One word? When seven would do…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ll add pictures at some point.

This morning the sun was shining, which has been a fairly rare sight so far this August for us, although I know other areas of the country have been fine. Ady and Andy had collected loads of rocks from a neighbour earlier in the week and tossed them over the garden wall, they now needed to come down the hill to be used to build a wall.

Ady and I started by trying to roll them but there are too many places they could go the wrong way and cause lots of damage. We carried them for a while and also tried carrying them halfway each but then decided to try with a wheelbarrow. This was fun and meant we did some surfing down the hill clinging on to the handles of a very loaded wheelbarrow a few times! While we were working we were discussing what sort of hourly rate we’d charge for what is effectively just labouring and decided we’d probably not be prepared to do it at all. We are far from work shy but we didn’t leave a house and fairly decent jobs to spend our days doing stuff like this plus we don’t feel we have learnt anything from the jobs we have done here. I am also very cagey about being in a house that has so many social workers coming and going, so many children who are scrutinised and managed and watched for signs of abuse and have been taken from their parents. It worries me that ‘professional parents’ such as long term foster carers could be just too quick to decide they know best about things and have of course seen all of the worst sides of parenting gone very wrong. They keep offering to take Davies and Scarlett out with them and I keep refusing.

I suspect that we were either overheard talking or that some of the conversations we have had over the last couple of evenings about WWOOFing generally, how we had very clear objectives in setting out for this year and that we have been disappointed by previous hosts promising things in their WWOOF listing that have not really been accurate have sunk in and they are perhaps feeling bad about the lack of interesting or learning type jobs we have been given. I also have a sneaky feeling they may have had a look at our blog and realised we give a fairly candid report on each host after we leave… 😉

We were asked twice what time we wanted lunch (never been asked before) and that was a very jovial affair which Davies and Scarlett spent lots of time chatting to Ruth and Andy over after Ruth had mentioned to me that they don’t really talk to anyone here so I had primed them to do so loads for the last few days. Then Ady and I went and picked loads of apples. They have about five apple trees here, none of which have been touched for ages and all of which need some serious pruning and should have had the fruit thinned on earlier in the year. One of the trees was laden with fruit that although small was very ready so we picked several bagfuls to bring in.

Meanwhile Davies and Scarlett were playing down by the river making little worlds with dens and camps and stuff for their toys. They had a really nice time doing that and it was good to have them outside again after so many days rain forcing them indoors with just a TV, consoles and some Duplo for company.

We finished the day with some dry stone walling. Something I have never done before but have wanted to for ages. Unfortunately no one here has ever done it before either so we made it up as we went along but for once Andy seemed pleased with what we’d done and I enjoyed it.

We ate and as Andy was going out to a debrief meeting from the cave resuce last week he offered to drop us off on the way somewhere we could have a walk. So we had a couple of hours wandering around the nature trail on the Ingleborough cave estate which was very lovely. We saw bats as dusk fell and Andy picked us up again. We called into the local pub for a quick drink on the way home before getting back for bed for the kids and a quick round of Scattergories for us.

Finally we spent an hour or so

yes I know it’s only Tuesday, well probably technically Wednesday, but my experience at this host is very much hating it in in the mornings, feeling better in the afternoons and going to bed thinking actually everyone is lovely after all.

And it’s not just the wine, although I’m sure that does help…

Today I have done more door sanding. And it’s rained. And Andy has pissed me off. He is generally a nice bloke but is also very sexist, patronising and tells lots of unfunny, smutty jokes. And prefers Ady to me (which frankly after 18 years together is something I am used to most people doing but not quite so ouvertly usually!). He keeps talking to me like I am an idiot / little woman / about four years old and is more often than not wrong anyway. There have been about four examples of stuff to do with the doors I’ve been sanding when he has wandered over and said something which has been critical and then been proved wrong eg ‘you’ve put that door handle on upside down. Have you done both sides? Oh dear, I’ll get a screwdriver and take them back off for you’ at which point I suggest actually I am right and they are the correct way up and maybe he should check. He does, I am indeed right and he then sort of scuttles off without a word of apology. Today we were moving some very heavy glass panels and I made about four suggestions of more efficient / sensible / not so bloody stupid ways to do things which he either ignored or pooh=poohed and all turned out to be right. I am mostly settling for scoring points against him in my head but would quite like some actual recognition of my superiority 😉 And yes he is reducing me to rather childlike mentalities 😆

