On home territory again

I arrived in Somerset on Friday afternoon and my hosts left for their holiday in the early hours of Saturday morning, so it was a very quick 'handover'. Luckily I was here in April so not a lot has changed except that there are a lot of new chicks in the brooder pens and many of the bantam arks have broody hens sitting on clutches of eggs, so a bit of a population explosion. Also, the five Jacobs ewes have now had their lambs, so there were seven extra sheep heads to count each day. They are still separate from the main flock and are allowed into the chicken field to graze overnight as the paddock they are in does not have much grass left now. They were very wary of me at first but once they realised that I was the 'bringer of food', they got a lot more friendly!

The in-house pets consist of six characterful cats and two Labradors. When I was last here one of the young cats was desperately ill but the vet had no idea what was wrong – he had had every possible blood test and all had returned negative, but he was still continuing to lose weight dramatically (and there wasn't a lot of him to start with) and his beautiful fur was coming out in clumps. It has to be said that things were looking pretty grim for Ziggy back in April. However, believing that the only thing left was an acute food allergy, the vet took him off all food other than plain, boiled white fish and this seems to be working. He is definitely heavier now and his coat is beginning to grow back and regain its shine, but trying to make sure that the only food he eats is his fish is almost an impossibility! Obviously all the other cats have tinned and dried cat food so Ziggy has to be barricaded in the conservatory while he eats his, plus he is a past master at stealing human food too so you can't leave anything unattended for a second. I was really pleased with the way he was eating for the entire week that they were away, but on the last day of their holiday he suddenly stopped eating and looked very unwell, spending his day hunched up in front of the Aga. I couldn't understand what had upset him so much until the next day when he was violently sick – he had eaten the tough stems of the asparagus that I had had for supper and stupidly left on my plate by the sink – no wonder he was feeling out of sorts! I also caught him on the bird table eating the remains of some biscuits that I'd overcooked and put out for the birds! One of the other cats and one of the Labradors love chicken food so accompany me quite frequently when I am doing the feeding – woe betide me if I inadvertently drop any outside the runs!

One of the difficult cockerels that I encountered before has gone to meet his maker, but I still had two or three of whom I had to be wary. The Red Sussex was the worst offender (he's the one that got the better of me last time I was here) and made my life very difficult when I was trying to persuade them to go to bed, until I discovered the broom! I found that if I went in wielding the broom in one hand and a stick in the other he very quickly retreated to bed – sometimes in front of his females – what a wuss! The letting out and shutting up routine took a lot less time than it did before as I didn't have to worry about defrosting the drinkers every day and the field was not icy and slippery. However, the weather was still quite chilly and it wasn't until my second week there that the weather really warmed up enough to discard my jacket.

On May 22nd it was Jeni's Book Launch at Waterstones in Wells and I had volunteered to go along and help. This day was chosen because it was also Wig Wednesday, a new fundraiser for CLIC Sargent, the charity that helped support Jeni when she was ill. The staff at Waterstones made cakes and biscuits and asked for a donation, all of Jeni's author fees from books sold on the day were going to be donated and to cap it all (literally) they were all going to wear wigs purchased from CLIC. I offered to make some butterfly cakes and also some biscuits so spent most of Tuesday baking and icing cakes. On Wednesday I left my charges in the temporary care of the odd-job man and headed for Wells.

Jeni had thoughtfully provided me with a wig (I knew it was a mistake to leave the choice of colour to her!) - it was long and curly and bright fluorescent orangey-red. At one point in the day I volunteered to go outside and hand out fliers to the public, it was very interesting the reactions I got! I was fairly visible from many yards away and you could see some people start to make detours, with eyes cast down, obviously thinking that I was the 'local nutter' while others grinned and almost invited me to speak to them. It was quite worrying when I accosted an ex-colleague of mine from ten years ago and he still recognised me in spite of the wig! I met Jeni's publisher, who had got into the mood of the day and was sporting a genuine judge's wig that had been lavishly adorned with bows, sparkly slides, etc by his daughter, and we had several photos taken during the day by local papers and magazines. Several of Jeni's old school friends came to support her and also her father and his partner, freshly returned from a holiday in Turkey and Jeni's first teacher at primary school, so it was quite a nostalgia trip. The day was a huge success with 35 books being sold (making her the No 1 Bestseller in Waterstones Wells that week ahead of the new Dan Brown novel!) and over £170 being raised for CLIC from the sale of cakes and our wig-wearing.

The rest of the week went fairly quickly and without too much drama except that I had a couple of fatalities. I put the first one down to 'one of those things', 'if you've got livestock, you've got deadstock' etc but the next day there was another dead hen in the same run, and they were Sally's pride and joy – the Speckled Sussex. I went through all possibilities in my head but came up with no conclusion – there wasn't a mark on either of the bodies but it seemed too much of a coincidence that they were both from the same pen. I didn't want to ring Sally and ruin her holiday so I rang a friend of hers who keeps poultry and he kindly agreed to drop by after work and examine the bodies and take a good look at the rest of the hens. His conclusion was that it was just a coincidence and that all the others looked fine so not to worry, so I breathed a sigh of relief and next day Sally returned to take over the helm again.

However, I didn't leave straight away, but stayed another week so that I could go with Sally to the Bath & West Show on the Wednesday, where she would be showing some poultry. Some exhibitors keep their show birds indoors all the time and then wash them all over and fluff up their feathers with a hairdryer, but Sally prefers her poultry to be outdoors doing what they like to do best and then she goes round a couple of days before the show and chooses the ones that are looking well. If they are very dirty she might wash them but, as the weather had been dry, all she did was wash their bottoms and their legs and then rub Vaseline into their combs and legs. We loaded up and left home by 7.00am on Wednesday and got into the showground without any holdups. We were allowed to park temporarily outside the Showerings Pavilion where the poultry classes were held so that we could unload easily. We only took four birds in the end as most of the hens have been broody and are not looking their best; two bantam hens, a bantam cockerel and a large Speckled Sussex pullet (young hen). Sally had also entered some of the egg classes and this had proved quite challenging – trying to get three eggs of the same colour, size and shape is almost impossible! However, by the end of the day she had won two Firsts and two Seconds with her poultry and two Firsts and two Seconds with her eggs, so she was very pleased.

