Realisation and reality

My last day in Herefordshire was as busy as I predicted. I fed the chickens and discovered a wasps nest in one of the poultry houses. This was the fourth wasp nest that had been found in outbuildings around the farm and I wrote a warning on the chalk board in the kitchen as the egg collectors will need to be a little wary if they have to go into the house. After I fed the chickens I went to milk the goats again and got on slightly better this time, although I think my slightly arthritic thumb joints might let me down if I had to do it every day! Then it was off to the dairy kitchen to start the goat cheese - unfortunately it wasn't due to be ready until Saturday when I would be somewhere in Shropshire.

Later in the day, when I was weeding in the asparagus beds, I heard the tractor and baler start up. I was completely unprepared for the wave of nostalgia and regret that swept over me when I heard the 'thunk, thunk, thunk' of the old Massey baler - it was the same model that we had, and I just stood in the garden and wept for everything that I had lost. It just brought home to me that I am still running away - am I actually moving forward at all? I was very glad that, as it was mid-week, I was alone in the garden. Later, I emerged from the garden and went to help haul the bales home which was a lot of fun with so many helpers, but then the baler broke down (inevitably) and so we all went off for our communal evening meal, where I felt quite welcome and at ease, in marked contrast to my first shared meal.

The next morning I packed up the trusty Peugeot and, promising to return later in the year, drove in a slightly zig-zag fashion (I took a couple of unintentional diversions!) to South Shropshire and assignment number three.

I can't keep saying how blown away I am by my first views of places, but I was delighted with my first view of the smallholding. It was reached up yet another long, winding uphill farm track but then I rounded a corner and the most beautiful thatched house hove into view. The owners are obviously still having a lot of work done on the house and it's surroundings but I have a pretty bedroom with a pitched ceiling and double-aspect windows and a bathroom next door. There was another Wwoofer here when I arrived who had the other bedroom in this part of the house, but she left on Saturday and another girl came on Sunday and has left today.

I thought that there had been a misprint in my wwoofer handbook as it said I was only required to work four hours per day, but this is true, so it has been very much like a luxury holiday with delicious meals cooked for me and I am not even allowed to do the washing up! I realise that I can't fall on my feet at each place I go but the last two have been fantastic!

In return for this luxurious accomodation (it's a bit like something out of Grand Designs) I have been 'budging' thistles in the five acre hayfield. "What is 'budging'?" I hear you cry, and that's exactly what I asked . Because this is an organic smallholding, no chemicals are used and getting rid of perennial weeds has to be done manually. Thistles are not really wanted in hay as animals tend to waste a lot trying to eat round them, so Sylvia, the Chinese wwoofer, and I were given a budger each, which is like a narrow sharpened hoe on a long handle, so that we could work our way across the field and cut the thistles off at ground level. Apparently, over a period of a couple of years, this continuous cutting of the thistles will kill them off or at least greatly minimise the number occurring. I have also fed the pigs and sheep and helped load a sow into the trailer for her last ride to the abattoir. It was very sad as she was not an old sow, but she had suffered a stroke a few days after having her last litter and although she had successfully reared all nine piglets to weaning age her mobility was severly compromised and she was obviously not going to get any better, so the decision had to be made.

On my day off (yes, I get those, too!) I climbed to the top of a nearby Iron Age hill fort. It was quite a hard climb following the sheep tracks through thickets of gorse but the view from the top was spectacular. I had chosen a particularly clear day with blue skies and a gentle breeze, and from the top I could see hilltop after hilltop in all directions. It was so peaceful up there with just the bleating of the sheep on the hillside and the lazy buzz of insects, and when I looked up I could see two red kites spiralling effortlessly in the thermals. It reminded me so much of lying on clifftops on family holidays when I was a child that I was almost surprised that I couldn't hear waves breaking on the shore below me. I stayed up there for quite a while, loth to come down to earth again and face reality once more, but there are always more thistles to 'budge'!