Davies and Scarlett came and helped me for a while which was nice. While we waited for the varnish to dry before we could turn the door over to do the other side we all mimed to the radio using our paintbrushes as microphones to sing along to Instant Reply. And we danced to Come On Eileen too (which Scarlett sings ‘poison ivy’ to instead) and stamped our feet lots on the decking which was fun. Ady did some standing on a roof clearing gutters, some lugging wood about and attempted to break a large chunk of wood with a sledgehammer until I pointed out the foolishness of it. Am I sounding like I might be being annoying at the moment yet? I suspect I am 🙂

We rehung the last door and I helped with dinner. After dinner the kids and I and then Ady played a couple of games and then the kids went up to bed and I decided to tidy out the games cupboards which Ruth had mentioned as a job which needed doing. That turned into a very festive hour of so with everyone joining in and a bottle or two of wine being opened as I sat on the floor pulling out games and then we played a couple of rounds of Scattergories which I’d not played before but enjoyed. Ruth, Yannica and I had a chat about books and authors and then it was suddenly midnight and we all headed off to bed. The door sanding has ended so I have no real idea what might be on the agenda tomorrow but as we are now at Wednesday I guess we are on wind down really.

This morning Ady and Davies went into Lancaster with Ruth who was doing the food shopping so they could visit Halfords for some dampstart for Willow. They ended up with an hour or so to wander round so also picked up a DS game for Tarly and a PSP game for Davies second hand too. Meanwhile Scarlett and I carried on sanding and filling holes in a door. It had started to get less rewarding as the door simply refused to come up well, but it was good to have some time with Scarlett who always amuses and entertains me with her incessant chatter. She had a most interesting and indignant take on the debate of the day on Vanessa Feltz sitting in for Jeremy Vine 😆

The others were back for lunchtime and an offer was extended to Davies and Scarlett to join Rochelle at the open air swimming pool in the next village. I was not happy about them just being dropped off as I felt expecting a 13 year old to be even nominally in charge of D&S is not fair and could potentially go wrong. In the end Ruth then said one of us could go along and I sent Ady as I didn’t really fancy sitting watching kids swim. Actually I should have gone and taken the kindle as I think he had a far nicer time sitting in the sunshine than I did continuing to sand and polish the door!

I was struggling to get it up the stairs on my own when one of the lads here saw me and helped me up the stairs with it and then then others got back from swimming in time for Ady to help me re-hang it. By then it was gone 4pm and I’d had enough so I took myself off to the bedroom to read for an hour or so while Ady did some more door sanding to make up for the fact he’d been out all day.

Dinner was fairly crazy as there is another child here this week on respite care – Chloe, aged 10 with severe Downs Syndrome. She is non verbal, very aggressive and requires round the clock supervision. She had to be fed and spent much of the time spitting it back out or mushing it into her hand. Also here was Andy and Ruth’s eldest daughter Yannicka who is staying for the week to help out with Chloe and Sarah and although I am sure very nice was very bossy and loud and I found rather annoying. Deborah is back with her son Jasrah, 11 and Alex had brought his toddler god-daughter Verity for dinner as her parents are moving house today. So we were 15 for dinner and it was bedlam!