Once we'd set up the poultry and eggs we split up and wandered round separately and I went off to look at the livestock. I went to look at the Zwartbles sheep first but there was no-one showing that I knew so I wandered off to the pig section where I saw the guy, who sold us our British Lop boar and two sows, win his class. At this point I realised that it felt very uncomfortable being at an agricultural show and being a complete outsider so I stopped looking at livestock and went and had a cup of tea in the WI tent as I knew it would be good value for money as opposed to 'rip-off city'. While I was in there I got talking to a couple of ladies who were spinning and mentioned that I'd done a course with Mary at Wells about three years ago but I was now travelling. 'You're not that lady are you....the one who wanted to know about the Kromski travelling spinning wheel?' said one of the ladies, and we were off – she was the one that Mary had kindly asked about Kromski wheels on my behalf and they had heard a bit about me, so I stood and chatted to them about my travels for about half-an-hour and came away feeling quite famous! It's a very small world! I felt a bit lifted by my encounter but the strangeness of being at a show without either (a) Barry or (b) animals to exhibit eventually got to me and I was quite glad when Sally and I met up at 3.30 and decided we'd had enough – I shan't be going to another show any time soon. It's a great pity, as I used to really enjoy the buzz of an agricultural show.

The following day I went on another nostalgia trip which was much more successful – I went to visit a friend that I hadn't seen for more than twenty years and his wife whom I had never met. It was a great afternoon and I was made very welcome and barely stopped nattering to take breath! I kicked myself for not making contact sooner – it's difficult to catch up twenty years in one afternoon! Thanks John and Sharon!

The next day I managed to catch up with another friend, Karen, and had another great natter and also a fantastic aromatherapy massage. We used to work together in an office a lifetime ago, and her massages were the only thing that kept me sane most of the time (she also cured me of my persistent IBS symptoms). Since we both took voluntary redundancy more than ten years ago, she has been honing her skills and has her own business now at www.acorn-natural-therapies.co.uk. This is a shameless plug for my best friend – if you're ever in the Wells/Shepton Mallet/Radstock area she does wonderful massages that leave you relaxed and rejuvenated and that definitely iron out all those kinks and knots.

Saturday was my final day in the area and I needed to catch up with my offspring, so we made a date to go for lunch in Wells during Jeni's lunch hour, but before that I returned to 'my' hairdresser and got the best haircut I've had since she first lopped off my tresses nearly a year ago. Dave, Jeni and I went to a pizza/pasta place to eat and luckily they weren't too busy and we got served quite quickly, so Jeni didn't have to rush too much, and then I went off to see Dave's new motor and have a ride in it (I declined at first but he told me that was the wrong answer!). Its an Audi estate and looks quite innocuous and remarkably 'grown up' until you realise that under the bonnet lurks a 4.2 litre V8 engine which is so large that the battery has to be housed in the boot, and does 0-60 mph in 4 seconds, or something silly like that (I'm sure he'll correct me). We went to Shepton Mallet to get some petrol (and arrange a second mortgage to pay for it) and the acceleration knocks you back in your seat like one of those fairground rides. Very impressive, but also insanely expensive to run – why is it that boys never grow up? Anyway, I had a great time with them, we just don't spend enough time together these days.

I was hoping to catch up with more friends whilst I was in the area, but I ran out of time so, hopefully, when I'm back in the area in July I will get to see a few more of you.

The next morning I helped let out the poultry for the last time, packed my car and set off for mid-Wales.

The Return (briefly) of The Navigator, and May festivities

At the beginning of May I headed northwards to Oswestry. I was accompanied on my journey by Jeni (aka The Navigator!) who was coming to stay in Moelfre for a few days to celebrate May Day with our friends.

We headed off up the M5 and took the first Worcester junction heading for Leominster, Craven Arms and Shrewsbury. I'd told our hosts that we would arrive mid-afternoon around 3.00pm as I thought that Jeni and I would either have packed a picnic or we would stop and have lunch on the way. We passed Ludlow round about lunchtime and started to look for places to stop, eventually choosing, purely because of its name, The Lazy Trout Cafe. It turned out to be a transport cafe under new management and, at first, we were the sole customers. We ordered one of the versions of the All Day Breakfast and sat down. Shortly afterwards some bikers came in, and I was really pleased to see that it was three couples all about my age. They were obviously off for a short break over the Bank Holiday weekend and were very friendly. Breakfast when it arrived was really tasty and the cuppa wasn't bad either, but the poor chap was struggling to keep up with the orders when we left as several more customers had arrived by then and he was single-handed (not literally, you understand!)

As we approached our destination I glanced at the dashboard clock – 2.57pm. I must have inherited the punctual gene from my father, because he could estimate the time of a journey almost to the minute!

We were greeted with a cup of tea and a catch-up tour of the three-acre garden. They had had really bad snow in the valley only a few weeks ago and had watched helplessly as some ewes and lambs in an adjacent field starved to death because the farmer was unable to get to them. Next year they have asked him to drop a couple of large hay bales at their property and they will feed it to the sheep if the snow returns again. The garden had suffered some terrible damage too; a lot of the conifers had just split away and were bent out of all recognition; several trees had lost limbs; many of the young fruit trees had been nibbled by, what at first appeared to be, giant rabbits, until you realised how deep the snow had been, and many of the lavender bushes had succumbed. The worst damage was to their lovely summer house that was the focal point of the garden – the weight of snow on the roof had snapped the main roof support and the walls had started to collapse outwards, the whole structure was held together with ratchet straps, polypropylene rope and covered in a tarpaulin. As the insurance loss adjuster said: 'I think this shed has lost all its integrity!' Luckily, this does mean that they are able to replace it in the near future as Dawn now runs retreat weekends based in it (www.cilrhiw.org.uk).