Tranquillity and frustration

Today is my last full day in Herefordshire - and it is shaping up to be a very full day! It is now just gone 6.00 am and I am already up, washed and dressed and sitting outside on a bench by the lake. Above me stretches a pure blue sky, unblemished by even the merest hint of cloud, the birds are singing their early morning songs, the grass is wet with dew beneath my feet and there is a slight trail of vapour above the lake. It's going to be a scorching day. It's also going to be the first hay baling day in the lower paddock and this evening it will be all hands on deck - a time when, traditionally, every community member lends a hand to haul the bales home. The grass was cut on Saturday as the weather forecast was good, by Saturday evening there was talk of a light shower on Sunday; on Sunday there was talk of a heavy storm; Sunday evening and for most of the night it hammered down! Since then the weather has improved day by day and volunteers have been turning the hay each afternoon.

In a little while I shall go back indoors and have a bit of breakfast and then I am scheduled to give the chickens their breakfasts, plus I have volunteered to help milk the goats again, with a view to seeing a goats cheese made from the milk, and then I expect I shall be weeding again. My working day is supposed to start at 10.00 and finish at 5.00 with a leisurely lunch in between but I have found the place so beguiling that I have done far more hours than that. Spending time in the highly productive walled garden has been a soul restoring activity and to see rows of neatly weeded vegetables or newly turned soil at the end of my endeavours never ceases to satisfy.

I have not only weeded; I have harvested comfrey to put on the compost heaps; done a bit of hand-milking of both the Jersey cow and the goats; helped with the production of a cooked goats cheese called Halloumi; helped on the maintenance gang painting the inside of the large greenhouse and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I am going to be very sad to leave this place but I have a lot more travelling to do not only physically but mentally too before I can decide on my future.

The frustration here, and hence sitting on the lawn in the cool of the morning on a cold metal bench, is the inconsistency of my mobile internet connection. The laptop has been on a table in my room for over a week and most days I can get enough signal to at least check my emails - today, nothing! In fact, I couldn't get a signal anywhere in my room so I've come outside to be near the huge mulberry tree on the lawn that apparently stands on a ley line that increases the signal! It's true that it is a good signal here, but the downside is that, in bright daylight, I can barely see the screen so I hope that my typing is accurate! Only once, since I have been here have I managed to catch Jeni on line, and there ensued the most frustrating hour as I tried time and again to speak to her on Skype. We gave up in the end, defeated by technology, and I can only conclude that mobile broadband (which is incredibly slow even with full signal) is not up to supporting a Skype connection. I shall have to hope that I can get internet at the next place I am going to and that Jeni and I coincide at some point down the line as it is over a month since I last spoke to her. For anyone who doesn't already know, Jeni is currently in Paraguay and you can read her blog at http://mothsandbeetlesandbugs.blogspot.com/.

Well, I must go now, breaksfast and hungry chickens are calling me! I'm off to Shropshire tomorrow for assignment number three!

From the ridiculous to the sublime

I was blown away by the first site of my next Wwoofing assignment. I approached it through a set of imposing Italianate (I found out later - I'm not that hot on architectural styles!) gates, up a third of a mile driveway through the remains of an avenue of oak, copper beech and sycamore trees, through another set of gates and round to the front of an amazing brick Georgian mansion (I did recognise that it was Georgian, all by myself!). I pulled up in front of the main house and surveyed the 2 acre lake in front of me. Unfortunately, there was no Mr Darcy pulling himself dripping wet and sexy from the reeds, so I got out of the car and went off to find the Wwoof co-ordinator.

I have a lovely little guest suite in the main house, overlooking the front driveway and the lake (still no sign of Mr Darcy). It has a very comfortable bedroom with carpet on the floor and good electric lighting; a bathroom next door with loo, washbasin and shower (and hot water on demand) and a little kitchenette with a fridge, kettle and toaster so that I can get myself breakfast and hot drinks, etc. After my first experience this is indeed luxury.

