Summer's End in The Slad Valley

I entered the Slad Valley on a soaking wet Friday morning. The rain was lashing down so hard that at times the wipers could barely cope. I was extremely grateful that it was only a twenty minute drive from my Mum's house, but even so, not knowing the road terribly well I drove like a novice, slowing at every bend and downhill section, especially as I knew I was looking for a tiny turning somewhere in Slad but I wasn't sure just where. When I finally spotted it I had to turn really sharp left and then immediately the lane plunged down the side of the valley and up the other side and was only wide enough for one car. It was quite a relief to find the farm, and I donned my waterproof jacket and ran to the front door. By the time I made anyone hear, I was already quite damp and more than ready for the cup of coffee that was offered.



After coffee I was launched into my new placement with a vengeance! Firstly, we put the seven ponies out in the field, then I got to muck out the stables and empty the wheelbarrow on the muck heap which is across the road from the yard and through a field gate. All this time 'the rain it was a raining' and I was glad that I'd put on my wellies. After that Sarah had a meeting with a couple of people ("I'll be about half an hour") so pointed me in the direction of a pumpkin and some onions and asked me to prepare them, put them in a roasting tin with some olive oil and put them in the Aga to prepare a base for some soup that she will be making for a catering job that she is doing at the end of October. She also mentioned that she was going to do a leek and potato soup too, and then she disappeared for the rest of the afternoon! After I'd done the pumpkin, etc I was at a bit of a loose end as everyone seemed to have disappeared, then three very bedraggled people turned up looking for Paul, so I pointed them in the direction of the large green barn which was the last place I'd seen him, and then a girl turned up to say was it OK to put her stuff in the caravan? I said it probably was if she'd already agreed this with Sarah. She introduced herself as Rosie and I had to suppress a smile - well we are in Laurie Lee country and he did write 'Cider with Rosie'! After that I decided I might as well prepare the leek and potato soup base too so hunted around the kitchen until I found everything I needed and got stuck in.

I certainly felt as if I'd been parachuted into an unknown territory and had to hit the ground running! Doing this 'job' you are catapulted into people's lives: some of them stop and carefully explain the ins and outs of their set up, what jobs need doing and your part in the overall picture; and others, like Sarah and Paul carry on with the story of their lives, complete with ups and downs, minor disasters and catastrophes and somehow expect you to slot in and merge with it whilst assimilating information as you go. It's sometimes alarming but never dull, and I like to feel that I've risen to the challenge!

The second day that I was here, the weather was really warm and sunny, but the ground was still sodden. For most of the day I picked apples in the orchard. The orchard is situated in front of the farm on a slope that runs down into a dry valley and I was picking apples into a bucket and then transferring them to crates by the orchard gate. There were approximately three bucketsful of apples to the crate and I picked five crates. At the end of the day I loaded the crates one at a time onto the wheelbarrow and pushed this across another paddock, up a slope through a gateway to the green barn where they were to be stored until there were enough to go to the apple juice bottler a few miles away towards Gloucester. By then I was getting tired so decided to load the two final crates together onto the wheelbarrow. All was going well until I stopped to open the gate out of the paddock. When I tried to push the wheelbarrow forward my feet started to slip on the mud in the gateway, I paddled furiously for a few seconds until the inevitable happened and I fell face down in the mud. Unfortunately, I was still holding onto the wheelbarrow handles so, as I fell I catapulted two crates of apples over my head (remember that's six buckets full) and then had to watch as they rolled away down the hill! I heaved myself to my feet, brushed off as much mud as I could and picked up every single apple and repacked them in the crates before staggering back to the house to change - was I going to survive two weeks?

On the third day I was here I weeded and pruned the front border by the house with the help of Rosie who is attending a course at Cirencester Agricultural College and staying in the caravan in exchange for one day a week work on the farm. Strangely enough, she comes from Cheddar and went to the same school as Dave and Jeni, although she is a bit younger and doesn't remember them. The day started off really wet and I had on full waterproof gear especially as I was pushing into sopping wet shrubs, but by lunchtime it had cleared up and got quite warm. By the end of the day we had created an impressive pile of weeds and woody material from just a small area of garden, but when Sarah came back from her course, she didn't think I'd been hard enough!

As part of their farm diversification, Paul and Sarah have set up a market garden area that is manned by volunteers on a Thursday and sometimes on a Tuesday, in return for a box of seasonal vegetables, so I have been assigned to work with them a couple of times. They are a lovely bunch of people and made me feel very 'included' and I have really enjoyed my time with them harvesting and weeding in the polytunnels. There are also several other enterprises on the farm that I have not been directly involved with, namely a small pasty business (not small pasties, a small business!) and a firewood business using some wood from their 40 acres of woodland but also some timber that they buy in and cut up.