On Sunday, May 5th, we got up quite early to prepare for the festivities; while Jeni prepared a rice salad, I cooked some cheese scones and Dawn scoured the garden for flowers. Over coffee we made our garlands using willow as the basic structure and then adding heather, primulas, grape hyacinths and daffodils as decoration. Tony had been the May King last year having won the stone ball-throwing contest, so was busy inscribing his name and year on the ball. Then it was time for the off. The Celebration was held at the same place as last year, at a privately-owned nature reserve not far from Oswestry. It is an ideal spot as there is an area of flat ground for erecting the Maypole and a small area for camping, plus a man-made hillock from which to get a grand view of proceedings. It is set in a disused quarry and everywhere amongst the trees were swathes of wood anemones and primroses (it has been a really good year for primroses) and, down by the stream, we saw some kingcups growing – 'like buttercups on steroids' as Tony said!

The weather had been overcast and a little chilly but once the Maypole dancing started the sun came out and it became quite warm. The actual Maypole dancers had been rehearsing the intricate dances for weeks, but the rest of us were not allowed to rest on our laurels as we all had to form a ring around the 'official' dancers and dance along with them. I ran out of steam ages before Jeni did so retired to the hillock to take photos. It was lovely to see people that I recognised from the previous two gatherings that I had been to and we were made to feel very welcome. Everyone brings food to share – hence the rice salad and cheese scones – and the variety and abundance is remarkable. It is just the sort of buffet food that I love so I didn't come away hungry. During the day a horn of wine is passed from male to female, female to male, etc. accompanied by a kiss, and it is incredibly difficult to drink from without sloshing it down your front – a bit like a yard-of-ale glass that you often find in country pubs. There is also one guy who makes absolutely lethal chilli vodka that he likes to share with people. I was warned about this the first year that I went, but still felt that I should try it, as I have done ever since. As long as you are ready for the burn, it is a really nice drink – very warming on a chilly day!

As with many customs that have their roots in the Middle Ages, there are some set characters; the May King (chosen by a feat of strength); the May Queen (chosen by the May King who chooses the garland that appeals to him most when they are placed around the Maypole); the Fool (who acts as a sort of Master of Ceremonies) and The Green Man (a mysterious, masked character who wanders around being enigmatic). Towards the end of the day there was also a play, written especially for the day some years ago and revived this year. It told the story of two brothers, (one good, one evil) who are wooing the Queen of the May. If the evil brother triumphs spring will not come, but luckily the good brother triumphs in the end (aided by the Green Man) and Spring bursts into blossom. It was reminiscent of a Medieval Mummers Play and great fun to watch.

For the second year running Tony won the show of strength, even though there were many more contenders this year, and most of them younger, but muscles honed through gardening on a steep slope stood him in good stead and we returned home in triumphant mood – all in all, a very lovely day.

The next day I put Jeni on a train and Dawn and Tony left for ten days in Brittany where they are trying to convert a small building into a dwelling that they can let out as a gite, eventually. It is slow work as they can only get out there once or twice a year for about ten days at a time, but I am sure they will make it.

With everyone's departure the weather seemed to go into a sulk, and despite the fact that it was May, the next ten days were typical April weather – a few sunny periods interspersed with torrential 'showers'. This was really frustrating as I wanted to do so much in the garden and just couldn't get out there enough. I did manage to weed some of the vegetable beds and planted out several rows of potatoes and also transplanted several self-set shrubs to better positions but there was tons more that I wanted to do, just to tidy up the snow devastation. Because of this, and also because I won't be that far away then, I have agreed to go back for another two weeks at the end of June when we can all work on projects together.

The ten days that I spent alone were very quiet. I had Jasper, the Miniature Schnauzer, and two cats for company, but the nearest neighbour is about a quarter of a mile distant with the tiny hamlet of Moelfre about half a mile away in another arm of the valley. There is very occasional passing traffic but for the most part the silence is only broken by the bleating of the ewes for their lambs in the valley bottom and the constant birdsong. As the floor of the valley is only a couple of hundred yards across and the sides are very steep, the echoes are incredible. When Jasper first came to live here he used to bark at his own bark as it reverberated back across the valley! Consequently, the dawn chorus (it starts at about 4.30am at the moment) is very loud but full of gloriously different birdsong – I counted more than 25 different bird species in or above the garden while I was there, and I also heard the cuckoo on several days. One morning, after an evening and a night of torrential rainfall, I awoke to a new noise – water. I leaped out of bed and pulled back the curtain to see that the small stream on the far side of the valley had breached its banks and was busy forming a new stream bed in the centre of the valley, with quite a large area under water. Luckily, the sheep could move to the valley sides easily and so could get out of the potentially dangerous area, and the house is situated many feet above the valley floor so was in no danger at all – at least all of the water butts in the garden had refilled overnight!

My hosts returned late on the Thursday evening and on Friday morning I packed the car and headed South, back to Somerset for a couple of weeks. It has worked out really well as Jeni's novel is having its official launch on Wednesday, 22nd May and I will be able to go along to Waterstones in Wells to take part and give her moral support. The book, entitled 'The Image of Survival' by Jeni Oborn, is available to order from any branch of Waterstones and can be purchased online from Amazon – OK! Proud-mother plug over!

3rd Anniversary Blog!

Well, I can't quite believe it, but here I am at the end of my third year of WWOOFing, and about to start my fourth. It was a different sort of year in some ways as I decided to take things a little more 'easily', in that I decided not to move on from host to host every two weeks, but to revisit places that I had particularly enjoyed and stay for longer.