The set-up here is probably unique in that it is run as a co-operative community but each family unit owns its own apartment within the main house or the converted stable block; most families have at least one breadwinner who works outside of the community and there is no particular ethos (such as shared religious beliefs) that hold them together. The community was started back in the 1970s and seems to be a very stable and well-organised entity with consensus being reached on most things through meetings, which I think are held weekly. The farm and 2-acre walled vegetable garden are run as a co-operative with everyone sharing in the chores and also in the crops that are produced.

At this time of year there is a lot of weeding to do, so my services have been mainly used doing that so far. I have a grid pinned up on the wall in the dairy kitchen and people fill in either a morning or afternoon slot for me to work for or with them, and then they usually give me lunch or supper correspondingly. So far I have only had to cater one supper for myself and I just wandered round the garden picking salad leaves, took fresh mozzarella from the dairy fridge and hard-boiled a couple of eggs and served it all up with a slice of freshly-made bread (made for me by the Wwoof co-ordinator). There is one thing for sure - I am not going to starve while I'm here!

For some time until the community bought the house from Herefordshire County Council it was the local secondary modern school and at one end of the building is a later addition that was originally the music room, but was converted into the gymnasium. It still has the climbing frames and ropes along one wall and took me right back to my school days. I almost expected Mrs Gutteridge, our old PE mistress, to come out and tell me to climb a rope! It is now used for the occasional outside event, such as weddings or conferences, but is mainly used as a fantastic indoor playground for the children who play football and rollerblade round it when it's wet outside. The whole set up is ideal for children as they have 40 acres to roam around in and there are numerous dens dotted about. There is also an outdoor swimming pool that is unheated. I have been invited to use it if I want to but I don't think I will as I don't even own a swimming costume anymore and my days of skinny dipping are long gone!

Shades of Hansel and Gretel

I realise that it's been a while since I last blogged - doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself! I have certainly enjoyed my first Wwoof job, even with the cannibalistic sow, and have been invited to return whenever I want to for however long I want to which has really boosted my confidence.



The second week of my stay was very hot and I started feeding the pigs earlier in the morning so that I wasn't completely exhausted by 9.00am. The good news is that mother sow didn't eat any more piglets and the three left with her were usually to be seen scooting in and out of the barns at high speed, as I used to let her out into the yard during the day where she mooched about and found shady, muddy places to wallow the hot hours away. I must admit that there were times when I wished I could join her! The three poorly pigs continued to improve slowly whilst they were having their course of antibiotic injections, but the day after the course finished one of them had a very bad relapse. Again, he cheated death after a further injection and all three were still alive when I left, although they certainly weren't out of danger and I do worry that no-one would have had the time to spare to look after them as there were no new Wwoofers due for a couple of weeks and everyone else was always so busy.

I had a disastrous walk on the second Saturday that I was there - I'd planned a gentle 3 mile walk, partially on forest trails and therefore shady and cool as the day was searingly hot, to an Abbey that had the remains of a Cistercian monastry in the grounds. I encountered my first problem when I emerged from the wood at the end of the farm into a field and discovered a herd of cows, calves and a large Limousin bull all lying in the gateway of the field that I had to cross! I'm not usually nervous of cattle but I thought caution was a good idea so found a gap in the hedge and squeezed through that instead. After that the way was along a farm track, down a rocky path past some cottages and onto the forestry trails and I happily sauntered along listening to the birds and generally enjoying the day, until I realised that I had been walking for ages and there was no sign of the woods coming to an end. I began to feel a little like Hansel and Gretel, but decided not to retrace my steps as I must surely be nearly at the furthest point from the farm. Eventually I emerged, by way of another field containing another herd of cows, calves and Hereford bull, onto a road near a village called Blaisdon (famous for its plums) and several miles further on from where I should have been! Suffice it to say that, realising my map reading skills were rubbish, I walked back along the road - a distance of about 4 miles, in the blazing sun. I reckon I had walked at least 8 miles by the time I got back and I was completely exhausted and my water bottle (yes, Karen, I had remembered to take one with me!) was drained to the last drop. On the Sunday I did very little!



