One word? When seven would do…

and we’ll all drink to that!

This morning Tarly and I started loading up the skip with stuff we’d piled up ready while Ady and Davies lit a fire to burn any burn-able rubbish. Jill appeared and we chatted for a bit then I went off to do some housekeeping type duties – stripping loose covers off sofas and bundling them into the big washing machine then putting them out to dry before putting them back on, plus hoovering up the resultant feathers from wrestling with sofa covers. There doesn’t seem to be much of a handle on what is in each cottage at the moment so Jill asked the kids to go into each one and count the number of TV channels available on each telly – educational as they needed to write her a list and fun for them as they got the keys for all the cottages and got to go poking around and exploring in them all 🙂

We had lunch and then disappeared back to our various tasks for the afternoon. I rang the host we are due at on Monday and arranged to arrive the following Monday so we are now staying here til Friday when we need to leave as guests arrive here on Saturday. This does mean we will need to find a campsite for 3 nights but we will have recouped enough money in these two weeks plus filled two weeks we had cancellations by hosts for that 3 nights campsite fees are easily absorbed :).

We finished work and all went for a swim which was lovely. I also got two loads of washing and drying done which was also lovely :).

Back to the cottage for the kids tea and Jill appeared behind Maggie (her dog, a labradoodle, much beloved by D&S and reciprocated by Maggie) who came in to the cottage through the open back door so we invited her in for a glass of wine. She went to lock up her cottage and came back, staying for much wine, dinner and lots of chatting with an agreement to come again for dinner tomorrow :).

We have definitely slipped back into late dinners, drinking each evening and sticking the TV on, but we are still eating less, working hard and it is for a finite period before we move on to the next host, who on the basis of my short phone call with them this morning sound very nice :).

So this time last week we were back in the van in high spirits having been over here for the evening for the first Wednesday pizza night and met Jill. This week we were the ones lighting the oven and it feels like we’ve been here forever…

This morning Ady donned waterproofs and headed off to do various gardening tasks, the kids came along with me to the library for a bit but I quickly decided they were disturbing my peace and sent them back to the cottage. Scarlett hit a wall a bit today, getting upset at very minor and imagined slights and tearing up at things she would normally shrug off easily so a down day was in order for them. They have spent their day snuggled up in the warm watching films, DS / PSPing, chatting, drawing and playing Monopoly together.

I had a very happy and productive day in the little library here. This morning I spent a couple of hours going through all the leaflet stands and weeding out any outdated leaflets (there were loads, some from 2003!), there were five unopened boxes of new leaflets so if a newer one was available I chucked the old ones, along with anything with a date or obviously incorrect admission charge listed. I then took all the old ones to the recycling bin, dusted down the stands and arranged them all tidily. It looks like a Tourist Information Office now :). I then took all the books down, dusted the shelves and put them all back in order – fiction by alphabetical order of author, some foreign language books in one section, local history in another and all the rest of the non fiction in another. With more time I’d have liked to categorise further but I needed to let go of that and realise I would probably be the only person who would actually appreciate or realise I had done that. Oh the urge to apply Dewey decimal to it all ;). It does now actually look like a library though rather than a book graveyard and everyone who came in did a double take and ‘oh wow’ at the difference so it was a few hours well spent :). I then cleared out all of the random book selections kicking around in the cottages and put them in the library, removed all old leaflets from each cottage and put together a pack of current and relevant local information leaflets for each cottage.

In the middle of all that we had lunch, I spent time chatting to Jill about various things, arranging my massage for Friday afternoon and dealt with Tarly getting upset.

At 4pm I lit the pizza oven and Jill collected Davies and Scarlett from the cottage to help her chop wild garlic and mushrooms and grate cheese for pizza toppings. I slipped off for half an hour for a quick swim in lieu of a shower – I managed 60 lengths (which is probably 20 lengths of the pool I used to swim in) which I thought wasn’t a bad first swim not having swum since back in December.

Back at the pizza oven we declared it wine o’clock (Jill drinks more than I do!) and then spent a very nice evening chatting to the various local neighbours who came along including Tanya and Michael from Paddington Farm. Davies and Scarlett made themselves pizzas, spent some time on the trampoline and then said they wanted to settle down in the cottage so came in and got pjs on while we stayed out drinking cider with Jill and Sheelagh (who works and lives here) and being silly.

Jill has asked us to stay another week and we are seriously thinking about it. She has sent our blog address to a green kids clothing company she has contacts with who are interested in kitting out the kids and following the blog to see how their clothes stand up to the adventures D&S will be having this year. It’s a different sort of learning we’re doing here, networking and making contacts rather than learning new skills in farming but as I said to Jill earlier you can’t leave behind jobs and a house to travel round in a campervan and get too anal about clinging to meticulous plans – this year is very much about going where opportunities and life takes us. I guess we have to keep saying yes to the things chucked at us and see what happens.

We reported for work at 9am this morning and Jill took us round to an area of the grounds next to a garage which had been used as a pottery but now houses bikes, tools etc. Next to it was a huge amount of wood and general rubbish and all alongside a house were huge piles of wood which were creating damp problems. She left us to it aside from popping back to bring us a radio (hurrah, Popmaster at 1030am 🙂 ) and we spent three hours taking all the wood out, creating a huge pile for a skip which is arriving tomorrow, another huge pile for burning or chopping up for kindling to sell to guests with wood burners in their cottages and then put the rest all back away tidily. It did look like more than 3 hours work after we’d swept and raked and so on so we went off to lunch happy that we’d already made a difference 🙂

After lunch we worked on weeding some beds in the garden. Gardening isn’t my favourite thing to do really; it’s back breaking and pretty boring and I don’t much like flower beds and manicured lawns anyway but I stuck at it. The kids helped including Scarlett making a cup of tea and coffee for us mid afternoon and we finished up about 430pm. We were just speculating on the idea of a wildlife garden with a small hide and nature trail when Jill arrived back so we talked to her about it and then she showed us more of the complex including the library, pamper room and function room.

We got to talking about H&S and things like PAT testing and fire audits so Ady was talking about stuff he knows about and then I mentioned some of the information in the guest books in each room is out of date as are some of the leaflets and was given the job of looking at that, rearranging and reorganising the library. Then Jill, who is clearly very shrewd and has probably already researched exactly who we are said to me ‘you can write can’t you?’ and struck a deal with me to write a press release about her and buying this place, post a review of the place in some online places, network by friending her companies on twitter and facebook in exchange for reciprocal links and friending for our blog AND a massage tomorrow here with the on site complementary therapist 🙂 Oh it’s tough this WWOOFing lark ;). Naturally I said yes.

So tomorrow is looking like a good day, some online stuff, some reorganising book shelves in the library, a massage, a swim and in the evening it’s open house pizza night again so more networking with people. We are most entertained that having left jobs to get a taste of the off grid lifestyle and live in a van we are back in a brick building trading our old work skills for luxuries.

This morning we finished off at Paddington Farm. We’d said we’d help clear out the feed shed as they have a visit next week from animal welfare to check on the livestock and facilities, so after letting out and feeding various animals we gathered up all the feed buckets around the farm and Tarly and I scrubbed them all out with hot soapy water while Ady and Davies started sweeping out the barn. We found a Henry and put Scarlett in the big trunk that houses the feed to hoover it all out 🙂
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Further scrubbing, sweeping and cleaning and then we went to find the keys for the tool shed to swap over the battery powering the electric fence around the pigs. While Ady put some new straw in there for them I found Michael and got the key and we did that. Then Tanya appeared so we said our goodbyes. We swapped mobile numbers and have been invited back for Easter and at any other time we are in the area which is nice :). Davies asked if he could have one more drive on the tractor as Ady had not seen him doing it the other day so I drove it into the field for him and he had another go, perfecting his biting point with the clutch and his general steering 🙂
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I’d already popped over to Jill’s this morning to say yes please to her offer and arranged to come over this evening to move in and to feed ourselves tonight. Davies is down to just wellies as his shoes (which were on the small side now anyway) fell apart so we went on a fruitless shoe hunt this afternoon, trying a Clarkes Shopping Village nearby which we had a feeling might be a designer / high street factory outlet place and was just that, offering nothing in the way of suitable footwear so we drove on to Wells which is nearby and were disappointed there too. We gave up and came to Jill’s via Morrisons for dinner supplies tonight – all choosing food we haven’t been easily able to cook in the van in celebration of a kitchen :).

Jill settled us in including reappearing with a couple of dvds for the kids to watch and saying rather than filling up the fridge with stuff we might not like would giving us £100 for food for the week be okay/ Er yes! 🙂 We’re to report for work at 9am tomorrow but as yet have no real idea what we’ll actually be doing – she’s said there are various things she needs an extra couple of pairs of hands for and that she’ll just enjoy having us around but whatever she chucks at us will be worth it for the luxury of this cottage for the week :).

We’ve charged everything up, had showers, eaten dinner, watched a film & some TV and everyone else is already in bed asleep in beds! so I guess I should do the same really.