I have also helped with the animals: putting out the ponies and mucking them out several times; helping to move the beef youngstock to a new field after being wormed (luckily they had a cattle crush and some gates all set up but it was still a long, hot job); turning over and foot trimming 37 sheep which was exhausting as it was just Sarah and me doing it with some help manning the gates from a lady and her teenaged son. In fact, after coming out of that relatively uninjured, I was so tired that I slipped in the bath and smacked my arm on the edge of the bath causing a bruise of impressive size and colour!

I had the day off on the first Wednesday I was here and managed to arrange to meet up with my childhood friend, Carol and her husband, Pete, who live on the other side of Stroud. We had a lovely time together and took her dog for a walk on a nearby common which has stunning views across to the River Severn and beyond. We haven't spent much time together since we were adults and it was lovely to find out that we still get on really well. Strangely enough, she and her family had spent many summer holidays at Lee Bay near Ilfracombe which is where I am going next - small world isn't it?

On my second day off, Saturday, I met up with my sister, her husband, my niece and my Mum at Stroud and went to the excellent Farmers' Market that they have there. The place was heaving! Then we went off to Painswick for lunch and then, as it was such a dull and chilly day, we headed back to Cheltenham for the afternoon and evening and my sister drove me back to Slad after dinner.

Apart from a couple of days of rain and one very cloudy, overcast day, the weather these last two week has been amazing and I have quite often just been working in T-shirt and trousers. On 12th October the contractors turned up and cut three fields for silage, which doesn't often happen so late in the year. I took a couple of photos and they could almost have been taken in midsummer as the sky is so blue and cloudless, only the slight changes in the colours of the trees gives a clue that autumn is really here.

It's certainly been 'all go' on this farm but I have thoroughly enjoyed most of it. I have met some lovely and 'interesting' people and have felt very embraced by the Stroud area - perhaps that's because it's not far from where I was born and grew up and so feels familiar or whether it just is a really welcoming place generally - I shall certainly return here, probably at the beginning of April to help Sarah with the lambing before I move further northwards again for the summer.

St Francis of The Valleys?

I have just returned to Mum's again from a two week stay in Cwmbran with my aunty, Jen - actually, she isn't a real aunty either! Complicatedly she is the niece of my step-grandmother so I think that makes her some sort of cousin-by-marriage, if such a thing exists! She has just undergone major back surgery and, although she can stand up, walk about and lie down, she is not allowed to sit upright for more than twenty minutes at a time and musn't bend down. As she lives alone this makes day-to-day living pretty difficult, especially as she is not allowed to drive for at least six weeks. So, off I went to help with cooking, shopping etc.

I've had a lovely time as, yet again, I have never spent any time just in Jen's company and as she was a very talented English and Drama teacher before she retired, we have had some good literary discussions, plus a few rants about the education system. I am definitely turning into a 'grumpy old woman'! Jen is Welsh by birth but doesn't naturally have a very strong accent but she had me in stitches with her impersonations of the 'typical' little Welsh woman.

I'd only ever been to Jen's house once before and if you have ever gone to Cwmbran you will know that the planners like their roundabouts in that part of the world! I made at least three detours on my way there and only realised that I was approaching Jen's house because I saw the transit van belonging to 'Tom Brown, Speedway Rider' parked opposite and I knew his parents were Jen's neighbours - being an ex-speedway fan has its advantages, sometimes!

One of the other things I noticed from my Google directions was that I was to drive along Five Locks Road. When I asked Jen why it was called that she told me that there was a canal there - I seem to be attracted to these waterways, don't I? It was the Brecon and Monmouthshire Canal and the first Sunday I was there I went for a walk along the towpath which is tarmaced for most of it's length and very well used by cyclists, dog walkers and walkers. I walked for one and a half hours in one direction and then turned and walked back - the sun was shining and the moorhens and ducks were scooting about in the reeds and huge shoals of fish (roach, I think) were basking in the sunshine just below the surface. Of course, one of the big advantages of canal towpaths is that they are relatively gradient-free so there are no huge hills to climb and there are sometimes pubs where you can stop and enjoy a quiet drink! On the second Sunday I was there I drove to another section nearer to Abergavenny and had a walk there too. There were a couple of narrowboats for sale and some that looked very forlorn as if they hadn't been visited for a long time. Did you know you can buy narrowboats on eBay?

