One word? When seven would do…

The traffic woke me this morning just after 7am. It really is very noisy here! I’d gotten so used to it but having not really slept anywhere trafficky all year (with the exception of one or maybe two badly chosen laybys during the wild camping near Inverness) it was enough to rouse me. Then I needed the loo and a drink and then I was coughing for ages and needed to blow my nose. I could tell from Scarlett’s breathing and snuffling that was she was coming down with the cold too. I laid awake for a while debating making a cup of tea and waking up properly but then dozed off again.

I woke up quite a bit later and Ady was already Ady machining – he’s certainly making up for lost carpet cleaning opportunities this year 😉

The ground by the chickens was very hard with frost so after some discussion and drawing up of a job list for the week we decided we’d focus on the inside of the house this weekend and start on the garden next week. Dad is planning to come and do the painting next week so it makes sense to have all the carpet shampooing, general cleaning and clearing done prior to that so we can be out of his way. Ady carried on vaxing and I made a start on the first loft void in our bedroom. There is one long void that runs the length of the house and is accessible from both Davies’ and our room. In Davies’ room it had several boxes of toys and a few sacks of cuddlies which the kids had already pulled out to look at. In our end it had two sacks of clothes – Ady now has a full collection of Pompey tops again :), a few pairs of shoes (hurrah! had forgotten my gorgeous green oxygen shoes and my yellow London DMs) and a couple of boxes of loft contents type stuff including photos, diaries and a big bag of greetings cards. When I was at Clintons they used to regularly change the ranges of cards carried and the reps would come and write off all the residual stock in each branch. Technically they should have gone in skips but staff were always allowed to take them home so I’ve had a stash of those for about 15 years but never kept them somewhere sensible. I sat for an hour and matched up all the envelopes to them and we now have a lifetime supply of birthday cards 🙂

We had lunch – crumpets 🙂 We are building up a list of things that are worth trying to dig out and bring over here from Mum & Dad’s and I think the toaster makes it onto the list. The grill is just too faffy. Davies started to get all achey and shivery and went from just fine to down with the cold. He does fall fast that lad.

Then off for my patch testing appointment. Scarlett came in with me as I realised after her interest on me telling her what had happened at the skin prick testing that she would find it interesting. She did :). She asked loads of questions and watched with great interest. It was very quick – I took my top off and sat with my back to the nurse who just fixed 9 pads to my back which have about 8 spots each of various things on. I’m being tested for over 100 different things including what is know as the ‘standard’ – common allergens and cosmetics too. I have to go back on Tuesday to have the results read. I can theoretically have a bath aslong as I don’t submerge my upper back but the irony of being denied it after so long is not escaping me 😉

Several places are pretty itchy and the patches are generally uncomfortable – I am aware they are there. They are not very well fixed so I am worried they may move about between now and Tuesday and I’ve been told not to do any strenuous physical activity, incase that peels them off.

We left there and went to a garden centre to collect chicken feed and bedding and Asda for dinner stuff. Our plan is to use the car as little as possible and combine journeys where we can so that worked well as it wasn’t too much further on from the clinic.

Back at home we had a drink and then carried on with the lofts. I found such treasures as the appointment card for my driving test (12th June 1991), a load of albums and 12 inch singles including Now 7, Now 8, Now 17, Phil Collins But Seriously and a Rick Astley album. Also singles including Snow, Informer, Arrested Development Tennessee and rather randomly Please Don’t Go by KWS which I remember not even liking as a song back when it was playing in clubs so I have no idea why I owned or have retained a copy! Scarlett loved looking at the old pictures of me and Ady and was enchanted with a very early cordless telephone :). She went through a bag of cuddly toys sorting them out for the charity shop, discarding the couple of dolls, anything pink or sparkly. There is a newborn baby doll with male genetalia which is naked and she said ‘we can’t give that to a charity shop, it needs clothes!’ to which I replied ‘oh it’ll be fine, people often knit clothes for dolls in charity shops’. She replied ‘really, that should be illegal?!’ which took a few seconds to register before I questionned her and realised she’d misheard me and thought I said ‘nick’ instead of ‘knit’ She was most entertained that I had waited so long to ask her why knitting should be illegal! 😆

Davies had a long hot bath with eucalyptus oil in it and despite being cold and not eating much dinner seems a bit brighter. I think a decent nights sleep or three and some good food will do him the world of good – everyone is happier here than we’ve been for a long time, despite all agreeing we don’t want to be here again permanently. I read to Scarlett today from her new hamster book and then spent time with her going through the loft – it’s stuff like that we’ve not had enough of recently, small meaningless pockets of time that add up to a relationship without even trying.

I made dinner – pasta bake and we all ate together, sat on the floor infront of the fire watching Tom & Jerry cartoons on video :). We’ve all commented on how much like being back in Willow this feels, sleeping in one room, just the four of us, limited entertainment other than radio, reading or a very small collection of videos watched on a little portable TV. Of course Willow didn’t have a flushing loo, bath, washing machine and constant electricity 🙂

Tomorrow we have a man coming from Northwood to take details for the website and print off particulars for the house to put it on the market. I will sort out a second agent just for balance but that can wait til the end of the week once we’ve done some more licking it in to shape. In the meantime I am impressed with Mike moving so fast 🙂 Also on the agenda tomorrow is loft clearing and scraping peeling paint off walls, and collecting a few bits from my parents – we’ve decided my big clock is an essential 🙂

I’ve booked a travelodge for our stay in Inverness while I’m at the crofting course, paid for said crofting course and tentatively booked a B&B in Mallaig for the night before the interview. So our bank account is deplete once more but we do at least have addresses of where we’ll be for the next month, albeit ones at various ends of the country!

I had an email from Jill and a text from Johnny today saying they miss us 🙂

Last day:

Tuesday I spent in the office mostly. I finished writing new copy for the Guest Welcome Pack folders which go in each cottage, printed them all off, did laminating and left them ready to go back into each cottage. I also created logos for the front of the new Guest Comment Books, laminated those and put them on the fronts of new comment books too.

Ady finished off a last few jobs with Johnny in the morning. In the afternoon he headed off for supplies for Taco Tuesday, courtesy of Jill. I spent some time chatting to Sam who lives next door and we arranged to pop round for a cup of tea after work. Sam is really interesting, very passionate about all things low impact, loves Scotland and is hugely inspired by us and our adventures and the way we raise our kids. He said he loves Davies and Scarlett because they are just always so *happy*. We chatted for a while about our Educational Philosophy and why we do things the way we do. It came after I’d said goodbye to Denise who works in the office and was also saying how fab she thinks D & S are and what a good job we are doing with them. It was really heartening and bolstering to hear and reminded me that we are making active choices about our kids, not just leaving them to their own devices. I felt really good about it – ha, so much for intrinsic rewards eh?! 😉

We put the animals away for the last time and headed over to Sam’s for an hour. Further chatting, cups of tea and coffee and exchanges of contact details with promises of a place for Sam to stay if he ever wants to visit and a promise of helping us out if he ever comes and then we went back to the cottage to get dinner sorted. I made tacos and fajitas inbetween having a shower while the others did more cottage packing up. At 7 ish we took all the food over to Jill and Johnny’s for Taco Tuesday – the last supper.

A lovely evening had by all with lots of laughter, food, drink (we had mexican beer with lime wedges and tried Canadian Ice Wine which was delish). We played Scattergories and Leyah joined us. It was a lovely last evening, ending around midnight when we headed back to our cottage.

The Leaving:

We spent an hour or so packing the last bits up, loading the car and tidying up. Then Davies and Scarlett went off with Leyah for a pony ride. It was totally freezing but an utterly gorgeous day with bright blue skies. They both had a go at trotting, on the lunge lead and did really well despite eyes watering with coldness. I think they were both understandably cross with themselves that we’d all been telling them to do some riding for the whole 3 weeks and they only managed it on the very last morning.

We’d planned to be away at 11am and we were, infact a few minutes before. We went and said our goodbyes to everyone and J&J presented us with rucksacks each for the kids – we’d mentioned loving the Life is Good brand after Ady got one of their t shirts in a charity shop and it turns out they used to stock their stuff in their shops and still have a surplus of stock so the kids now have about 5 Life is Good tops and a rucksack each and Ady has another T shirt too – they don’t do tops with cleavage ;), gift cards for Game and Waterstones and £200 cash 😯 They were most forceful about us taking it and as it will help a lot with our cash flow we very gratefully accepted 🙂 Love them

The drive home was fine, Mike rang me about 10 minutes before we arrived at the house to check we were still on track and to say he hoped the tenants had gone but they had not dropped the keys back to him 😮

We pulled up and saw a bike leaning against the back wall and an old wardrobe on the driveway. Mike arrived shortly after us and we all went in They have gone, just not taking everything with them 🙁 The house is probably about as I was expecting really. The carpet is very grim throughout although the Ady Machine is making a real dent in that to the point that I think we will not bother to replace it to put it on the market, certainly to begin with. The walls are chipped and scuffed, but a coat of paint will sort that out . The sinks and loos are all very dirty and stained, but some elbow grease will fix that. The oven was particularly hideous but a £4 oven cleaner from Sainsburys, loads of hot soapy water and scourers have all but sorted that out. The garden is fairly overgrown and the chickens area is horrid, with a very strange netted affair errected and loads of veg peelings all trodden in and rotting that they wouldn’t ever eat along with eggs shells and lots and lots of chicken poo.

Mike took photos, chatted to us about what happens next and asked if we’d let him put the house on the market.

The kids were upset for a short time as all three of the cockerels we’d had here have gone. There is one in their place, but not one of ours. Most of the hens seem original though. They have called the new cockerel Timothy 🙂 I’m hoping the chickens will like Rum 🙂

After a bit of looking round the place in awe we got ourselves together and headed over to Dad’s, stopping to collect some food on the way as we were all ravenous. Fed, watered and caught up with Dad Ady and I left the kids there and came back over to the house to put the chickens away and make a start on Operation Cleanup. Ady had the Ady machine so he got started with the carpets in the lounge and a first go at Scarlett’s bedroom which was by far the worst room. Upstairs is fairly clean but the downstairs rooms are all pretty horrid. They have smoked in every room so the whole house stinks of fags which is possibly what I am most pissed off about 🙁

I gave the kitchen a surface clean, put cisterm blocks in the loos and put bleach down them, scrubbed the kitchen sink and left bleach soaking in it, got the oven cleaner stuff started and cleaned the downstairs sink and bath. By then it was gone 7pm so conscious of the kids and food we headed back to my parents

Mum was on good form and Dad paid for fish and chips for everyone which was nice. Frazer ate with us too 🙂

Today: After breakfast and chatting with Dad we headed over to the house armed with a first load of stuff. It’s hard to know what to bring and what not to bring, we’re here for about 10 days but will need to bring most stuff back away again to keep the house clear for viewings. Kitchen stuff can stay here but the rest will need to go back to parents so that if we were to sell it would only be a speedy task to empty it again and one Mum or Dad could theoretically do for us.

