardboard shapes of two people dancing! Apparently, it was all round the village within a day of us completing the project!

Another large project was to create some raised beds for vegetable growing next year, so Phoebe and I set to to weed the area which was covered with nettles, thistles, docks and burdocks. I was a bit concerned when she brought out a pickaxe as part of her range of gardening tools – but have you ever seen the length of a burdock root? We dug big pits all over the place and even then didn't manage to get all the root out! Over the course of a few days I constructed two raised beds about twelve feet long and four feet wide using a variety of bits of timber that I found in the barn, and then filled them with a mixture of soil, compost and farmyard manure (Phoebe and a friend had barrowed fourteen bags of well-rotted manure along the tow path and then carried them across the lock gate!). I then covered them with sheets of cardboard so that, hopefully, they will be all ready to go next spring. The final job that Phoebe and I did together was to erect two posts and wire and replant the displaced raspberry canes in their new position.

It wasn't all work and no play however, as I went to a charity fashion show in Witney where all the clothes were from charity shops and were for sale, together with rails of other clothes and shoes, etc. I also went to an auction room where Phoebe was doing some on-site restoration on a bed prior to the sale. This was quite a high end auction house and I had a lovely mooch about looking at all the lots – it was a bit like being in a museum. There were some beautiful pieces of furniture – Chinese cabinets inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, Arts and Crafts dining chairs with rush seats, beautifully carved corner cupboards and clothes chests, etc. There were also suits of armour, swords and muskets many from the Civil War as this area was right in the thick of it and the best lot of the day as far as I was concerned – a charcoal and pastel 'Study of a Grey Horse' by Millais!

On the Saturday following this visit we attended a very different auction sale in a church hall in a nearby village where most of the lots were knocked down for £2 and the highest price of the day was £100 for a limited edition print of a leaping deer! However, it did make me realise that you could probably have almost fully furnished a small house, if you were just starting out, for about £300!!

On one of my days off it was threatening rain so I went to Compton Verney House, on the road from Banbury to Stratford-on-Avon, which has been converted into a very pleasant art gallery housing some interesting permanent collections and also hosting other exhibitions that change every few months. I'm not a great art enthusiast normally, but I managed to spend nearly all day there and had a lovely time. They have a permanent collection of British Folk Art which included all sorts of things such as inn signs and trade signs that hung outside shops, children's toys, useful tools and everyday objects and also a large collection of paintings depicting scenes from battles and also from everyday life. There was also a cafe/restaurant serving full meals and a coffee shop that did snacks too. If you ever find yourself in the area it's £5 for entry to the grounds (laid out by Capability Brown) and permanent collections and £12 if you want to view the additional exhibition, too. Unfortunately, as it was heaving down with rain all day I did not see much of the grounds as I ran from the car park to the house (a distance of several hundred yards) but the glimpse that I had would bear further investigation.

I also helped Phoebe man the vegetable stall in Deddington one Saturday morning, attended a performance of three one-act comedies (Phoebe was acting in one of them) and had a short cruise on her friend Jason's narrowboat taking in three locks and a stretch of canal where I got to steer, rounded off with tea and toasted teacakes in the snug living room with the logburner throwing out loads of heat in the corner. I hadn't set foot on a moving narrowboat (I don't count the one that Jeni and I stayed on last year, as it was moored) since my one-and-only canal boat holiday twenty-odd years ago! However, this may all change as I helped a coal carrier and its butty boat through the locks one day (I didn't have anything better to do at the time) and it turns out that they are a charitable organisation who are a bit short of active members to crew the boats on their coal runs that they do twice a year to raise funds, so........... perhaps I'll try that next year!

After my three weeks at Top Lock I moved five miles down the road to Culworth where I WWOOFed two years ago. The lady who lives here has about two acres of land – one acre is a paddock with small duck pond, and the other is in the form of gardens at the back and front of the property. There is a lot of clearing up to do in the autumn garden so I spent most of the two weeks cutting back shrubs and herbaceous borders, weeding and spreading compost. The weather was quite kind while I was there and there were only two afternoons when rain stopped play and I had to amuse myself indoors reading, knitting and doing endless Sudoku and Codewords! Juliet is obsessed with all things Spanish and her bookshelves only seemed to contain books that had something to do with Spain. When I was there two years ago I re-read the Chris Stewart trilogy (Driving over Lemons, Parrot in the Pepper Tree; Almond Blossom Appreciation Society) all about moving to Spain. This time I read 'Its Not about the Tapas' by Polly Evans, a travelogue, and 'Getting to Manana' by Miranda Innes, all about moving to Spain – bit of a theme going on there, I thought. I don't think I need to read any more Spanish-themed books for a while!