So, May 2012 saw me in mid-Wales near a small, unspoilt town called Llanidloes, a little way north of Rhayader and a little way south of Welshpool. My hosts there have an almost continuous rotation of WWOOFers from around the world so it makes for an interesting multi-cultural experience, plus they have many and varied jobs to do so that boredom or repetitiveness are never an issue. Whilst there I met (mainly young) people from France, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Canada, South Africa and Taiwan. Many of them had never worked on a farm before and the girl from Taiwan had never set foot outside of Taiwan before and had never flown in an aeroplane. She arrived at Heathrow, found her way to mid-Wales on a series of trains, stayed for two weeks, repeated the train journeys in reverse and flew home! The air ticket had cost her over £1000 and I don't really know what she gained from the experience, as she went around for the entire two weeks with either a look of shock, horror, incredulity or bewilderment on her face! But what an amazing thing to do, I felt that she was incredibly brave.

I also learned some new crafts whilst I was there, taking part in a weaving and natural dyeing course, and also making a wooden spoon and turning a birch wood bowl on a pole lathe in the woods. I also completed my first peg loom rug and have now started another, using fleeces that I have been given by some of my hosts and, recently I have bought a folding spinning wheel so that I can practice my spinning wherever I happen to be. These are all things that I never expected to have the chance to do and its amazing how satisfying it is.

I stayed at Llanidloes for three months with a short break when I returned to home territory and did a paid farm-sit at Dundry. It was whilst I was there that I had my long hair cut really short to raise money for CLIC Sargent – in the end I raised nearly £800, so thank you to everyone who donated. I still have short hair as it is actually much easier to look after when I'm travelling and working, but I have sorely missed the extra 'shoulder blanket', that was my hair, during this winter!

I did four paid farm-sits last year, usually for a maximum of two weeks, and it is all useful extra income, but it has its downside, too. For one thing, it has rather dictated where in the country I can be before and after the sit, as I didn't want to be driving from one end of the country to the other and back again, and also it is very lonely. If I'm lucky I have the company of a personable dog or dogs with whom I can have a conversation (albeit a bit one-sided) but sometimes there are no pets, just farm animals, so I have long and meaningful conversations with chickens!

Chickens can actually be quite good companions, especially if you are gardening and they are allowed to free-range. I went to stay next to the Oxfordshire Canal north of Banbury for three weeks and the two chickens, Cromarty and Flame, spent all day gobbling up any worms or grubs that I dug up, and Cromarty also caught and ate a mouse! Luckily, I spotted the rather lovely toad before she did and was able to put him in the relative safety of the compost heap.

Staying next to a canal was great for me, especially as it was right next to a lock at the top of a flight of five, so I got to see lots of boats and people going through, even though it was towards the end of the 'season', being in mid- to late-September. I also got talking to some guys on a coal barge that is run by a charity and am toying with the idea of signing up to help crew the barge and its 'butty' (an un-powered, towed barge) at some point in the future – it will be a bit like WWOOFing, but on water! I still can't get enough of canals and the narrow boats – they just fascinate me, and following on from this stay I went a couple of miles away for another two weeks and was able to attend the Banbury Canal Day, and then, whilst at Stroud in March, I spent part of a day off exploring Saul Junction which is on the junction of the Sharpness Canal and the Stroudwater Canal and must have been a very busy place at one time.

After one last farm-sit in November and a two week stay with my 'aunt' in Cwmbran to help her get her garden tidy, I returned to Mum's in Cheltenham for the winter months. I had intended to start my travels again at the end of January but Mum had a nasty fall whilst on a cruise and managed to break four or five ribs and damage her back, so I stayed until she was well enough to cope and started again in mid-March. As you know, the prolonged lay-off did nothing for my fitness levels and I really struggled for the two weeks that I spent at Stroud, even going so far as to wonder whether I should stop all together. However, that is a rather scary thought, too – what on earth would I do if I stopped? Where would I live? And how would I be able to maintain all my new friendships if I was tied to one place?

I felt better after a three week stay at one of my favourite places, near Launceston in Cornwall – I think the large number of therapeutic bonfires helped! I still did not feel back to full fitness, but I may just have to accept that that is the way it is and trying to keep up with eighteen-year olds is just a bit silly. Hopefully, loads of experience and problem-solving are the key assets that I can offer to my future hosts and being able to flip a sheep onto its back or carry bales of hay long distances can be left to the youngsters, although I'm still prepared to give it a go!

I've decided to carry on for now, as I still enjoy the lifestyle, if not the accompanying aches and pains! This coming year sees much the same pattern emerging as last; familiar places and faces interspersed with a few farm sits for people I already know. I keep thinking I should really try the east of the country, but I'm booked up until mid-September already and those winds in East Anglia are probably going to be pretty chilly in October and November.......perhaps next year!

Four bonfires and a 'comeback kid'!

There is a land to the west of the River Tamar where Arthurian legends abound; ancient oak woodlands cloak steep and secret valleys and deep-water inlets lead to sheltered harbours for storm-tossed vessels. A land steeped in myth and mystery and somehow detached from modern-day cynicism where, you feel, all manner of magic might be possible.

To this mystic place I travelled for three weeks and, indeed, there was much magic and a minor miracle that won't change the way that the world runs, but was special just the same. Come, sit beside me awhile and I will tell the tale as best I am able:


Once upon a time there was a husband and wife who lived in an old farmhouse tucked into a protective fold in the hills above an ancient woodland and a dark and rushing stream. From time to time they invited people from far-off lands to visit and help them in their daily chores in exchange for three good meals a day and a comfortable place to lay their heads. I had travelled to their holding several times before, for the lure of the ancient woods, with their gnarled trees covered in grey-green lichen; the pool that captured the sky in its cool reflective depths; and the magic spring that never dried up, was strong and drew me back each year.

This year I should have travelled there in February when the prunings from the orchards were dry and ready to burn, but circumstances held me back and it was later than I had hoped when I finally crossed the Tamar – there would be no ritual bonfire for me this year; no cleansing of the old year and the old growth to allow Spring to emerge, green and verdant and beautiful from the ashes. But I was wrong – Spring had held her breath in Cornwall – no leaves burgeoned green on the trees, all the buds were tight-furled against the cold winter wind that still blasted across the countryside, burning the grass tips and shrivelling the petals of early flowers. The bonfire heap loomed large in the orchard paddock waiting, waiting, waiting.