Today Ady was very productive feeding the animals and washing Willow ready to touch up some bits of rust with white paint, the kids played and Scarlett spent some time hanging out with Benji

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And I did some sorting out the inside of Willow and some painting my nails 🙂

The floating hour seemed to keep jumping about somehow, with it feeling both earlier and later than we expected in equal measures. We spent some time chatting to the group of women who stayed here last night about WWOOFing and our years plans, some time chatting to a group of ramblers who passed by the van and wanted to talk. Ady told me it was really funny chatting to them about Home Ed which is coming up daily atm with the explaining of our year. One of the more mature ramblers was questionning it quite closely and asking things like ‘well aren’t you inspected to make sure you are doing it properly’ so Ady said ‘yes, sometimes they do like to come and check up, ask questions like basic maths and who is the queen, you know just they test people of your age on driving every couple of years to make sure you are still ok’ 😆 The woman then turned to Scarlett and wanted to ask her about what books she could read but Tarly listened to her question and then deadpan pointed out ‘Benji is eating your coat’ and sure enough the goat had crept up to join in and was chewing at the back of her jacket! 😆

We had lunch and then caught Michael and Tanya just as they were about to go out as we’d been asked by Jill next door to get some sausages for her and bring them over when we went swimming this afternoon and we’d handed the cash over to Tanya yesterday. We were early but in possession of loads of sausages so grabbed our swimming stuff and headed over there. Jill took the sausages and asked us about what we’re planning next as we’d mentioned we were supposed to be leaving but have now had our next host mess us about. She asked if we’d be interested in staying with her and doing some work and showed us her next project which is clearing a very overgrown patch of land with a greenhouse in the middle of loads of bushes, weeds and shrubs trapped = it looks like the castle in a Ladybird book of Sleeping Beauty I had as a child, all surrounded by thorny bushes after 100 years with just the turrets peeking out. She wants to return it to the kitchen garden it was in the 60s and she showed us an aerial photos taken back then showing it as a proper allotment sized plot with beds and loads growing.

We went off for our swim, lovely again 🙂

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When we came out there was a freshly baked rhubarb cake waiting for us and Jill with further temptation in the form of the keys to Orchard View Cottage which she showed us round and offered use of and a fridge filled with food for the week in exchange for help on the veg patch project. She also wants the kids to do some photoshoot work for her modelling some clothes she is involved with marketing if she can get some sent here. We agreed we are interested but need to talk it over and check that the next host along who I had already contacted to see if we could arrive early with had not already replied to say yes as I don’t want to mess anyone about.

Back at the van we had not had a reply, so I sent a second email explaining we now have another host sorted so will be there Monday 4th April as initially planned (which she has since replied to confirming), we told Michael and Tanya (who have invited us back for Easter as they have various big events happening and would like help if we’re available) and have arranged our last mornings work here tomorrow. We need to check with Jill that moving across tomorrow evening will be okay and that’s it all sorted. Use of the pool and trampoline, a lovely cottage with kitchen, food all supplied and next door to here so the kids can come and visit Benji each day for another week before we move on.

I suspect we will be doing full six or seven hour days of work for Jill, having googled her she is a very successful businesswoman who I imagine will expect a decent amount in return for what she is offering, but she seems lovely and friendly, we will learn loads more about various things working with her for a week and she is an excellent contact to have, having links in all sorts of businesses, being a published author and having strong eco links in various places too. Not to mention sleeping in a real bed, sitting on real sofas and having electricity and a kitchen for a week 🙂

A laid back day today. We still don’t really know quite what is expected of us workwise and veer between feeling fine with that and feeling slightly at odds with it. We’ve learnt loads here and T & M seem very nice but we are spending money on food and I feel a bit put out that the next host has arranged over our heads for us to stay on. I had an email from her saying she’ll see us in ‘a week or so’ which clearly she won’t as we’re due at the next host next Monday. So we’ve decided that host is probably not going to come to anything at all and have emailed the host we are due at from 28th to see if we can come early, either for a longer stay or to just bring our week with them forward. We have a cancelled week after them anyway so can try to re-jig from there as I have now had some emails offering places where I had previously assumed it was a no. We will either leave here early to go to the next one if they’re up for it or decide the universe is telling us something and stay here for another week which we’ve been told we’re welcome to do if not.

I had a really bad nights sleep as Davies was rolling into Tarly who was rolling close to the edge of the bunk and all of her soft toys, torch and then sleeping bag gradually fell down from the bunk and on to my head! I must have been woken 5 or 6 times by various falling objects, then I needed a wee, then I was too hot so opened the ceiling vent… so a later start to the day ensued. We fed all the animals and brought Benji round, caught four of the chickens, dusted them with mite powder and put them in a different coop where they are supposed to be eating some old crops and weeds in a veg patch. Ady dusted the pigs ears at the same time and then we came back to the van, I did some online stuff, Ady did some handwashing and the kids played in the park. Tanya appeared to ask if we’d be up for lighting the earth oven for a group arriving to stay who wanted to cook pizzas so we did that until the group came out to take over.

We walked into Glastonbury for some bits for dinner, having now decided we will take what is on offer in the farm kitchen if we stay another week as we’ve spent over our budget this week on food shopping. Back at the farm Michael and Tanya were now tending the earth oven so once we’d fed and put to bed all the animals we took over some bottles of beer to sit with them for an hour or so chatting while the kids played in the park. It was really nice and we had a good chat with them and learnt a bit more about them, the trust, how they got this job and so on. There is a slightly strange vibe about the place, some obvious tension with local people and rather too much casual drug use for us to be totally comfortable being here with the kids, but we’ve an open invite to come back any time, are being put in touch with some people in a similar venture who might want managers and have done some networking with the neighbour who is a really interesting and useful person to know.

Back at the van I made the kids tea, we all watched half a dvd til the battery on the laptop ran out, the kids went to bed and we had our dinner. Earth hour came and went with us remaining on solar powered lights only – our most effortless yet 😉

Looking forward to a nights sleep with nothing falling on my head!

I’ve blogged over on WW but wanted to carry on my daily account too.

A fairly easy day today, there was a teaching assistant and her charge, a 15 year old selective mute boy here this morning so I spent quite a while chatting to the TA who was really nice and seemed very pleased to find someone who had not only heard of SM but actually knew someone with it. We fed and dealt with animals and then spent ages finding the key for the workshop to get loppers out. Then down to the orchard where they guy who is pruning them all was in situ so I spent ages talking to him about how that works and learning various stuff about grafting, pruning, apple varieties and more. He was a real character and loved to talk :).

The kids did some pruning of lopped branches preparing it for firewood and brash heaps using the bow saw and pruning saws. Ady and I put a fence up and then I got to drive the tractor back to the yard pulling the trailer – very exciting :). I showed the kids how to do it and they both had a little go in the field. Davies did really well, mastering the steering and the throttle but Scarlett went in with her usual bull in a china shop approach and having not properly listened to me forgot which was the brake, panicked and put her foot down on the accelerator instead, yelling at me to help. I ran after it, grabbed the engine kill lever but as she jerked forward I put it forward instead making it go faster so had to run again to turn it off. Wish we’d caught that on video 😉

Lunch was more sausages, cooked by the unpronouceable guy and shared with him and another of the people regularly here. I have no idea whether people here are on the payroll or volunteering but he comes every day and tinkers with tools and welds things. He was asking about Home Ed and was very supportive. UG then said how lovely D&S are and that they are a great example of why kids should be HE from the start as his ex has 3 HE kids who are in and out of school. HE seems very prevalent here in Glastonbury but I suspect there are more than the odd case of parents being too stoned to get kids to school… 😉

It was our initial plan to get the pizza oven cooking today but we ended up lingering over lunch and then UG was very insistent we had some cider with him as it goes so well with sausages so we had half a pint each pouring it the way he’d been taught in Spain to get air into it, he called it ‘breaking the mother’ which actually seemed to mean most ended up on the patio but it was fairly rough cider so we didn’t mind too much ;).

We then walked into town, had a wander round, decided we’d left it too late for pizza so got some other stuff for dinner instead and then walked back. The neighbour wandered over at one point and invited us back on Sunday for another swim (hurrah!) and I checked in some weekend guests who had arrived with no one to tell them anything or even show them their room as everyone else seemed to be out. We’ve been invited back here ‘any time you like’ which is nice, even for the festival if we like. If we can go round everywhere getting that sort of invite we may never go back to a house again ;).

We put the animals away, had dinner and now it’s time to change the sofa and table into a bed!

Today was a ‘left to our own devices’ day which we exploited to the maximum with a very lazy day and a three hour lunch :).

We’d been asked to finish off the work in the orchard over the next few days so we decided to do all of that today. We started with the usual round of feeding all the animals and bringing Benji round to the field, collected some eggs from the chickens and then I caught up with Tanya to get some sausages and directions to Bridies Yard which is another project they co-run, a food co operative which is open one evening and one full day a week which we’d said we’d go along and see tonight.

I had a quick tractor driving lesson and was told the kids are welcome to drive it if we are happy for them to do so, but as it has a dragger attached to the back which Tanya isn’t sure how to remove we didn’t actually get to use it today in the end. We gathered tools and gloves and headed to the orchard where we spent about 3.5 hours gathering all the pruned branches into two piles, one ready for firewood, all stripped of small pieces and one ready to take up to the yard and make a bonfire from. Scarlett found some owl pellets under an apple tree so she dissected those and found various little bones.

The woman from last night appeared to ask if we’d like to have a swim in the private pool for the holiday cottages later this afternoon. Clearly the answer was yes, so we arranged to come back at about 4pm for a swim in exchange for some pictures of the kids enjoying the pool as she is about to run some ads in Green Parent so wanted to update her website with pictures of children at the pool and in the cottages to try and help push the family market. It seemed like a very good deal to us 🙂

We did the bulk of it and then broke for lunch. The kids raced ahead and made themselves sandwiches using all of the last of the bread which meant Ady and I had to raid the cupboard in the van for food – he had soup and I made some pancakes for me, which I ended up sharing with the kids :). We cooked outside on the little stove which was just lovely 🙂

A woman arrived with three children, a couple of D&S age boys and a toddler so the kids played with them and chatted to her for a bit while Ady and I sat around and lazed and chatted before finally gathering ourselves back together, collecting swimsuits and towels and heading back to the orchard for a last hour finishing up there before going to the holiday cottages next door for our swim. The woman just took over 10 days ago and is having a handover period with the previous owner who is still around. They are all lovely, really kind, open people who are happy to share and have fallen for D&S and think what we’re doing is really cool. It’s amazing how rich a variety of people we have already met and have invited us into their lives alongside the WWOOF hosts we were expecting to meet.