Juliet has five ducks (there were eight two years ago) and five hens but was looking to increase her flock so, one afternoon we drove over to a garden centre at Towcester that sells hens too, and bought three young, blue, hybrid hens to add to the flock. They are very pretty birds but have obviously been raised in a barn as they are very reluctant to come out of the hen house, let alone out of the run to free-range with the others. I expect they'll get the idea in a day or two and then they won't want to come in! I've got quite used to looking out for inquisitive chickens over the last five weeks as they love to come and look for grubs and worms just where I'm about to plunge my fork! Although I must admit that I do enjoy their company.

On the Sunday that I was there, it was Banbury Canal Day so we both went along to see what it was all about. The canal basin was teeming with stalls, people and boats – the Cheese Boat was there, as was the faintly scary boat selling slush puppies and candy floss – it was painted in black and white zebra stripes, with an Astroturf roof! But, look as I might, I could not find The Fudge Boat that I am assured really exists and sells its wares up and down the canals. Luckily I did locate some fudge in the throng of market stalls and treated myself to some Ginger Fudge as a special treat! On the opposite side of the canal there were a couple of music venues and a lovely craft market. My new acquaintance, Jason, had his boat moored in a prime location selling his beautiful driftwood mirrors, but he said that he didn't think there was the money about in Banbury to buy such a luxury item.

On another evening we drove to Chipping Norton to the theatre where we saw a production screened live from the National Theatre in London. This is something called National Theatre Live and it is transmitted live to venues all over the world. The play was called 'The Last of the Hausmanns' and starred Julie Walters and Rory Kinnear and was very funny and well-acted. The theatre in Chipping Norton is small but perfectly formed and includes a bar and a small art gallery – it had originally been a non-conformist chapel, I believe.

Today, I have driven back across the Cotswolds on a beautiful autumn day, through Chipping Norton and Stow-on-the-Wold and arrived back in Cheltenham in time to go out to lunch with my Mum and a couple of her friends at a local pub. I now have nearly a three week break, until my next farm sitting job at the beginning of November, during which I am going on a brief holiday to the Isle of Man with Mum and will hopefully catch up on sleep and correspondence.

Another farm sit!

I left Cornwall two weeks ago on a morning of overcast grey, there had been some showers overnight and parts of the A30 were quite wet, as was the M5. Just north of Exeter, travelling at 70mph I suddenly felt as if the steering had gone very 'light', so I pulled over onto the hard shoulder, scrambled out of the passenger door and checked my tyres all round. Everything appeared fine, but I was severely rattled and felt quite sick (I had a wheel bearing suddenly 'go', without warning and at speed ,on the M5 a few years ago so I didn't want a repeat performance) so I crept along at 50mph to the Cullompton junction and came up to Bristol via the A38. A journey that should have taken just over 2 hours ended up taking 4 as I had to negotiate Taunton and Bridgwater on a Saturday! At one point, just north of Taunton, there was a cloudburst, so I just pulled over into a convenient lay-by and waited it out – I was distracted enough without having the additional problem of not being able to see!

Luckily, the people for whom I was farm sitting own the local garage, so a couple of days later I took it down there to be checked out. A very nice mechanic came out to give it a test drive and suddenly said to me 'Do you own a house at Draycott?'. I was stunned as I was the other side of the Mendips, and I had certainly never met the guy before, but then he explained himself – he was the husband of my letting agent and had recognised the name! He took the car round Chew Valley Lake and said he could find nothing wrong except that the front tyres were a bit low on tread and, in damp conditions, that could have made the handling feel light. I drove over to Wells a few days later to buy two new tyres and to renew my tax – here's a warning to all you car drivers out there – if you don't have your reminder form or your registration document, you can no longer tax your vehicle at any Post Office – the V10 form is no longer used! Aagh! I was always told that you shouldn't carry your registration document in your car in case it is stolen, and my reminder had not caught up with me on my journeys, so I was very nearly scuppered. Luckily, the DVLA had re-issued all registration documents a while ago and Mum had redirected mine to me, in case I needed it, so after a frantic search through all my belongings, I came across it and eventually got the car taxed on the last day of August at Chew Magna. Phew!

The farm sitting itself went well although I did have the additions of a couple of Shetland ponies, a budgie and a moribund hamster who, luckily, managed to remain alive until they returned and then promptly expired. I was going to try and count the chickens to see how many I was actually looking after, but I kept losing count! It was 'quite a lot' and took me about 2 hours every morning to let them out, check their food and water and refill as necessary, and another hour or so in the evening to shut them all in again. I also had six cats to feed twice a day, two dogs who got fed at lunchtime, a small flock of sheep to check and three tortoises and a rabbit, so you can see that I was quite fully occupied! This is by way of an excuse to apologise to all my friends in the Mendip area that I failed to meet up with.......again! I'm back again in May 2013 for definite, so I'll try to organise my time so that I can see a few people.

One of the Labradors, Merlin, followed me around like a shadow, not because he adored me but because he always wanted me to throw his ball for him! He would trail round the chicken arks with me and drop the ball just inside so that I would have to retrieve it before I could let the hens out – very cunning! The other Labrador was a great ratter – he would sit by an ark and refuse to budge if he thought there was a rat underneath, so I would be obliged to lift the ark so that he could dive underneath and catch it – he was always right. Amazing!