Ady did more Ady Machining. We’ve decided the carpets have come up well enough for the house to go on the market without replacing them. If it doesn’t sell and feedback is suggesting that is a huge downside then we’ll rethink but for now we’ll save the money. So it’s worth Ady spending the time on them. I finished cleaning the oven and then spent the time sorting out the chickens area which was grim. Scooped up all rubbish and old food, took down all netting and other crap, emptied the coop of stuff and cleaned it out and persuaded them I am not to be afraid of and managed to hand feed most of them 🙂 It looks like the amazing disappearing hen of days gone by may have returned and there is one cock and nine hens although we found one hen on the back doorstep this evening and I could only see 7 more in the coop when I closed it so one may have been spooked enough to not go into the house this evening…

We worked for a few hours and then headed into town. Ady wanted some bits from the pound shop, we needed a hoover (kettle and hoover were two things we got rid of when we left as they were very old and tired, we’ve needed to spend over £30 today on replacing them though so slightly regretting getting rid of them. We do have both electric and hob top kettles in Willow but she is a 50 mile round trip away so not cost effective either.) and we wanted to use the vouchers J&J had given us as we were not sure when we’d next be around Game and Waterstones both of which we have in Worthing. Davies used the game voucher for a 3DS and a PSP game and we split the Waterstones one with Tarly – she got a book about hamsters and we picked up River Cottage Meat half price because the spine glue had come adrift and a book on green building which I’d probably not fork cash out for but will be handy for reference. We got chatting to the guy serving us about why we really wouldn’t be needing a loyalty card where we’re going and he shook our hands and wished us all the best because ‘I’d love to do something like that but I’m not brave enough’. 🙂 🙂

Back home via Mum & Dad’s for a few more bits and the pet shop for some Humphrey the Amazing Traveling Hamster supplies and some shavings for the chicken coop. I finished cleaning the oven and did the kids tea then got in a bath/ Oh how I have missed my bath 🙂 Ironically tomorrow I am having patches put on my back which will mean no baths til Tuesday so it was an even more enhanced luxury for knowing it’s the last for another five days!

We had dinner and then all watched loads of The Good Life on video with the fire burning all camped out in the lounge. It feels all sorts of strange to be back here really, particularly as it is 18 years ago since we moved in (1st Feburary 1994) all but to the day. A FOR SALE board went up today and it’s already on the website which feels rather final. The kids are both slightly sad about selling the house and say that while they don’t actually want to live here themselves anymore they liked the idea that we still owned it while we were renting it out.

In other news the hostel on Rum rang me today to say they have shuffled rooms around to fit us in and we’ll be staying in one of the castle rooms but only being charged hostel rates which is good 🙂

Hmm, stuff that’s happened today:

Exchanges of emails with Rum – it looks unlikely we’ll be able to get hooked up to the SNH owned hyrdro power electricity at any sort of sensible price, if at all. In many ways this makes decisions easier as without that as an option we are pushed towards self sufficient energy which is where we started as our ideal anyway. Options include diesel generator either as a starting point and emergency back up or as sole energy. To be looked into further but prices on generators and red diesel are not actually that scary (not terribly green either mind you…. will also look at recycled cooking oil conversions). The email I got copied into between IRCT (need to introduce this acronym really, suspect it will be used on here lots – Isle of Rum Community Trust, the body that the village of Kinloch, approx 25% of Rum is now controlled by with a planned gradual independance from SNH altogether. The organisation that is offering the crofts and trying to build the community) and SNH was on the bleak side and said stuff like ‘the person who take on croft 2 and tries to build a house either needs to be very self sufficient or have deep pockets!’. I emailed IRCT back to say we most certainly do not have deep pockets but we do have plenty of energy and enthusiasm and hopefully the right skills to make things happen albeit in unconventional ways. We’re off to look at the Earthship in Brighton next weekend and hopefully our visit to Rum the week after will either galvanise and reassure us it is worth all the potential challenges, or put us off sufficiently to have gotten it out of our systems ;).

I exchanged several emails with the woman organising the crofting course and got that all booked up. Need to sort accommodation now – I am seriously considering getting Willow back on the road – between at least one night in Mallaig and at least three in Inverness I’m thinking it’s quite possible even the additional costs of petrol, tax and insurance might prove cheaper than four nights in hotels! I’ve checked local B&Bs and campsites for Mallaig and can’t get cheaper than £70 per night. I can get a youth hostel space for just £10 per night for me in Inverness as the SCF (Scottish Crofting Federation) subsidise it, but costs for the other three and getting a family room rather than all bunking in with loads of others look scarily high. I’m also waiting to hear back from the hostel in the castle on Rum about 2 nights stay there which I think might be £16 each per night. Eek! Have also arranged a visit to a nearby croft for all four of us through her which will be good. By then I think we will know what we are planning to do next croft wise.

I’ve had another ‘sorry we’re full’ email from a potential WWOOF host but it looks like we have somewhere for all of April if we want it, just checking if we can camp onsite with our tent – it sounds good, loads of woodworking and bodging, they make charcoal and have lots of off grid living experience. I reckon we’d learn a lot there and it sounds like an interesting one for Davies and Scarlett.

I spent most of my day outside with Ady today, bored of inside the cottage and being online. It was good to be outside (in the snow!!) and we did some lifting and digging and siting some rainwater barrels and talked lots and lots. Also spent time with all the animals, leaning on the fence chatting and planning and sharing anxieties and excitements.

Davies and Scarlett spent the morning packing up their stuff and starting to tidy the room they’ve been sharing and the afternoon watching films, playing with geomags and Humphrey. I am really looking foward to spending some time with them in the next couple of weeks. Davies has a few projects he wants some help and input with and as lovely as this time in Glastonbury has been we’ve still been in the 9-5 mindset with too many distractions. I read them a couple of chapters of a book at bedtime and I’m looking foward to that being what we do every night at bedtime again.

I had an email from Sue on Eigg confirming our WWOOFing dates with them, so that will be nice whatever happens on Rum – good to see them again, to spend some time on Eigg and know what questions we want answers to, and to see the croft up for grabs on Eigg too which remains an option.

Whilst cleaning up tools with WD40 I realised my face was getting itchier and itchier so stopped. I’m hopeful I did so in time to prevent a full on outbreak and of course it may have been something I touched before rather than that but a bit of a google reveals latex and WD40 allergies seem to have some link and latex was one of the things I had a positive test result to on the prick testing. One of those things that could well have been present for all previous attacks as it’s always around for starting the car in the damp, cleaning stuff, oiling squeaky things but I would not have necessarily noticed and made the connection. I have my patch testing on Friday anyway so will mention it to the clinic and see what other results I get back. It would be excellent to have identified it though.

I crocheted yet another string bag but despite spending hours on it I don’t love it enough not to pull it all out again. I’m liking crochet but need to actually make something I’d use!

stuff to look at with Ady

Earthship Brighton – tour dates including one next weekend!

Earthship.com – you can be a host for a build if you supply land and materials
Generator kits for houses – a good option for power back up, initial supply and while we work out long term renewable energy options

Simon Dale’s house – he’s cool 🙂 We were signed up for his mailing list for a while when he was planning an eco village build and wanting volunteers to come and live onsite and build. His family home build

LAMMAS stuff, Low Impact Living.

As in a blog of the people we’ve broken 😉

Yesterday we had got plans to head out to Wells and Street and do a charity shop trawl. Ady had made sandwiches to take with us and I was nagging everyone to get going when Sorry I’ve Got No Head came on TV just as we were about to turn it off. That was reason enough to sit back down and watch the £1000 sketch! It meant that we were still here when Jill called by to see what we were up to and invited herself along with us, which meant the sandwiches got left behind and we only made it to Wells. It also meant she bought us lunch out and we went round the farmers market in Wells and picked up all sorts of stuff for Spicy Saturday though 🙂 I treated everyone to some sweets from the old fashioned sweetie shop and we came home via Morrisons for supplies of Tiger Beer, wine and other such essentials :).

Then Ady got cooking – the kitchen in our cottage is pretty small, not big enough for two people really and he is very happy with his music on and things sizzling and sauteing. We took everything over to J&Js and it kept warm in their oven while we started with bhajees, samosas and poppadums. Tucker (one of their friends who we have got to know over the last 3 times we’ve been here too) came over with his girls who are the same age as D&S – Scarlett gets on really well with the youngest, Flora.

It was a characteristic evening here – alcohol flowed, there was singing, dancing, laughing, being silly, eating and chatting. Ady and I were telling stories about our year, the time we went caving, the remote Welsh hillside arrival with kids like snipers ambusing us, Crazy Mary and her mange tout and eggs for dinner. It was fab 🙂

We arranged Taco Tuesday (our last night) and I think it was about midnight when we tumbled back towards our cottage.

Today was a much quieter affair, Jill was pretty broken and cancelled Six Pint Sunday at the pub (which was for the best, we’d been stressing about going without the funds to pay our way although they are totally aware of our financial situation and had been the ones insisting on pub visits) but we went ahead with our shared Sunday lunch plan. It was supposed to be between 1 and 2 but then a couple who are planning to hire the whole cottage complex for their wedding reception rang to ask if they could bring his parents to look round between 2 and 3 so we held back. They ended up appearing at nearly 330 when I’d sat in the office for an hour waiting to greet them and given up on them and poor Ady who had already pushed dinner back by an hour had to push it back even further. As ever deeply impressed with his ability not to just burn it at that point!

We finally all sat down about 5pm I think. Had dinner, a couple of games of cards and then we returned back to our cottage to watch Hughs Three Hungry Boys before the kids went to bed.

I’ve mastered a crochet pattern or two and made a couple of bags – string bag style ones, one small for fruit and veg and one which will be bigger when it’s finished. Enjoying making something I know I will actually use :).

Two days to go and then back to our old house…

because the lure of a lie in tomorrow means I am not remotely tired now 😉

Yesterday I was office bound all day. I quite like it in the office although it is very chilly. I did lots of adminny things including answering email queries, taking bookings, filling in forms and so on. I also sorted a couple of press releases and booked some advertising and arranged a couple of journalist stays in exchange for reviews.

Davies spent some time in the office with me – he was feeling sad and cried on me twice but couldn’t, or infact wouldn’t tell me why. The only thing I could get out of him was that he was worried I was going to replace him. I couldn’t work that one out at all 🙁 We cuddled lots and he seemed cheerier. After lunch Davies made the pizza dough for dinner later (and did a fine job) and then watched some films. Scarlett was outside with Leyah as the new goats (two male kids, nine months old, very cute) had arrived and needed settling in and adjusting to Benji and vice versa. Ady was clearing and making fire with Johnny.