We were shown the pool, it’s about 10m by 5m so quite small, heated to bath temperature, with a large wet room attached and is about neck high water for the kids all over. We had showers and used the complementary luxury shampoo and shower gel as directed before uncovering the pool and getting in. A very lovely hour ensued, playing with the inflatables, swimming, floating, playing tag, jumping in and having competitions to see who could stay underwater longest, float best and so on. Just fab :).

We all had lovely long showers afterwards and got dressed. Once outside we were offered a look round some of the cottages, which are 350 years old and reputed to be haunted. The kids adored this idea so we did some ghost hunting 🙂 We looked in 6 of the 11 cottages and of course the kids are now convinced they saw and felt stuff, thoroughly whipped up by us adults ;). A promise to email our photos for their use and to visit again if we like and an open invite to go and WWOOF there long term in the summer if we want.

We then drove along to Bridies Yard for a look round. It’s a great place, I love the ideas behind it and there was a great atmosphere there which loads of people bringing boxes, baskets and bags and filling up on the food. I love the idea of bulk buying co operatives, bartering and packaging free so it was really good to go and see it in action. Tanya showed us round, we had a cup of tea and chatted to some people before deciding we should get back to put the animals away. We needed some rolls, so sadly had to come home via the supermarket which felt a bit wrong having just been at the food co op which is so anti supermarket :/

It was 8pm and pitch dark by the time we got back so I went to close the chicken house up and the kids and Ady went to find Benji. They freaked him out with their head torches so Ady shone the torch on the kids to illuminate them and he calmed right down, and followed them back to his yard. Animals dealt with and van reinstalled we cooked up the sausages we’d got earlier which are the mother / grandmother of the pigs in the field next to us and were delicious :). We reflected on what an amazing day it’s been getting invited to swim and ghost hunting, leading a goat around in the dark, eating sausages from pigs that lived her just a couple of weeks ago, learning about food co ops and gazing up at an amazing panorama of stars. Tomorrow is animal feeding, tractor driving and road testing the pizza kiln. It’s safe to say that thus far we’re not really missing home, jobs and paying bills 😉

Animal feeding and leading first thing this morning and then we did some trailer unloading. We’d helped fill it with wood yesterday and it was ready and waiting to unload again so Ady got on with that and the kids and I did some sawing lengths into kindling for the wood burner. We were soon joined by some of the volunteers for Volunteer Day which are a mix of local people; some who just love what goes on here and want to be a small part of it, others work for some eggs and veg, some were troubled teens here with their teacher for some out of the classroom experience. We cleared the trailer and then it was hitched to the tractor and we all rode to the woodland to clear a trailer load of brash to bring back to burn. That fire started most of us got back in the trailer and went down to the orchard where some pruning was recently done and the trimmings were on the ground awaiting attention – smaller branches and twigs to be trimmed off and brought back to burn, larger sections left for firewood. We spent the morning there doing that, all very enjoyable in the sunshine where a local neighbour appeared mid morning with a tray of tea and sat with us for a while to chat :).

We were mostly working with Michael this morning so got to know him a bit. The kids worked with us most of the morning and then headed off to play for an hour before lunch. They are loving the animals and learning enough about what we’re doing to satisfy me aswell as having plenty of down time to play in aswell.

Lunch was a fairly mad affair with about 20 people, but it was nice to sit in the sunshine to eat. After lunch we collected the tools from the orchard and spent some time chatting to one of the long term volunteers here who was constructing a wooden wheelbarrow from green wood. He was really interesting and told us loads about it, so much so that when I next caught sight of Davies and Scarlett I sent them in to talk to him too as he was so interesting – they were there for a good 20 minutes with him, very talented bloke :).

Our work day finished with some more brash burning, this time the apple tree prunings we’d been working on earlier. Tanya appeared to say the new next door neighbour had invited everyone in the area – including us – to a pizza evening to test out her new brick built pizza oven in the garden, bring your own toppings and beers :). This sounded like a good deal so despite Ady’s reservations I insisted we say yes and go. I went for a bath, the kids had some DS time and Ady walked into Glastonbury to get some beers before coming back for a shower. We did the putting animals to bed / final feed stuff and then walked across with Tanya & Michael to the new neighbours. We’d met her yesterday out walking with her dog – a labradoodle and stopped to chat and admire the dog so we all recognised each other :). She is Canadian, here for 24 years but has been in London for most of that time and has just bought the business next door of 11 holiday cottages, 7 acres of land and stables having put together a business plan and borrowed the money to do it. Her long term aim is for eco cottages with alternative energy and she wants to grow vegetables to feed the holiday cottage guests etc.

The kids cooked their own pizzas in the very cool pizza oven and Tanya gave us another job – they have a barely used pizza oven here which they need a set of instructions, hints and tips for so she wants us to spend an afternoon working out the best way to use it and write it all up for the guests who stay here – tough job eh!?

Ady and I both chatted to various people. I spent ages talking to C&K who also live here with their 2yo daughter and had been toying with the idea of Home Ed but been put off by some rather wild and feral HE groups that have visited here. They said they’d loved meeting D&S and been heartened that HE kids can be nice and were really interested in how we do it, why we do it and what our approach is. Next I spent some time chatting to Tanya and getting a bit of background on her and Michael which was interesting and time well spent. Finally I chatted to the host for the evening about our year and was given a business card and a promise to stay in touch as she is really interested in what we’re doing and would love to host us long term to help with the eco technology stuff and veg patch planting if we happen to have any free time in a couple of months. 🙂 Lots of positive Home Ed PR stuff done tonight as kids were in top form 🙂

We wandered back at about 10pm pausing several times to gaze at the star which were out in force, it being a very clear sky and very little light pollution here. Everyone was in high spirits back at the van (Ady and I rather bolstered by local beer and cider, oh what cheap dates we are a month in to dramatically reduced alcohol intake). Back at the van Davies said something that reminded him of my Dad and then said he missed Grandad so we rang my parents for a chat and all spoke to them both which was nice :).

Today we have learnt our next host is not ready for us on Monday so we’re staying here til Wednesday (a repeat invite to Pizza Night at New Neighbours if we are still here next Wednesday night 🙂 ) before doing 5 nights there, and a host we were due at in 3 weeks has had to cancel but is up for rebooking later in the year if we are free. As we’ve been invited to stay longer / come back / stay with nearby people at both places we’ve been to so far we’ve decided to run with a clear week for that host and see what comes up along the way with worst case scenario being a few nights in a campsite and best case being availability to stay somewhere a bit longer.

So all is well, we’re getting used to the very slow pace here and we’re loving the animals and the relaxed atmosphere. I think Glastonbury is rubbing off on us a bit 🙂

We met up with one of the long term volunteers first thing this morning – I do know his name but he is Polish and while I can just about say it I wouldn’t even know which letters to start using to spell it so I won’t try! We went round with him and fed all the animals, letting the chickens out and gathering eggs, taking Benji the goat round to the field, feeding the pigs Little Gertie and Pigasus and the four sheep; Rambo Lamboghini, Skywalker, Moonwalker and Blueberry, fighting off Silver the pony who wanted both the sheep and pigs food and then reporting to Tanya for some work for the day.

Tanya and Michael (the farm managers) were off for the day to play at a Spring Equinox celebration at Wells so she left us with a choice of various tasks we could choose some or all of to do along with an invite to follow them to Wells for the music instead if we wanted. We don’t seem to be being fed much but the expectation on us is very small so it all balances out.

From the list we chose to do some wood chopping and sawing and some brash burning with D&S doing the fire lighting for that. At 1130 four teens from the local school who are excluded or in need of some special measures arrived with their teacher so we joined them for some forest school type stuff where they get to drive the tractor and trailer (we had to leap on the back while it was moving, great fun 🙂 ), load the trailer up with wood from the woodland, build and start a fire to burn some brash and so on. To be honest none of them were remotely interested in any of it, they skived off to the toilet for about 15 minutes of their alloted hour, skulked around and refused to gather firewood or carry logs and all produced a lighter each when it came to firelighting time.

There was another woman there who we assumed was another teacher but she then said actually no she was part of the local beekeeping association who have some hives on the land here. She said to me ‘I’ve seen you here before’ and looked very confused when I said no, we’d only arrived on Sunday then asked where we were from. When I said Worthing she then said that was where she knew me from and asked what school I went to. It turned out she’d been the year above me right through infant, middle and senior school from 5 to 16! I remembered her name but couldn’t picture a face to go with it but she remembered both my name (once I’d said it) and my face. I guess my hair colour makes me memorable. Small world 🙂

We stayed round the fire for a hot chocolate and sausage cooked over the fire and then decided to head into Glastonbury so changed shoes and gathered rucksacks incase we bought anything. It’s about a 20 minute walk but up the hill and then down again so tough on the knees, especially recovering from Steward Wood hill knees like ours ;). Glastonbury High Street is like no other high street I’ve ever been to with only Boots the Chemist in terms of chains of stores. All the rest are crystals, tarot, healing, alternative stuff, clothing, health food and so on. We trawled the charity shops hoping for some alternative type stuff second hand but aside from a couple of cool t shirts for Tarly we found nothing and the actual clothes shops although gorgeous were out of our budget. We got a cake from the bakers to eat and then wandered back to the farm again very slowly, pausing to sit awhile on a bench and ponder bird language.