When I look back on the second week of my stay I can't remember what I really achieved, even though I worked for 8 hours every day. I did quite a lot of weeding in the flower borders at the main farmhouse, and I sanded down a lot of teak garden furniture that had been stored in a barn over winter and was needed in the craft courtyard for members of the public to sit on. I also helped clad the end of a barn in waney-edged timber and make a dovecote to go in the apex of the same barn wall and of course I fed the 'ciderheads' every morning, too. Even the local pheasant population were constantly on the lookout for cider-soaked barley that had been dropped and even helped themselves out of the buckets if I hadn't rinsed them out thoroughly. After many not-so-subtle hints about how I liked cider, I finally got to try the farm cider - it was not your usual scrumpy, but a far more sophisticated drink with a slight fizz that was extremely nice drunk straight from the fridge!



Finally, on Friday 28th May I packed up my little car, bid the old cottage a fond farewell and drove off through the Forest towards Monmouth and a week of R & R with my family before I started on my next Wwoofing adventure.

A tale of many buckets and a cannibal

Well, I've made it through the first week and I'm still in one piece, although a bit exhausted. I was going to run through a typical day's chores but every day is different, the only constant being the feeding of the pigs every morning. David, the German student, sort of showed me what we did on Monday although he shrugged his shoulders quite a bit if I asked a question!


The pigs are fed on watered down cider sludge mixed with barley meal and from what I could gather from David it works out at one bucketful per 2 pigs (roughly). The sow with the litter has pig nuts (a concentrate in pellet form) and barley meal mixed with water. If you can imagine the layout of the yard, the cider sludge is kept in big blue barrels close to the cottage and the water tap and container of barley meal are about 20 yards further away. Firstly, the cider sludge is decanted into each bucket until they are about half full and then they are carried down the yard to the tap where they are topped up to about two thirds with water and then one and a half scoops of barley meal are added and the whole lot stirred with a spade. The full buckets are then carried back through the yard, past the cottage, across the driveway, through the entrance gates and down the lane (a distance of approximately 150 yards). Then they are carried uphill across the sheep field to the pig paddock (a distance of a further 50 yards or so) where 9 very hungry 'ciderheads' have been watching your laborious approach with growing excitement. You then have to lift the full buckets to the height of the top of the stock fencing (which has a strand of barbed wire across it) and tip the mixture into the metal pig trough. If pigs would only stand back and let you do this the job would be tricky enough, but when you have 9 very hungry cider addicts pushing against the fence, standing in the trough and trying to get at the food whilst it is still in the bucket you begin to see why it is advisable to wear the overalls provided! Bear in mind that there are nine pigs so that is 5 buckets that have to be transported in this way. Once the food has been delivered you then have to top up their water trough from the large water container that is located next to their paddock - 5 buckets is enough to fill it to a suitable depth although I suspect that David only ever put a couple of buckets in each day.

Back in the yard there are two further in-pig gilts (young sows who have been to the boar but have not yet had their first litter) in a shed and two smaller pigs in another shed. These also have a bucket of cider plus meal between each shed, and then fresh water too.

By the time we had finished this performance it had taken an hour, my arm, shoulder and back muscles were screaming and I just wanted to go and have a long cold drink and a lie down, but no, now we have to water the newly planted trees and shrubs on the bank by the house - more buckets of water to carry, this time from the tap outside the cottage.

On Monday, I was given the task of wild flower seed planting down the driveway, which involved digging out little pockets in the bank, putting in some compost, sprinkling on the seeds and then watering them with........yes, more buckets of water carried from the cottage! At 10.30 we were taken down to breakfast which was a large cooked breakfast, fruit juice, tea and toast and very welcome it was, too. I had already had a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea before we started work, which was just as well.

On Tuesday morning mother pig had decided to have a little snack during the night and was just polishing off a piglet when Howard arrived to check on them (some of them had seemed unwell and semi-paralysed over the weekend and the vet had suggested a Vitamin E deficiency could cause this so they had all had an injection)! This caused a bit of a flap but David and I left Howard to it and did the rest of the pigs and then David went off to pack his stuff as he is leaving today - was it something I said?