After work the kids finished making their pizzas and had their dinner, then I made pizzas for Ady, Johnny and I as Johnny came over armed with Fosters to celerbate Australia Day. Jill was broken ;). The kids went to bed and I was just about to sit down with my dinner when Scarlett appeared to say she was worried about Davies as he was crying again in bed. About 15 minutes of painful denying anything was wrong when something clearly was and lots of reasonable and comforting talk from me and he finally cracked and agreed there was something wrong and showed me a note he’d written to Scarlett with the intention of running away. It said ‘To Scarlett, bye bye love Davies. Becos of the beby’. I struggled to understand just what baby he meant and finally got out of him that he thought I was pregnant!!! 😯 I have *no* idea where he can possibly have got such an idea, particularly given I have lost weight, am drinking like a fish and Ady has had a vasectomy!!! I reassured him that I most certainly was not going to have a baby and then we talked more about quite why he would have been so upset if I was. He seemed more upset at the idea that I was pregnant and had not told him, which was something I know disturbed him about Julie and Jack and Maisie when she was pregnant with Lorna, particularly as he was in the room with me when Julie told me on the phone so he knew long before they did. He visibly cheered up which was a massive relief as I had been really worried about quite what was wrong with him and felt sure something dreadful had happened 🙁

That dealt with I returned to my pizza and fosters which had reached about the same temperature as each other, one starting chilled and the other cooked. We had a nice evening listening to Rolf Harris and Kylie and chatting to Johnny.

Today I have combined dossing about on the computer with a fair bit of stuff outside. I helped Ady with some fencing repairs and animal herding and spent some time with Davies too. Scarlett spent most of the morning with Leyah and Jill and the horses, leading them out and mucking out stables. She is still not wanting to ride one which is a shame as this would be the perfect place to have a go but as I am certainly not getting on one either I can’t say too much ;).

After work we all headed into Morrisons for dinner ingredients and stuff to take lunch with us tomorrow when we’re heading out to Street and Wells for some charity shop therapy :).

After lots of chatting we have proper plans for the coming weeks including two weeks back in our house getting it ready to put on the market and doing so, a few nights on Rum including the interview, another couple of weeks on Eigg catching up with Neil and Sue and doing some WWOOFing – we really feel we need to spend some time back up in Scotland getting our heads round everything up there and making some contacts. Then I am hoping to go on a 2 day crofting course in Inverness (which I need to ask my Dad to write me a cheque to pay for because I don’t have such a thing as a cheque book!) before heading back south again for a short stay back in the house.

We’ve contacted five WWOOF hosts all in Sussex that take families and have work during March and April and asked for placements – one has already come back to say they are fully booked already (and actually I suspect we have left it quite late really, but fingers crossed) and hopefully we can find one, or two, or three places that we can work at until the house sells. I am very hopeful it will go by the end of May which gives it over 3 months to sell and I think we can find local WWOOF hosts to stay with until then which will mean we have food and places to stay sorted (and actually my car is only taxed til the end of April at which point we would probably tax Willow again instead) and we can keep an eye on the house and spend some time with Sussex friends and family. If the house still has not sold by then I think we may well move up and spend some time on Rum anyway, we can live in a tent / Willow and maybe get a short term loan from Dad or even some crofting grant funding to make a start on getting the land working for us, some crops in etc.

Jill and Johnny say we can come back here for as long as we like any time which is great to know and an excellent back up plan so we feel we have lots of options again and a feasible plan for now.

So my plan 🙂

We’ve been wobbling muchly about how the heck we’re going to get a house built on Rum. We’re waiting to hear whether we can tap into the SNH hydro electric and if so at what cost. It could be they totally sting us for installation and then we still have to pay electric bills (currently about half the price per unit that mainland suppliers charge but with plans to increase it and bring it in line and then still a cost we’d need to meet indefinitely although the greener, renewable aspect of hydro power is of course a better option than most mainland suppliers). The water situation is also a bit up in the air with the village all hooked up to a mains water supply of sorts which is chlorinated and we may be able to get attached to, or the possibility of simply making use of the water supply on the croft land and setting up filtration for drinking water. Add those rather complicated beginnings to a house build along with the fact it is miles from the mainland, a further mile from any road at the end of an access track and you start to get a feeling of the potential logistical nightmare we could be getting ourselves into.

But there isn’t a problem in existance that can’t be cured by throwing enough money at it. A few emails in the right direction soon gave me answers that anything is indeed possible but at a price. Skye homes create kit house builds for the Scottish islands and were able to furnish me with a price for the gear, a price for labour, a price for delivery and a per square metre cost for a fully managed build. Do we have that big a budget? No!

We do have *a* budget. It’s not stupidly small and people have built houses on a lot less but it would be better spent on livestock, crops, polytunnels, setting up the things that will give us an income, a living. It will easily cover the cost of the building materials but the cost of turning a pile of materials into a dwelling is the larger, scarier one that is keeping us awake at night.

Meanwhile I’ve been reading lots about Rum online and talking via email to Vikki – the Development Officer, who is very candid about the challenges the community is facing. There is a real transitional feel to the island just now with the independance from SNH such a recent thing and people only just realising the freedom and responsibilities it entails. The people who live there have so much invested in making it a viable community, somewhere that new people come to live, tourists come to visit and a sustainable set up moving forward. There are great things happening there and the energy and potential for further, even greater things to happen which makes it such an exciting prospect, if a rather daunting one too.

So we have spent much of our time whilst in Glastonbury, (when not drinking 😉 ) endlessly talking between the four of us, bouncing about ideas about what our priorities are – do we invest money in a static or caravan to live in and get the croft set up first, then look at a house build? Do we jump in with both feet and just get the house built first before we let our funds slip through our fingers and then worry about the croft and set up afterwards? Do we build a small house and then think about adding to it in latter years as and when we can afford to or do we blow as much money as we can on making it as big as possible so at least housing is ticked forever? Do we go for a conventional build or do we stay true to our beliefs and aim for eco / green / sustainable / alternative methods? Do we let the kids run riot with their notions of helter skelter slides instead of staircases and entire walls painted with chalkboard or dry wipe boarding to be ever changing canvasses or do we keep planning regulations and crofting federation housing grants uppermost in our minds and jump through the right hoops accordingly?

A luxury holiday cottage is not really the right place to have this sort of discussion, possibly neither was a leaky campervan either. I’ve been all adrift without a Proper Plan – something to work towards, measure myself against and keep everyone focussed on. Ady has been stressing about money – imaging all my Dad’s doomsaying coming true and us ending up sitting in a half build house with leaky roof and no money. This has generally degenerated into petty squabbles about lack of confidence in selves and ‘you know nothing’ type mutterings when one person thinks we should be working out our budget for buying tools and the other thinks we should be finding out what happens when there is no alcohol left on the whole island and no ferry is coming for 3 days! 😆

Which got me thinking, and then sharing my words of wisdom with the other three, and coming up with an idea while I was talking. I was reminding everyone about how we all felt at the beginning of last year – scared of the unknown, lacking in confidence at our abilities – to cope, to survive, to last the year, to make it all the way round, to live with so little stuff, money and space. Worried about what the people we would meet would be like, whether they would like us, whether we’d live up to their expectations of work in exchange for food and a bed. We talked about the times when things did indeed go wrong and what happened to get them back on track again. The parts of the year that inspired us and made us feel as though we were the luckiest people in the world living the most amazing adventure, because really, that was how most of the year felt.

The thread running through all of that was two fold really – firstly that we are amazing. That we can do anything we put our hearts and minds into doing. That we can come through fitter, healthier, stronger, more skilled, closer, happier, braver, hungry and thirsty for yet more adventures. That all those things a nasty little voice inside might have tried to tell us were out of our reach and we were not capable of were totally within our grasp and we did all of them. That not only were we worthy of our hosts hospitality pretty much every single one invited us back any time, has stayed in touch and are interested in hearing what happens to us next and helping us if they can. Secondly that what made this year work was people. Not money, not possessions, not qualifications or even previous experience. It was the dreamers, the crazies, the hippies, the feel the fear and do it anyways.

We stayed with people who lived in trees on protest sites in the 80s and 90s and got tired of fighting, of only expending negative energy and went off to live together in the woodland, building their homes out of reclaimed, recycled, scavanged materials, taking nothing from the system and seeing beauty all around them. We stayed with people who had chosen to withdraw from society altogether, who had no need for material possessions but could write a library full of books containing their wisdom and knowledge. We stayed with people who lived in the glare of the lights from the 24 hour Tesco next door but managed to build a community of like minded people around them, barter their produce and brew their own wine. We lived with people who were on their fourth bash at building their own home, having started with wooden poles and canvas and graduated to mud and straw. We stayed with doctors, teachers, musicians, artists, builders, authors, writers, educators. We stayed with people.

Where am I going with this? I’m looking at our potential problems from a different perspective and remembering what I learnt during this last year not what I’d learnt in the 37 years before that. I’m remembering that we lived a virtually moneyless life last year – certainly we didn’t work for money and in the main we didn’t really spent much. (I worked out today that about £15000 went in and out our bank account last year, about a quarter of what went through it the previous year. Almost all of that went on paying the mortgage, paying our debts, covering various insurances and a fair bit went on petrol. A tiny, tiny percentage went on food, accomodation, clothes, shoes.) I am recalling that we probably worked harder last year than we have ever worked before and yet we claimed no payment for that other than our basic needs being met and a huge amount of learning in exchange.

And then I’m remembering that there is a whole, growing, army of us out there. There are currently nearly 6000 WWOOFers in the UK, many of whom are skilled or experienced. We have a large collection of contacts from all over the country who are behind us and our dreams and could – and would – help us with various aspects of it.

There is Rum, a community of 30 people who all know precisely how stuff works on the small isles, specifically Rum, and have machinery and tools and if Vikki is to be believed are desperate for something to galvanise them into action and into becomming a real pulling together group. There is SNH who have all the cash and manpower and an investment in helping Rum become independant. There is WWOOF uk – always happy to get behind big projects and help promote them with their newsletter, website, online presence, press contacts etc. There is my own contacts in journalism, on blogs, twitter etc.

So the challenge has shifted, instead of how much should we set aside for builders and chucking at big companies we are now looking at how we set ourselves up to accommodate working parties – what facilities we need and what the village could help provide, I’d rather spent a couple of thousand pounds on feeding an army of helpers and putting them up in tents, camping pods (and I know just the woman to provide them 😉 ), even hiring the hostel at the castle and making the set up of the croft an event in everything we have done and learnt and been inspired by this last year.

Very much a work in progress, and of course we still have an interview to get through 😉 but I’m buzzing with ideas of how this could work and have that same amazing excited, Christmas Eve type feeling that I had leading up to heading off WWOOFing last year. Bring on the people – we’re the ones that can make anything happen!

Very frustrating to keep reading about the Northern Lights visible not only at the very top of Scotland but in various places we spent time last year while we’re down here in the far south 🙁

I had a fairly easy day – I spent the morning editing a film with the kids. They’d taken video clip footage over the last few days as Jill wanted a kids’ eye view of Middlewick video for her youtube channel which was right up their street so they very happily took themselves off with the camera. Uploading the clips took a while and then the kids chose the order of each one and helped with the credits. It wasn’t anything they have not done before, particularly Davies but it was good to be doing something with them.

We’d already arranged to have haggis with Jill & Johnny for dinner so I went off to the supermarket with the kids to pick up tatties and neeps and another haggis. We had a quick poke around the charity shops in town while we were there – at the weekend we picked up some miswak branches in one of the shops to use as toothbrushes but Davies had managed to lose his so I wanted to replace it for him.