With the help of three young Germanic travellers and two young children of the household, I started the ritual burning with a little paper, some dry kindling and one match, and before the midday repast, we had burned all of that black and brooding heap reducing it, through flame and smoke, to red-hot embers that glowed long into the night and were readily re-kindled the next day.... and the next...... and the next! In fact, we kept that fire burning for six days and nights, feeding its voracious appetite with brambles, branches and clumps of noxious weeds fresh-hewn from the earth. It devoured all we could feed it until, sated, it lay there spent and still but not dead for, in its depths, its heart was still warm and capable of returning to full life at any time.

From this auspicious start we spread out around the farm and lit more fires in distant fields to consume the brambles and bracken that had smothered the grasses and wild flowers and prevented Spring from returning. It was a joyous task and we returned to the evening meal tired, exhilarated and wreathed in the smell of smoke that permeated our clothes, our hair and even our skin! Now Spring could return, now the year's growth could begin in earnest.

Seeds had been planted in pots in the glasshouse and soon the new green shoots of broad beans, sunflowers and sweet peas pushed through the soil and basked in the warmth of the sun. We toiled in the vegetable garden digging trenches that we lined with manure before setting the potatoes on top and earthing them up to keep them snug against the still-chill wind; we dug and weeded and constructed new compost bins and learned about each others lives in snatches of conversation as we straightened up at the end of our tasks.

Close by, in the lambing shed the ewes moved restlessly, shifting their weight from foot to foot – most of them already had their lambs but a few remained who groaned as they lay down and tried to find a comfortable position, their distended bellies ballooning out at either side. Whilst the ewes fed at the trough the lambs took advantage of the relative space this afforded them to run and jump and chase from one end of the shed to the other. Once the weather showed signs of improvement some of the earlier lambs and their dams were put out in the paddock, where they ran and gambolled and sprung into the air at the feel of the fresh grass under their tiny hooves. The ewes bleated with pleasure at being released from their long confinement and put their heads down into the fragrant grass and ate. Even when their lambs lost sight of them and bleated nervously, some of the ewes were so intent on eating that they made no response, whilst others lifted their heads and bleated a muffled response through mouths full of grass.

Left in charge for a day whilst my hosts had to make a journey, I noticed that one ewe with twins was not coming to the feeding trough and seemed reluctant to move too much. The next day we brought her and her twins back in from the field and placed her in a pen in a corner of the lambing shed. James treated her for calcium and magnesium deficiencies which can occur when a ewe has twins, but to no avail – the next day she could not stand. At first we kept her lambs with her in the hope that they would provide her with a reason to rally, but it soon became obvious that they were more of a trouble to her than a help and we moved them to another pen. Luckily, a young ewe had lost her first lamb at birth but had been kept 'in milk' by James in case he needed extra milk for any of the lambs and, over a period of a few days, she was persuaded to accept both the twins as her own and was soon calling them to her and allowing them to suckle freely. This in itself was a minor miracle, but nothing compared to what followed. The ewe (Ear tag number 74) got weaker and weaker and she seemed to have no further interest in life; she was running a fever and had to be helped to her feet and supported several times a day to allow her to wee ( although they can poo whilst lying down, they cannot wee). We treated her with a molasses-based energy drink – a bit like Lucozade for sheep, and also some live natural yoghurt as, in a previous life, I had succeeded in saving the life of a ewe using this to re-introduce 'good' bacteria into the digestive tract. To get her to take any liquid we had to squeeze it down a tube into the back of her mouth at least three times a day and then try to get her to her feet – it was a bit like trying to wrestle with an over-stuffed rag doll – so that her legs would not go numb and fill up with fluid. After a few days of doing this and trying to get her temperature down with antibiotic injections, things were beginning to look hopeless and she had the look of an animal that was about to give up.

Then, one morning, the young German WWOOFer and I lifted her to her feet and leaned her against the side of the pen whilst supporting her weight fore and aft. Serendipitously, we had her head resting near the water bucket and suddenly she started to drink – she carried on drinking until she had drained the entire bucket and was then exhausted by the effort and flopped back down in the straw, but this was the beginning of the miracle, the turning point in her downward spiral. Encouraged by this positive sign we picked a bucket of grass for her, but she was too weak to eat, so I sat in the straw next to her and rolled little bundles of grass between my fingers before pushing them into the back of her mouth; once they were there she could chew them up and swallow, but she could only manage a few mouthfuls at first before she became exhausted. We persevered over the course of the following week, using the yoghurt and energy drink and then following it up with half a bucket of cut grass fed in small bundles which took about an hour twice a day and standing her up several times a day for 'physiotherapy'. On the Tuesday morning, as I was feeding her, I told her that I was leaving on Saturday and I would really like to see her back on her feet by then – on Friday morning she finally managed to get to her feet unaided and wobbled her way around the pen. I cut her morning grass for her but she no longer needed my assistance and thrust her head into the bucket, picking out all the dandelion leaves to eat first and then munching her way happily through the rest. I have never before seen a sheep so close to death come back from the brink, and when I left on Saturday morning she had the air of a sheep that was definitely going to survive. Within the larger picture this small miracle barely makes a mark, but it lifted my heart and spirits and made me feel that some of what I do is worthwhile.

And now my tale is told and I have left the land of magic and miracles, but I will return to those ancient woods where the primroses, daffodils and bluebells bloom; where the pheasant calls in the meadows at dawn and the buzzard mews high above the shaded valley; where small mammals rustle in the undergrowth and No.74 grazes with her friends on the lush green pastures of these Cornish hills.

A Cold Start to April!

My goodness it was cold on Dundry Hill! The wind was from the north east for the whole time that I was there and swept up the hill from Bristol in an icy blast that almost took your breath away. It was what we 'country folk' call a 'lazy wind' – it goes straight through, rather than round, you!