I did manage to get to see Dave and Jeni a couple of times when I was there – once they visited me and then I visited them and was taken out for a belated birthday meal at The Oakhill Inn at Oakhill. This is about the third time that I have eaten there and it is well worth a visit as the food is always delicious and beautifully cooked. I had home-smoked salmon followed by slow-roasted pork belly and seasonal vegetables and finished off with a fresh berry pavlova (which was quite different, but just as delicious as the one I had on my birthday in Cornwall!). The menu changes regularly throughout the year, taking advantage of seasonal foods, but there are some 'regulars' too for the less adventurous.

Yesterday, I left Dundry and drove back via Bath, Tetbury and Cirencester to Cheltenham where I am breaking my journey before travelling on to my next WWOOF host tomorrow. It was a beautiful, sunny but autumnal day and the Cotswolds looked at their heart-stoppingly, golden best with fields of wheat waiting to be harvested, some fields already cut and some fields already ploughed – a real patchwork of colour lying tranquil under an immense pale blue sky. In a way it made me feel quite melancholy, not because winter is only just around the corner (The changing of the seasons never affects me any more, after years of suffering from a mild form of SAD) but because I had no-one to share this gorgeous day with. It made me realise just how lonely this nomadic lifestyle of mine can be at times. However, the seasons are definitely out of rhythm as near Bath racecourse I spotted several elder bushes in flower! I wonder if elderflower cordial made at this time of year would taste different?

Farm sitting in Cornwall

I never intended to take up farm sitting as a career move, but it seems to have crept up on me! I have just spent two weeks in Cornwall, one week of which was my normal WWOOFing and the other week was farm sitting for my WWOOF hosts so that they could have time with their family in Sussex. As well as looking after the 75 sheep, seven hens, four young turkeys, six cats and Jess, the sheep dog, I simultaneously looked after their daughter's dog, Pickle.

In actual fact, none of this was very arduous as, being summer (so they tell us!) the sheep did not have to be fed as they have more than enough grass, so I just had to walk round them twice a day to check that they had enough water and that they were all still alive. The sheep were separated into three different groups and James and I sprayed them against fly strike (see previous posts for an explanation) the day before they went away. One group were the recently weaned off lambs and the shearlings (sheep that are one year old and have been shorn for the first time this year) from last year, the second group were the ewes who were in a fairly bare paddock until their milk dried up, and the third group were six rams and wethers (castrated rams). One of the ewes had suffered an injury to her back leg that was raw and not healing so we put her in the barn with a friend for company and I had to give her an antibiotic injection. I also sacrificed my last bit of organic calendula ointment and gently rubbed that onto the wound every day, too. One of the rams had a sore head from fighting and I was supposed to pen them up every other day and put some salve on it. I couldn't do this by myself but Jess would help get them into the pen area. However Jess appears to be a one-man sheep dog – she would 'Lie down' and 'That'll do' (signifying that I wanted her to return to me) but when I shouted 'Come bye' (Go left) she ran back to me, lay down and looked very pleased with herself, and when I shouted 'Away' (Go right) she looked at me with a look of complete bewilderment on her face as if I was speaking a foreign language! At the time it was quite frustrating, but later on it made me laugh, especially the tilt of her head and bemused expression.

Shep, the other border collie that they had had when I was last there in March had met a tragic end on the road at the top of the farm track. I missed him very much as he was my constant companion on my walks down to the river through the woods, so much so that, this time, I did not go down to the river at all. He was such a funny dog, bullied by all the other farm dogs that they had over the years, and impossible to train as a sheep dog – the only command he ever learned, and that was an unconventional one, was 'Whoosh!' which had him tearing around the perimeter of the field moving the sheep from under the hedge banks. Once he had done one complete circuit he would jump the gate and go back to the farm – job done! But he was such an affectionate dog and it won't be just me who misses him as he made friends with many WWOOFers over the years. I almost stood on the hill amongst the sheep and called 'Whoosh!' just to see if his spirit was still about. I try very hard not to get attached to other people's animals, I always try to remain slightly aloof, and now I know why – it's just too damn painful when they die!

It was very lovely to have young turkeys to look after again. A few years ago now, Barry and I bought some fertile turkey eggs and hatched them in the incubator, supposedly for Christmas. However, they were free-range and did not gain the weight we had expected, so we ended up slaughtering the four male birds and keeping the two females. I grew very attached to Troy and Troy's sister (don't ask me why they were called that, as I haven't a clue!) as they would run to the fence and 'chat' to me when I went up to the field. It's amazing the range of chirrups and whistles that female turkeys use. In time we managed to track down a turkey stag (Harry – after the farmer who sold him to us) and the girls both wentr learned, and that was an unconventional one, was 'Whoosh!' which had him tearing around the perimeter of the field moving the sheep frome fox killed Harry who must have been protecting his girls and I was so worried about the girls being killed too, that I gave them away to a friend of ours, so there were no more chats with the girls. I'm pretty sure that Jo's turkeys are three stags and a hen, even though they are still quite young. However, in the week that I was looking after them, they grew like weeds and the boys were all doing rudimentary displays by the time Jo and James came home. They were in a pen made from old electric poultry netting that I tried to repair with lengths of baler twine (what else!!)and would quite often walk through another hole that I hadn't spotted and go 'extreme free ranging', but they were very accommodating when it was time for bed and would walk back to the fence and almost wait to be lifted over. I am hoping that when I go back next year, I find that there is still a pair of turkeys in the orchard and that they don't all make it on to the table for Christmas dinner.