Once everyone had eaten and operation clear up was in full swing (there is a washing up rota here) I adjourned to the balcony for some peace and was joined briefly by Alex and then by Ady. I went and had a bath, which Ady and then both kids had after me and I had some time in the bedroom with the laptop as the cables downstairs were being used. Rochelle came to join me for a bit and we had an interesting chat about WWOOFing, about travelling, about broadening horizons – a phrase she had never heard before so I explained, and what she thought she might like to do herself when she is older. The girls are really nice kids, actually I find all the teens here really good company and very interesting to talk to. Andy and Ruth do an excellent job of giving them constant, unconditional love and a real family home environment. It is certainly not without it’s frictions and shouting and arguments (which I hate being around but know are an everyday part of life with teens) but they are all refreshingly normal and seem like any other kids facing impending adulthood and dealing with it the only way they know how.

Ruth came down for a bit of a chat before she went to bed and Ady and I sat up chatting for another hour or so about what we do next. We’re trying to come up with various plans A, B and C as we are waiting on Jill for one possibility which would be our first choice but need a couple of back up options incase that doesn’t happen.

Pah!

Gone midnight and Davies is still wide awake!

This morning Ady and I did some more work on the bathroom door, we should finish it tomorrow, while Andy, Ruth and the girls were at church. We had a lengthy tea break and then they all arrived back from church. A bit more door sanding and it was lunchtime.

Lunch was leek and potatoe soup. We have certainly made up for not having eaten much soup before we started WWOOFing this year. Some is very good and has converted me to thinking I will in future eat more soup. Some is pretty dire and is frankly not fit to call itself soup. This was thankfully in the former category.

After lunch Ady went with Andy to the shop across the road which is a community run venture which Andy is the current chairperson of, to move some magazine racks about and have a general shuffle of some fixtures. I did the washing up and then sang some songs with Sarah, the little girl with CP who lives here. I went through my full repertoire of rain based songs as it was raining heavily all morning and then moved on to some sunny songs to try and encourage the sun to break through. I can’t take full credit for the sunny afternoon that followed but I am claiming some of the glory ;). Spending time with Sarah, who is almost exactly the same age as Scarlett has been A Good Thing for all four of us I think. Ady is excellent with her, happy to sit and read books to her and chat to her, I am less good and it is definitely not a calling for me and makes me ever more admiring of Ruth and Andy and friends (like you Sarah!) who work with disabled children but I am trying really hard and the odd times I feel I break through and Sarah actually engages with me and seems to enjoy me singing or chatting to her are very worthwhile moments. Davies and Scarlett have not really talked much to Sarah but I am very aware that they are taking in what her life is like and how very different to them she is, they have not had much exposure at all to severely disabled people generally, let alone children. Tomorrow another girl arrives here – a non verbal 10 year old with Downes called Chloe – for a week, along with Deborah and her son bringing the tally of children in the house to 8 – a real mix of disabled children, fostered kids with all sorts of issues, a child from a broken home and our two home ed kids – not a ‘normal’ one among the lot of ’em!

I did some more door sanding and then Ady arrived to say it was time to head off. I speedily got changed out of my rather sawdust encrusted jeans and hopped in the car – Ruth drives Sarah in a specially adapted vehicle to allow her chair to wheel straight in but it only has space for 3 other people including the driver so they go everywhere in two cars anyway, so we four went with Andy. It was a Fun Day at some local stables, where one of the lads they foster’s girlfriend works and was in aid of the local air ambulance service. It was pretty small with a cream tea stall, cake stand, tombola and raffle and three inflatable bouncy things. Andy very generously treated us to cream teas, we bought all the kids a cake and a go on the tombola and then Andy got all four kids (our two and the twin girls) in to the bouncy rides for the price of one so they had about an hour playing on them while we sat in the sunshine.

On the way home we stopped at the Big Stone for a clamber up and marvel and read of the information board and stunning view of the three peaks. It is very pretty if a bit bleak round here. I don’t love this part of Yorkshire like I do the bit where Jan and Jonathan live although it has a similar sort of wild beauty.