Back at the farm we tackled the last job on the list of taking down a section of fence and then Ady and I had baths before I put the kids tea on. We went round and fed and put away all the animals including taking Benji back to his yard which Davies and Scarlett are proving very good at – they have fallen in love and goat is currently topping their wish list of pets :). We were offered dinner but already had it sorted for tonight.

Tanya came to visit us to check we were okay and said we can have some of the farm sausages tomorrow for tea :). It’s a Volunteer Day tomorrow so more people will be around taking on bigger group tasks and catering is laid on.

We watched a film in the van til the laptop battery died, had dinner and now my laptop battery is about to die too so that is it for tonight. Another good day, more stuff learnt and another place we’ve never visited before ticked off our list :).

This week’s challenges will be of a different sort 🙂

Saturday was an emotional farewell to Steward Wood. Another heavy frost (and so cold night), we had breakfast (pancakes) at Seth & Mel’s and the kids stayed there to play while we packed the tent up. It went fairly quickly and Ady had found a cart to take stuff down the hill which meant only two loads rather than four. I got the tent empty and we went down together and then repacked Willow, putting the bunk back together and clearing up ready for driving. The tent was still damp (we need to get it out and dry it off) so we put it off as long as possible before striking camp. We loaded the cart up for the last time and went round to say goodbyes. We caught most people but wrote a note to leave for anyone we didn’t get to say goodbye to. We’re hoping to go back in a couple of weeks for a party but need to work out a route to the host we’re due at to see if it works out logistically.

It felt really sad to leave, we were all a bit tearful, it was such an amazing place to start our journey.

We’d booked a campsite mid point along the 80 miles travel to the next host, booked solely for it’s almost equidistance to the two points with very little veering off our route. But we didn’t hold out much hope for it being ‘our sort’ of campsite as it is on the site of Diggerland, which looked like some sort of amusement park and the pictures on the website showed packed in caravans and campervans alongside each other. We drove through the nearby town to find a laundrette as we had 4 bags of dirty washing to deal with and then went to check out the campsite. It was totally empty, with just a field with hook ups and water points and a shower block and toilets. It all seemed fine so we headed back to the town, got the washing on and went to Tescos to get food supplies for the weekend and something to eat for lunch. Ady and the kids stayed in Willow while I sat in the laundrette with the kindle and dealt with all the washing, drying and folding up of clothes. By then the chip shop nearby was open so we indulged the kids request for fish and chips for dinner and then drove to the campsite.

We watched a dvd and charged everything up, had a look at the moon and the kids went to bed and watched the end of the film from their bunk while Ady and I had a glass of wine, a late picnic style dinner and toasted the end of our first WWOOFing host. We all slept really well and were most glad to be back in Willow :).

Sunday morning we all had showers. As we were the only people on the campsite I’d turned the heaters on in the ladies shower & toilet block and we all used that. We couldn’t get the lights to work in either block and I’d walked all around the block the night before trying to find some way of turning them on, only to pop my head in the gents on the Sunday morning and find the consumer box with the fuse for lights turned off – d’oh! The pipes must have frozen and burst in the recent frosts (or perhaps the winter) though as the whole block flooded when we had showers. The first shower didn’t work at all – and as it was coin operated for 20p per five minutes this was rather annoying. It had obviously annoyed someone previously as the coin box had been smashed 🙁 The other shower did work and was nice and hot but despite the fact it was on a timer it went off every ten seconds so you had to keep pressing the button – very annoying 🙁

Scarlett and I showered first and then walked back to the van in towels carrying our clothes rather than attempt getting dressed in the flooded room. Ady and Davies went next and then Davies and I cooked breakfast for us all. We carried over a picnic bench from the other side of the field and sat and ate outside in the sunshine. It was lovely :).

We left about midday and headed the further 40 miles to the next host, stopping along the way for some more food supplies and petrol as we were rather early and I’d arranged to arrive ‘early evening’, so we had some lunch in the van.

We got a really warm welcome from Tanya the manager – we’re at Paddington Farm Trust and were shown around the farm which has various accomodation for paying visitors, the bathroom facilities being open to us, so access to a bath again 😉 and then left to settle in but invited to join them around the fire pit later for some full moon celebration stuff.

We parked Willow and the kids went to play in the playground while we had a cup of tea. No hook up here (although we can charge up phones, laptop etc in the longhouse so will ration online time to getting two nights out of each charge like at Steward Wood) so we’ll need to be disciplined about cooking before dark, which we’ve not actually managed yet ;).

It all went slightly wrong when we went along to the fire pit though as we joined three people already there; a woman, a man and a teenage (I think he was 13) all smoking roll ups (including the 13 year old) and exchanging stories about drug taking trips and the best substances to get ‘off your tits’ on, which had both Ady and I feeling rather uncomfortable 🙁 The kids were playing with two girls that the woman had brought along with her and we didn’t register that they’d all wandered off until suddenly we heard a very upset girl screaming for ‘Mummy’ the woman jumped up calling her daughters name so my initial knee jerk that it was Scarlett was dampened as it didn’t really sound like Tarly anyway. The girl kept calling and we suddenly realised it was Tarly in a terrible, hysterical state, sobbing and wailing and crying 🙁 She was saying ‘I hate it, make it stop, I’m scared, I don’t want to be here’ and I truly thought something absolutely dreadful had happened to her. She ran to me and was shaking but my prime concern then was where Davies was. I then spotted him running towards us also crying and upset. Both were almost incapable of talking through their sobbing and I felt awful having been sitting there feeling uncomfortable about the environment anyway and not having realised the kids were not with us.

We eventually got what had happened out of them and it had been one of the girls they were playing with losing her temper and going crazy punching, kicking, biting and scratching them. She’d started on Davies and when Scarlett tried to get her off him she turned on Scarlett, Davies tried to resuce Scarlett who lost a shoe in the scuffle which the girl then used to hit Davies with before lobbing into a field. Davies told Scarlett to come and get me which is when she’d run to us.

The woman shot over to speak to her daughter and find out what had happened while we comforted and calmed down Davies and Scarlett who were both the most distraught I have ever seen them 🙁 I realised about the shoe and went steaming in to tell the girl to get it back. It was returned and the woman made her daughter apologise – rather pointless in terms of D&S but I understand why and then sent her to sit in the car while she came and spoke to us. She was incredibly apologetic, went to great lengths to disassociate herself and her daughter with the farm and to promise that she would not bring her daughter back here while we stayed, that this was not what the farm is about and that the issues with her daughter are something she is trying to deal with and she was so sorry and to please not colour our view of here with what had happened. She then left.

We went back to the fire briefly, where the man and boy told us that the girl ‘is a bit mad, sorry that happened to you’ and then we came back to the van to decide what to do. It felt very scary to have been in such a situation and we discussed leaving there and then but decided we needed to give it a nights sleep and see how it seemed this morning. The kids calmed down fairly quick, had a very touching moment where they had a big cuddle with each other and thanked each other very seriously for sticking up for each other then we had a big talk about what had happened, what could be learned from it and so on. We talked about using instinct more and not roaming away from us in unfamiliar places, not automatically trusting people, how being physically hurt makes you feel and why I will not ever tolerate it from them and how they’d never want to be responsible for making another person feel like they were feeling, how they did an amazing job of sticking together and what positives we could take from such a negative experience. Back in perspective it was a fairly minor incident, probably commonplace in a playground but simply not something Davies and Scarlett are used to. Neither should they be of course, but no lasting damage has been done and I’m glad we managed to talk it through and all conclude we should stay and give it a fair go.

The kids had tea and at Davies’ request we dow loaded The Twits to the kindle and I read the first half to them all snuggled up on our bed, then they went to their bunk and we had cheese on toast for dinner before snuggling up and going to sleep too.

Today we learnt again that first impressions can be pretty poor indicators of what a host is about :). Our first task was to fill up the pigs water; we are parked alongside them, so Ady did that and had to deal with them knocking it over as soon as he’d filled it 😆 We had breakfast and then went to meet Tanya. We were shown various places around the farm and went to fill up all the animal feed buckets, let the chickens out and then went around the farm feeding the pigs, sheep, chickens and took Benji the goat from his overnight home to a field next to Silver the pony. Very good fun taking a goat for a walk 🙂

We met some of the other long term volunteers who live here and then were set to work planting some comfrey into an area previously used for pigs and destined to be used again (just been googling comfrey and learning all about it 🙂 love how much we’re learning either ‘on the job’ or by triggered research at the end of each day). That took us a couple of hours working as a team with the kids spreading the plants out, Ady digging holes, me putting the comfrey in and the kids filling and treading around the replanted plants. Then the woman from last night arrived. She didn’t refer to the incident but made us all a cup of tea, sat and chatted with us, brought along a book she’d mentioned for us to look at, enthused about our years plans and caught me at the end as we said goodbye and said with real meaning ‘it was nice to see you again’. I suspect she’d detected our flight plans last night and was glad to see we’d not done a runner after all. We put all the tools we’d used back and then tracked Tanya down for another task. She was just on her way to the sheep with another volunteer so we tagged along and helped round them up, turn them and do some hoof clipping and dagging (cutting soiled wool from around their bums where flies can be attracted and cause flystrike where they lay eggs deep in the fleece and then maggots hatch under the sheeps skin. It can quickly kill sheep and along with footrot is one of the biggest threats to sheep. I was aware of all of this from my lookering but it was great to do some of the actual maintenance work rather than just be alert for the signs.