One morning, Jen noticed that the large Golden Orf in her pond were gathered at one end of the pond and looking distressed. The pump had become disconnected from the filter hose the week before and so the water had not been flowing, via the filter, down the little waterfall, so I reconnected it. Then she noticed a dead fish on the bottom of the pond. I fished it out with the net and as I pulled it out I saw a very faint mouth movement, so we quickly got a small container, filled it with pond water and popped the fish in where it lay disconsolately on its side at the bottom. Never one to say 'die' (I have been known to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a piglet, unfortunately with no success) I got the plastic outer casing of a Bic biro and spent the next couple of hours (or possibly more) bubbling air into the container to try to get more oxygen to the little chap, whilst trying to remember to take a few breaths for myself to stop me hyperventilating! Amazingly, after a few hours the little fish started to swim about more or less upright and seemed on the way to recovery so I popped him back into the pond where he made had made a full recovery by the next day. Before you ask how I knew he was the same fish I have to tell you that he was the only white fish in the pond and now goes by the proud name of Lazarus! I know you all suspected I was mad before and I suppose this story now confirms that but, hey! it was just great to save a little life and Jen was thrilled to bits.

On Wednesday, I left Cwmbran after issuing Jen with dire warnings about returning if I heard that she hadn't been careful of her back, and drove back through the Forest of Dean. On the spur of the moment I decided to call in at the first place that I had wwoofed to see how they were doing. I was made very welcome and stopped for a cup of tea and a chat about my various adventures, and guess what?............. those piglets that I weaned survived and are now out in the paddock with the others!! Result!

I now have a week in Cheltenham in which to sort out my winter clothes and pack away my summer ones before I head off to Stroud and a 150 acre farm - after all my garden weeding through the summer a full-blown farm could be a bit of a challenge, so watch this space........

'Unofficial' WWOOFing!

On Bank Holiday Monday I returned to my Mum's house in Cheltenham (aka base camp) where I was staying overnight. In the afternoon of the Bank Holiday we went to a lovely flower festival in a Saxon church at a place called Deerhurst just the other side of Gloucester. We were very lucky with the weather and the flower displays were awesome - I have no idea how people can create such fantastic arrangements and with a theme, too.

On Tuesday morning I did a quick re-pack of the car and headed back to Oxfordshire to Kidlington, just outside Oxford to stay with my aunt and uncle (actually, we worked it out that my aunt is actually my second cousin, I think - I find all these relationship things very tricky to work out!). Neither my aunt nor my uncle are enjoying the best of health at the moment, so I volunteered to go and help out in a sort of 'unofficial' wwoofing capacity, to try and get the garden straight for the winter and sort out the garden shed in return for board and lodging. It was really nice to spend some time with them as I have never really known them on an adult-to-adult basis - I think the last time I went on a family visit was when I was in my teens! Of course, we have met up at a few family functions since then, but I've never stayed with them before.

Strangely enough, they are quite near to the Oxford Canal and I went off for a wander along the tow path one afternoon and ended up walking miles. I assisted a couple of chaps through one of the locks and they offered me a lift to Thrupp where they had a cottage and their mooring, but I declined as I didn't know how far it was and obviously I'd have to walk back. Typically, I ended up walking all the way to Thrupp anyway, where I stopped and had a cuppa at a little cafe before walking back the way I'd come! I was very glad that I'd remembered, once again, to take a bottle of water with me - I must be improving.

This morning I re-packed the car again and retraced my steps to Cheltenham across the Cotswolds. Once more the sky was a hazy, autumnal blue and the sun was turning all the cottages and the standing straw in the fields to gold, and the tapestry of little fields folded away from me on either side of the road. As I came down the A40 into Cheltenham behind a car doing 50mph I reflected on the fact that about 40 years ago I came down this same gently curving road at 100mph riding pillion on my boyfriend's BSA! The last time I did a similar thing was 20 years ago on the road across the top of the Mendips - different bike, different boyfriend! I see a pattern emerging here - perhaps it's time I did it again? Just to prove I've still got the bottle!!

Tomorrow, after another quick stopover in Cheltenham, I am off to another aunty in Cwmbran who has just had major back surgery and needs someone to help her out for a couple of weeks - that should keep me gainfully occupied until I start my next 'official' wwoof assignment in Stroud at the beginning of October.

