Today was all about the weeding. Weeding around potatoes. It was quite nice in the sometimes sunshine but mostly overclouded but dry weather sitting on the hillside plucking out the weeds and grass from between the potato plants. Ady and I worked alongside each other all day with occassional working alongside us from Alan, Anna or Sam and we listened to the radio and made up song related challenges for each other; ‘name five songs with sun in the title’ ‘five songs with rain in the title’ etc. (anyone want to see if they can guess the ones I came up with?)
Anna was listening to us from afar and laughed and said ‘I can just imagine you two in your seventies sitting there playing pop quizzes with each other’ 😆 I was quick to point out that we’ll not both be in our seventies at the same time 😉
There is tentative good news on the van – the water pump was sent off to the reconditioning man today and should hopefully be back tomorrow – not sure what time mind you. We’re working on the basis we’ll have it back here either late tomorrow or early Wednesday and be off on Wednesday sometime but I am very aware it may be more like Thursday.
Mum has got Thursday and Friday off work so they are coming up to Wales on Thursday morning for a few nights. I found a campsite with some holiday cottages on site so she is booking us all in there for the weekend – us in Willow and them in a cottage which I think will be a good arrangement for us all. Looking forward to seeing them, it somehow seems like it’s been forever since they came to see us in Devon.
I was feeling in a stroppy and intolerant mood this morning and snapped at Sam when he gave two order type requests to people over lunchtime without saying please on either occassion. I drew his attention to the fact that for a very wordy young man he seemed to lack that particular word from his vocabulary rather often. He blushed 😉 Today is his last day, I have found working alongside him rather challenging at times and think he has ever such a lot to learn – I guess WWOOFing will give him that and put him firmly in his place which will be no bad thing. I was also feeling a bit blue this morning, rather trapped here and when Alan started having a big moan about Anna it really upset me. There is a huge amount of domestic unrest here which always disturbs me and it’s felt a lot like being a kid living with my parents hearing both of them so pissed off with the other one that they are prepared to share tales of woe and slag each other off to virtual strangers like us. I am also really riled by the way Anna is treated generally by Alan and the boys; like some sort of idiot slave. One of the unforeseen downsides of WWOOFing I guess; living with other people and feeling rather powerless / unwilling to get dragged into the issues within their own relationships and domestic arrangements. Ady and I were talking about it and agreeing what a cautionary tale the dynamics here are for living in a remote and isolated location.
Abi and Caitlin came over to show off Abi’s birthday present she got at the weekend – a big stunt kite so we all had a go at flying that. Davies proved to have a real knack for it and now wants one for his birthday – a perfect gift given the tiny bag it folds down into :).
Dinner was good – home made burgers (using their pig meat, herbs and greens and eggs), chips (from potatoes dug up today) and greens from the garden washed down with some of Alan’s home brewed beer. They certainly have taught us loads about self sufficiency and given me stacks of ideas for stuff like that. They also use lots of alternative and herbal remedies, Anna particulary is very knowledgable about hedge-witch type stuff.
Back to the van for a couple of chapters of Enid Blyton and hopefully our last nights sleep without a clear idea of how many more we’ll be spending here.
i do hope that you will be able to move on tomorrow. v difficult to be hearing the person you most got on with being moaned about like that. and bad form too really from aln.
Comment by HelenHaricot — 13 June 2011 @ 11:26 pm