I arrived at lunch time on Maundy Thursday and my hosts were off to the Scilly Isles very early on Saturday morning, so I had a complete day as a hand over to get to grips with who got fed when and where, and what other things I should be doing – just as well with two dogs, six cats, three tortoises, three geese, one rabbit, nine ducks, a lot of chickens, a flock of seventeen Jacobs ewes, and twelve chicks in a brooder, to look after. I must admit that for the first few days I went around double-checking everything had been fed as I could envisage a nightmare scenario along these lines:

People arrive back from holiday after a week – 'Was everything OK?'
You: 'Oh yes, everything was fine'
Them: ' And did the donkey in the stable behave itself?'
You (with horrible sinking feeling in pit of stomach) 'What donkey?'
Oooops!

Luckily, I did remember to feed and water everything and there were no disasters while they were away. However, one slight bombshell that they dropped when I first arrived was that five of the ewes were pregnant and could start lambing any time from Easter Monday onwards! I hadn't been expecting that and, of course, once I knew that they could lamb, I was waking up in the early hours of every morning from Monday until they arrived home again the following Saturday. Once I had been outside in the frigid air, I was completely wide awake and couldn't get back to sleep for ages afterwards - I was so tired that I took to cat-napping in the afternoons, which were my quietest part of the day. I would put my trousers and a warm jumper on over my night shirt and creep out the back way to avoid disturbing the dogs, who would only want to accompany me on my early morning ramble, and walk quietly up to the paddock where the five ewes were – as soon as I approached and shone the torch in their direction they would get up, stretch and move off quickly to the far end of the field.

I have no idea how I would have managed if they had decided to lamb in the middle of the night – the ewes were very wary of me because they didn't know me; they were in a smallish paddock, but I would still have had huge problems penning any of them up; and then I would have had somehow to get them down the drive and into a stable as I didn't dare leave new-born lambs out in the field, as every night I could hear foxes barking very close by, and in fact they had had a fox attack in the early hours of the morning that I arrived – it got into one of the hen pens and killed several Light Sussex hens and a cockerel- there were feathers everywhere; it looked as if someone had split open a feather pillow and shaken it about.

It was with a heartfelt sigh of relief that I handed back the responsibility of the ewes to my hosts on their arrival home, only to wake the next morning to find that one of the ewes had produced twins in the early hours of the morning – she had obviously been waiting for her human to return and look after her!

In the mornings the round of feeding, watering and letting out of the poultry and the feeding of the other assorted animals took about two hours. The main problem was that, apart from the last two mornings that I was there, the hosepipes and drinkers were frozen and had to be defrosted using hot water carried up from the house, before I could top them up and let out the hens. Each of the breeding pens (apart from the remaining Light Sussex) had several hens and a cockerel. Now, most of the cockerels were quite well-behaved, but there were five that I had been warned to watch out for as they were a bit feisty. All went well for the first few mornings as I carried a large stick and ran back to the gate as soon as I had opened up the door (or 'pop-hole'). However, one morning I discovered that Mr Red Sussex could fly faster than I could run, as he caught up with me before I could escape through the gate and had a go with beak and claws at my leg! The next morning I decided that I would have to try a different approach, so I armed myself with a big stick in one hand and a well-branched piece of blackthorn in the other, and walked backwards to the gate jabbing one or other weapon in his face the whole time – I felt like one of those swashbuckling swordsmen who have a rapier and a short dagger!

When I had been here before in June there had only been one goose, as her female companion had been found dead one morning (Mr Fox was not responsible for this demise!), but I had just discovered the joys of a website called 'Preloved', which carries adverts for mainly second-hand items. It is a bit like eBay without the bidding, but with one significant difference – you can sell livestock on it, so we quickly got online and looked up 'Brecon Buff Geese' and lo and behold, there were several ads but one in particular looked promising – a young pair of geese near Carmarthen, so the day after I left, Sally drove to Carmarthen and bought them. They settled into their new home really well and were soon going round as a threesome, so I was really pleased to see this success story for myself – the 'lonely' goose seemed a lot happier now that she had some friends, especially as the gander courteously broke the ice on their water each morning by jumping into it! What a gentleman!

On Easter Sunday it was a sunny day, but still really cold, so I took my camera and went off for a circular walk, taking in Dundry village. The tower of Dundry church is incredibly tall and I believe that it could be seen by sailors returning to Bristol up the Bristol Channel, so that they knew they were nearly home. The view from Dundry village was quite amazing - I could see Clifton Suspension Bridge and both of the Severn Crossings as well as a layer of snow on the Welsh Mountains, and all of Bristol laid out below me like a model of a city.

Whilst in the Bristol area and therefore on 'home turf' I managed to catch up with my friends, Karen and Ade, who came to visit one morning and had a guided tour of my charges and enjoyed the panoramic views over Bristol, even though it was a bit hazy on the day that they came. I also managed to see one other friend, Grainne, as I had to make a flying visit to Draycott to see my ex about the field lease agreement. She has completely transformed her house into a beautiful, minimalist, light and airy space with incredible views in all directions and had only just moved back into it when I got to have 'the tour'. I was supposed to be seeing Dave and Jeni for a special lunch to celebrate Dave's birthday, but he was very unwell with a 'flu virus, so I just went over to their house for the day and we snuggled up on the sofa and watched a Sherlock Holmes film – it was just lovely to spend some time with them, as it happens so rarely now that I am almost permanently on the move. (I am due back to Dundry in mid-May and hope to have a bit more time to get out to see more people, so please bear with me and I'll be in touch!)

I am now back in Cornwall until the end of the month, so will write another blog then about my exploits west of the Tamar.

