Another quick one

Laptop battery is limited although I can charge it up tomorrow once the sun is shining and solar power kicks back in 🙂 I will do a proper post over on WW but that may need more editing so getting more of a no-holds barred account here is better on limited time.

Last night was freezing. I didn’t sleep at all well, first night camping is always a struggle though and I don’t think it was any worse than that usually is. It wasn’t helped by lying there debating with myself about whether I needed a wee or not, finally getting up to do so and due to a wobbly aim getting my pj trousers rather wet! So back into bed with even less clothes than before 🙁

I did eventually fall asleep though and was woken again by the dawn chorus. There is loads of wildlife here, ravens and buzzards actually just above us – ravens are really noisy, they sound like pigs oinking.

This morning we went down for breakfast after a snuggle altogether in the tent and chat about how we were all feeling. We then nipped down to Willow to collect some more blankets and thermal layers. At least three people have offered us more bedding though and everyone is very concerned and thoughtful about us and how we are doing. Our next line of defence for tomorrow is hot water bottles but I want to work up to it ;).

Work this morning was carrying some stuff down the hill ready to be collected to go to the tip. I don’t know if I’ve really mentioned the hill, it is incredibly, incredibly steep, pretty muddy and sort of the entire focus of the place really. There are several phrases here about ‘learning to love the hill’ and ‘conquering your own hill’. We were working this morning with Seth, who lives here with Mel and their 3 boys. The oldest is 8 and in the local school, the younger two are preschool age. They’ve been here about 6 years and love it but like everyone else here say it’s not forever they are staying. It’s not an older persons lifestyle, mostly because of the hill. So we were taking rubbish – some old carpet, some old windows, some wood that is too rotten for burning down the hill. We did about three loads of that, with the kids helping with very light loads. Scarlett is doing really well with the work, she is pretty strong and way more sure footed than the rest of us so she streaks past with loads of enthusiasm. Davies is cheery but tends to gripe more about things being heavy, as Ady said he has the soul of a poet, not a worker! He is really coming into his own chatting to people though, he’s really popular with the kids here already and has been storytelling around the dinner table and made a real friend of Dan, one of the founders of this place talking about survival stuff. The guys we did the campcraft sleepout with at Sustainability Centre are friends of the people there so they were namechecking with each other :). Scarlett has also bonded with the kids here and is really chatty with one of the guys who knows all about birds.

Once we’d finished that we brought some stuff up the hill – lengths of wood ready for chopping for firewood. Next I did some chainsaw feeding – pushing lengths of wood along the saw horse and holding it steady while it was chainsawed up into smaller lengths – I got to wear ear defenders and everything :). Finally we stacked all the wood we’d gathered and cut into the wood storage place. All with plenty of breaks to catch our breath and chat to Seth. At one point he gave us a tree identification lesson for about 20 minutes and showed us all the nearby trees and ways to tell them – even more difficult this time of year without the leaves.

Then it was lunchtime – delicious (and yes I do mean it!) pumpkin soup. Everything here has optional chilli sauce which gives it a nice kick and allows me to pretend there are less veg in it. We get about 90 minutes for lunch, so when we went to find the person we were working with this afternoon and were told to go away again and chill for an hour we came back to the tent and I ordered myself a decent pair of boots online, having checked I can get post sent to me here.

Back down the hill to Chris and Owen, who are here with their son who also goes to the local school, but only started last week having been HE before that. They keep chickens and are trying to maintain a forest garden with stuff grown on different layers to make the most of the hill. With them we were brash clearing – moving various debris and wood from felled trees and then carrying planks of wood up the hill to their garden to make raised beds. Two hours of very hard work indeed, but again with regular breaks and refreshments. Chris is interesting and was chatting to me about our year and wondering whether we were interested in joining a community.

Laptop about to die, so shorthand – will come back and edit tomorrow –
dinner was delish, satay veg and roasties, we got to have a bath – bliss, we’re in bed now fortified by brandy and biscuits and hoping for a warmer night.