Jo and James also have two holiday lets, a bungalow and a barn conversion, and it was changeover day on the Friday that they were away. The barn is looked after by two ladies who clean it all through, strip the beds and remake them, and do some of the washing from the previous week's occupants, but Jo and her cleaning lady usually do the bungalow, so I had to help instead. Luckily the previous occupants had left it relatively clean, so the major work was stripping and remaking all of the beds and then hoovering and dusting all through, cleaning the bathroom and kitchen and making sure that oven, microwave, dishwasher and fridge/freezer were clean. By the end of the morning I was exhausted and I still had about five or six loads of washing to do. Of course, the weather was rubbish so it was out of the question to dry the sheets, towels, pillowcases, duvet covers and bath robes outside so for several days the farmhouse looked like a Chinese laundry with wet washing draped everywhere – Thank Heavens for the Aga! It certainly made me appreciate just how much work goes into these holiday lets in peak season – I'll never take it for granted again!

My birthday happened to fall in the week that they were away, so I decided to treat myself to lunch at a local pub that had won Taste of the West awards. It was a bit odd sitting there in solitary splendour whilst other diners sat in couples or groups, but I still managed to enjoy my meal: I started with smoked mackerel served with a rather delicious gooseberry and elderflower sauce, then followed it up with a steamed venison and wild mushroom pudding, fresh veg and new potatoes and then, even though I certainly didn't 'need' it, I finished off with a strawberry and blueberry pavlova with Cornish clotted cream! Feeling decidedly full I drove back to the farm, sat in a comfy chair with a self-indulgent book and promptly fell asleep. I was awoken by a knocking on the front door and found the four young girls who were staying in the barn standing outside with a slice of gooey coffee and walnut cake singing 'Happy Birthday!' - their mother had been over earlier in the day and noticed the five or six birthday cards that had found their way to me! It was such a lovely and spontaneous gesture from complete strangers that I got quite choked up - people really are very kind!

I am currently back in Somerset doing another farm sit and will then be going to Oxfordshire to WWOOF at a lock-keeper's cottage on the Oxford Canal.

Creative times at Old Chapel Farm

My last few weeks in Wales seemed to fly by and so many of the jobs I'd set myself to do remained incomplete: I'd started clearing the grass and weeds from a lovely brick pathway outside the barn, that Fran had made based on some she had seen at the gardens at Bodnant, but I never finished it as the weather got too wet to do much work outside. I'd also decided to re-felt the tool shed roof as it leaked like a sieve and all the tools were getting rusty but, although I found the roofing felt, it was yet another job that I didn't get round to.

One Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was sitting outside my yurt – yes, I got to spend a few nights sleeping in a yurt, which was lovely – with nothing much to do, when Nelis, the young bodger, turned up. He is actually studying at Aberystwyth University but loves working in the traditional way in the woods, and spends most of his weekends there, when he can. He was off up to the woods and asked if I'd like to go too, as he could show me how to use the pole lathe. He is a very good and patient teacher and soon had me selecting a birch log and splitting it in half using an L-shaped tool called a fro. I then used an (extremely sharp) axe to roughly shape a hemisphere, which took quite a long time as I seemed unable to strike the wood in the same place twice! Once that was completed, we assembled the pole lathe and mounted the 'bowl'. I was then shown how to operate the lathe with my foot whilst holding a curved chisel against the outside edge of the bowl and carefully cutting away the excess wood to make a curved shape. I then used the same tool, held at a different angle, to hollow out most of the inside of the bowl, before finishing it off by hand using a chisel and then a spoon shaping tool. It took me several hours but at the end of it I had a bowl that I had made almost entirely by myself! I was thrilled to have finally used the lathe, and have already started looking on eBay for second-hand wood working tools – why didn't they teach woodwork at Pates' Grammar School for Girls??

Looking back over my stay in Wales, I realise how creative I have been able to be, both by attending the weaving and dyeing course, and also being able to use the facilities at the farm to 'do my own thing'. I have made some things which have really surprised me, in that I had no idea that I could do them, and it has given me a real boost and the hope that, sometime in the future, I can develop these skills a bit more.