Back at the house it was nearly tea time. Sarah was very upset and in pain so we all took turns to try and comfort her and then sat down to tea. After eating Davies did some movie making with the camera on his psp and some duplo while Scarlett and one of the twins did some pond dipping and caught some newts. I notice the moon rising and looking very large and luminous so we all looked at that and Andy got his telescope out for a closer look which was amazing. Unfortunately as it got dark the sky clouded over again so we have still not seen Percy Wotsits. One day, one day…

The kids went to bed, I read a chapter of story to them having not read to them all week and then we chatted and shared a bottle of wine with Ruth and Andy until bedtime. Things seem to have settled down and I am happy enough with the work now. I still don’t think they are very WWOOF like in the jobs they have for us to do but it’s been a very cheap fortnight and they are nice and interesting people. Tomorrow we have to move rooms as we are in the room where Chloe will be sleeping but we are staying in the house. That strawbale house really was awful and we’d definitely not go in there again although D&S keep saying how much they liked it and would happily go back there again.

Today was our arranged day off. The weather was more or less on our side – I can’t believe how wet August has been, definitely the worst month of weather we’ve had so far. Very grateful to have been in a holiday cottage for the first week and a host for the second and third weeks where we are not expected to work outside in the rain. The final week sees us camping with Julie so we’re hoping it gets altogether more August-y for that!

We had some debate about whether we should head out on foot or van. I voted for van on the basis we could travel further, the weather need not hamper us and I thought giving the van a run would be a Good Thing after nearly a week sitting in the rain. As an aside I am on a campaign to do some of the driving currently having not driven at all since we were at Evergreen Farm way back at Easter. I hate the fact I don’t drive at all at the moment and although I am sure 20 years of driving will mean a few months off won’t be a big issue I don’t want to totally get out of the habit. Anyway I won and we set off, complete with packed lunch, in a reluctant to start Willow.

We headed for Ingleton which is the nearest big village, just over 2 miles away. This area is very rich in brown signs and Ingleton has loads of attractions including a Waterfall Walk, a couple of caves, an open air swimming pool (voted 52nd best in the world according to the sign!) and various other things. We parked up and paid for all day parking, only to realise it would have been half the price in the next car park along – d’oh! but did notice a sign saying ‘Jumble Sale 2pm Today’ in the community centre in the middle of the car park so decided to come back and try our luck there, being newly converted to the joys of Jungle Rails from back at our Glastonbury host.

We walked round the town, stopping at the olde fashioned sweet shoppe to choose a quarter of several things from the jars there. We did a big circular walk around there and then headed to the Waterfall Walk on the basis that if we had enough time to do that and get back for the Humble Bale we would, if not then we wouldn’t. It was too close with a suggested walk time of 2 and a half to 4 hours so we decided we’d come back later if we had time to do it and get back for dinner at 6pm after the Rumble Pale. So we walked along the river a little way, reading the various local history information boards as we went and spent a while sitting in the park chatting while the kids played, we walked slowly back to the van, via the Co Op and sat in the nearby park to eat our lunch before heading to the Jungle Sail.

We were in there for nearly an hour and a half, including queuing time as there were about 50 people all ready and waiting to get in, including a bloke who walked along side us having stopped to admire Willow and tell us about his ’84 Bedford he was doing up. He was admiring some of the parts on Willow and offered us £3000 for her if we wanted to sell! 😯 I think we spent about a fiver altogether – I bought a bag, two tops and a mini Cranium travel game. Davies bought a little leather bag, a couple of small toys and a drinking pouch, Scarlett got two soft toys and a drinking pouch and Ady got a pair of trainers, a pair of really warm socks and some DVDs. That spend also included a cup of tea and coffee and a very delicious cream meringue that was so huge the four of us shared it :).

It was by then too late to do the Waterfall Walk and be back for dinner so we drove out a little way to get petrol and then found a suitable carpark to put the awning up to test it. It had arrived earlier this week and we were really keen to see if it would work. Despite it being windy, lots of very suspicious looks from people trying to decide if we were gypsies moving in and setting up and the usual marital dischord that goes hand in hand with tent poles and anything that comes in a small bag we got it up and were able to ascertain that it will be perfect :). We packed it all away again and drove back to our hosts and managed to park in a really small space by way of my superior ‘right hand down’ instructions ;).