Back at the cottage I busied myself peeling and chopping potatoes and swede while the kids ran off some energy outside. It was a much better day for having spent some time with them. We did a blogpost for WW and talked about how we are all feeling at the moment – it’s a scary time with more questions than answers and the feeling of not being the ones in control is always hard, particularly for me, I do like to be the one in control 😉

That inspired some conversation which in turn inspired some ideas, which I’ll blog about next, it deserves a blog post all of it’s own 🙂

I had a shower and managed to catch my toe on the joint of the screen door as I stepped out. It *really* hurt (as toe injuries always seem to, utterly disproportionate to the actual injury) and then bled copiously. I spent some time looking at the Eye to Eye book with Scarlett who had gone through and marked all her favourite pictures, we talked about wildlife photography generally, she identified the animals (some obvious like lions and tigers and elephants, some slight trickier big cats, primates and birds – I’m always impressed with her animal knowledge) and we talked about which countries they were taken in too.

Ady did the mashing of the neeps and tatties and made a very lovely gravy, then we carried our pans over to J&J’s where they had cooked the haggis. Much eating, drinking and laughing ensued. We played a round of PIT a card game which was very good and most riotous and then Ady took Davies and Scarlett back to our cottage to bed and returned while Jill took Thomas off to bed. Further drinking and chatting continued and we were joined by Leyah when she dropped the swimming pool key off after she’d locked it up. It was a late and loud evening and a good way of celebrating what we hope will be an even bigger date in the calendar for us next year when we are resident in Scotland 🙂

Whingey day today 🙁 It started badly when my first cup of tea of the day was just too milky, I got up too late to have breakfast so it sort of sat making me feel icky. And it was raining 🙁

I was in the office today, which means I get left to my own devices (more or less, I answered about 10 emails, took about 10 phonecalls and mastered the online booking, complicated admin system and credit card machine) so I finished the welcome information packs for the cottages and made a start on a ‘green policy’.

Ady was outside all day, waterproofed up. The kids fed the animals and did spent a little time down in the stables near Ady before coming back to find me. I’d just made an ill fated second cup of tea with milk that was lumpy 🙁 So they, rather contrite from being rubbish at going to sleep last night made me another cup and brought it over to me. That one was perfect 🙂

I don’t quite know what to do about sleeping children really – they just don’t seem tired, despite being up by about 830am every morning, having loads of fresh air and exercise, spending time immersed in creative pursuits and being challenged, eating decent food and having some down time ebfore bed. I suppose I didn’t fret so much at home because they were in their own bedrooms and therefore quiet and relaxed even if not asleep whereas now they tend to get louder and louder in their chatting to each other until the point I end up going to tell them off 🙁 No real point in trying to do much about it – we’re here for another week, then camping in our house, then off around the country again, I guess it’s just a consequence of our lifestyle and you can’t *make* someone go to sleep (she says, knowing full well she’ll be up til gone 1am yet again despite resolving every single morning to go to bed earlier when she struggles to get up with the alarm!)

Interesting conversations are at least happening again – today we learnt about bruises, different types, bleeding, why human skin and fruits both bruise but human skin heals and fruit doesn’t. Also we inspected ourselves for brusies (we all have loads) and worked out what sort they were. We also talked about tax, profits, costs, marketing and budgets. I spent some time looking at CYOA stuff online and found a cool website with a story that’s been being contributed to for years online :). Davies did some more calligraphy and Scarlett spent ages looking at a very gorgeous book I found in one on the cottages

Davies also impressed me by sorting out his own lunch today, so some definite highs :).

Ady and I have been doing some work on numbers – Rum have asked us for more idea of our costings so they can look them over in advance of the interview. This is proving slightly on the scary side as we start to think about the full implications of a house build. We’ve been emailing with Skye Homes who do kit houses and can just supply or can do the whole build. That was reassuring as the costs for delivery to Rum, along with what would be required in the way of access and machinery is all very managable and the costs were not as scary as we’d feared. We’ve also been emailing Rum regarding stuff like electricity, water and so on and have had an initial email back with more to follow. Argh to it just being the wrong time of year to drive up there and spend a month in a tent getting our heads round everything and understanding just what it will all entail while getting to know the community – and of course seeing the Northern Lights ;).

It’ll all be fine, we just feel quite disconnected from it at the moment and the costs of getting to the interview are looming large. We’ve been invited to stay on Eigg which we’d all like to do but doesn’t seem feasible with the ferry crossings. More frustration!

I spent ages this evening wrestling with Ady’s tablet which keeps crashing and needing a hard reset then not recognising the account for the android apps *and* I’ve also been failing to follow a crochet pattern for a bowl too. Maybe I need to spend tomorrow just trying things I know I can manage without any problems…

The times on this adventure when we have been able to share a bit of it with friends have been the most precious so to have The Barts here to show around Glastonbury, to see Middlewick, meet Jill and Johnny and of course just catch up with again has been fabulous. I think this was the best possible place to have them visit too as we were actually able to feel like hosts, doing breakfast, lunch and dinner at the cottage, having a space to invite people back to and of course people for Ady to hoover up after ;).

It also meant we got a whole proper weekend off which was good :). Saturday morning The Barts arrived for breakfast and then we took a walk up the Tor. It was only the third time I’ve done the Tor, although the steep hill bit on the way up there was a walk we did every day when we first arrived in Glastonbury back last March. Then it killed me every time with me having to stop every so often to recover, have bursts of my inhaler and rendered me incapable of talking and walking at the same time. I can’t pretend I ran up this time but I was very aware of how much fitter I am now than I was this time last year, even with the period of not really working, eating and drinking too much again that has been the last couple of months.

It was incredibly windy generally and as we climbed higher it got more and more blowy. There was a couple coming down the twisty path as we were going up who scaremongered us into calling the kids back so we could hold their hands as they told us they’d get blown off the top as they had nearly been knocked over. It *was* very windy but it wasn’t quite that extreme :rolls:

It was really fun and exhilarating to just stand getting almost blown off your feet by the wind. Loved it 🙂

” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />

We walked back down, past the Chalice Well and into the town. First port of call was the pub with the windows. 🙂

” alt=”” />

Then Proper Job
” alt=”” />

Followed by a crystal and healing herbs excursion and some charity shop trawling.

” alt=”” />” alt=”” />

Then the long walk home 🙂
” alt=”” />

We collapsed in the cottage for a bit and then Ady and James went out for supplies while Kirsty and I made pizza dough. Then to the steam room and swimming pool 🙂 Who needs Centerparcs ;).

A very cold dip, some races to warm us up while the steam room got to temperature, then we left the kids to enjoy the pool while we enjoyed baking ourselves and lazing about. Very gorgeous 🙂

Then back to the cottage for dancing (Tequilla, It’s Like That – it was like that Youtube vid last week that went viral ;)), cider drinking and pizza eating. Fab night 🙂

Sunday morning was breakfast at ours again, a communal feast 🙂 After that we debated various options including a trip to Wells, a return match up The Tor, or sitting around drinking tea and chatting. The obvious choice won ;). We did get outside for a walk round Middlewick to show The Barts the rest of the grounds. Lunch of leftover pizza and then we waved them off. A fab visit 🙂 Only marred by not being long enough.

Jill and Johnny had invited Ady and I out to a local pub which has live music on a Sunday evening and arranged for Leyah to come and sit with Davies and Scarlett. We fed the kids before we went with a plan to cook something for ourselves when we got back. Leyah came over and the kids had a lovely evening with her watching films, playing consoles, making plasticine stuff, drawing and chatting. She is a huge animal lover and a trained nanny who currently lives in a caravan here and looks after all the animals, so has loads in common with the kids :).

We had a fab evening in the pub, laughing, sharing life stories and drinking. Lots. We got to six pints and decided we should always have alliterative evenings 😆 We did have several bags of pork scratchings and shared a bowl of cheesy chips but that was the sum total of dinner. Not surprising the drink went to our heads 😆

We went back for coffee to their house before trundling back to our cottage just before 11pm. The kids were still up so we packed them off to bed. Thus ending a lovely weekend 🙂

Today was a return to chopping, clearing and burning for Ady. I spent some time first thing replying to emails and writing some copy, before spending a couple of hours with Leyah cleaning up the tack room down at the stables. Davies and Scarlett got more straw for the chickens, ducks, pigs and goat. After lunch Jill took Davies, Scarlett, Leyah and I along with her to go and see two more goats – male kids who are either for the freezer or rehoming and should be great company for Benji here. I spent time chatting to the people selling them about goats for milking, breeding and meat, also about their rare breed pigs which they show and have won prizes for.

Back at the cottages it was all but time to end for the day so the kids and I changed all the beds in our cottage, got clean towels, emptied the bins and dealt with the recycling and stuff – all domestic tasks I’ve not done much of for months so were almost a novelty ;).

Tonight is early dinner, quiet evening to restore ourselves I think.

A bit like speed dating but without the potential for rejection 😉

Today was a day of Great Anticipation because The Barts Were Coming :).

I whiled away a lot of the day faffing with my laptop as I had been blocked by various places as a spammer. No idea whether someone had actually hacked in to my account and was sending emails persuading everyone in my address book they need penis enlargement or offering to sell them viagra or if it was an over zealous reaction to having sent lots of emails to the Middlewick office over the last few days triggering some sort of automated thing. I did manage to sort it out eventually but it was *very* frustrating.

I also did some more online stuff for Jill, some more rewriting the guest information welcome packs and researching local cafes and restaurants (Jill suggests we do actual research next week by trying some out, I’m up for that :)).

Ady did more chopping and clearing and burning – which inspired Jill to come up with the idea of Friday Fish at the Fire night to make use of the fire and invite loads of people over to eat a HUGE salmon cooked in the fire along with jacket potatoes and some eggs cooked on shovels :).

The kids spent some time making a film about Middlewick, which we’ll edit next week and upload, fed the animals, played outside and did some drawing and Humphrey worship.

I walked up to Paddington with Davies, Scarlett and Maggie to pay for the piglets and check what innoculations they have had. I was hoping to see Simeon and Miranda but they were not about.

Kirsty & James arrived just as I was dealing with a new arrival who had found the remote control for their TV missing batteries (seriously, the previous occupants had nicked the batteries out of the remote control!!). Greeting of our friends took place along with a quick tour of part of the complex and then Jill appeared with The Salmon Of Glory and Ady disappeared off to start cooking. The rest of us went out to join them round the fire and a very nice evening with plenty of drinking, laughing and eating took place with Jill and Johnny, Kirsty & James, J&J’s friends John & Julie, Allie and Herbie and some guests who came along for a half hour chat too and were really interested in us and our WWOOFing adventure :).

The kids all retired to our cottage and the rest of us eventually drifted off and then we had a cup of tea and chat back in our cottage with Kirsty & James before they headed back to their Travelodge with plans to return for breakfast. It’s so lovely to share this place with friends and always fab to catch up with The Barts. We’re really looking forward to showing them round Glastonbury tomorrow and having a full day with them. 🙂

Or I might just forget what I’ve been doing 🙂

Yesterday Ady carried on pruning, cutting down and burning stuff – he and Johnny have cleared a massive area of land where Jill is planning to put camping pods in for next year. It’s looking good.