Talking of making things, I have also been busy in the kitchen, learning how to make wine and farmhouse cheddar-type cheese, and getting back to butter-making again. It was great fun showing other WWOOFers how to make butter from the skimmed cream – I quite like doing demonstrations. Of course, it did mean that we were left with quite a lot of butter milk which is excellent for making scones so, rather than waste it, each time I made butter I also made batches of scones. Most of these got devoured by the hordes straight away, but some made it into the freezer for Fran to use at a later date. When she lets out the yurts she usually provides the 'yurtlings' with a bottle of home-made wine and a cake, but started leaving them cream teas instead using my scones. The yurts are beautiful – the ones she lets out are both actually from Mongolia, although she does have a couple that were made in Wales. They are about 18 or 19 feet in diameter and can easily sleep a family of four. They also both have log burning stoves and a couple of gas rings and tea-making equipment so that you can be quite comfortable. They are self-catering and people use Merlin's bus to cook in as it has a cooker and a log-burning Rayburn as well as all the pots, pans and crockery you would need. Nearby there is also a solar shower and a compost loo! Have a look at their website at: http://oldchapelfarm.org if you get the chance – it's really interesting.

Over the last weekend of my extended stay, Fran and Kevin hosted two courses - one was on flint knapping, as done in the Stone Age using water-rounded stones and deer antlers as tools, and the other was on bronze sword casting, as done by the people from the Bronze Age! I volunteered to help with the catering for the weekend to enable Fran to finally attend a course instead of just hosting them. I made dozens of scones the week before and froze them so that we could do cream teas each afternoon and I also made soups for the lunches on both days. My biggest problem was getting the quantities right for 25 people - in the end I made enough Carrot and Coriander soup for 50! Both courses were a huge success, and I managed to see a bit of the flint knapping where Will, the tutor, made an axe that was capable of cutting down a fair-sized tree!

A couple of weekends ago I took two of the French WWOOFers to Machynlleth to The Centre for Alternative Technology (C.A.T.), as they were very keen to go. We took the scenic mountain road and stopped at a viewpoint where we could see right the way to Snowdon as it was a beautiful clear and sunny day. We then continued on our way and got to C.A.T. at about 11.30. I hadn't been there since a family holiday in Dolgellau about twenty years ago and they have done a bit more building there since then, as they have opened a graduate school. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with it as a visitor attraction, as it is nowhere near as good as it was when we took the children. The gardens used to be all planted up with flowers and vegetables and everything carefully labelled, explaining why the plants were grown and what they were used for, but now there are hardly any labels, sometimes there are labels and no plants and it all looks a bit neglected. There was a whole covered area showing how important honey bees are in the garden, but the hives beyond the viewing window were very obviously not occupied, and the 'smallholding area' had a couple of geese and some goslings, a few chickens and nothing else! The other thing I noticed was that there are now no staff wandering around that you can ask about particular aspects of the displays – it all relies on information boards, and this also detracts from its attraction. The restaurant that we had to queue to get a seat in twenty years ago, only had about three other customers and I don't think they are really interested in being a 'visitor attraction' any more, even though they charge £8.50 per adult entry fee. I came away feeling a little sad, and it will be a long time before I am tempted to return. However, their website and information area are very useful for finding out about solar heating, wind turbines, etc.

One day, a couple of weeks ago Fran asked me to spend most of the day just checking the sheep and cows in advance of the new WWOOFers coming. All was going well until I got to the last batch – these were the sheep that usually live on the hill but had had the worst cases of New Forest eye and had been brought back to be nearer to the farm. Unfortunately for us, they prefer to be on the hill and had, mysteriously, been getting out of the field we'd put them in, in dribs an drabs, and making their way 'home'! On this particular day there were 15 in the field which meant there were 10 'elsewhere', so I crossed the stream and climbed the hill. The hill field is huge with lots of trees running down to the river, but even so, once I'd walked all round it I could only find 7 sheep and, more worryingly, there only appeared to be two cows rather than the three that should have been there! I went back to the farm and a young French WWOOFer had arrived and was keen to do something, so we went back out again. This time we found eight sheep and two cows! I even sent the young lad over into the neighbour's sheep fields to see if the other sheep were in there but there was no sign. Over the next two days we went out several times but never found the two missing sheep, however we did locate Lucy, the young black cow – she was peacefully grazing in the next field with another herd of cows and a very smug-looking bull! She had obviously come back into season and jumped the stock fence in search of a mate – there could be the patter of tiny hooves in nine month's time!

During my stay, the Canada geese have successfully raised two of their goslings to maturity and have now left the pond – hopefully they will return next year; the wild mallard raised three of her original seven ducklings; the vixen appears to have raised three of her five cubs; one of the tame ducks hid herself in the reeds and produced four little ducklings; and all of the chicks that we hatched and bought are growing really well. Also, one of the French WWOOFers who was here a few weeks ago found an 'abandoned' blackbird's nest with two young chicks in and decided to raise them herself. Her dedication to their feeding regime was impressive but, of course, she had to return to Franc before they were fledged, and made Fran promise to look after them. For their safety, they were put in the bathroom (where there are plenty of plants and other places for them to hide in) and they were still there when I left. We weaned them off their diet of hard-boiled egg and bread soaked in water, and onto live worms that I dug up from the compost heaps, but then I brought some dried meal worms from the pet shop, and they just loved them. They are now both flying and feeding themselves, so I don't think it will be long before Fran releases them back into the wild, where they will probably join the other blackbirds in eating all of the strawberries and raspberries before we get a chance to!