The house has been rather fraught tonight with friction between Andy and Ruth and the two teenage boys they foster which I find particularly hard to be around even though it is just usual teenage family stuff. Any sort of atmosphere or bad feeling like that just really makes me feel edgy but it is very educational to sit and witness it and be objective without feeling a default to either the parent or the childs side of things. I am close enough to the kids side to recall the feeling that the whole world is against you and your parents are just making things worse and close enough to the parents feelings of frustration with their children. I hope to be able to recall these feelings of tolerance, being able to see both sides and some level of empathy for the teens when I am the one in the middle of it myself with Davies and Scarlett… maybe I should write a scheduled blogpost reminding myself of that for about 6 years time 😉

Once the house had all gone quiet Ady and I sat with Andy and Ruth and chatted, and the men left Ruth and I up for another half an hour of chatting after that. She is interesting to talk to and made a few observations about me and my parenting which were fairly insightful and quite respectful which make me feel less like I am being judged here. It is hard to be around people who have fostered so many kids, dealt with so many difficult situations and seen the breakdown of so many family units and are actually paid to parent as their job and not feel as though you are being watched and evaluated but unless Ruth is incredibly polished at knocking people off their guard she is actually just another person doing the best she can do and totally upfront about her mistakes and failings.

Tomorrow we have been invited to go to church with them but have declined and will carry on with getting the door finished then there is some fun day at the local stables they are all attending and have invited us along to in the afternoon so it sounds like a nice easy day :).

It’s been a funny couple of days. I ended up in tears wanting to leave yesterday (although only Ady knows about that) and I’m struggling slightly here. I can’t decide whether it is here or me, or the coming to the end of the WWOOFing hosts really but I know all four of us are sort of pleased we only have three to go after this one. We did have four in Scotland with another three or four to contact to confirm dates nearer the time but one cancelled on us and we are all feeling three more will be sufficient and looking forward to some time off the WWOOFing rather than trying to find more to replace them and fill that zone up. We’re looking at a two weeks WWOOFing, two weeks off type situation for that last three months which feels like a good balance.

So, yesterday… my face had started to really itch the night before and Ady and I were both feeling pretty unhappy in the straw bale house. Conversly both Davies and Scarlett love it in there but it was definitely getting to us. I am fairly sure it was something in there that was setting off my face as it has definitely abated since we moved out of there.

First thing in the morning we had all been watching kingfishers on the garden pond. The river running through the garden had totally flooded and gone from being a gently trickling stream that Ady and I had been looking at on Tuesday and talking about wading along in wellies to a full on torrent that would easily carry one of us away, burst it’s banks and was over the middle bridge. The kingfishers nest must have been flooded and there were three of them on the pond, fishing out frogs and newts and generally hanging about. We assume parents and one young as it seems odd to see three together like that. So from previous sightings of kingfishers being simply the flash of vibrant blue and orange followed by ‘that was a kingfisher, oh it’s gone!’ we were able to stand and watch to our hearts content through binoculars as they were there all day long.

We all donned waterproofs and walked down to look at the river, follow the footpath to a waterfall and then walk around the village and see the bigger river rushing along and flooding the road. We got back for a cup of tea and all was well with the world. We took off a door which Andy and Ruth wanted sanding and varnishing and Ady started on that leaving me without anything to do. When I asked for a job I was given ‘tidying up the garage and workroom’ which was entirely too vague and Andy even said ‘well I’m not sure how really because I know where everything goes but start by sweeping up and I’ll come back’. So I swept, cursing under my breath and getting more itchy faced by the minute as I moved great clouds of dust about the place. I finished that and struggled to find a dustpan, then asked for the next job and was told to measure the stair treads and see if there was enough carpet on the roll to carpet the stairs. I wasn’t even sure which of the three flights in the house was meant, struggled to find a tape measure and by then Andy had disappeared back upstairs and was in a meeting with Ruth and one of the social workers (they have five foster kids here all with social workers having meetings every six weeks) so I didn’t feel I could interrupt again. So I cried at Ady instead 🙁