Questioning the future

My WWOOFing year finally got off to a belated start on 13^th March when I left Mum's and drove the short distance to Stroud. I had been to this WWOOF host twice before, but this time I had responded to an advert on the back of the WWOOF Newsletter requesting help with lambing. It had been two years since I had lambed anything (and that had been at this host's, too) and I was feeling a little rusty and in need of a refresher course. By the time I had seen the ad and responded to it they had had a couple of other replies, so I was only required for two weeks at the tail end of the lambing season, which was just as well as it turned out, as it allowed me to stay with Mum until I felt she was well enough to cope alone.

I had not been totally idle while I was staying with her as I had done a few small jobs around the house and I had done most of the domestic 'stuff' for several weeks after her accident. I also managed to get up to London for a week during half-term, when my sister came to 'Mum-sit', to help my brother and his partner re-decorate their hall, landing and stairs while their eight-year old daughter was away at her other grandparents. It was quite nice to be decorating again (and to boss my 'little' brother around, as I was designated Project Supervisor!) and we managed to finish it all within the week. We did think that it would take less time than it did, and I was hoping to do a bit of the touristy thing – visiting art galleries, museums, etc. However, we didn't finish until late afternoon on the Saturday and I was returning to Cheltenham on the Monday, so on Sunday we went up to Tate Britain and went to an exhibition called 'Looking at the View', which was all about landscapes. I'm not a great art lover, as I think I've mentioned before, but I did find many of the paintings very beautiful and inspiring – it was very difficult to comprehend that the John Constable painting that I was examining minutely was actually the original and not one of the endless prints!

On the Friday evening I was taken out to a Sushi restaurant in Greenwich – I've only ever tried 'supermarket sushi' before, so to have the real thing was very exciting – and absolutely delicious. I was at one serious disadvantage though, the only implements provided were chopsticks, and anyone who has ever seen me with chopsticks will know just how hopeless I am at using them! After a few failed attempts I gave up and just used my fingers! I was also glad that Rich and Jo explained how to use the Wasabi paste that accompanied the raw fish, as I had not had it before; well, in fact I had bought some Wasabi Broad Beans as a snack somewhere last year and nearly blew my head off – it's like the hottest horseradish sauce that you can imagine and really hits the back of your nose.

Having decided, some time ago, to be open to new experiences (as long as they were legal and not life-threatening) I also accompanied Jo and Rich to their friend's birthday party which was held in a city pub on the Saturday evening and took the form of a drum-and-bass party. Now drum and bass music is something that my son enjoys and is, basically, music with a very strong drum beat and bass line to it, and its loud – very loud! I actually quite enjoyed it and 'threw a few shapes' on the dance floor (I am assured that this is the correct terminology), we then travelled home on the last Docklands Light Railway train of the evening and I got to bed at about 1.00am – see, there's still life in the old dog!

However, the last two weeks have really made me question how much life there actually is in the old dog and, more importantly how much longer I can, or even want to, keep going with my itinerant life style.

My hosts at Stroud have an organic farm that is home to a small flock of about 35 sheep of mixed parentage, and a herd of beef cattle – about 60, in all, I think. At this time of year all of the cattle are housed in large barns that are divided into 6 pens; one with yearling steers(castrated males), one with yearling heifers(females), one with cows due to calve, one with cows and new-born calves, one with bigger steers, and one with a few cows and the stock bull. Every two or three days these pens need to be bedded up with fresh straw which involves a large bale of straw being picked up by the tractor and deposited over the pen front amongst the cattle. We then had to roll it (it takes three people to easily do this) into position so that the strings could be cut and then each portion of straw (commonly called a 'flap') has to be prised off the end and spread around. This would be hard work even with the pen empty, but when you have ten or so large cattle that are bored and want to play 'let's push the straw bale over' it can be very trying! The bull got extremely playful one day while we were bedding up and I made sure I kept the bale between him and me at all times.

Most of the sheep had lambed when I got there but the majority were still in the barn as the weather had been too awful to put them out. There were a few ewes and lambs in the orchard and they had a good shelter in one corner of the field that we bedded up with fresh straw every few days. The daily routine was: out by 7.00am armed with bottles of milk for the triplets. There were no 'orphan lambs' as such, but there were six sets of triplets that needed a bit of 'topping up' to help them along, and a couple of others that seemed to be struggling a bit to get going. Once the lambs were fed, we fed the ewes with pellets and large wheelbarrow loads of silage and then we could go in for breakfast, at about 8.30am. After breakfast we went back out to put out the four horses and three ponies that also live on the farm, and then we mucked out the six stables. When Barry and I had ponies that were stabled we bedded them on wood shavings and worked pretty much on the basis of removing as much of the poo as possible and some of the wet bedding and then topping up with clean shavings, only fully mucking out down to the concrete once a stable had been vacated for the year. However, at Stroud, some of the horses were bedded on straw and these had to be thoroughly mucked out every day; any dry straw being forked to one side and the rest removed, before clean straw was added and the beds 're-made'. Clean water had to be carried into each stable and fresh hay for the evening and then the yard in front of the stables had to be swept.

If there was time before coffee break we would bed up the sheep pens with fresh straw and fill haynets for the sheep that were in individual pens with their new-born lambs. After coffee-time we worked either in the front garden, trimming and pruning shrubs and trees mainly, or clearing up the debris left by the flail hedgecutter that had been used on the roadside hedges, or working in the market garden co-operative, until lunch at 1.00pm. We were then free until 5.00pm when we went back out, brought in the ponies, fed the lambs and fed the ewes – this took about 1.5 to 2 hours. At 10.00pm we went back out again and fed the lambs their last feed of the day, and re-filled the hayrack, if it needed it.