The last days of summer

For the last two weeks I have been working at a village called Culworth near Banbury for a lady who owns about an acre of ground equally divided between garden and paddock. In one corner of the paddock is a duck pond which is home to her eight ducks, and then there are two poultry houses for the sixteen chickens which free range everywhere during daylight hours.

My regular jobs were to let out and feed the poultry in the morning and to make sure they were all securely shut in at night, weed various borders, clip overgrown bushes and I also rebuilt a little stone wall around a raised bed. A couple of the hens sussed out that when I went out armed with a fork to do battle with the couch grass, they were in for a treat if they stuck close to me - I have never seen such big worms disappear down a throat so fast! Some of the time I was in danger of stabbing the hens with the fork tines as they darted in to grab a juicy morsel from right under where I was working.

Culworth is a very pretty village with most of the houses built of the local sandstone which is a deep ochre colour with occasional red stones and grey stones mixed in. Many of the houses have steeply sloping roofs which, I think, usually indicates that they were once thatched and, because the village was situated on an important sheep drove from the Midlands to Banbury, there are a disproportianate number of large, impressive houses - Culworth Hall, Culworth Manor, Culworth Court, etc. The church is also quite large for a relatively small village and sits next to 'Culworth Castle' which is a hillock and ditch where a Norman castle once stood. In the churchyard there is an interesting tombstone to one 'Charles Bacchus (An African)' and there is some debate over whether he was a slave or not - he definitely worked as a servant for a family and was well thought of, but it seems odd that they should have spent such a lot of money having a tombstone erected in his memory.

The weather while I was there was very changeable and we had some torrential rain and thunderstorms (Oxfordshire does seem to be good at those) and some days I would be unable to garden for the whole day. On one particularly wet day, Juliet took me to visit another lady who is an unofficial Wwoof host. I had seen her adverts for help in the back of the Wwoof News and was intrigued to see what her setup was like. I mentioned her to Juliet and it turned out that she knew her a little bit as she did furniture restoration and had repaired a coffee table for her. We set off across country going down smaller and smaller lanes until we stopped next to a very hump-backed bridge where there was a little car park. From the car park we took a small path that led onto the towpath of the Oxford Canal and then, about a quarter of a mile along the path, we came to Phoebe's house - it's a lock keeper's cottage! Phoebe has grand ideas for her new vegetable garden but has neither the time nor the energy to devote to it as she has to work during the week, hence the need for wwoofers. I was glad to have made contact and will keep in touch in case she needs anyone next August time when Cropredy is creeping round again.

On another of my days off, which turned out to be very warm and sunny, I spent quite a lot of time mooching about the canal basin in Banbury watching the boats going up and down through the lock - some more expertly than others! Then I drove back through Cropredy and mused on how different the weather can be in this country over the space of a week.

I left Culworth after breakfast on Bank Holiday Monday and drove back through the beautiful Cotswold countryside. There was a definite autumnal bite in the air, the sky was an unbroken blue and most of the corn had been harvested from the fields. I became quite reflective and decided that I really like this nomadic way of life: every two weeks or so you pack up and move on with your host's appreciation echoing in your head. Jeni says that she needs to feel appreciated to feel good about herself and I suppose this is true for all of us - I know that when I worked in an office a simple 'thank you for your efforts' (I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times that happened in five years) made me glow, so having my praises sung every two weeks and invitations to return whenever I can, is going a long way to boosting my confidence and in two weeks no-one can discover the huge flaws in my character!

Rain!

I have experienced so little rain since I started my wanderings that I'd almost forgotten how rare a prolonged dry spell is in Britain in the summer. Silly me! OK, so we'd had the odd spot of rain in Cheltenham and the skies were pretty overcast but for the most part it was all right and Mum and I went to an open gardens near Gloucester one day and over to see friends near Stroud another and the weather was fine. However, Cropredy was something else altogether!

My Mum drove me to Stow-0n-the-Wold on Thursday morning and we parked in the Tesco (ugh!) car park and waited for my sister and her husband to arrive from Sheffield. They arrived at 9.15 and we were soon on our way to our agreed meeting point with the rest of the gang. This ritual has been going on for many years and gets more elaborate as the years go by. So that we don't get split up before we get to the camping field (if you're not together when you arrive you can't pitch your tents together) window pennants are issued and this year magnetic signs, too to go on the bonnet, and then off we went in convoy. We managed to avoid being split up at junctions by some pretty aggressive driving techniques and arrived in Cropredy all in a line. At this point the weather was overcast and a bit chilly but dry, so we managed to erect our tent and inflate our airbeds without too many problems, then we all gathered for a communal picnic lunch before heading down to the festival field which opened at 3pm.

