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was talking about stuff he knows about and then I mentioned some of the information in the guest books in each room is out of date as are some of the leaflets and was given the job of looking at that, rearranging and reorganising the library.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.
as long as you are happy 🙂
Comment by HelenHaricot — 29 March 2011 @ 10:44 pm
I was looking at the cottages website yesterday and wondering where the ‘share on Facebook’ button was …
As long as you don’t start expecting a luxury break every 3 weeks, I think you’ll be okay 🙂 Jill sounds like an excellent person to have got to know!
Comment by Alison — 30 March 2011 @ 6:49 am
lol at your past lives coming back! All interesting though and like Alison says she sounds lie a good contact to make 🙂 Can’t she get you a book deal then?
Comment by Kirsty — 30 March 2011 @ 8:14 am
I think that’s brilliant, I must say!
Comment by Sarah — 30 March 2011 @ 7:59 pm