One word? When seven would do…

This morning the sun was shining again and we had breakfast out on the balcony which was just lovely :).

Ruth and Deborah joined us for a bit and on looking down at the garden Ruth mentioned the little spring that joins the river was choked with strimmings so we cleared that as a first job. We then did a bit more on the wall which is looking pretty good but does need some more different sized rocks to carry on with. I’ve really enjoyed having a go at dry stone walling, it’s definitely something I’d like to spend time doing with someone who can give me some direction / instruction in techniques but for a first go I am really pleased with the results and everyone has been down to admire it and say well done :).

We stopped for a cup of tea and then Andy reappeared with the chainsaw which had been sharpened so we headed down to chop up some old rotten railway sleepers which were just too big and heavy to move. The plan is to chop them into smaller chunks then burn them on a bonfire which offends me on many levels – firstly I think wood should never be burnt just like that – it can be used to give heat / light / cooking energy as an end resort but firstly should be used to build or make something with surely? Some of the bits are quite rotten but they have so much ground here, some of which is given over to woodland / wasteland that I really think they should leave the wood to rot down naturally and be a wildlife habitat – so many bugs and beetles make their homes in rotting wood.

I did get to have my first go with a chainsaw which was pretty cool though. Ady was super paranoid about me with it and very closely supervised me but I was hugely respectful of the amount of damage it was doing to the lump of oak tree and very aware of what it could do to me.

That pretty much took us to lunchtime so we headed up to join everyone else to eat. Andy had offered to take us caving today at 3pm so after lunch we washed and dried up and it seemed not worth getting stuck into anything much. Ady and the kids went down and did something in the garden and I stayed to help prepare dessert for tonight from the vast amounts of apples we picked yesterday. Todays plan was apple tart so I made the pastry and put it in the fridge to rest for later use and peeled loads and loads of apples.

Then it was time for caving. I rather stupidly didn’t listen to Andy advising wearing wellies rather than my workboots. He clearly said they would get wet inside but I ignored him and decided they would be fine. I was offered use of one of the many pairs of wellies they have here but all of them are too narrow to fit my fat calves and Ady said my own wellies were buried deep in the depths of Willow. I should have fetched them. I should also have fetched my own waterproof trousers as the ones I borrowed were fine around my waist but way too snug a fit for what came later…

We drove to the cave – upper and lower Long Churn (as reviewed here) and had a good half a mile walk uphill to even get to the cave entrance. At this point I began to realise I was not really suitably attired as my jeans were fallen down and I was ridiculously hot having asked Ady to grab me a jumper and been handed my warmest wooliest jumper which was making me really hot walkiing at such a pace.

The caving experience was excellent – Davies and Scarlett absolutely adored it. We splashed along in thigh deep water (so yes, boots soaked inside, now packed with newspaper and hoping for several very sunny days to dry them out), bumped our heads on the cave roof, admired stalactites, stalacmites, columns, scalloping on the cave walls, crystal formations, fossils, deep areas, high domes caverns and hollows, had places where we had to be clipped to ropes and do minor abseils and stopped to turn all our headtorches off and sit in pitch darkness. It was fab.

Of course, what does down must come back up and I had totally failed to think through that swinging down a rope must mean clambering back up again. Andy took me back to climb up the first bit so Davies and Scarlett could do the ‘cheese press’ a scrambling, comando style bit on their tummies. Unfortunately a combination of my waterproof trousers being way too tight – I took them off later as a complete afterthought and everything got *so* much easier, being fat and unhealthy despite 5 months of WWOOFing and having no climbing ability at all meant I simply could not do it. I could not get my feet into the footholes Andy kept insisting were there, even when he hoisted me up so I should have been able to reach them because my knees would not bend enough due to the trousers. It was frustrating for me feeling so useless and frustrating for Andy feeling that I was so useless!!! We called Ady to come and help and eventually with a combination of some sort of hoist method from Andy above and Ady shoving from below I did manage to get up. I felt utterly useless and pathetic though 🙁

Davies and Scarlett were superstars, waiting on their own in the cave while all this was going on. Davies then scrambled through the cheesepress and I managed to totally misjudge him coming across a drop and he fell down – about 6 foot!!!! He was fine – he had his hard hat on and fell into water and slipped more than dropped but it was bloody scary for both of us. I stood in it for Scarlett so I could just carry her down. Utter fail on my part all round there really 🙁

I took my waterproof trousers off at that point (channelling my inner Babs, although I did have jeans on underneath ;)) and found the rest of the clambers up way easier although I did still have some help from Ady and Andy but was gratified that Ady found them challenging too. Aswell as being hugely proud of Davies and Scarlett who were determined to do what Ady and I struggled with and managed it and then got to go infront and lead us out of the cave 🙂

We were underground for about 90 minutes altogether and although I had a really challenging time with that one area and will have all sorts of bruises to show for that tomorrow and my boots may take weeks to dry out it was incredibly exhilarating and I would definitely do it again. The caves are pretty scary and unforgiving places – this was the same cave that the big resuce had been from last week and I would not go without someone like Andy who could guide you properly . We are definitely spoilt for show caves now though and won’t be carrying out our planned trip to the local caves and paying £20 to be shown round small areas with walkways and safety gates. The kids are both determined to do more caving so we’ll have to look into how we can make that happen once we settle back down somewhere more permanently again.

We got back home and quickly changed into dry clothes to sit down for dinner. As we knew we would be later they had already done a first shift of dinner which meant we ate in a far more civilised fashion with just 6 of us which was nice given the usual 14 for dinner we are used to. After dinner we all had baths and then looked at our pictures of the caving and had a glass of wine or two before bed.

I’ll add pictures at some point.