To make sure that our group gets a prime position on the hill in front of the stage we have queuers (the older ones, usually) who stand in the queue and runners (the twenty-somethings) who run like the wind as soon as the gates open and bag our pitch by laying out a groundsheet and standing on it until the rest of the party turns up with chairs, food and a cool box full of beer! It's like a military operation but it works.

Many people think that Cropredy is a folk festival, but it has a very eclectic mix of music - the band headlining on Thursday evening was Status Quo and they were pretty awesome. I did a bit of dancing as it was the best way to keep warm with the temperature plummeting once the sun set, and thoroughly enjoyed their set. By the time they left the stage at 11.00 it was really cold and I ended up sleeping in three layers of clothing with the hood of my sweatshirt up and I was still cold! I don't think I'm cut out for camping.



The next day saw a repeat performance of the queue/run scenario but by this time it was raining so we all donned our waterproofs and sat with water dripping off us surrounded by huge brollies that pretty much obscured the stage. The music was still good and interesting and Lynda and I went for a walk round the village and along the canal to stretch our legs in the afternoon, although we did have to take shelter under a canal bridge when the heavens opened!



The weather forecast for Saturday was diabolical and it lived up to the prediction with knobs on! I'd been feeling quite smug as I sat there dressed head to toe in waterproofs as the rain lashed down but I had this sudden unpleasant feeling of dampness and when I stood up I found I'd been sitting in a puddle(not of my own making, I hasten to add!) and my waterproof trousers weren't - I was soaked all the way through and felt very uncomfortable, so had to walk all the way back to the tent and change into some dry clothes. I discarded the 'waterproof' trousers in disgust and went back to the stage field. At 8pm we headed off to get some food and settled on a rather nice-looking curry with samosas, etc. Just as we started to eat the heavens opened and by the end of my meal there was more liquid on my cardboard plate than when I'd started! At this point I announced my decision to quit the field of battle and go back to the tent as I knew I couldn't stand up for another four hours and as soon as I sat down I'd be soaked to the skin again - so I didn't see Fairport at all, just listened to them from the relative comfort of my sleeping pod in the tent. I was quite glad I was there later 'cos there was an almighty thunderstorm just to round off the evening!



On the Sunday morning it was misty but this soon burnt off and it got really hot and sunny as we were packing up our tents - typical. However, as I wished everyone 'safe journey' and 'see you next year' I realised that I meant it, despite the weather, as the company and the experience were great - I shall just have to make sure that I have really waterproof clothing next time!

There's an Old Mill by the Stream........

For the last week I have been staying near Kington which is on the Welsh/English border not far from Hereford. I arrived from an old mill situated on the Offa's Dyke footpath in North Shropshire to an old mill situated on the Offa's Dyke footpath in Herefordshire - how weird is that?

Unlike the previous mill, this mill still has a lot of the original internal workings in place, but the old wheel has long gone and the mill leat that brought the water to it has all been filled in apart from a small bit near the river. The owners bought the mill and house at auction a few years ago and have spent a lot of time and effort stabilising the mill structure below ground level and making it watertight. They are now starting on the long and arduous task of repointing the entire building as well as trying to do work on the house and earn a living!

On a couple of days I helped 'peck out' the old pointing on one face of the mill: this involved wielding a lump hammer and chisel whilst several feet off the ground on some scaffolding. After a couple of hours of doing this Alison and I were worn out and covered from head to toe in fine dust! Luckily, they had a very efficient shower so I was soon clean again and ready for a bit of light fruit-picking. The raspberries were fruiting well when I got there but it wasn't many days before the blackbirds descended en masse and cleared the canes of all but the greenest berries. We also picked blackcurrants and I made a blackcurrant and apple crumble for dinner one evening, as my minor contribution to the culinary delights.

Another day, we went down to the footbridge over the dried-up (at the moment) overspill stream and cleared the stream bed of masses of vegetation that had encroached from both sides. We managed to disturb a wasp nest while we were doing this but once we'd removed the vegetation that we had inadvertently thrown over their entrance hole, they very quickly calmed down and allowed us to continue.

On my afternoon off I walked into Kington and had a good look round the town and their little museum. It's a pretty little town but with a very quirky mix of shops. They have a very good fishmongers/greengrocers and a delicatessen that sells a wide range of specialist cheeses plus several charity shops, at least three card shops, a collectables shop, a tattoo parlour and an antiquarian bookshop, to name but a few! As with most towns there were several shops for sale and a couple of closed pubs - mind you as there were about 15 pubs in the town within living memory, that probably wasn't such a disaster.