We then started back for the house and met up with Benji along the way and Tanya decided to have a quick look at his hoofs too and realised they were overdue a clip so we stood and did that too with both Ady and I having a go at that. Just like trimming toenails (with the exact same toenail-y smell!), digging out the earth and mud and cutting the excess hoof away with clippers.

Then it was lunchtime 🙂 Late lunchtime at nearly 230pm! We went into the farmhouse kitchen and were cooked fried egg sandwiches using the eggs we’d collected from the hens this morning and then the kids went off to play while we had a chat with Tanya about the background of this place and how she came to be here as manager.

We’ve not really talked through workload or hours or anything but she seems very keen for us to do a couple of hours in the morning, be given lunch and then be left to our own devices. This does mean we will probably be spending some money on food for breakfast / dinner but that suits us as we can have some time to ourselves in the afternoons to explore the surrounding area which will be fab. plus we are not working that hard and we are getting some great learning and experience.

We quickly did some repair work on a chicken coop that chickens have been escaping from and then went off for a long walk, covering the small woodland that is part of the farm and currently has a project to build a wooden outdoor classroom happening on, sit awhile at a pond, pass the beehives which are a collaborative project between the farm trust and the local beekeeping association before walking a very circuitous route to the Glastonbury Tor which we can see from Willow (and from the very top we could see down and spot Willow :)).

We got back via some barbed wire fence field crossing (naughty!), and helped feed the animals for bedtime and take Benji the goat back to his bedtime home, more taking a goat for a walk 🙂

We caught up with Tanya again on the way back and she said to join her again in the morning for animal feeding and to get a job list for tomorrow. We’re hoping to finish early enough to walk into Glastonbury for the Tuesday market and a nose around the town and it’s famous springs and high street.

Back to the van for pancakes for the kids tea, cooked in the dark as we didn’t get organised quickly enough, the second half of The Twits and a glass of wine for me which went straight to my head which is a real novelty on just one glass :).

This is a very close match for the sort of thing I see us doing so I am very heartened that the possibility exists as a paid job rather than a landowner. Once again we have already learnt loads after just 24 hours and I suspect the next four days will have yet more lessons to learn. We’re very glad we stayed and have had a good day today, despite the token hill of the day involved in walking up the Tor ;).

We’re done 🙂

This morning rain started softly falling on the tent around 7am. Davies had already gone down to breakfast as he’d offered to help cook and so spent an hour down there with Dan lighting stoves and making porridge 🙂 Ady and I chatted for a while and listened to the rain before going down and leaving Scarlett who insisted she wanted to stay in bed and would be fine on her own. I suspected she wouldn’t be and was proved right when she appeared about 20 minutes later in floods of tears having spooked herself and run down the hill in a panic :(.

The rain got harder and the planned Communal Day (they try to have at least one day per week when they have WWOOFers where as many of the community join in as possible and work all together on a project for everyone) seemed to fall completely flat and only Chris appeared for it. So waterproofs were donned and we headed down to the very bottom of the hill where there is a mountain of wood chips from where an area of trees were felled a couple of years ago and the chips were left to mulch. We fillled about 25 bags with it and then waited, and waited and waited for the Landrover to come and move it up the hill. We then moved into a covered area to avoid the rain and finally decided to have a tea break. We met the Landrover at that point, it had had a flat battery hence the delay.

We had tea and then headed back down the hill in increasingly heavy rain to load the Landrover up then follow it up the hill and unload it, then carry the sacks up another hill and spread around the foot of young fruit tree saplings over cardboard – all for suppressing weeds. It was heavy, hard, pouring with rain, cold and on the steepest, slipperyest, muddiest bit of the hill but actually we all had quite a Friday feeling going on and chatter and laughing went on.

Davies and Scarlett were happily tucked up at Rowan’s playing with Lego and watching films in the warm and dry. This afternoon they helped pluck and ready a pheasant for cooking so they’ve had a great last day 🙂

We broke for lunch and the rain finally stopped and we ended up with a clear blue sky although it is now very cold. Ady and I decided we did need dry clothes after all having sat and shivered in wet clothes all through lunch so walked down to the van for new clothes.

This afternoon was very easy going, clearing an area of brash and wood ready for a goat pen to be constructed next week. Chris then sent Ady and I off really early to go and light the bath house burner for the last time so we sat in there and chatted about these last two weeks and what we have got from our time here.

We’d been invited to Mel & Seth’s for dinner tonight, infact Davies has stayed for a sleepover so took a bottle of wine up and were treated to a gorgeous pheasant stir fry with bacon and egg fried rice and a lovely couple of hours of their company. They said they’ve never invited WWOOFers to dinner before but we have been exceptional. This place has totally set the bar for our year, it’s pushed every button I have I think. Vegan food, no alcohol, sleeping in a tent in March in below zero nights, the craziest hill ever, five resident dogs, no gas, no electric, compost loos, the hardest work for six hours every day that I have ever done in my life; and yet, some of the most amazing and inspirational people I have ever met, the most stunningly beautiful woodland, nature, views, clear star and moon lit skies, the bliss of a hot bath with water warmed by burning wood I chopped myself from a tree felled right here in these woods, stories told round the fire, music and singing and joke telling, children falling instantly into friendships with the kids here and learning and chatting to the adults, sharing knowledge and talking about parenting, education, chicken keeping, crop growing, green issues, debating local and seasonal verus organic, soya milk and lentils from half way around the world versus goats milk and eggs from livestock kept here. This place and these people answer many – but not all – of our questions and we have made friends and connections here that I suspect will last a long, long time.

Tomorrow night we’ll be back in a commercial campsite for a night before going to our next hosts on Sunday. It will be a massive contrast, a real shock to the system I suspect and this time next week we’ll have finished at our second host. This is definitely shaping up to be quite a journey…

I can’t believe we are so close to finishing here. Tonight we said goodbye to Ollie as he is off early tomorrow for a course so we won’t see him again before we go. He gave us a full collection of bird language stuff on a memory stick which we’ll explore further at the weekend, teary hugs and promises to stay in touch.

Today has been another good day. This morning was more wood chopping and I did some too which was good as I quite like chopping wood, but I was on the side of a hill and five times the bits I split rolled off the block and all the way down the hill which was rather frustrating! The kids spent time with Rowan lighting fires :).

Lunch was early which shortened the morning somewhat and we spent some time chatting to Jon, who was the first person from here we met about 3 years ago at our first Green Fair when he was manning a stall there to promote the courses held here. I remember chatting to him back then and him saying to me ‘maybe one day we’ll see you at Steward Wood’. Today he said that we would be welcome back here to stay any time as friends, not WWOOFers 🙂

Ady and I walked down to the van after lunch as Davies and Scarlett were going to the park with Son & Asha and there was the promise of hot chocolates from the cafe on the way so they needed funds. We waved them off and they had a fab few hours, proved by some pictures and video clips Son showed us on her phone later :).

I spent some time with Dan in the kitchen, talking about spiritual stuff which was very interesting. He was telling me about Shamanic stuff and the sounds of the universe :). I chopped some kindling and helped him carry some of the Riverford delivery around to various people’s houses. Then Chris asked me to help with some weeding of veg beds which was nice as we’ve done hardly any gardening.

Ady and I had early baths before dinner as tonight was Story telling. We gathered around the fire pit and Jon told the story of How Fox Stole Fire which ended with a friction started fire with everyone blowing to start it, then Dan told a story about Peace including some drumming. All very magical and lovely.

In lots of ways we’re ready to leave here, it’s only the very beginning of our adventure after all but in many more ways it will feel quite a wrench and we’ll definitely be back.

Scarlett and Davies both decided to stay with us for the day instead of going to the Home Ed group. I was secretly pleased, both because I’d miss them gone all day and because we were due a good day today with Ollie.

After breakfast we headed up right to the edge of the woodland where we were helping to prepare an area for a course Ollie is running in a couple of weeks time. We needed to create some camping spots for people’s tents, a camp kitchen and some benches.

The kids and I did some leaf and branch clearing and then Ady and I started working together on the kitchen which we built with Ollie using a couple of pallet wood doors and branches from the woods. Must get a picture actually, it looked fab 🙂 really rustic and part of the woodland.

Tea break was interesting with Ollie telling us about a sweat lodge initiation ceremony held here and a regular men’s meeting where they pray and smoke pipes together. There is no real spiritual consensus between the community with various of the group having various personal beliefs – none of them your typical Christian stuff 😉 but there is a real deep connection to nature and the woodland running between everyone and most of their religious beliefs and ceremonies seem to fall into those ways.

After tea we finished the kitchen while others did various other tasks and then it was lunchtime. Lunch was fab, cooked by Chris who we have spent most time WWOOFing with, a lovely pasta and sauce and we were tipped a wink to head over to Chris and Owen’s where Owen had cooked up some bacon to add to it. Delicious 🙂 Carried us all through the rather lentil heavy dinner which the kids and I didn’t eat.

We returned to work early as Ollie promised us all a taster of his course, usually he gives WWOOFers who are interested a condensed version at weekends but he is not here this weekend and we’re heading off on Saturday anyway, so he spent about 90 minutes covering some stuff with us all. He is following the teachings of Tom Brown Jr and learning about bird language, tracking skills and other naturalist things and has been studying himself for about 2 years and is now running course to mentor others. He is definitely the resident bird expert here and has plenty of stories to tell about sightings of deer and birds in the woodland here.