I spent most of the day on the sofa with the laptop, tweeting, facebooking and working through the long list of all the paid for and free internet listings of Middlewick online updating and checking all the details. Time consuming but worth doing. I also wrote a couple of press releases.

Davies and Scarlett spent some time outside, with the animals, with Ady, roaming about and some time in with me. They watched a film, did some drawing, Scarlett spent some time with Humphrey and I chatted to them a bit too. I wrote Scarlett a couple of notes ‘ I love you Scarlett’ which she read with ease, all being words she knows. I then wrote ‘Scarlett can read’ and she spelt out ‘can’ and guessed ‘read’ from the r and the d at either end. I’m not sure who was more surprised – her or I. That has allayed any fears that there is more than attitude preventing her. I can cope with attitude ;). I am sure there is more to Scarlett’s current quirks and I am very likely making them sound far more concerning and limiting by writing about them than they are or I am worrying. Mostly I am noting them because I have noted stuff like this before and it’s always good to have a mention to look back on plus it is interesting to get idea and comments from others about stuff, if it only serves to reassure me that I am happy with how we do things.

Jill came to call for me at 7ish for The Rematch – Ady and Johnny had been to the pub the night before and Jill had declared that her and I would go the following night. Always being up for such adventures I was happy to agree, particularly when she got most stroppy with me when I tried to buy the second round and said that she was buying all night and I should put my money away straight away!

We went to five pubs and had six drinks in total which really isn’t much but was sufficient when backed up with another glass of cider back at the cottage and on an empty stomach to have me feeling quite merry last night and quite subdued first thing this morning :). It was a good evening though, I do like Jill lots and it’s good to be considered a friend rather than just a WWOOFer!

Today I was in the office all day as Denise the admin was off. It’s cold in there and not as cosy as just sitting in the cottage but I probably got slightly more done. I spent most of the morning answering ebay questions and some email queries and took a couple of bookings by phone. I also priced everything up in the shop using the Suma catalogue to work out what Jill had paid and deciding on a markup. I’d rearranged the shop earlier in the week and it looks really good now all priced up. I then updated the price lists on line and on display with everything listed. That pretty much took me up to lunchtime.

Ady had been carrying on with chopping down and burning, Davies and Scarlett had spent some time with Benji the goat first thing, some time feeding the other animals and time playing inside and outside.

After lunch I went through the Middlewick website pages and put together a list of suggested changes and amendments, did some more twitter networking and rewrote the guest information packs that are in each cottage awaiting Jill’s approval. Davies came and sat with me for a while in the office and did some drawing – he wants to create one of those choose what happens next type stories so he was coming up with some characters and plotline ideas.

At 5pm we headed into Street – to the Clarkes shopping village which we’d visited a couple of times last year when we were here. It is open til 8pm on a Thursday and Davies has suddenly grown a shoe size so both his wellies and his boots were hurting. For once Sports Direct came through and he got a lovely pair of black wellies half price at a tenner and a pair of walking boots for £11 – hurrah! And I got a giant mug for 99p too which is good because I am missing my Starbucks mug I left at my parents – the mugs in the cottage are far too small and dainty for my need to drink tea by the pint! Next door in The Works I managed to pick up a calligraphy pen for Davies and a crochet book for me. We got an animal book for Tarly and a nice WI Preserves book too all for under a tenner. So everything we wanted for just £30. We had a half hearted look around some of the other shops and were briefly tempted by the Weird Fish fleeces and jumpers in their outlet shop at well under half price but did not succumb. A quick stop in Sainsburys for food supplies for dinner tonight and tomorrow (we’re entertaining ;)) and then back to the cottages for a later dinner than ideal while watching the end of the Birds Eye documentary.

At bedtime I had a Serious Chat with the kids reducing them both to tears. They’d been squabbly and have been dreadful at going to sleep at night so we had a long talk about that and about what happens next. This is an odd transition for all of us – way better than my parents and in many ways very luxurious BUT Ady and I are working very hard and very long which can be a challenge for the kids. Although they are in a lovely environment all they really want is to be with us and that is not always feasible when we’re here. It will be easier to spend time alonside each other when we are not working for someone else and they are both desperate for their own space to make their mark again, their own pets and animals, their own bedroom to play in and decorate. We have just under two more weeks here and I think we can find a way to ensure the kids have more time with us and get better at managing their own time more effectively and getting the most out of being here. I do get frustrated with the kids and with Ady when I feel they are not making the most of opportunities or being self motivated.

Anyway, all is well and tomorrow is Friday 🙂

well one hint, which might have been insincere, from Alison 🙂

Ady has been off doing bloke stuff in the fields all day. This mostly involved a chainsaw on a stick (it has a proper technical term like lopper or long reach but to me it was a chainsaw on a stick), cutting down stuff, dragging it about caveman stylee and setting fire to it.

The kids and I fed all the animals and looked at the area the pigs are on, discussed optimum sizes of raised beds by leaning towards each other and touching hands to measure reach, checked the shed and greenhouse for compost and pots and then retired indoors for planning work.

First thing this morning I had a long chat with Davies and Scarlett, talked about stuff I want to do with them, concerns I have for how Home Ed will work moving forward and got some feedback off them. I chatted to them about various things I’d like to do with them / thought they might enjoy and some tasks Jill had put forward for them.

For Davies this resulted in a spot of calligraphy, me showing him a few different ways of handwriting, discussing nib types, fountain pens, what italic meant and some font examples. We looked at a couple of allotment planning websites, chatted about crop rotation and why you should do that, looked at categories of crops in terms of roots, brassicas, others, herbs, fruits and flowers and made a list of potential crops and which category they fell in to. Davies then drew out several rough plans, used an app on Ady’s phone to check north, east, south and west and work out which beds would get the most sun, drew a key to the crop rotation, drew a birds eye view and an artists impression of the veg patch and then spent time helping me deal with Scarlett being upset.

And that is why I autonomously Home Educate my children. Because Davies was born first and has shaped all of my philosophies 🙂 Love that boy.

Scarlett stropped, wailed and ended up on my lap in tears. This is the finale (I hope) of various issues she has been struggling with and today declared may be because she doesn’t want to grow up. To be fair she has always gotten upset at the mention of growing up, getting older and having independance. I suspect that is at the root of her issues with being in rooms on her own and refusal to do stuff like learn to read. I think this year has been an eye opener for her about just what being an adult entails. Where Davies takes these things on board and strives to take on more responsibility and ease some of the burden of being the Grown Up when he recognises me finding stuff tricky, Scarlett is more inclined to identify herself with me and fret about how she might manage it when it’s her turn. I know she was disturbed by all the stuff with Mum & I, I know she spends a lot of time battling with being in awe of me but kicking against me and I know she is party to discussions about what might happen in the future which may leave her fretting about stuff. I have always shared with the kids the bits of parenting / being an adult / life generally that I find hard, hoping to help them take responsibility where possible, learn as much as they can and demystify stuff that I think too often is hidden or kept away from children. I appreciate this doesn’t always give them the easiest ride but hopefully prepares them for life.

We talked about how I love being an adult and compare my life and the freedom and choices I have as a grown up are so vast and different to my life as child. How I lived with my parents arguing and being miserable, went to school with people I didn’t like and who didn’t like me much either and had to do things I didn’t want to do or enjoy or see the point of. We talked about the freedom and opportunities that are out there for you to grab and the adventures to be had once you are old enough. We talked about people who inspire us (for the purposes of today’s talk we had David Attenborough who we decided never stops learning about the world around him, finding joy and inspiration and experiencing everything possible in the natural world. We talked about Steve Backshall who is out there grabbing experiences, learning about animals and living his dreams, we talked a bit more about me – both because Scarlett said I am someone she admires and wants to be like and because I quite like talking about me 😉 Oh and we talked about Roald Dahl writing amazing stories) and finally about how the really brave people are not the ones who never get scared but the ones who are scared but do things anyway! Oh it was inspirational 😉

I’m still undecided on the best course of action moving forward – I have offered workbooks, more reading alongside Scarlett and other options. My gut feeling is to stay backed right off and wait for her to get there. I think trying anything other than what we have previously done is far too dangerous given our changable lifestyle at the moment, time enough for regimes next year ;).

All that done we headed off seed shopping. We left with a job list of things to do – builders merchants to swap over a bag of lime, B&Q to check on seeds, Proper Job (local hardware emporium selling *everything*) to check on seeds, healthfood store to buy some shampoo and conditioner for me as I am now fairly sure it must be that which sets of my Nic face as I don’t really use anything else likely although why that might suddenly flare up and not at other times I still don’t know.

While we were out Jill rang three times – once to ask me to collect a shower tray from Travis Perkins which had arrived in, once to ask me to buy a roll of roofing felt from the builders merchants and once to ask me to collect two sandwich platters from Subway of subs for everyone’s lunch back at Middlewick. We did everything on our ever increasing job list and it was fab to be driving around (I’m still loving it after the 9 month break) and to be with the kids talking about anything and everything.

Back at Middlewick everyone stopped for lunch when we arrived back. Davies and Scarlett went off to tend the fire and feed the animals leaving me in peace for a couple of hours to do some more online stuff – mostly changing listings on tourism sites to update the cottage details as 3 more cottages are now open for hire and some of the stuff offered has changed. I also answered various questions asked on the ebay listings which still have no bids but do have lots of watchers.

I went to put the animals away and Ady and Johnny said they were going to the pub. As it was almost straight after work we assumed it would be a pint or two so Ady stuck our curry in the oven to cook while he was gone. I fed the kids and nipped across to the next door cottage with the intention of having a bath. Unfortunately the water had been switched off so I got a tepid bath which would have taken ages to warm up enough water to run hot so defeated I went back to our cottage with my glass of wine, bowl of nuts and the kindle and had a shower instead. I did some laundry, washed up and then read the kids a couple of chapters of Danny Champion of the World which for some reason we’ve not read before and a couple of versions of the choose what happens next story in Davies’ Little Howard book. We also did some of our ‘what we want from 2012’ list which is always a nice exercise.

Just as I was beginning to think I would eat on my own Ady and Johnny crashed back in having been on a mini pub crawl, cold from walking back from town and ready for food to soak up the beer. Johnny stayed for curry which was lovely but very hot and we all chatted and drank more. I think it may be a slower start tomorrow! ;0

I’d been trying and failing to crochet and suspect I might just need a book rather than the internet to really get my head round it. I have done it before and know it is easy but my fingers don’t believe me!

Anyway, a good day. I feel better for having recognised needs in the kids and repsonding to them, for opening the conversations with Scarlett on what may well prove to be an ongoing issue but is at least being talked about, for getting out and about a bit even if it was just to builders merchants. We have learnt J&J’s best friends sister lives up in Mallaig and her husband is a builder while she is a teacher and they HE their autistic boys. I’m not sure of any further details but hopefully we can make contact and maybe meet them or even stay with them when we head up for the interview.

Ady’s been off with Johnny today mostly lifting stuff I think. They seem to be firing each other up with testosterone filled manliness, working harder every day. They are both enjoying it, if they do seem to have collectively aged 10 years in the week we’ve been here!