Woke early on Wednesday morning, dreading having to do all the pigs by myself, but then I had a brainwave - if I left the addition of water to the buckets until I got them up to the pig paddock and used the water from the container up there I would only be carrying half the liquid weight! and I could commandeer the wheelbarrow to at least push them along the driveway so the only carrying would be up across the field. I am so glad that I'm the daughter of an engineer - my mind constantly looks at jobs and tries to find a better way of doing them; annoying in the early hours of the morning when you're trying to go back to sleep, but brilliant the rest of the time!
Mother pig was just finishing off a hearty snack of piglet when I got there - luckily there wasn't much left of the carnage apart from a small bloodstain and only 8 piglets. After breakfast I was assigned to the builders in the new cookery school and spent the day oiling oak door frames and helping to lay floor insulation prior to the concrete screed being laid.

On Thursday I went out to feed the sow but felt I needn't really have bothered as she was just finishing her protein fix of the day - and then there were 7! Today I spent on my own down at the pheasant pens putting up three strands of electric fencing around the perimeter to deter foxes, and picking up the blue baler twine that had been criss-crossed across the area to deter the goshawks (unsuccessfully it would seem as they can see it too readily and weave their way through it). I was given the use of the farm truck for the day which was bliss as it meant very little walking up and down hill.

On Friday mother pig was just finishing off piglet number 7 when I got there. I was so fed up that I just opened the door and let her out in the yard while I fed the other pigs. Only three of the remaining piglets can get up the others seem semi-paralysed. Howard called the vet when he saw them and we took them away and put them in another shed close to the cottage leaving mum with the three lively ones. After breakfast I did some gardening down at the old farmhouse until 3.30 when I went back up to see to the little piglets. The vet had been and said it was a virus and gave them penicillin which they have to have for the next three days, so they are being kept away from the others. The trouble is they are only just three weeks old and not weaned so I had to try and get them drinking milk from a little trough. I didn't have much success so mixed a little barley meal with it to make a gruel and lay in the straw with a piglet tucked under my arm spoon-feeding it. The things I do!

Saturday and Sunday are my days off but only after I've fed the pigs so it was with some relief that I counted three piglets with mum, and the three poorly pigs were able to get up and walk about albeit a little bit wobbily, but best of all I got them all feeding out of the trough by themselves!

I will leave you with a little poem:

Ten little piglets lying in a line,
Mum got peckish and then there were nine.

Nine little piglets wondering about their fate
Mum wanted a night-time snack and then there were eight.

Eight little piglets dreaming of piggy heaven
Mum 's stomach rumbled and then there were seven.

Seven little piglets in a bit of a fix
Snap went mum's jaws and then there were six.

Hopefully, there will be no further verses to add to this little ditty!

I'm finally off!

It's been nearly a month since I last posted a blog I realised when I read back through what I had written. Where did all that time go? I finished my cleaning business two weeks ago and have devoted every waking (and some sleeping) moments to getting the cottage ready for letting. In a weird twist of fate my ex-husband has been helping me at least one day a week with the building work - he's been handling the major construction jobs and I've been doing the decorating and some of the lighter jobs.

The estate agents started off well with two viewings on the day after it was advertised, but after that four more appointments were cancelled before the people even got to the front door. Apparently this is common in lettings but it was really annoying for me because each time they set up a new appointment I had to stop whatever job I was doing and tidy the house as much as possible so it resembled a home and not a building site. They whinged slightly that it was not easy to let a property that was not completely ready, but I told them I had no choice as the 15th was looming and I had to go. Suffice it to say here that it hasn't rented out yet and I have left it empty and forlorn, but beautifully decorated and with new curtains in the main bedroom! I joked with the estate agent that at the rate I was going I would be painting the front door as I locked it for the last time! It wasn't quite like that as I had repainted the front door a while ago, but I did lay some new vinyl flooring in the entrance lobby on Saturday morning!!