Working on a rota basis, someone had to check on the expectant ewes at 3.00am and the first time it was down to me, one of the ewes decided to give birth to triplets! There was a small caravan tucked into the barn next to the lambing pens, and the person on duty usually slept in there with their alarm set for 3.00am. I couldn't get to sleep very well as the sheep were quite noisy, and then a fox started barking somewhere up on the hill behind the barn, and a couple of tawny owls started calling to each other, as well – it is certainly not quiet in the countryside! I eventually fell asleep to be woken, what seemed like moments later, to the sound of a low-pitched bleating which I immediately recognised as a ewe bonding with her new-born lamb, so I leapt out of bed, threw my trousers on over my pyjamas and shot outside. It was just as well as the ewe had somehow managed to birth her lamb through the bars of the sheep hurdle so that she was one side and her lamb was the other! I quickly lifted him up and popped him back in with mum who proceeded to enthusiastically lick him dry. About a quarter of an hour later at 2.45am, she gave birth to another lamb and licked him dry, too, but she still seemed a bit distracted and uncomfortable so I decided to keep an eye on her for a bit. I busied myself by fetching the iodine and dipping the lambs navels and umbilical cords in it (this is to prevent infection entering their systems via this vulnerable point), and fetching her some more water, checking the other sheep and lambs, etc. Time passed but nothing much seemed to be happening although she was still restless and pawing the ground intermittently, so I decided to have a 'furkle' (this is a Somerset word, I believe, meaning to have a bit of a rummage about!), so caught the ewe and gently inserted two fingers into her birth canal – nothing; after another fifteen minutes I decided I really must check things out a bit more deeply and inserted my hand – way, way down I thought I could feel another fluid-filled sac and a foot, and at that point she started to have contractions again. Eventually, after another fifteen minutes or so, I was able to feel two feet and a nose and was able to pull the third lamb out into the world. Luckily, his delayed arrival had done him no harm and he was soon sneezing and shaking his head to clear out his tubes, while mum, looking slightly surprised at this third baby, proceeded to clean him up – he was an hour younger than his next sibling. By the time I had checked that all the babies were dry and had fed a little bit, it was 4.45am and I was in need of a cup of tea! I had an hour or so snoozing on the settee in the house before it was 6.45 and time to get up to do the 7.00am feeds and another day began!

I had not realised just how much my fitness levels had dropped off over my enforced lay-off and for the first ten days of the fortnight that I was there, I would almost crawl up the stairs after lunch to lie on my bed, because my back felt like it was broken, where I would promptly fall asleep for two hours! I was really struggling – my back ached continually, my ankle ached because I had to go back to wearing wellingtons because of the mud in the gateways, and my arthritic thumbs ached because I'd been using them so much with hauling silage, straw and sheep about! Of course, none of this was helped by the prevailing weather which was predominantly cold, wet and windy with occasional snow! I became quite frightened that my WWOOFing days were over and that I would have to seriously re-think what I was going to do with the rest of my working life but, suddenly, at the beginning of this week I realised that I didn't need to go and have a lie down and that, although tired, I was not exhausted.

So, here I am once more, heading south to Bristol and a farm sit over Easter and then southwards again to my beloved Cornwall until the end of April.

Onwards, and upwards, and never say die!! Super-WWOOFer rides again!

Sedentary Jan

It's been getting on for two months since I last blogged and I'm thinking of renaming the blog 'sedentary jan' instead! I feel as if I've done very little except sit for the last month and was looking forward to starting my travels again next week.

I've tried to make use of my idle time in a creative way and finally managed to complete the peg loom rug that I have been working on, on and off, for the last year, in time to give it to Jeni as part of her Christmas present. I'd also made her some blackberry vodka and Dave some sloe gin from fruit I'd picked along the tow path of the Oxfordshire Canal while I was WWOOFing there in September. I miss being able to make jams and chutneys as Christmas presents for people, but its difficult when you have no kitchen to call your own, although I did make lemon curd for other members of the family.

I finally did some spinning on my own wheel a couple of weeks ago – I haven't touched it since I brought it with me to Cheltenham in May 2010! It has a larger wheel than most of the 'standard' wheels that I've come across and, as the engineers amongst you will know, a larger diameter means that it travels further with each press of the pedal, so consequently it spins the yarn very fast – too fast for my inexperienced hands to keep up with most of the time! I have made some very textured yarn which will be fun to weave with but would be impossible to knit with. My spinning tutor told me that once I became more expert at spinning I would wonder how I created such fascinating textures – I think that day could be a long way off! I've already started a new peg loom rug as this can be transported in my car quite easily, as it doesn't take up much room, so I should be able to carry on being creative on my travels.

I also decided to make some of the many photos that I've taken over the last three years, into cards and notelets, so selected 50 of the best and got them printed by Truprint and then bought some card blanks from The Works to mount them on, so anyone who gets a birthday card, Christmas card or note from me will get a photo of a place that I've been to. I was surprised that they looked so good when they were printed as I am certainly not a photographer!

To top off the creativity I regressed to childhood when it snowed and spent quite a long time creating a small flock of snow sheep and also a snow unicorn on my mum's front lawn.

Since I started my blog a few days ago, my Mum has returned from her two week cruise to the Canary Islands, Morocco and Lisbon. Unfortunately they ran into a storm just outside Lisbon, Force 11 gusting Force 12, the worst storm that the crew had ever been out in! There was quite a bit of damage to the ship and much broken crockery. There were also some injuries, Mum being one of them when she was flung across the cabin into the door. This has resulted in at least four broken ribs, as we discovered when we spent three hours in Cheltenham A & E yesterday afternoon, and she is now on strong painkillers. It will be some weeks until she returns to any semblance of fitness, so I have put my plans on hold until she is better. I have had to cancel my first WWOOF placement which I hate doing but, luckily, I have been to Jo and James many times before, so they fully understand the situation and I am due to go back to them again in April.

I already have quite a few places booked up, mainly with previous hosts that I am revisiting (some for the umpteenth time), and also a couple of farm sits. I should really try to get to East Anglia later in the summer as I still haven't been there (or Dorset, Hampshire, Kent, etc). In fact, if you look at the places that I have been on a map I seem to have stayed pretty much to the west of a line drawn north-south through the centre of Britain!

Well, that's it for now - hopefully there will be more to write about in the next few weeks. I hope you are all keeping warm and well - Spring isn't far away, there are snowdrops and aconites out in my mum's garden, and the nights are already drawing out.