Davies and Scarlett spent an hour or so first thing with Benji the goat, walking him in the wooded area so he could munch on some ivy and other such treats. He proved very difficult to persuade back in to his field though so I went to assist! They went off to play and I thought they had gone to Paddington but Davies apparently decided he didn’t want to go and play with the kids up there today so they came back after a wander around. They spent about half their time inside today and half out with Benji. Benji has been suffering with lice and losing weight so had been kept at the stables for a few weeks but he is looking better for being back out in the field again now he’s got used to the cold and the kids have been feeding him up on fruit and vegetables which was his main diet, with just a little goat museli up at Paddington whereas here they have been mainly feeding him the museli. He seems delighted to be getting the fruit and veg again, particularly when created into appealing shapes and designs 🙂
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />” alt=”” />

Davies spent some of his own money on buying a film this evening. I’m conscious of not being great at parenting just now – too much on my mind with everything else going on, not enough down time just hanging out with the kids. I don’t remember the last time I read to them or showed them something or did something interesting with them. I know Davies wants me to help him with a book he wants to create about wild camping, I know he wants to make one of those choose what happens next stories, I know he wants me to read with him / to him / listen to him read his Little Howard book. I know he’d be really interested in learning about calligraphy. I found a fab website last night about Lego quest challenges that I know he’d love and I must show it to him and make sure he gets to take part in the next one.

I know Scarlett wants me to spend some time adoring Humphrey with her, she has done so well in taming him and he now very happily snuggles on her lap while she sits watching TV. She was so interested in learning more about hamsters from books or the internet and she needs me to help her with that. Scarlett wants to do a Come Dine With Me competition where we all take it in turns to cook for the rest of the family and she needs help planning that, going shopping, looking at recipes and making it happen.

They are squabbly from spending all day every day together with no dilution from us, probably still a little unsettled from being at Mum & Dad’s, likely missing their stuff after having access to it all for a month, tired from too many late nights, seeking attention by being annoying and then getting told off for being annoying without getting any of the attention. It’s all temporary and in knowing it needs dealing with I am over halfway to sorting it.

Today has been particularly frustrating as I had loads of online stuff to do for Jill and Denise the office manager was in so I stayed in our cottage all day using my laptop instead. I listed two more cottages on ebay – a romantic Valentines break and a half term family week. I tweeted and facebooked and flickr’d, I wrote press releases, chased up advertising, came up with new ideas for marketing. I compiled an inventory list for each cottage based on the tourist board minimum standard guidelines. I fed the animals and put them away. But I was in the cottage and therefore sort of around to be talked to and asked for things and I tried to strike the balance between ‘sorry, no, I’m working’ and ‘sure I can take five minutes to look at that with you’.

Tomorrow I’m planning to combine more of the same with getting the kids to make a film of ‘Middlewick through kids’ eyes’ to be uploaded on Jill’s new youtube channel, planning a veggie garden for Jill and then going seed shopping with them to get stuff potted up, getting some words from them for the WW blog about Rum and the crofting plans and doing the rather overdue What We Want From 2012 exercise for this blog. We might now know where we’ll be living but it doesn’t stop us coming up with idea of new things we want to learn, skills we’d like to acquire and experiences we want to have.

I really struggled to get up this morning and while we were feeding the animals and sorting out water etc. Jill appeared to say we could have the day off. Wish she’d said last night 😉

Jill had mentioned earlier in the week about a big Flea Market at the Bath & West showground nearby and we’d said we’d be up for going along so she said we could go with her. Johnny was staying here but we met up with Tasha who works here sometimes as a tiler, her mother and son, and John the carpenter with his wife and their two daughters. Jill’s posse ;).

On the way we discussed why flea markets are called flea markets and came up with the same speculated reasons I’ve found on the internet, discussed why some letters and numbers can be formed in various ways (which led on to talking about fonts, fashions for writing, handwriting and different countries writing in different styles eg the French 7 always with a cross through it) which reminded me that I want to get Davies a calligraphy pen and book on it. He’s not really interested in improving his handwriting (which is clear but quite large and almost all upper case) but I think the artistic side of it would appeal to him and he’d enjoy doing decorative letters. So we talked a little about calligraphy too which was something I spent a short time obsessed with when I was about his age, when my best Christmas present was a calligraphy pen set with NINE different nibs 🙂

The flea market was mad – huge queues with people paying to get in – £3.50 per adult! Ady and I were quietly being horrified and looking at each other with raised eyebrows but Jill paid for us to get in. She reckons she’s still used to London prices and thinks everything is still cheap down here! 😯 I can never quite get my head round the idea of paying to go somewhere to spend money!

There were hundred and hundreds of stalls, mostly selling overpriced tat – think antiques fair at very inflated prices. Ever conscious of both our financial situation and the fact we don’t actually have a house we found it very easy to resist finding anything we’d buy anyway :). Jill bought us hot drinks and bacon baguettes too (the kids wanted chips instead and she went off to try and pay for that too but I’d beaten her to it – she is very generous and takes very seriously the deal of hosts paying for all food even though she’s not actually a WWOOF host 🙂 ). We spent most of the time walking around with her but some time off on our own too. I bought nothing (other than the kids chips), Ady bought a very old OS map of Worthing and Lancing as he has plans to frame part of it as artwork for our new house one day and a book for me, spending £1 each on them. Jill bought a table and chairs, a bed headboard with bedside tables and a vanity unit with sink for the cottages. We bought them home in the 4 cars we were all in and the kids all hung out in our cottage watching TV, playing games and adoring Humphrey while all the adults went to Jill’s to drink coffee and eat fudge. I do like the little community Jill builds around her of people. It makes me know I want to be part of something similar, where people hang out together for work and socialising, help each other out and I guess has taken the place of the extended family these days. I do also know I wish I was doing all this work on something I’ll be around to be a part of for longer though and as beautiful as Somersetis (and it is very beautiful) I’m missing the stunning views of Scotland.

Everyone dispersed and we came back to our cottage to start cooking dinner (Ady) and working out how to make my phone ringtone louder and ring for longer before going to voicemail (me), make something tall and impressive with geomags (Davies) and play on Davies’ 3DS while having Humphrey on her lap (Scarlett). I went out to put the animals to bed as it was getting dark and Jill appeared to help.

Dinner was lovely, roast chicken followed by trifle – love having a kitchen again even if I’m not the one using it ;). We watched Hugh’s Three Hungry Boys which was interesting if the ‘boys’; were a bit annoying with their general wussiness and lack of a plan. Full of big talk and not very much action. Made us all long for being on the road again.

Scarlett cleaned Humphrey’s cage out and then the kids went off to bed, we are slowly wearing them down with early mornings and plenty of fresh air ;). Ady and I need to work on our financial plan for Rum and once the rent goes in we will book a hotel /travelodge / something for the night before the interview.

Not sure why.

Thursday was a hard working day for Ady (who will find things to do even when no one is expecting him to). In the morning we headed over to Paddington Farm and caught up with Tanya and Michael there. I’m always rather flattered when people remember us from just being here a week or so way back last year, given how many visitors they have. We were there to choose two piglets for Jill and selected two likely looking baby boars which Tanya marked with purple spots ready for us to collect the following day. We introduced ourselves to their current WWOOFers, another family travelling around in a caravan on their way to Tinkers Bubble, an intentional community in the west country that we have heard much about and met various people from but never been to despite emailing them way way back asking for a WWOOF placement. Ady and I had a quick chat with Miranda and Simeon who seem lovely and shook our hands twice when they learned we were another travelling family. Their kids Izzy (boy 12) and Kooky (girl 9) are lovely and Davies, Scarlett and Kooky are firm friends already.

I did some cottage inventory checking and helped Ady move wood piles about and then spent some time in the office as Denise the office manager wasn’t in. I answered the phone a couple of times including to Jill’s old next door neighbour who we met the very first time we met Jill as she was staying here with her. It was good to update her on the next chapter of our crazy plans 🙂 I spent ages trawling through the Middlewick website noting down things that need updating and did a couple of reviews of the holiday cottages for various travel websites.

Davies and Scarlett spent time over at Paddington playing with Kooky who seems really nice :).

Yesterday morning was Pig Collecting Time so armed with a cat carrier Jill, Leyah, Davies, Scarlett and I headed over to Paddington to collect them one at a time. Piglets are bloody heavy in a cat carrier! I carried both of them most of the way – first the spotty one, then the plain pink one, both as yet unnamed (they came with the names Inky and Porky but they will get changed), both boys. They settled in quick, the plain pink one escaped a couple of times but we herded him back in and put another round of stock fencing up to prevent further escapes. Leyah and I also brought Benji the goat back up to the field from the stables where he has been hanging out.

Ady spent most of the day working with Harry, an apple tree pruner extraordinaire who we met last time we were here and showed us a thing or three about apple trees. He remembered us and was very excited about our plans. I’m loving being back here and being recognised by people every day 🙂 We’ve been invited over for a cup of tea at Sam and Cassie’s next door too.

After lunch Jill, Leah, Davies, Scarlett and I went off with the cat carrier again to Happy Landings animal rescue for some ex battery hens. We collected four to add to the current five hens here and then came back and prepared a run for them to stay in for a few days until they are ready to roam with the rest of the flock. I love the way Middlewick has changed from a holiday cottage complex into a smallholding which just happens to have some holiday cottages too :).

I went with Jill to collect Thomas from school and have a nose around the very fancy school he goes to. He’s doing well there and it clearly suits him lots. We arranged to reconvene at Orchard View (our cottage) for takeaway pizza before heading to the pub 🙂 A very nice couple of hours 🙂

Today was a struggle to get up and out of bed – after feeding and letting out animals Ady headed off to do more firestarting and I had an office day – I spent time remerchandising the farm shop, checking best before dates on everything and getting it into some sort of order. I listed a weekend break at one of the cottages on ebay (worth a look actually, we’ll still be here, as will some friends of ours staying nearby, if it remains at this price it’s a stonking bargain!), set up a flickr account for Middlewick and created a group for guests to add their photos and tried and failed to create a youtube account for here too.

I still have website updating to do 🙂

I saw in two lots of guests, started a fire in the woodburner for one cottage and generally enjoyed playing offices :). It’s very lovely to have our own space again. I wish our cottage had a bath – it would be nice to have a long soak but other than that this is a very good way of whiling away a few weeks until the tenants leave and we can crack on with getting the house ready to sell and heading up to Rum for our interview. Life feels on a far more even keel again now than it did even a week ago :).

January was quite an up and down month. We saw 2011 in with Marcus and Michelle, with a visit from The Barts on New Years Day

” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />

I turned 37 ” alt=”” />

We had a visit to Lynda & Stuart’s, Willow went off to have some last minute stuff done to her (which ended up not being done and she went somewhere else instead). We found tenants for the house, Ady and I both handed our notice in at work, the whole getting ready to leave ramped up another gear.

The kids and I spent time at the beach joining in with the World Beach Project pebble picture making ” alt=”” />

There was a real feeling of biding time on one hand while time was fast running out on the other.

February Early February was packing up the house, turning things off, closing things down and generally shelving our lives.