I would have gone to my Mum's with the rest of my stuff on Friday evening but it just got too late and I just got too tired, so I waved Dave off with a car load of boxes - he got an amazing amount in the Prelude considering the large sound system that resides in his boot space - and contemplated getting a takeaway as I had no cooking utensils left, but I was so tired that I cooked a jacket potato in the oven and 'fried' bacon and egg under the grill. My neighbour came round to say Goodbye and asked if there was anything I needed. 'You couldn't make me a cup of tea could you, Debs?' I asked, and within minutes she was back with a huge mug of tea and a flask of tea too - what a lifesaver!

Day One of my new life saw me driving up the M5 laden to the gunnels with everything I thought I would need, plus all the last minute bits and bobs that had to go to Mum's for storage. I arrived for lunch and did some unpacking and repacking and then at 3.30 I was on my way to Longhope on the edge of the Forest of Dean.

It only took 40 minutes and was really easy to find. I went to the main farmhouse next to the Craft outlet as instructed and rang the bell - no answer. As it was a farm, I thought perhaps there was a backdoor that everyone went to so I wandered all round the building but found no sign of life. I rang the bell again (it was a very loud bell) - still nothing, although there were two cars parked out front, so I went to the craft centre and asked if they knew where everyone was. 'If the cars are there they can't be far away', said a helpful lady in the teashop. I went back to the front door and without much hope of a result rang the bell again - still nothing. 'Well, this is a good start!' I thought, but then, mustering the new laid-back me, I decided to sit in the car and read a book until someone noticed me, as surely they would. About half an hour later I looked up to see a man approaching looking slightly bemused. I leapt out of the car, put on my most winning smile and introduced myself. Luckily they were expecting me but due to a rather heavy lunch engagement he and his wife had been asleep! I was then directed out of the farm and up the road with the instruction to 'take the first driveway on the left and the old farmhouse is at the top of the hill - you'll be sharing it with two German wwoofers - a girl and a boy, but the girl is leaving tomorrow.'

I duly took the first driveway which turned out to be a very steep stony farm track and drove uphill for about half a mile, passing fields of sheep and lambs and a small paddock with pigs in. At the top of the hill were a pair of very nice wrought iron gates set in some rather grand stone pillars, so I drove through and pulled up outside the farmhouse. This turned out to be a rather dubious-looking cottage. The door was not locked so after knocking I went in calling out a cheery 'Hellooooo' - no answer. I was beginning to think that I had come to the wrong place, but there was signs of building work and restoration going on in the outbuildings surrounding the cottage and no other obvious house further along the track which finished just beyond the last barn, so I went back and had a look inside. I felt a bit like Goldilocks in the Three Bears House and half expected someone to come back at any moment and demand to know what I was doing there. Downstairs there were two rooms - the sitting room and the kitchen, and upstairs there were two rooms - both bedrooms. Both rooms were in use, although thankfully unoccupied - now that would have been embarrassing!, but I couldn't work out which room I was supposed to sleep in, although the bigger room was marginally more tidy (if a student squat could be termed tidy) but the other bed was strewn with clothes, curtains and bedding and had a broken leg. Now, the astute amongst you, those that haven't already dropped off with the sheer length of this post, will have noticed that there was one room conspicuous by it's absence - yep, that's the one - no bathroom, and more pertinently at this point - no loo! Beginning to feel a little desperate in more ways than one I had another look round outside and following what appeared to be a well-worn path, located the privy which surprisingly had a flushing toilet - what luxury - but no electric light, so now I know why I was told to bring a torch.

Feeling relieved to have located and used the loo, I decided, in the absence of any better idea, to have a look round the outbuildings and came across several sundry sheds containing Gloucester Old Spot pigs, including a sow and litter of eleven or twelve young piglets. Having exhausted that exploration I was wondering what to do when Howard (the bleary-eyed man) arrived in a truck and seemed surprised that no-one was home. He proceeded to give me a guided tour of the fields and woods around the farm - the woods are filled with bluebells at the moment and wild garlic too and was very quiet - I shall have to have a good look round later on my own.