Some of the stuff he showed us the kids and I have covered before at Forest School and the Campcraft Sleepout Davies and I did but Ollie is a great coach and had us all using peripheral vision (owl’s eyes), cupping our ears to hear better (Deer’s ears) and walking barefoot and gently (fox’s feet). We talked about the five levels of bird language – four at ‘baseline’ when the woodland is at peace with no threats or outside influences and birds use calls for; bird song, conversation from bird to bird just checking where the others are (pairs, families or flocks), juvenille calling for feeding and territorial or mating calls. The fifth is alarm call to warn of danger. I’m explaining it really poorly in writing but it was fascinating and Ollie has offered to put some stuff on a usb stick for us to learn more but the best way of learning is observing the actual birds. When I am not on limited online time I will find some better links too as it’s something all four of us are interested in finding out more about so I want to try and hoard some links to come back to.

Next Ady and I dug in some logs to make some benches which was hard work and when Becky, Ollie’s partner came up to see how it was all going she made the very accurate observation that they were too close to the fire pit. Some head scratching ensued before we dismantled them again and they are planning to consult with Becky’s Dad when he visits next week as he is a joiner so can probably construct something more sophisticated.

We called time then as we needed to light the bathhouse although in the end the kids were so tired we’ve headed up to the tent early tonight without a bath. We’ve been lent the community bat detector which we did take down to the glade to use but we ended up with a small posse of boys who all said they wanted to bat spot but then got all rowdy with sticks and the batteries died on the detector anyway. We did see three though and are planning to creep down just the four of us tomorrow evening having charged the batteries up again.

We spent some time talking to Seth & Mel about solar power and Seth has offered to help us wire solar panels up to Willow if we get hold of some so we may well take him up on that in a few weeks when we’re back this way.

My personal big news is that I climbed our personal hill to our tent twice today without having to pause for breath. I was making noises like a sealion by the end of the climb and I certainly took it slowly but I couldn’t have done that two weeks ago! 🙂

Today we spent the morning with Chris & Owen moving brash heaps. There are five of us WWOOFing at the moment – us, Ray the guy from Taiwan and a localish couple called Amy & Paul who are here to see if WWOOFing is for them. Amy keeps disappearing to cry and Paul is so wet and feeble Scarlett could probably out work him so I suspect it might not be ;). That is a bit harsh I’m sure but they have annoyed me today by being rubbish and having too closely held id.eas about what to expect rather than going with what happens and Amy irritated me by harping on about animal cruelty, how cows milk is a large amount pus and killing and eating animals is as bad as child abuse. If I can be open minded and try new ways of living I think other people should do the same and the child abuse comment felt like it was aimed at me which given she has no children and has paid no attention at all to any of the many very cool kids living here (hasn’t interacted with one single child on any occassion as far as I’ve seen) makes me feel she is likening kids to animals rather than the other way round… Oh and she left a load of mess in the bath after her shower which pissed me off too. Hills, crazy work loads and vegetarian food I can handle, idiots I struggle with rather…

There is a friend of some of the people here too staying who helped with the work this morning so with such a crowd we got loads done. Lunch was a bit rubbish today, very watery soup which looked like it wouldn’t even have any bread to go with it but some arrived just at the last minute. Then a crowd came up the hill of visiting mums and HE kids including Lia and her three girls who we know from various Green Fairs at the Sustainability Centre. I’d texted her to say we were around and would like to meet up so it was great to see them and the kids were really happy to see her twin girls, Nikita and Marley :).

This afternoon was more wood working, moving some large logs down a hill and splitting them then chopping into logs to be stacked on a pallet. Ady has done loads of splitting before so he was doing that, Ray was chopping, while Amy, Paul and I were on getting them down the hill duty. Paul using a sack trolley, Amy a barrow and me carrying or controlled rolling. I did 3 loads and was struggling so I got put on stacking duty and then Seth came to nick a WWOOFer to help with dinner so I very happily volunteered for that.

Seth and I had a great laugh and chat in the kitchen – we’re coming back for his birthday party in a few weeks time and we’ve been invited up to their house for dinner on Friday with Davies invited for a sleepover with their eldest son, Ash, who he has really clicked with. I think knowing we’ve got a set date planned to return will make leaing at the weekend a lot easier to cope with. Dinner was fab, sausages made with nuts and spices, roast spuds and squash and gravy. 🙂 Missing meat lots but tasty food is a half decent substitute.

The bath house lighting was rather rubbish tonight as Ray did it and he has not quite grasped the fire lighting technique of needing smaller sticks to make kindling, but he’s learning :). It feels funny to be so at home here after such a short time and know the ropes. The work is super hard but in terms of the people and feeling at home the bar has been set incredibly high for the rest of the year.

We did get our bath and persuaded the kids in tonight as they’d not bathed for a couple of days. Davies and Scarlett have been invited to the Exeter Home Ed group with the other HE kids tomorrow but we’re working with Ollie for the day tomorrow helping him prepare a camping area for a course he’s doing on nature awareness and he’s promised to give us a condensed version of the course so the kids are keen to be around for that and I think they’ll stay here instead.

I really need to blog over on WW but I think it will have to be a round up post of the whole place rather than the daily accounts I’m managing here.

Yesterday we had a nice hanging out in the woods day with barbecued meat for lunch cooked in the fire pit next to our tent which was lovely :). In the afternoon the kids went off to play with sisters D and A who they get on really well with and Ady and I went up to have a look round one of the houses; at least three of the families have said we can look round but it’s not actually happened yet so this was fab 🙂 LOVED their house – it’s even higher up the hill than where our tent is pitched so it’s got even more of a view. You enter through the kitchen which has a burner for hot water, cooking and heating, a curtained off area with a shower which is fed from a large container and a pump, a row of cupboards and shelves and a bowl for a sink. Next level is the living space, a long room with various seats and fold down tables at one end, a desk with computer and large screen for watching stuff on and the kids toys at the other end and a stair case in the middle which leads to the bedroom area upstairs which is one side the boys room (they have 3 boys) with beds on the 3 walls and a small area of floor space in the middle and the other side theirs with a bed and small table either side. The beams are exposed throughout and all the washing is hanging from beams to dry and left stored there hanging up.

We had a really nice chat with Mel who lives there and then came down to light the bathhouse burner. It felt like hard work trying to keep the bathhouse and the longhouse burners lit and we ended up chopping up kindling in the dark with Ray (the other WWOOFer trying to help but actually being a hinderance). We did eventually get a bath and some dinner though and then brought hot water bottles up to bed fairly early knowing we were in for a cold night. We’d seen weather reports saying minus 2 but one of the other people here said it had actually been minus 4 on her thermometer. It was certainly cold last night and that 3am wake up when the hot water bottles have gone cold and your toes are freezing was not nice 🙁

Today was quite hard to get going again after 2 days off. Both of my knees are protesting at the hill, my right knee even more so and it keeps sort of clunking out of place. I am better with the uphill than the downhill and it will be fine for ages and then suddenly jar and be excruitiatingly painful for a while so I am trying to go easy on it. I really don’t want to create an injury that makes issues through the year. We were awake early thanks to the cold so we went down to get tea and coffee and sat looking at books with the kids while breakfast was being made. There is a small, but very interesting library here, I must note some of the book titles down and get hold of copies.

This mornings work was dragging some wood along, clearing some debris around the saw mill and then after tea break Ady and Ray went to help dig out a huge stone in the middle of the path that was creating problems for the landrover while the kids and I carried bark up the hill to go round the base of some saplings as weed suppressants and then covered them in mulch made from old pine needles.

At lunchtime two more WWOOFers arrived (a couple in their 20s, only from Exeter on 2 weeks holiday from work and looking to get a taste of WWOOFing before deciding if they want to do it longer term and further afield). This afternoon we were with Seth (partner of Mel) and moving wood around. We came down to the longhouse for a tea break and going back up again had me hitting the wall I have been anticipating, too high, knee protesting, just too much 🙁 I did half an hour and then offered to go and light the bathhouse which got me off an hour early to go and chop kindling and get that lit – still not easy but without the hill. It took some lighting but by the time Ady appeared an hour later bringing me a cup of tea I had the burner roaring and heating lots of hot water for a bath later 🙂

Dinner was chaotic with pretty much everyone coming in to eat together but it emptied again just as quick. Ady and I went off for a bath and then Ady and Davies had a game of chess, Scarlett and I looked at some books and chatted and everyone else disappeared so we headed up to bed.

Once tomorrow is over we will be on countdown out really as we’re off on Saturday to a mid point campsite. But we’ve been invited to dinner up at Seth & Mel’s on Friday – our last night, and we’ve been invited back for Seth’s birthday celebrations in a few weeks which I *think* fits in with us being close enough to come along for which will be brilliant. Tough work and the hill aside this is an amazing place which has touched all four of us hugely. Most definitely life changing.

Fridays here are communal work party days when everyone available, members of the community and WWOOFers all work together on one project. This was an idea to try and ensure the community still work together on things regularly, so if there is a specific all-community project to be worked on that is done, if not anyone is able to ask for help on their own stuff. For various reasons lots of the community were not around though so we ended up with Chris & Owen again, Dan (who is one of the founder members here), the other two WWOOFers – Lee and Ray (guy from Taiwan) and the kids. In the morning we were clearing some felled tree debris from The Glade, an area near the bottom of the hill. The actual tree trunk was pulled by landrover out where it will go to the sawmill, the ivy and branches were pulled off and put into brash heaps (which will be covered and composted down) and the larger stuff was brought up the hill to be chopped for firewood. This isn’t particularly hard work as such as it is not heavy but it is still on the slope so either up or down the steep hill and with trip hazzards everywhere. We did get to use axes, machetes and other tools though :).

