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 🙂
🙂 Feel like my comments are getting boring and saying the same thing. But still loving reading about it all. Really glad you’ve been able to keep blogging 🙂
Shame about the weeks that you’re not able to do. I guess that’s the nature of it all, but yay to the fact that the first 2 hosts have thrown up ideas.
Comment by Kirsty — 24 March 2011 @ 10:19 am
God, it will be rescue remedy and homeopathy next ;-). So glad its working out – really pleased to hear that you are all enjoying it, and that Ady is unwinding. xx
Comment by Joyce — 24 March 2011 @ 8:13 pm
Sounds fabulously relaxing.
Comment by michelle — 25 March 2011 @ 1:55 pm