I get really frustrated that so many hosts don’t really seem to know what to do with us when we are there, that the jobs they give us are menial, tedious and not related to WWOOFing type tasks at all. I don’t really know what the answer to that is and I can’t quite decide why it gets me so upset but it does and I start to think about how much an hour I’d charge for my time if someone asked me to quote for these sorts of jobs and I get even more upset. Anyway I calmed down, Ady offered to carry on with the job list and I took over the sanding and we agreed to ask to move out of the strawbale house.

This (surprisingly, I was worried about the dust from the sander making my face worse but it didn’t affect it) made everything seem brighter and lunch was called soon afterwards and we arranged to move into a spare room in the house. After lunch Ady carried on with the tasks on the job list (things like fix roller blind in bathroom and other such household maintenance type tasks) while I made up some filler for the holes in the door from sawdust and wood glue and filled all the gaps.

That took us to the end of our working day (we have fallen into a 10 ish to 4ish type pattern). We helped out with dinner, got the kids settled into bed and then brought out a bottle of wine to share with Ruth and Andy. Ruth and I stayed up later chatting about Home Ed, autonomy, parenting, fostering, why I don’t think we should be registered and monitored as HEors but can see her viewpoint as a long term foster carer who does indeed see the worst case scenarios of parents not getting it right. Interesting stuff.

I slept much better in the room, as did Ady and today all has seemed brighter and not so full of woe. I think it was a blip on my part with various contributing factors meaning I lost my sense of perspective on things a little. I do really hate tidying and sweeping though (yes and gardening and weeding, I know :oops:)

This morning we sanded down the door again where it had been filled and then gave it three coats of varnish with wire wool finishing after the first and second coats, then I put the door furniture back on and we re-hung it. Ruth was so pleased with it she gave us both a hug and kiss! Andy took the bathroom door off which I am now working on. It is far worse than the lounge door for paint left on it (they are reclaimed doors that have been dipped but still have lots of residue on them and holes that need filling) but it is better nick generally underneath.

We did a bit of salad and pea harvesting for lunch and dinner and then helped test the solar panel we constructed earlier in the week. It leaked 🙁 The silicone had not hardened off as it was not getting contact with air so it failed to seal it properly. We have dug that out and cut off the leaky edge and have plans to try again with that next week. Davies and Scarlett appeared for part of that so got involved in the testing and understanding how the principle worked, if not seeing a finished and working example. They also both had a go at sanding.

Ady went off with Andy to a neighbours property to collect from rocks and stones for some stone walling we’re doing next week while I carried on with the door. I think accepting that this will be a very mixed bag host task-wise but that they are lovely interesting people and now we’re in the house rather than the straw bale house things will be better I can easily manage the second week. Davies and Scarlett are enjoying it here and it’s sparking all sorts of interesting conversations about foster care, different ways of living and disabilities, special needs and so on so there is definite value here for all sorts of reasons.

After dinner Ady and Andy slipped off for a pint in the local pub when they gave a lift to one of the boys here somewhere and then Davies, Scarlett, Ruth and I played a game (Labyrinth) while Ady played another game with the two girls. The kids all went up to bed and we had a second beer and a further chat before calling it a night. We are potentially off tomorrow although we have said we’ll see what the weather is doing as it looks as though we will only get the one full day off and then various bits off here and there so don’t want to waste it on a rainy day when finer days are forecast and we could get the door finished.