I left the library and overindulged at my leaving party
” alt=”” />
Ady left his job and was also packed off with many gifts and well wishes and we had our Bye Then Party which was just fabulous and bought home to us once again how fab our friends are 🙂

We finally left Osborne Drive, just over 17 years after we moved in. An emotional but right feeling.
” alt=”” />
And we had our first night in Willow – slightly scary that it didn’t happen until after we’d actually left the house, but a very exciting and monumental happening just the same.
” alt=”” />

We had our first dramas in the van – a campsite not being at all suitable so having to pull over and ring around to find another one and a big puddle of liquid under Willow when we woke one morning It seems funny now to think either of those things fazed us really, a marker of how far we’ve come 🙂
” alt=”” />.

In March we spent a week getting used to living in Willow on a fairly deserted campsite where we were not allowed to walk on the grass. Davies experimented with swearing, we tried our hand at public transport, we saw an otter and we took our very last picture of us as pre WWOOFers.
” alt=”” />

And then we were WWOOFers! We started at Steward Wood, an intentional community on a very steep hillside in Devon. It was a total baptism of fire, two weeks of the hardest physical work I think either Ady or I had ever done, carrying wood up and and down hills, chopping wood, cooking on a woodburner and eating a vegan, alcohol free diet. We used compost loos, slept in our tent in temperatures as low as minus four, lived off grid, washed our clothes with a washboard and mangle, washed ourselves in an outdoor bathhouse with water heated by a wood burner and had the most amazing two weeks ever! The kids still cite Steward Wood as their favourite host and certainly I walked away with tears in my eyes knowing I’d changed forever as a result of my time there.

” alt=”” />

Next was Paddington Farm Trust, a week long WWOOF host in Glastonbury. We had a dreadful start there as Davies and Scarlett were attacked by a girl which traumatised all four of us and had us questioning our whole adventure. It remained a slightly odd place to spend time for the duration of our week there but did lead to meeting Jill the next door neighbour who has become a very influential person in our lives. And we got loads of animal contact there with chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep and goat. ” alt=”” />
oh and tractors! ” alt=”” />

We left there and went next door to Jill’s for two weeks which took us into the beginning of April where we stayed in various holiday cottages, went swimming, spent time getting to know Glastonbury, I had massages, we got to know Johnnie, Johnnie’s parents, Sheila the office manager and really enjoyed being part of the Middlewick family at the very beginning of Jill’s time there.
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />” alt=”” />

From Somerset we ducked back down to Devon again to Windy Ridge, a beef cattle farm and little C&CC campsite. Easily the best fed we were in the whole year as WWOOFers, infact quite possibly the best fed we’ve ever been in our lives, we had Famous Five style lunches, beef based dinners and enormous puddings with cake for morning and afternoon tea breaks. We did a lot of gardening and the kids did a lot of dog walking but I honed by mowing skills which proved very useful through the year to come. We had a visit from most of The Clarkes and we had our first (and only!) go at milking cows 🙂
” alt=”” />

We saw April out at Evergreen Farm, another accidental WWOOF host which wasn’t actually a WWOOF host where we probably learnt the most all year – slaughtering, taking livestock to the abbattoir, processing and butchering, selling at market, buying and selling livestock at auctions, helping create a campsite and generally getting involved in pretty much everything you could think of to do with farming and smallholding. It was our longest time spent at any host, nearly 3 weeks and despite challenges it was a very valuable experience.
” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />
May saw us back to Glastonbury again, a week with Jill where Ady celebrated his birthday with a walk up and down the Tor and a trip to Chalice Well followed by award winning fish and chips at Knights.” alt=”” />” alt=”” /> ” alt=”” />
We left there and were time share WWOOFers for a week just down the road. We did some time with Jane and Rob on their micro smallholding where they hand shear their sheep and we went to a Humble Pail and Peter who mostly has cups of tea and wees around the perimeter of his field to keep deer away! We did our annual photoday and thrashed lots of nettles. ” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />
We then holiday cottage sat for our friend Lesley in Montgomery, Wales. It was a lovely few days break having our own space, time to call our own in a pretty location and we ‘earned our keep’ doing some gardening” alt=”” /> and then we finished the month with friends at Jan and Jonathan’s, the only real gathering we managed to get to in 2011 so all the more precious for it. ” alt=”” />
And I rolled down this hill too this year!

In June we WWOOFed at Bryn Mawr, our craziest Welsh mountainside hosts who were totally off grid, away from everyone and everything and generally pushed every single button the four of us had. But still educational, with high points and positives and one we eventually with perspective are looking back at fondly.
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />” alt=”” />” alt=”” />
My parents came and joined us in Llangollen for a long weekend which was lovely if slightly surreal being taken out for pub dinners after so long living at Bryn Mawr.

We finished June in North Wales still at Pen Y Bonc, a very inspiring smallholding of tiny proportions which managed to be all but self sufficient *and* sell stuff too, keep bees and make mead and the hosts Jonathan and Lisa had a very cool neighbour in the shape of Ian the Apple Guy and friend in Eric Maddern :).
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />” alt=”” />
We had trips to Bangor Pier and the Menai Bridge, to Anglesey and to see puffins while in the area.

July began with some much needed time off – we visited Cae Mabon, Eric Maddern’s place and fell in love with that. Meeting heroes should always be such 🙂” alt=”” />” alt=”” />
We stayed with Lynda and Stuart, wonderful hosts as ever, met up with my friend Jay at MoSI and then had a fab few days camping with FabBabs, the Barts and J&J. It was all fabulous, particularly returning the empty milk bottle in the middle of the night and telling everyone we met about the service and putting Babs in the tent bag 🙂
” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />
We had our encounter with our maddest individual host this year at New House Farm, rather freakily being relatives of FabBabs (although it was the by marriage one who was mad rather than the actual relative). More funny stories to add to the adventure and some amazing sunsets and fab evenings spent cooking over an open fire.
” alt=”” />.

We had more time at FabBabs while Willow had some repair work done. Added bonus of Bart time there too.

Then to Durham, which I think remains my personal favourite WWOOF host at Cookes West Wood Farm – an intentional community of two families running an organic veg box scheme, living within the local community and building their own amazing woodland homes. I loved the place, the people and the feel of the place. I loved living in a yurt and washing my hair in a trug. The others struggled with various things including the wasps and the James Brown compost loo but for me everything was fab.

” alt=”” />” alt=”” /> And we had friends to visit 🙂 ” alt=”” />

August kicked off with a stay in a holiday cottage with my parents in Silverdale for a week. It was mostly good although it did answer for us the question of whether of not we should go into some sort of venture together with them. ” alt=”” />” alt=”” />. Ady, Davies, Scarlett and I also had a couple of nights in Morcambe before moving to our next host, heading along to the Sandcastle festival on the beach and seeing Eric’s statue. ” alt=”” />.

So to our last English WWOOF hosts, Andy and Ruth at Fairfield. where we had some lows – sanding doors for days on end, some highs – singing along to Andy’s guitar, playing games, watching kingfishers, going to several Humble Pails and some brand new experiences such as caving…” alt=”” />” alt=”” />” alt=”” />

We met up with Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna in Llangollen ” alt=”” />” alt=”” />
for a lovely week camping together – the first time we’d seen them since we left Sussex. The kids had loads of freedom for climbing hills and having adventures and we enjoyed people watching, chatting and playing Shut The Box.
” alt=”” />

Then we headed to zone three – Scotland!

We kicked off with a night or two in a campsite near Motherwell” alt=”” />
before taking two ferry rides to arrive at our first Scottish hosts at Daisy Cottage where we saw September in. Lovely people, fab place, Tarbert. Not really much in the way of WWOOFing but we all enjoyed being there and getting to know them and where they lived while doing the odd spot of work here and there, mostly on their new build house down the road.
” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />
Very excitingly Ady and I both used our fishing rods for the first time and caught fish off the pier in Tarbert which we had for dinner 🙂” alt=”” />” alt=”” />

Davies who has always been a far better parent to Scarlett than either Ady or I spent ages patiently coaching her ” alt=”” />

After Tarbert we had our first ever night wild camping, parked alongside Loch Ness. We had some magical times in Willow and certainly far better views and exciting adventures over the coming months but watching the moon shine down over Loch Ness while eating pizza and singing along to the BBC2 festival on the radio with Ady, Davies and Scarlett will forever remain in my memory as one of the best moments of my life 🙂 ” alt=”” />

On from there to Rosemarkie for a fabulous holiday with The Barts and MMC’s, I think the only thing missing was FabBabs! We saw less dolphins but more seals than the previous year, the weather was warmer but wetter and it was nice to be there with a campervan and without a broken ankle!
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />
We had our only Campervan Birthday this year when Davies turned 11. He asked for cinnamon rolls for breakfast and pizza for dinner so I was busy making dough and managed to decorate Willow with balloons and banners the night before. I cheated with a shop bought birthday cake this year though.
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />
And then began what for us felt like the biggest part of the adventure in 2011. Sure leaving our jobs, home and belongs behind to go and live in a campervan was a big deal, certainly staying with different families in different counties every couple of weeks was a challenge but it was our six weeks wild camping, travelling up one side of Scotland, across the top and back down the other side that was the most exciting, life changing, tough, beautiful and amazing.
It was a bonding experience for the four of us, life skill and to a small degree survival skill developing, we saw sights, heard sounds, experienced landscapes and discovered wildlife beyond our expectations. We didn’t see the northern lights but we saw more than enough to make up for that. We fell in love with a new landscape every day and frankly when you’re ‘all about the view’ there aren’t many better ways to spend your days than autumn in Scotland in a campervan.

I think the best blogpost summary is the one on Skye but even I started to run out of superlatives to describe everything 😉
The September set of flickr photos is here, the October set here. I can’t even really pick favourites of those.

Even with our previously fairly inconventional lifestyle before our WWOOFing year AND our year of WWOOFing we had never done anything quite like the six weeks we spent on the road. We had no money, no real plans and pretty much just went where the road took us. We grabbed food where we could find it, used public loos to empty our toilet, fill up our water supplies and do stuff like washing ourselves. I think the most memorable shower was in Ullapool where I happened upon a public toilets with a shower block and sent a text to Ady telling him to get there quick with towels and shampoo! I washed my hair with a plastic beaker and a face flannel to dry it at John O Groats and I shaved my legs in Loch Maree! Livin’ the dream 😉

We didn’t manage any fishing or hunting but we did get some bargains at the CoOp and learnt to live with what we had, rationing a bottle of cider and a bottle of coke, a packet of peanuts and some cheap bars of chocolate in a very Famous Five style, playing card games and noting down our daily scores on Popmaster. We have songs and foods and sayings that will forever afterwards transport all four of us back to those intensive times in Willow and as challenging as they were I know all four of us will always treasure those times and remember them for the rest of our lives.

We had a week in a holiday cottage with Lynda and Stuart before we left for Mallaig and our last WWOOF host. Willlow justified the lots of breakdown cover we had running alongside each other this year with a Real Breakdown and as our adventure drew to a close those last couple of nights at Mallaig all playing dare with each other hoping someone else would crack and say they didn’t want to attend the very last host will be times I’ll always remember with great clarity.