I have finally left mid-Wales, after a three-month stay! I have now moved on to Cornwall where I will be for the next two weeks, going via Mum's and also the Cropredy music festival, where we had the most amazing weather, after all that rain. The music was good, the sun was hot, the cider was cold and the company was great – I go with my sister and brother-in-law and a group of their friends – a really enjoyable weekend!

Of bees, moles and other creatures

I realise I've done it again – one month since my last blog! Well, I'm still here in mid-Wales at Old Chapel Farm and the summer is as wet here as it is for everyone else, although we have had some surprisingly scorching days too.

I have finally managed to do some bee work. On a relatively warm and windless day Fran showed me how to dress in the gear, which consisted of a hat, mesh 'veil' and white long-sleeved cotton tunic all-in-one and white trousers. Then I had to tuck the trousers in my wellies, the tunic into my trousers and don a pair of Marigolds fastened over the sleeves of the tunic with rubber bands! We then approached the hives, one of which we were going to carefully dismantle to inspect the health of the colony. Fran puffed some smoke into the doorway of the hive – this apparently fools the bees into thinking that the hive is on fire so they start to ingest honey in preparation to 'abandon ship' and this takes their mind off the fact that there are two humans dressed in strange garb taking their home apart! I was extremely nervous until I realised that the gear was relatively bee-proof but it was still quite unnerving as the bees got more agitated to have them bumping against the veil in front of my face. My first introduction went off well, but a few days later Fran asked me to show another WWOOFer the hives and dismantle the other hive, on my own, to show her the various cells within the hive! I must admit that when we got down to the lowest level where there was a tremendous amount of bee activity and they were at their most agitated, I chickened out after lifting out just two frames to examine and decided that we'd seen enough for one day. At least I think this is something I could do in the future with a bit more hands-on experience, so the bee hive that Dave gave me for my birthday a few years ago may well get used after all!

The egg hatch was very disappointing – I'm not sure what went wrong, but from 33 eggs we only got 9 live chicks. It was such a shame, but Fran saw some for sale not too far away, so the following Sunday we went to just south of Oswestry and bought 11 more chicks, 3 slightly older birds and 5 which were big enough to introduce directly into the existing flock. In another coincidental moment, the address of the place we were trying to find was the same lane in which I had looked at a For Sale cottage when I was staying in Oswestry, so I was able to navigate Fran straight there! She also bought a fully-automatic incubator from the woman – I have warned her that hatching eggs can become addictive, but I don't think she believes me!

Unfortunately, all has not been well in the animal department. The sheep have become infected with New Forest Eye, a type of contagious conjunctivitis. They had it when I was here last September and I spent an awful lot of time treating them then. This time it has not been quite so bad but we have been getting a few new cases each week for the last month, so a lot of time has been spent bringing the various small flocks of sheep into the handling pens and checking them closely for signs of runny or cloudy eyes and then treating the eyes with an eye ointment that has to e squeezed into the gap between the lower eyelid and the eye. This is not an easy task with sheep that are struggling and moving their heads all the time – although I am now something of an expert! I get to demonstrate how to do it to each new bunch of WWOOFers, plus the odd injection of antibiotic in the severe cases.

I was about to start a week of intensive cow milking practice when the easier of the two cows to milk went very lame and could barely put her foot to the ground. It didn't seem fair to make her stand still while a virtual novice took half an hour to milk her, so I still haven't done that. However, I did get to give my first cow injections! I'd suggested to Fran that the cow might need an antibiotic injection, but she'd never done it before so was a bit hesitant to try. I'd seen Barry do it loads of times when he worked on the dairy farm so said I didn't mind doing it, if necessary. Eventually, the cow was obviously not getting better on her own, so Fran went to the vet's and got some antibiotic, syringes and needles and instructions on how to administer it. The theory of giving an injection and the practice of giving an injection are two totally different things as I found out when presented with a haltered cow, 20ml of antibiotic and a needle fully 1.5 inches long! I took a deep breath, tapped the cow smartly with my fist on the injection point a couple of times and then plunged in the needle – she hardly flinched! I was then able to insert the syringe into the needle and depress the plunger – job done! I had to do it the next day, too as Fran was away for the day, but she did the next two injections herself. At the same time we discovered that one of the heifers on the hill had a massively distorted teat covered in warts. The vets thought that it might be summer mastitis, which is unusual but not unknown in cows which have never had calves, so we had to give her antibiotic injections too and try to milk the infection out of her. I wondered how on earth we were going to achieve this with a young cow that had rarely been handled, let alone milked, but then I remembered a trick that Barry taught me – you hold the cow's tail over her back and she is (in theory) unable to kick. Luckily this worked but it soon became apparent that there was no infection to milk out, so I took a photo of the teat and Fran took it to the vet's who realised that it was just a massive infestation of warts, for which there is no treatment other than time in which the cow develops its own immunity to the virus, so we could stop giving her the antibiotics.