Returning to the cottage he showed me which room I was in and casually placed a chock of wood under the broken bed so that I had somewhere to sleep at night. The routine is that wwoofers don't work at weekends except to feed the pigs in the morning, the working week day starts at 8, followed by a full English breakfast down at the main farmhouse (I'll need it if I have to walk up and down that hill every day) and then more work 'til about 4. Apart from breakfast during the week all other meals are self-catered with ingedients provided by the farmer. I must admit to feeling slightly short-changed at the moment - an 8 hour day in return for one cooked meal, some very random ingredients for self-catering and accomodation that lacks a little in the comfort zone - still it's only for two weeks!

I fetched some things from the car and sat down to wait for something else to happen. Eventually the two Germans returned - they were students who had just finished school and were waiting to go to University in September, so they are very young but very pleasant. Unfortunately, the girl who is leaving today has much better English than the boy who is also quite quiet naturally, so the next few days could be a challenge.

After a reasonable (for me) night's sleep I woke at 5.15 to the most amazing dawn chorus. I pulled on my clothes and a coat (it was raining) and went outside to the privy, then I made a cup of tea and whittled a plug for the stone sink out of a potato - nothing if not resourceful! and then I had a wash in tepid water - I forgot to mention that there is no hot water unless you boil a kettle and that's not enough to warm the stone sink - I must find a substitute for a washing up bowl later!

Well, it's now 3pm on day one, and we have just finished a not-too-bad Sunday lunch of chicken breasts cooked in the oven, broccoli and mashed potato; the German girl has departed via bus, train, train, train and bus to Cumbria; I have had a drive through the very lovely Forest of Dean and we have fired up the ancient Raeburn in the kitchen as it dawned on me that that is what heats the water - eventually! I also found an old washing up bowl amazingly unholed in one of the outhouses - so another small blessing to add to the collection! Strangely though folks, I am actually enjoying myself so far, but of course, tomorrow is the first working day and then we shall see....................

A bit further forward

It's been a spell of lovely weather for the last few days - not really the type of weather to be working indoors with wood, hammer and nails - but needs must, as they say. Harvey and I have taken advantage of the beautiful mornings this weekend and gone on a short round walk up to where the 'secret primroses' are, but now there are cowslips out as well and all the hawthorn buds are bursting open and the blackthorn is all coming out in blossom. This morning our path was crossed by a fox carrying a large 'something' in his/her mouth, obviously a successful night's hunting! We also saw the pheasant cock with his harem of three - it was only two yesterday but as I saw him trounce his neighbour perhaps he has acquired his female, too.

Yesterday evening I took the bull by the horns and finally rang two of my potential wwoof hosts who had not responded to the email I sent out on the 8th. Both of them were really lovely and I have ended up with an almost-definite booking for some (all?) of June and two weeks at the beginning of October - just wish I could find somewhere for July and August, but these are obviously the most popular times of year and also some wwoof hosts don't host during the school summer holidays. However, I shall keep on plugging on - so far all my hosts are located in Gloucestershire - so much for working my way round the UK, at this rate it could take several years!

The DIY is gradually progressing but was interrupted on Friday, when I went to Shepton Mallet to buy a webcam and then met up with Dave for lunch in Wells (very lovely to spend some quality time with him), and then again today when I returned to Argos at Shepton Mallet to exchange the Microsoft webcam that said it worked with Skype (obviously, they are wrong!) for a Philips one, which appears, in theory, to work with Skype, but it hasn't been used for real, yet. Yesterday, the DIY did not go well and I managed to clout my knuckle several times in the same place with the rather meaty and well-named lump hammer! Today.............so far, so good, but it is only lunchtime and I've got a particularly challenging bit of T & GV cladding to tackle this afternoon. Wish me luck..............and lots of patience!!