It has tipped down with rain non stop here today. I think the comment about us already doing all the planned work might actually have been true as at gone 10am we were still sort of kicking about waiting for someone to ask us to do something. Eventually we suggested to Andy that we go and restack a wood pile which had fallen down and we’d walked past on our first day and offered to do, so he agreed and said he’d come and find us. We stretched that out while we listened to Popmaster and then went inside to find Andy who said he wanted some help with making a solar panel.

This was really interesting – an idea from a friend of his to make solar panels to heat water. It involved ‘reading’ Andy’s blueprint plan and sealing and plugging various holes on a sheet of corolux, inserting tubes and then glueing on edges. We’ll know by the end of the week whether it has worked when it is all dried and ready to test. Andy reckons the materials and time cost about £100 which is about a tenth of what a panel that size would cost if bought from a manufacturers. We then helped put a shelf up in the bathroom just because we were downstairs with the power tools and it was a two pair of hands job. We also helped clean out the filter for the drinking water that is pumped up from a spring and moved a very heavy glass panel.

By then it was lunchtime which was lentil soup – but perfectly edible ;). As we finished eating Andy got paged to attend a cave rescue locally – one of the many fingers in many pies he seems to have is being on call for that. Due to not having thought of the next task for us he told us to have the afternoon off!

Davies and Scarlett had been playing with duplo in the TV room anyway and have had a nice day but are craving fresh air so hoping for a fine day tomorrow as they have plans to make a den in the woodland near the river. Ady and I set up the laptop in the kitchen and booked a few nights in various campsites – we’re meeting Julie for a week in Llangollen and then working our way up to our first host in Scotland. Deborah (Ruth’s sister) came and sat with us and we talked to her for ages about Home Education, travelling, WWOOFing and buying land and living in communities.

We then got involved in cooking dinner as the twins were supposed to be in charge but kept wandering off. We were 14 for dinner again and that was without Andy who was still missing in cave resuce action. Ady and I spent some time this evening upstairs but only the girls were about really so we have retired early and I spent some time looking at photos with Scarlett while Davies watched a film.

It’s quite challenging being somewhere without set hours where they tell you to ‘just work whenever you want’ as you are unsure whether you are working harder than you need to or not hard enough… on the basis that neither of us are particularly work shy and everywhere we have been hosts have seemed pleased with what we have done we have worked at our usual pace and were tonight told ‘well you’ve already done everything we had planned for you!’ with a laugh 😆

After Ady fretting about sleeping in the straw bale house he and the kids were out like lights last night leaving me the one struggling to sleep. I couldn’t really pinpoint why as I was not cold, uncomfortable, worried, hungry or any other reasonable reason so eventually decided it must be that I needed a wee so got up to do that after lying there for ages. When I got back into bed I checked the time at just aftere 230am and then finally did fall asleep so was most reluctant to wake with the alarm at 8am! In the end I sent Ady off and told him to come back for me in ten minutes. He woke me at 9am and I woke the kids – as 10am seems a perfectly acceptable start time for us here we will stick with that and I won’t stress about getting up early tomorrow either.

We breakfasted and then offered to get on with the mowing / strimming again and have actually finished the whole lawn today with Ady strimming and me mowing. The first really hard days work in a while and I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed every moment and didn’t spend time deciding how much I’d charge for mowing per hour if it was my real job. I also took a slightly irrational dislike to the mower which was tempremental (another tool that really isn’t up to the job we are asking it to do – why do so many hosts have that?) and at one point caught myself sticking two fingers up at it when it finally started after being a real pig. I have callouses on both hands and a very sore hand from pulling that bloody starter string, not as hard as Ady pulled it this morning though when he sauntered over to patronise me struggling to start it and yanked it so hard it snapped! 😆

We had morning and afternoon tea breaks and lunch with Andy as everyone else was out for most of the day. Davies and Scarlett have done some chatting to various people here, some watching films, some playing with lego and lots of crazy dare devil go karting up and down the hills. This evening we had a lovely time chatting to everyone particularly Andy and Ruth who travelled round the world with their two daughters for over a year when they were just 1 and 3, sharing stories, recounting adventures and discussing the highs and lows. We also talked about fostering, caring for disabled children and general life story swapping. All interesting stuff.