In between all of this animal activity, I have been trying to sort out climbing roses and vines in my garden and also planting out young lupins, wallflowers and sweet peas wherever I can find spaces. It has been a real uphill struggle as I seem unable to spend much time in my garden as I am supervising other people with their animal problems. Last week I was weeding in one of the flower beds when I saw a movement under the soil near my hand. I waited a moment or two until it happened again and then plunged my gloved hand into the soil........... and pulled out a mole! It was quite a large mole so I put him in the bucket that I was collecting weeds in and showed him to Fran. We then showed him to all the other WWOOFers at teabreak and then I took him down the lane and released him into a field well away from the garden. I took a couple of photos and a short video before he trundled off into the grass and disappeared. Brilliant!

A new word has been coined here – Janitized! It is because I have a habit of tidying and sorting things out. First of all it was kitchen cupboards (this is still ongoing!), then it was the tool shed and then it was the bee equipment shed. I have also started on the laundry room and, if I had my way, all the wine in the brewery would be gathered together by variety and year of making! I thought I might be being a bit OCD about it all but Fran said that the place would have sent me insane by now, if I was suffering from OCD! I really like trying to make order out of chaos – I know it won't stay like it for long with so many different people having access to all areas, but at least it looks better for a while and we are able to find things more easily.

This weekend there has been a Woodland Weekend in Fran and Kevin's oak wood a couple of miles away. There are a few bodgers who meet up there at least once a month so we went over to see what they were doing and have a go at making something, if we wanted to. I spent all day Saturday making a wooden spoon using an axe, a knife and a spoon shaper. It was quite hard work and my hands really ached at the end of the afternoon, but it was great fun and such a nice bunch of people. We all had a big stew at lunchtime cooked on a tripod over an open fire – this was added to during the day and we had a curried version for supper too before heading back to the farm. Today, I added the finishing touches to my spoon, helped prepare another stew and took some photos of the new compost loo under construction. I was hoping to have a go on the pole lathe, but other people got there first, so that may have to wait until another time. Another family came today, as well, and the mum cooked Welsh cakes on a griddle over the fire – they were really delicious.

I am due to leave here during the second week in August to head back to Mum's for a few days before heading off to the Cropredy music festival in Oxfordshire with my sister and brother-in-law. I'm hoping that all this rain will have stopped by then as the last time I went, two years ago, I got soaked to the skin despite wearing 'waterproofs'!

The Old Chapel Farm Experience

I suddenly realised that it is nearly a month since I wrote a blog and you must all be wondering what I'm up to (or am I just fooling myself?).

I left Oswestry on 7th May and travelled back to Old Chapel Farm near Llanidloes in mid-Wales (literally slap-bang geographically in the middle of Wales) where I had spent two weeks last September. It was great to be back and see the family again and meet a whole new bunch of WWOOFers: Etiene and Julien from France; Cat, Chris and Scott from Britain and later on Susan from South Africa and Manuel and Marianna from Madrid.

During the first few days that I was here the weather was quite warm and sunny so we picked dandelions to make dandelion wine, and I discovered from the French lads that they are sometimes called pis-en-lit in France which translates as 'wet the bed' as they are a diuretic – I think I prefer Dandelions! One evening we got to sample last year's batch of Dandelion wine so that we know what ours should taste like – very light and fresh.

We also had to do some fencing as the lambs kept escaping from the fields, so I now know how to fix a strainer post and brace it either side; drive in fence posts with a manual post banger and strain and staple stock fencing and barbed wire. It was all quite physical but very rewarding when you looked at what we achieved over the course of the day (and it stopped the lambs getting out).

Fran always gets everyone to have a go at everything while they are here, which is really good, so we all got to make some dandelion wine, we all had a go at making fence strainers and braces, we all have a garden area for which we are responsible while we are here, and we all get a turn at cooking the evening meal. I was amazed at the variety of meals that were prepared from fairly basic ingredients by all the WWOOFers. It is then customary for the WWOOFer who has cooked the meal to do a small presentation about themselves or their country in the evening, and this is usually very interesting. For instance one of the French lads had spent a year in Tajikestan helping the locals build passive solar extensions to their houses to help with heating as, since the collapse of the USSR, they no longer have free coal and wood provided and there is very little woodland in the country to provide logs for heating.

There seems to have been quite a lot of sheep work to do: we have brought in all the little flocks and treated them for worms. This became a matter of some urgency as we lost two well-grown lambs to a major worm infestation that isn't treated with the usual sheep wormer. We also had to move one group of ewes and lambs to some fields about two miles away so had to spend a couple of days there repairing the fences. This week the shearer came and all the sheep were sheared and the fleeces rolled up and put in large sacks, so we all got a turn at doing that, too. I have been given a Jacobs fleece to add to my collection and I am hoping to do some spinning here as Fran has a spinning wheel, and also to continue with my peg loom rug. Somehow there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do all these things!