It seemed like quite a long morning although the children had a nice morning, with Davies spending some with Dan (who runs bushcraft and survival courses so they have struck up quite an affinity) who was showing him some King Alfred’s cake (a fungus that grows on dead ash trees and is excellent for lighting fires) and Scarlett spending some time creating a ‘sap bird’ made from a larch pine cone and some feathers she had found, glued together with sap weeping from one of the felled larch trees. All very ‘forest school’ 😉

Lunchtime was called and while we were eating Dan asked if I would help with cooking dinner during the afternoon, while Ady went with Ray to chop firewood and Lee went with someone else to do some other work. I was both relieved to be doing something a little lighter, pleased because I’d not previously had much time with Dan and I wanted to chat to him and rather nervous as he is a huge presence here who is pretty aloof and rather daunting.

Sure enough he put me firmly in my place when I tried to make conversation and ask him a few questions by saying ‘sorry, I need to concentrate on cooking, I can’t make conversation too’ which shut me up. He then came back to me shortly afterwards with one of his rare but very charismatic smiles and said, ‘now you had a question for me, I can give you all my attention now’ and chatted to me for ages about all sorts of fascinating stuff to do with setting up communities, society and work. He eats only raw food and cooked grains so the meal was closely (but not entirely) based on his food habits including a coleslaw dressed with whizzed up raw egg, cold pressed oil, garlic, lemon and peppers, salad and rice.

I had a split afternoon as we got the burner lit and then needed to leave it to get up to heat so I had 90 minutes off in the afternoon but then worked later than the others serving up food and clearing up afterwards. I spent some time just enjoying my new boots which had arrived and then I did another load of washing which Scarlett appeared just at the right time to help do, then went and took down the dry stuff from the line and hung the wet stuff out. Loving the laundry :).

I chatted to Becky, one of the original members here who had just had the LEA annual visit for their 9 year old son, R. She has had 3 annual visits now and all seems well with the LEA woman being fairly alternative-lifestyle minded anyway and seeing this as a rich environment for bringing up a child with plenty of input, other people to learn from and almost unlimited stimulus. Becky was telling me about how she struggles with the changes the community has undergone in it’s 11 years, how the initial vision is rather cloudy and how she is not sure whether it is the right long term place for them anymore. It’s so interesting talking to the individuals about how it works for them and how they manage to balance the needs of them as individuals, their needs within their own family and the needs of the wider community, particularly when all three may not be the same.

Ady and Ray finished wood chopping and sat chatting with us awhile before going to light the bathhouse burner, then it was food time. Dinner consumed and cleared away Ady and I went to put the chickens away for the night. It was a much depleted group as lots of them are away for the weekend with a friend nearby who has land. We were also invited but were craving some family time plus had already offered to chicken sit to enable someone else to go.

Friday night is music night though, so after a speedy bath we cracked open the cider (Friday night is also alcohol night!), gathered round with guitars, tambourines, didgeridoos and bongos and sat and played for a couple of hours. It was amazing :). It reminded me of the fluffy, fuzzy bits of films where everyone goes all soft focus and candle or campfire lit, with children dancing and laughing, everyone singing and smiling and a feeling of utter happiness. I don’t recall feeling so content and at peace for a very long time. It was very close to the feeling at J&J’s last summer when we lit all the candles on the many birthday cakes, almost tear jerking in it’s perfect-ness.

The children all got tired (along with Davies and Scarlett there was also A, who is an 8yo girl and S, a toddler girl) so snuggled into parents and talk turned to chatting and telling (edited for childrens’ ears jokes). Much laughter and leg pulling later it was about 1030pm and our two were exhausted so we called time for us and climbed our own personal bit of the hill to our tent. A lovely evening 🙂

Today we are left to our own devices, there is no work and hardly anyone around except us and Ray, the other WWOOFer. We have access to the kitchen and all the communal food and anythinge else we want. We wanted to go out for various things – Ady and I both needed more socks (our initial idea of a pair a day per week is proving insufficent and I only really had bed socks so have worn the same pair every day for a week and they fell apart – they were from a pound shop in Norfolk last year when Helen told me I needed ‘socks by six’ though so didn’t owe me anything!), all four of us needed decent work gloves and we were short of a few toiletries as we’d gone away with tiny supplies of such things nearly 3 weeks ago now so have used most of them up.

We drove to the petrol station to fill up, the campsite we were at last week to collect a parcel that we’d ordered but had turned up after we left (a gun case) and then a shopping place to get the various bits and pieces. It was a huge factory type place which sold pretty much everything you can think of so we stocked up on everything we needed, decided we were hungry so had lunch there, bought the kids an icecream (where they were praised by both the woman selling them and the woman behind them in the queue for their politeness, they only said please and thankyou, which makes me wonder if children generally are really rude as I didn’t think that was exceptional) and then went to the Co-Op for some food. We got sausages to cook over the fire for our lunch tomorrow, beans for Ady’s tea tonight, some flour for us and also decided to top up the communal milk, coffee, butter and jam supplies as they are all things that go really quickly and the community is short of cash. We’re having pancakes for dinner tonight using the eggs we collected from the chickens this morning as we were told we could have them and it fits in the veggie ethos of the kitchen. I also got some laundry soap for doing my washing next week :).

On the way back we called into House of Marbles as we literally drive past the door (well the mini roundabout just down from it). It felt strange to be there just a few months after being there with everyone from Christmas camp.

Back at SCW we caught up with Ray, I lit the rocket stove (loving those, as soon as we are somewhere for long enough to get one delivered we’ll buy one) to boil a kettle and we all stood watching bats circle right over our heads and even flying between us down in the glade. We are now with Ray and he is teaching the kids how to write their names in Chinese while we cook pancakes for dinner.

Tomorrow we’re staying in the woods, we needed all the stuff we bought from the shops today but found it really draining going back in to crazy consumerism. The shop felt too hot and enclosed and way too full of people, despite the hill it was a huge relief to get back here. I know we’ll be feeling really sad this time next week when we come to leave, although it was nice to spend time in Willow again today.

MiFi battery running out so have plugged it into laptop which is also draining fast – don’t think the technology likes the cold!

Yesterday I did blog over on WW – we were with Chris & Owen all day. In the morning we did fence building – really enjoyed that. We’re using brash (cut branches and leaves etc from felled trees) laid into stakes put into the ground in X shapes diagonally to each other. We did the third side to add to two sides already made to go around some young hazel trees to protect them from the deer.

We then did some moving wood about and clearing in the afternoon, stuff I am finding really hard, not least because my boots just aren’t up to the job of keeping me upright on the steep and slippy hill. Honestly, if I’d known in advance just how testing the hill was I would not have brought us here but I am so glad we are here because it is an amazing experience, regardless of the hill!

Another bath in the evening, oh how I am loving that bath 🙂

Food yesterday was porridge in the morning, stew and dumplings for lunch and curry in the evening (rice and peas, veg curry and a fab salad with garlic oil very similar to the one KFish makes with carrots). I’m coping well with the food, trying everything and actually quite enjoying most of it. I can’t deny I’m missing meat and although it is now a veggie kitchen rather than a vegan one the stuff like cheese and butter gets consumed super fast so I am missing my dairy produce too. But I will definitely be eating a wider selection of veg and it will be a bigger part of my diet alongside the meat. It’s a total detox really – I’m getting by on about 4 small cups of tea (equivalent to 2 of my big cups at home, which I’d normally have before I do anything in the morning) a day, no alcohol aside from a speedy swig of brandy (which I don’t actually like) to warm me from the inside before getting into my sleeping bag each night. I’m very pleasantly surprised to find I am not suffering at all from withdrawal so maybe I’m not as much of an addict as I always suspected. Will be having a glass or two of wine tomorrow though I reckon to celebrate the end of a bloody hard weeks work!

Todays work has been way gentler – more fence building this morning. We had two French WWOOFers with us until this morning when we waved them off but a new guy arrived yesterday, Lee, who we’ve been working with today (and another guy arrived this evening who I have not met yet, from Tai Wan). Davies and Scarlett worked with us this morning on fence building and Davies particularly was really helpful.

After tea break we did some bringing bark up the hill to lay around the bottom of fruit trees to suppress weeds for a forest garden that is being planted. Again Davies was really helpful and worked hard on this, Scarlett had a minor thumb injury so was sitting it out. Davies spent some time with Owen who has a saw mill and runs green woodworking classes chatting to him about how the saw mill works.

Just before lunch we spent some time with machetes clearing a path for another fence so the kids went off to find the other kids to play at that point.

Lunch today was not communal as loads of people were not around today, so it was us, Chris and Owen and Lee the other WWOOFer, so C&O brought out some of their own cheese stash and we had cheese and marmite sandwiches with the remains of the salad from yesterday.

Ady and I walked down to Willow as I need some female supplies (argh, of all the timings!) and then this afternoon we built a wood store – six posts to lift three shelves off the ground for sawn timber to dry and season on. We had to find suitable logs lying around, dig them in so they were all spirit level straight and then construct the base of the wood store. Lee was really good at this and pretty much did it himself with us standing watching and doing a bit of helping here and there. We broke for tea and the cry ‘RIVERFORD’ came (everyone just shouts to each other for stuff here, voice carry a long way in quiet woodland), so we went back to the communal longhouse to gather wheelbarrows then down the hill to empty the Riverford van of a weeks supply of fruit and veg. Four barrow-fulls and several of us carrying stuff.

That was the end of work for today aside from bathhouse burner lighting so Ady, Lee and I all went off to sit and chat and man the fire, and I brought along our dirty washing to have a go with the washboard and mangle. I really enjoyed it actually, but need some decent detergent as I was just using shampoo, will get some hard soap at the weekend.