We just about scraped in our last WWOOF host in October too, well we arrived on 31st and were there for first couple of weeks of November too.

Eigg was amazing, our hosts Neil and Sue at Croft 13 were great and will hopefully become neighbours of some sort in the coming year. We were sold on the idea of crofting, island living, the small isles and I spent lots and lots of time pacing on the beach trying to get our next move straight in my head. ” alt=”” />
We had a fab time at the community Bonfire Night fireworks, a great night out at the ‘pub’ and made friends and fell in love with this corner of the UK. ” alt=”” />
And thus ended our WWOOFing adventure – for 2011 anyway!

We then started chasing the next chapter, which began with an email conversation with the neighbouring Isle of Rum and led to us leaving Eigg early for a trip to Rum to look around the island and specifically bareland crofts up for grabs. We were taken enough with it to start the process of applying for a croft having spent plenty of time thinking it over and talking between the four of us, opening it out to friends for discussion and learning as much as we can about it.
” alt=”” />.

Then began the Long Journey South” alt=”” /> to my parent’s house. We caught up with family, friends and belongings.
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />. We had our ceremonial Last Night In Willow before putting her into temporary retirement at our friends’ farm, ready for next spring when we’re hoping to spend time in her once again.
” alt=”” />

December kicked off with waking up in Marcus & Michelle’s house. Which along with FabBabs house is the closest we have to a home currently 🙂 We celebrated Josie and Alys’ birthdays with them in Soft Play Hell.

Scarlett had her ninth birthday. Nine, seriously! ” alt=”” />

Then along came Christmas 🙂 Christmas camp was fab, all the more special because it may end up being our last, was punctuated with time at FabBabs either side and had Journey to Bethlehem kicking it off which was ace.
” alt=”” />” alt=”” />” alt=”” />

And Davies did his very fab Jake The Peg performance at Cabaret Night 🙂

Christmas Happened 🙂 Scarlett had The Best Present Ever in Humphrey the hamster 🙂
Davies (slightly belatedly) got a 3DS ” alt=”” />.
Boxing Day we had a walk on the downs ” alt=”” /> and the day after we joined with the Other Goddards for an annual Arundel walk including the now rather traditional Exciting Episode which this year was Scarlett and Jack getting stuck in the mud 😆
” alt=”” />

We caught up with more old friends over Christmas and then saw out 2011 in the same company we’d seen it in with – this time with added Chloe 🙂
” alt=”” />

We started 2011 not really knowing what it might hold for us. We were hoping to meet new friends and learn new skills. We wanted to test and challenge ourselves, to spend time together as a family and to work out what we really, really want from life. We knew we wanted something different to what we had we just were not sure quite what that might be. 2011 was a year of learning for us, a year of discovery, a year of adventure, a year of wondering and wandering.

Alarm call was a slight shock to the system this morning, but soon recovered from with a glance out the window at a beautiful sunny January morning with the Tor backlit by the sunrise and new adventures to be chased :).

It’s only in driving away from Sussex yesterday and waking up this morning with such a sense of happiness and relief that I realise quite how rubbish we’d all been feeling about doing nothing all these weeks. Staying with friends and Christmas camp were all fab and very lovely diversions but it felt really good to put workboots on this morning and be outside working again today.

We dealt with the chickens first thing – their ark needed moving, one shutting off ready for some new chickens arriving next week and we learnt where all the food etc. is kept as we’ll take over looking after them while we’re here. Jill acquired a couple of drakes before Christmas who have been closed in to an ark since they arrived here so we let them out and they loved free ranging and were easy enough to put away again this evening. Shame they are both male but they are very pretty.

Davies and Scarlett took off with Maggie for a walk and after they’d been gone about 90 minutes I asked Ady if we should be worried. We decided they would be fine and within about five minutes we heard their voices coming down the next field, 10 minutes later they appeared having walked all the way up the Tor, met a couple at the top and stayed chatting to them for ages about being Home Educated, WWOOFing, travelling last year, Rum and various other things. It turned our the couple are also guests here and had said they would buy them a cake each in the town on their way back to the cottages.

The woman, Janice came to introduce herself to me when they got back to check the cake giving was okay with me and to compliment me on my fantastic children 🙂 She has grandchildren of a similar age and said she was so struck by Davies and Scarlett’s confidence, conversation and spirit of adventure and freedom. She loved what we have been doing and thought Rum sounded excellent. She said they were an brilliant advertisment for happy, free children and that they are lovely :). Always nice to hear :). Good to see the kids back in their environment again, outside, rosy cheeked and with muddy boots on!

Ady spent some time with Johnny walking around getting a list of things that might need doing. I did a bit of inventory stuff in a couple of the cottages after we went to pour a glass of wine for Jill last night and realised we only had one wine glass in our cottage! We got to have a look around the two cottages we’d not seen inside properly before because Shirley was living in one and Jude (previous owner who stayed here for months after the completion of the sale) was in the other. I stuck a load of laundry in too which always pleases me 😉

Ady and I moved two chicken houses from one end of the land to the other. One was not too heavy and we used a wheelbarrow to move it, the other was crazily heavy and once we’d managed to get it across a very marshy bit of ground in a very Frank Spencer-esque style we utterly failed to get it to stay on a wheelbarrow! Despite going backwards and forwards getting a pump to pump the flat tyre on the barrow up and the whole thing taking longer to set up than it would have done to carry it across and stop every few paces. Eventually Jill and Tasha (working here doing tiling) helped us and we carted it across fairly easily. It is to be the very temporary shelter for two piglets coming here from Paddington Farm next door either tomorrow or Friday until they grow out of it and a proper pig ark arrives (one has been sourced but it is a flooded field apparently). I cleaned that out as it had been used by chickens already.

And then we had lunch ;).

There is now a farm shop here on site selling organic, local (where possible) whole food stuff so most of our catering will be done from that, so we picked up some cheese – a local blue and some cheddar with apple cider actually from Cheddar. Very nice :).

After lunch the kids went off down to the river to build dens. If I’d been slightly worried about them (and I admit it, I had) these last few weeks, all of my worries vanished today and I remembered again why we do stuff the way we do. Phew 🙂

Ady and I worked with Leah, who also lives here in a caravan, mostly working with the horses but also various stuff around the place, WWOOFing stylee. We emptied out a leaking pond to see if it was fixable – it isn’t. So the plan is to fill it in and create an interesting bed in that. We then sorted some of a woodpile which we created back last year when we were here and is now nicely seasoned and needs moving. We got out various fence posts and banged them in to create a pig pen around the house on an area that has been brambles for years but we started clearing when we were last here and now needs the roots turning over before becomming another veg patch. The obvious best tool for that job is always pigs :).

Johnny and Leah came too and between the four of us we soon had an 8 post, three rounds of electric fence, two of non-electric fence pen all wired up and working, complete with gate. Johnny is a more money than sense type who loves gadgets and the right tool for the job, Leah grew up on farms and is far more likely to bodge stuff. Ady and I have encountered both extremes in the last year and concede that some tools and gizmos make for a better and easier job but some just cost money that didn’t need to be spent. We all four learnt stuff off each other and it was a very jolly team effort with mucho banter and laughter :). Bring on the pigs!

That pretty much took us to it being dark and the end of the working day. We put the chickens and ducks away and came back to the cottage for cups of tea. Then Ady went off to the supermarket and Davies, Scarlett and I went swimming. The pool is kept several degrees colder than it used to be – the thermometer was at 26 degrees tonight which felt very cool. I was sort of looking forward to the previous feeling of being in a large bath and struggled to swim energetically enough to warm up but I did a good few lengths and some racing with the kids before getting out for a nice long hot shower while they finished swimming and playing.

We got dried and dressed and then the kids watched a DVD while I brushed Tarly’s hair which was very tangled due to some rather over zealous shampooing on her part (and no doubt brambles and running around today too). Ady returned and cooked toad in the hole with the very lovely local sausages and eggs from here.

It ended up being a very late dinner (well 830pm, not really late by our reputed standards I guess!) and despite the early start the kids were still chatting at 1130pm, I’m hoping the early starts will catch up with them eventually. A full day outside working finished with swimming this evening has certainly caught up with me. And so to bed.

and ooh didn’t we have a fab year 🙂

Bit of a non day today, mostly packing up and trying to tidy a bit as I’m conscious we may end up with limited time to actually pack all our stuff up and get it moved in the end. I got everyone up before 9am as we’ve all gotten (well me and the kids) far too slack about late to bed, late to rise. The kids grumbled but were still chatting at midnight tonight so I fear it will take more than simply a few early starts and some fresh air. Curse them and their bad routines! 😉

Dad’s van was being MOTd so I followed him along to the garage and brought him back which along with a trip to Sainsburys later and a walk with Ady this evening was the sum total of my leaving the house. I cleared out the car which had become a shite magnet including a load of stuff I distinctly recall giving Ady grief about carting around in his company car! I counted six first aid kits!!!! I reduced the tat to only things I could envisage some ironic need arising for in the next 24 hours as a result of having cleared them out. This did include a petrol can however and as we’ve just filled the car up with fuel I can only forsee extreme ironic situations happening for that to be needed so even I was not as callous as I could have been. We do only now have 2 first aid kits though!

The kids packed up a box each with toys to bring. I know we’ll only be in Glastonbury for a couple of weeks but it will be the first time in months they have had any sort of space of their own and the first time in nearly a year since they could spread out at all. We’re taking all of their clothes and most of ours on the basis we don’t really know what work we’ll be doing anyway and none of us have many clothes any more anyway. And the swimming costumes (hurrah!) and all the herbs and spices from the kitchen cupboard that were ours from Osborne Drive and I am SO looking forward to using to cook and bake with in the next couple of weeks :).

We loaded the car up so it is ready to go in the morning aside from last minute bits and bobs. Ady did some letting agent harassing as none of the rent had gone in yet – as a result the first lot went in at lunchtime and Ady was able to go and collect my birthday present reserved online – a new camera. I didn’t want something as big as Tarly’s, knowing full well I’d not use all the twiddly bits and be crap at looking after it properly, I want something I can shove in my coat pocket but get half decent photos from. I’m really pleased with it and looking forward to playing with it properly outside later in the week :).

I’ve caught up on some emailing various people I needed to do, patched up my knitted blanket which was looking very sad and holey and had a nice afternoon chatting to Dad in a fairly low key way. It’s been actually quite nice here the last couple of evenings, they are both obviously trying very hard with us and are very aware that they didn’t do all they could to welcome us and I think it is dawning on them that not only are we really going away very soon now but that we really didn’t need to come back here because we had nowhere else to go but that we were telling the truth about coming to stay with them because we missed them and wanted to have some nice time with them before we went away. And that yes it probably did cost them money to have us here for a few weeks but they can afford to feed us and should probably even have been accepting of us using the washing machine! 😉 I think leaving for that week was a good thing to do and proved the point. Mum particularly is clearly trying very hard, both with me and Scarlett especially. This is a far better way to leave things that as they were this time last week.

And so back on the road tomorrow. With hamster in tow. And I’ve emailed Rum to ask about timescales for the next bit so should hear *sometime* back even if it’s just to say ‘nothing to report yet’.