Monday More hanging around at Babs where I even got lured into Playing A Game (I know!). Ady took Scarlett and Rachael for a walk in the morning and in the afternoon Babs, Scarlett, Rachael and I dropped Suzy off at the station and headed over to collect a few bits from Willow when we heard that she wouldn’t be ready to take away that day.
We had communally cooked dinner (although I am unsure whether my contribution of grilling the dish was altogether well recieved I think the home made garlic bread went down well ;)), jelly madness for the kids and a final evening with Chris and Babs. We really can’t thank them enough for their amazing hospitality – FabBabs and Chris, we heart you lots! 🙂
Tuesday morning we rang to check on Willow’s progress and were told she’d be ready by midday so Ady and Babs went to collect her while I packed everything up ready to go in the hall, fed the kids some slow cooker rice pudding which was finally ready at about lunchtime, and made some sandwiches for our journey. We packed the van up and finally headed off about 2pm feeling slightly teary-eyed at saying goodbye again – this time I really do think it will be Christmas camp when we see each other again but as we said that at our Bye Then Party and we’ve now caught up with them various times since I’m not putting dates on anything now!
We had a straight run to Durham and found the hosts farm no problem, thanks to some very comprehensive directions they had emailed us (they are not at an actual postal address as they are on land without planning permission). We were shown to our yurt, made a cup of tea and left to settle in with a WWOOFers handbook which lists pretty much anything you could think of to have questions about along with loads of things you didn’t even think about but are very useful to know. It has lovely stuff like ‘STAYING HEALTHY. Everyone is allowed to get ill and if you are ill you do not have to work and we will look after you’ and ‘if there is anything at all you need please, please tell us so we can get it for you’. The yurt is fully set up with a double and two single beds, chairs and table, woodburner with stash of fire making stuff and an axe, candles, full kitchen set up including oven, full stock of food – tins, dry stuff, fruit fruit and veg, home made bread, tea, coffee, milk, butter, cheese. Rainwater to heat for washing, fresh water for drinking, a baby bath and towels and flannels for having washes, waterproofs to borrow etc. We sort out own breakfast and dinner out from these supplies, have lunch with the hosts and once a week we will have a main meal with them too.
The hosts are two couples; Beth & Wilf, and Matt & Jo. They have two boys each – Beth & Wilf have Oaken who is 10 and at school (but only since this year) and 4 year old Llew, Matt & Jo have 9 year old Pippin and 4 year old Hollin – all the other 3 boys are HE. They have 15 acres of land including woodland, a river, polytunnels and organic growing space. They currently share a house (tiny space) made of strawbales but Matt & Jo will be moving into their own house at some future point which is nearly finished and is stunning – straw bale and tyre build, 3 storey, 3 bedroom with grass roof, fully renewable energy etc. When that happens the currently communal house will have a double extension too and become full sized for Wilf & Beth.
They all do various things off site including green building, woodworking, blacksmithing, basket weaving, permaculture teaching and they co-operatively run a veg box & eggs scheme locally too. We have felt instantly at home and Davies and Scarlett have fallen straight in with the older boys here (although they both said the younger two are a bit annoying) and so far everyone and everything seems lovely :).
We shared dinner with them last night before settling in to the yurt for bedtime stories by candlelight and a first ever night sleeping in a yurt.
Today we breakfasted in the yurt and then ventured out. The kids were invited in to play Lego with Pippin which they did for most of the morning before venturing out to play near the river when the rain finally stopped. Today was communal dining day so we did food prep in the morning as it was so rainy which involved chopping veg, making a flapjack, drinking tea and chatting. There is another WWOOFer here this week, Frankie, who has been here 3 months and is about to leave. She has had a great time here and exchanged gifts with the hosts tonight at dinner which is always a good thing to see – WWOOFers and hosts who make it work for that length of time are always reassuring.
The rain stopped mid morning so we went to do some chicken house clearing out and some fence mending before lunch. In the afternoon Ady carried on with that and I did some watering in the polytunnel and some garlic harvesting and that was the day over with – six hours goes very quickly, particularly when over an hour of it is spent eating lunch!
After work we had a couple of hours to ourselves and the kids came back into the yurt with us – Scarlett to play on the digeridoo and bongo which are in the yurt and Davies to do some drawing – I think they are almost socialised out after such a full on weekend 😉
Dinner was done in two sittings – kids first and then they went off to play leaving the adults. We had elderflower wine with dinner which was lovely. Lots of chat over dinner about Home Ed and parenting as Jo is having a crisis of confidence about her approach which has previously been a bit structured but has been reading some Sandra Dodd and even met her on her recent UK trip so is thinking about different approaches and was very interested in how we do things – I’m guessing there will be lots more of that sort of conversation – hopefully Davies and Scarlett live up to their usual selves to demonstrate we are indeed raising fab individuals ;).
So, an excellent and heartening start to this host, long may it continue!