On the second weekend that I was here a course on Weaving and Dyeing was held here with an outside tutor. As the course was under-subscribed Cat and I were allowed to attend for a reduced fee, and we had a great time. We made dye baths with several different plants: bracken tips, nettles, dried chamomile flowers, madder, onion skins, dandelions and weld. We also used different mordants to see the difference in the colours achieved. Unfortunately, most of the best colours were achieved using chrome as a mordant, but as it is highly toxic and difficult to dispose of it is no longer recommended. However, a natural mordant is rhubarb leaves which contain Oxalic Acid, and although it gives much subtler colours and is probably not so colour fast it is more environmentally friendly. As the dyeing is a messy business and the dye baths need to be heated, we set up our workshop in 'Merlin's Café'. This is an old single decker bus that has been stripped of its seats, tables and chairs put in and an electric oven and log-burning Rayburn installed! The bus was originally the local school bus and it was always breaking down and the owner/driver always complained about it, so one of Fran's daughters offered him £50 for it and he drove it into the field and left it! It has a wooden construction erected over it which has a living roof and solar panels and extends over a patio area so that even though the weather wasn't brilliant we could do our dyeing outside but still be under cover. On the Sunday we did the weaving on small looms set up in the thatched barn – it was great fun and we all managed to finish a length of fabric using a mixture of spun yarns and raw fleece all dyed using natural dyes. I also had one of those not-so-infrequent coincidence experiences – the tutor who came from near Hereford, has a brother and sister-in-law who farm Red Devon cattle near Axbridge, and they are people that Barry has done work for occasionally over the years!

Talking of coincidences, there are also some yurts here that are rented out during the summer and one weekend a young couple came and it turns out that the girl used to work with Jeni at the Soil Association! I'm in the middle of nowhere, for goodness sake, at the end of a small Welsh lane that peters out at the farm gate! I'm just waiting for Emma Thompson to turn up again!!

Being so tucked away is great for wildlife watching, too. There are frequently red kites doing aerial displays overhead, and buzzards and ravens. There is also a pair of Canada geese that have set up home on a pond in the field and raised a family of four goslings and wild mallards that come too but rarely raise a full complement of ducklings (they are currently down to three from a starting point of about nine) as the kites pick them off as they move between the two ponds. One morning when I went out at about 7.30 to check the sheep I saw a vixen and her five cubs playing on the fringe of the wood. I know they kill chickens, lambs, etc. but it is fascinating to watch them. I've seen them several times since and have even managed to film a short video of them playing – very special.

At the beginning of June and part way through my stay here, I returned to Somerset for ten days to do my first-ever paid farm sit. This involved looking after a small flock of Jacobs sheep, two dogs, six cats, four tortoises, a rabbit and multitudinous poultry while their owners went away on a family holiday. Farm-sitting is quite a lonely experience but its OK as long as you have plenty of reading material, knitting, etc. to occupy your idle moments. I did leave the farm a couple of times – once to go over to my cottage and check out the re-decoration work that has had to be done since my last tenants moved out over a month ago, and another time to go to my hairdresser and have all my long hair cut off for charity. I felt quite nervous as I drove there, but once seated in the chair I realised that I didn't mind too much and just let Debbie lop it all off! The resultant ponytail was then wrapped tightly in cling-film and sent off to another charity that produces wigs for children and young adults. I think the most shocking thing about the whole experience was how dark my hair is where it has never seen the light of day before – I am very tempted to re-henna it just to give it some colour!

The rest of the farm sit went off without any problems and my clients duly returned bearing a hefty cheque for me and a lovely goody bag which included a woolly hat (in case my newly-shorn head was feeling the cold), chocolate and shortbread biscuits! I will definitely be keen to sit for them again. As they breed all the varieties of Sussex chickens I bought a couple of dozen fertile eggs, borrowed the incubator from Barry and brought them back to Wales to see if we can increase the poultry flock here.

In addition to the eggs and incubator, I also brought Jeni back with me for a couple of days to experience the Old Chapel WWOOFing experience for herself. I think she thoroughly enjoyed herself as she got involved with the sheep shearing and made some cheese too. She even got a lift back to Bristol with a lady who lives here who was returning to Bristol for a business meeting – so no six hour bus trips via Birmingham, which has to be good!

I have no definite plans beyond the end of June, but realise that I will have to stay here at least until the chicks hatch which is due to be the 1st or 2nd of July. If Fran can fit me in, I may extend my stay here even further, as I still haven't done any bee work or wine bottling, or cow milking or a host of other jobs, too! As you can tell, I am really enjoying my stay here and the diversity of work available.

PS Sorry for the lack of photos - I'm having problems re-sizing them to upload _ I'll try to do better next time!