I finished up at the top end of the town on Castle Hill, which is where the town was originally situated around the old market square, and decided to visit an important open garden, Hergest Croft Gardens that was nearby. I do seem to be drawn to these open gardens a lot more since I started this journey, particularly if they have a kitchen garden. Hergest Croft has an Azalea Garden, a Park, an Ornamental Garden and a Kitchen Garden, so I was in my element and spent an hour or so wandering round taking photos before I made my way back to the mill and an overdue cup of tea.

On my last morning in Kington I went into town with Alison as I wanted to revisit a shop called Grandad's Shed where I had seen a second hand stainless steel hand fork that I'd decided to buy, as it is my preferred weeding tool and so few places that I have been to have a decent small fork. Unfortunately the shop didn't open on Tuesdays and so I was resigned to disappointment, until we realised that there was someone at the back of the shop. He saw us outside and opened up specially so that I could buy my fork - you wouldn't have that happen in many places!

I am now back at Cheltenham with my Mum for a couple of weeks and then a brief trip to Oxfordshire for the Fairport Convention Music Festival followed by a couple of weeks near Banbury. I shall have to start contacting other potential hosts soon as I am only sorted until the middle of October - I think I shall head down into the South West for winter!

Cornucopia in The Candy

Firstly, dear reader(s), I apologise for the lack of blogging recently, but I have had some issues with my internet connection so couldn't get online at all at my last host's house, and I didn't have a mobile phone signal either! What did we do in the 'olden' days, when I was just a lass?

My last hosts were situated about 2 miles outside Oswestry in an area called The Candy Valley. It's quite a steep sided valley (obviously U-shaped and therefore glacial in origin) with a small stream flowing in the bottom. Near to this stands the house in which I was staying, which used to be a pub and, at some point in history, a corn mill. There is nothing to show that the building was once a mill except for the mill pond that has just been re-excavated and a couple of old grind stones propped against the wall.

My hosts, Lindsay and Anita, have been there about seven years and have made huge alterations to the house to make it into a comfortable home, and now they have turned their attention to becoming more self-sufficient. Their vegetable plot, although not enormous, is incredibly productive, particularly at this time of year with soft fruit. The secret apparently lies in mulching well in winter with wood ash and manure. I couldn't believe the raspberry canes - they were fully ten feet tall and had been pruned back because they were getting too tall. Even standing on tiptoe I couldn't reach the raspberries at the top! We picked raspberries every day while I was there and froze pounds of them on trays so that they would be free-running when stored in plastic containers. On the second day that I was there we harvested gooseberries - just two bushes yielded nearly fifty pounds of fruit, so we made five gallons of gooseberry wine, froze some whole and pureed a whole lot more as they took up less space in the freezer and can be used for gooseberry fool, ice cream or swirled into yoghurt - or my own special favourite - served as an accompaniment to fresh mackerel. (Don't say I don't give out useful tips and information in this blog!)

One morning Lindsay and I went out to look at the chickens and I found the most beautiful moth in the grass. I picked him up gently and cradled him in my hand where he sat quite happily while I took some (out of focus) photos. He had white legs and antennae and his body was sage green and magenta. I thought it was some kind of hawkmoth but wasn't sure, so Lindsay took me down the road to meet a neighbour of his who was a bit of an expert. He also took photos and looked it up in his moth book and it turned out to be an elephant hawk moth (if you've ever seen the caterpillars you would know why it is called 'elephant' - not only are they huge but when frightened they can puff up one end of their greyish body and look just like an elephant's trunk!). We then walked back down the road with the moth still sitting on my hand and Lindsay got his camera and took some photos - he is going to email them to me as mine are just not clear enough, although I shall post them on my Facebook album shortly. Eventually I persuaded the moth onto some rosebay willowherb (it's preferred food plant) where it's incredible colouration immediately rendered it virtually invisible.

I was only in the Candy Valley for a week, but on my last day there I helped make raspberry and redcurrant jelly as it was raining heavily nearly all day and we couldn't go out into the garden. I had hoped to have done some work with Lindsay's bees but the weather was too changeable to go into the hives, so I had to content myself with viewing their activity from a safe distance and sampling some of last year's honey crop - delicious!

I'm now heading back south towards Hereford for a week before I go back to my Mum's for a couple of weeks break and the Fairport Convention music festival at Cropredy in Oxfordshire!