Dinner – roast potatoes, steamed veg and gravy. There was a salad too but it had mushrooms so I didn’t try that. Then Ady suggested I go and have 10 minutes all to myself in the bath which was just lovely :).

Tonight we’ve been invited to the jamming session that happens here on a Friday night, told by 4 different people how fab Davies and Scarlett are and how amazingly well they have settled in and how cool all the kids think they are 🙂 And we have also been invited to a big get together a load of them are going to this weekend somewhere nearby for some fishing and shooting. We won’t go, partially because we want some family time and partially because we offered to look after the chickens here so one of the other people could go, but we are really touched to have been asked and feel like we’ve been really accepted here, not just as WWOOFers but as part of the community 🙂 🙂

At the beginning of the week I was really wishing we’d only booked to be here for a week as I thought it would just be too tough, we are all loving it though and challenges aside are so pleased we still have another week, particularly as we are working with different members of the community next week and are really looking forward to learning more about them and what they do. We’ve been assured it’s not moving wood about which is good! 😉

Hot water bottles are in sleeping bags tonight so bed and kindle is calling me.

Laptop battery is limited although I can charge it up tomorrow once the sun is shining and solar power kicks back in 🙂 I will do a proper post over on WW but that may need more editing so getting more of a no-holds barred account here is better on limited time.

Last night was freezing. I didn’t sleep at all well, first night camping is always a struggle though and I don’t think it was any worse than that usually is. It wasn’t helped by lying there debating with myself about whether I needed a wee or not, finally getting up to do so and due to a wobbly aim getting my pj trousers rather wet! So back into bed with even less clothes than before 🙁

I did eventually fall asleep though and was woken again by the dawn chorus. There is loads of wildlife here, ravens and buzzards actually just above us – ravens are really noisy, they sound like pigs oinking.

This morning we went down for breakfast after a snuggle altogether in the tent and chat about how we were all feeling. We then nipped down to Willow to collect some more blankets and thermal layers. At least three people have offered us more bedding though and everyone is very concerned and thoughtful about us and how we are doing. Our next line of defence for tomorrow is hot water bottles but I want to work up to it ;).

Work this morning was carrying some stuff down the hill ready to be collected to go to the tip. I don’t know if I’ve really mentioned the hill, it is incredibly, incredibly steep, pretty muddy and sort of the entire focus of the place really. There are several phrases here about ‘learning to love the hill’ and ‘conquering your own hill’. We were working this morning with Seth, who lives here with Mel and their 3 boys. The oldest is 8 and in the local school, the younger two are preschool age. They’ve been here about 6 years and love it but like everyone else here say it’s not forever they are staying. It’s not an older persons lifestyle, mostly because of the hill. So we were taking rubbish – some old carpet, some old windows, some wood that is too rotten for burning down the hill. We did about three loads of that, with the kids helping with very light loads. Scarlett is doing really well with the work, she is pretty strong and way more sure footed than the rest of us so she streaks past with loads of enthusiasm. Davies is cheery but tends to gripe more about things being heavy, as Ady said he has the soul of a poet, not a worker! He is really coming into his own chatting to people though, he’s really popular with the kids here already and has been storytelling around the dinner table and made a real friend of Dan, one of the founders of this place talking about survival stuff. The guys we did the campcraft sleepout with at Sustainability Centre are friends of the people there so they were namechecking with each other :). Scarlett has also bonded with the kids here and is really chatty with one of the guys who knows all about birds.

Once we’d finished that we brought some stuff up the hill – lengths of wood ready for chopping for firewood. Next I did some chainsaw feeding – pushing lengths of wood along the saw horse and holding it steady while it was chainsawed up into smaller lengths – I got to wear ear defenders and everything :). Finally we stacked all the wood we’d gathered and cut into the wood storage place. All with plenty of breaks to catch our breath and chat to Seth. At one point he gave us a tree identification lesson for about 20 minutes and showed us all the nearby trees and ways to tell them – even more difficult this time of year without the leaves.

Then it was lunchtime – delicious (and yes I do mean it!) pumpkin soup. Everything here has optional chilli sauce which gives it a nice kick and allows me to pretend there are less veg in it. We get about 90 minutes for lunch, so when we went to find the person we were working with this afternoon and were told to go away again and chill for an hour we came back to the tent and I ordered myself a decent pair of boots online, having checked I can get post sent to me here.

Back down the hill to Chris and Owen, who are here with their son who also goes to the local school, but only started last week having been HE before that. They keep chickens and are trying to maintain a forest garden with stuff grown on different layers to make the most of the hill. With them we were brash clearing – moving various debris and wood from felled trees and then carrying planks of wood up the hill to their garden to make raised beds. Two hours of very hard work indeed, but again with regular breaks and refreshments. Chris is interesting and was chatting to me about our year and wondering whether we were interested in joining a community.

Laptop about to die, so shorthand – will come back and edit tomorrow –
dinner was delish, satay veg and roasties, we got to have a bath – bliss, we’re in bed now fortified by brandy and biscuits and hoping for a warmer night.

I’ll blog on WW tomorrow when we’ve actually done a full day but wanted to catch up on here with first impressions.

We left the campsite this morning after charging everything up and having showers and Willow started and got here fine. We only had a postcode and the community is not marked from the road. We drove up a narrow road where I could see a likely looking bloke and toddler hanging out and sure enough we were in the right place. We parked Willow, shook hands with the guy and were introduced to the toddler then started to walk up the hill. It is about 1/2 mile of the very steepest, fairly muddy pathway. We hailed people and introduced ourselves as we went and then reached the communal building where we met the guy (Jon) who we have met a couple of times before at the Green Fair at the Sustainability Centre. We got a warm welcome from him and were introduced to a couple of other people coming in and out before being shown where we were pitching our tent. They had offered us use of a tent but when it became clear they were digging one out of a buried pile we said we’d use our own. Really pleased we did as it’s gone up perfectly in the space and feels nice to be in a space that we are familiar with. We are pitched even further up the hill but with easily the most amazing view we have ever camped with. It’s right in the woodland too, two pairs of ravens nest in a nearby tree and it’s just breathtakingly gorgeous.

We then trudged back down, bringing a wheelbarrow and poor Ady did three barrow-loads of our stuff up while I packed it all up. Tent, sleeping mats, sleeping bags, pillows and blankets, one set of clothes to get dressed in tomorrow morning – I don’t think we’ll be changing outfits much these two weeks and a rucksack each with various essentials.

Davies and Scarlett had already disappeared into the woods, hooking up with children as they went. There are at least four families here but three of them use the local school, but there are two lovely Home Ed girls here who D & S have already clicked with. Then it was lunchtime – veggie soup and bread. I made the mistake of being heavy handed with the chilli sauce on the side (to try and take the taste of veggies away ;)) and was rendered speechless for about 20 minutes as it kicked in!

Then to the tent. It went up fine, we got it all set up, admired the view for a bit longer and then went to find out what we could do workwise. We ended up helping carry some wood up the hill, stack it up for firewood inside and chop loads of veg for dinner prep. So far I think we’ve talked to everyone and they all seem pretty friendly, some more reserved and cagey about giving too much away more than others. A couple of the families are particularly open and friendly and I’m hoping we’ll get some more chatting time as the days go past.

Ady and I walked back down to Willow to gather headtorches and then it was dinner time, which was slightly crazy and communal. There is definite friction and politics here, I guess an almost inevitable part of a community and there seems to be issues over entitlements, who is doing what and how the finances are sorted. But, it’s an established intentional community, albeit a fairly transitional one with regards to the actual individuals and I think we will learn loads, both from the individuals here and the community as a whole.

The communal kitchen has recently become vegetarian rather than vegan and actually many of the people here are meat eaters. There was much scoffing about consensus and decision making and meetings and I get the feeling we’ll be witness to the odd falling out, it’s a very interesting place to be.

Dinner was a different experience of food, jacket potatoes but they are out of butter and don’t do cheese communally as it’s too pricey so we all had it with cold pressed oil instead of butter and then added marmite and chilli sauce for flavour. It was surprisingly delicious. Then a quiche, made with rye flour and oil pastry, eggs and oat milk and mucho veg. It was interesting – not very quiche like and definitely lacking cheese and bacon, but edible. The kids all had apple crumble – they always feed the children first here which seems like a nice way of doing things.

I’m missing tea – there is hot water and there were tea bags around earlier but I couldn’t easily see them later on and everyone headed off to their own dwellings by about 7pm. We hung around for a while and helped clear up the kitchen before deciding it was cold and dark and we had a crazy hill climb to do so we’d head for our tent, meaning we were all tucked up in our sleeping bags before 8pm. I’m feeling achey of knee – that hill is a killer – and slightly hungry, given I have already eaten and it’s earlier than I’d normally have dinner.

The kids are having a ball, it’s very much their sort of environment, loads of mud, people to play with, dangerous pursuits and interesting adults to talk to, they have slotted in perfectly. I can see us getting plenty of use out of the kindle and limited everything else as although I suspect I could plug a phone charger in a couple of times I don’t think appearing with a laptop, mifi and various other chargers every day would go down well.

We seem warm enough all snuggled in together, we all have really good sleeping bags and in a small space our body heat alone should see us through the night. We have biscuits, and a bottle of brandy and hip flasks so while it is a wildly different experience to what we are used to, I think it will be the perfect start to our adventure in demonstrating how very different other people’s lives are.

So, quick summary, we’re here, we’re fine, I think we’ll manage the two weeks and get loads out of it. 🙂