I think we will learn very little in the way of new skills from our WWOOFing tasks here but lots from spending time in the company of these people.

Sunday We slept in and despite planning to leave for a walk and take lunch with us managed to take so long to get going that we ended up eating lunch before we had a walk. I was finding Scarlett a bit challenging – she is so infrequently hard work (or maybe I am over tolerant of her, although that is something I wouldn’t usually dream of accusing myself of I am aware I can be more indulgent of her than probably anyone else in the world…) that I tend to jump all over her when she does something I consider worthy of a telling off. She was doing lots of whinging, asking for things she knew we couldn’t give her (the rent has been late again this month and we were down to just a few pounds until it went in. As it happens it has now been paid but we were not sure of that so were being cautious and refusing to buy things like ice creams), getting really stroppy with everyone about not getting her own way and being rude and impatient with us all, and instigating squabbles with Davies. It is clearly caused by over tiredness, over exposure to TV / games consoles / huge amounts of adult attention / being able to eat and drink whatever she wanted all of last week but became super apparent once we were back in the tiny confines of Willow. Davies has also been marginally testing – he gets so utterly over fussed by my Mum and was playing on that rather and starting to dwell on what he doesn’t have (as in all his toys, the latest lego, trips to the cinema to see the couple of films currently out he would like to watch) rather than what he does have. So I exploded rather at them and asked them to think about what is important to them and whether they are wanting to carry on with this year or start to head back for home and conventionality again. The replies were speedy reassurances that they want to be doing what we’re doing. We had another incident today which I’ll mention later after which we had another chat and really I think it was the release of the pressure of always being ‘on’ – either with hosts or with my parents, which is pretty intense and I know I struggle with at times so totally understandable. It’s odd doing something like this as you still have the same parenting issues and dilemmas but have to approach them in a different way and quite possible over-think and blame quite normal kid behaviour on their quite exceptional circumstances.

Anyway, once we’d eaten we headed off to the beach. It was the Morecambe Sandcastle Festival on Saturday and Sunday which we’d not explored on the previous day so headed for on the Sunday instead. We walked rather slowly along the beach though, taking in the fantastic bird displays on various railings – there are metal painted seabirds of all sorts all around the town and they are lovely. There are various other art installations including statues of Eric Morecambe and a moonwalk which we didn’t do but looked really interesting.

When we eventually reached the site of the sandcastle competitions that had all finished but we were able to view the entries; some of which were really good, others rather more amateur and this inspired Davies and Scarlett to do some of their own creating a little further down the beach. Ady and I sat on the rocks watching, chatting and listening to the band who were playing as part of the festival entertainment. Their repertoire was rather limited to Ricky Martin songs (most of which they sang at least twice), classic summer songs such as ‘Hey Baby’ and ‘Feeling hot, hot, hot!’ and a few Amy Winehouse tracks which were actually quite good as the female singer had a nice voice.

We ended up sitting there for over 3 hours as the kids first built a very intricate sandcastle and then constructed an elaborate series of walls to try and defend it from the incomming tide. Ady and I had bets about how long it would take and I made a sand ladybird and a sand seagull and a set of markers to time the tide. We also had a very silly game of tag which D&S seemed oblivious to but I was aware of catching the attention of another few adults on the beach 😆 Eventually we pried the children away and set off back to the campsite. We called into the Co Op on the way for some dinner supplies and thanks to the reduced to clear section and a few special offers managed to get some real bargains meaning we could also have a bottle of cider, an ice cream each for the kids on the way home and a tub of cream to go with a tin of fruit cocktail we already had in the van :).

We had dinner, I read to the kids and had a long catch up phonecall with Julie who had been expecting a call last week but I’d not managed it due to no signal. She is coming up with the kids in a couple of weeks and we’re having a few nights camping with them in North Wales before we head to Scotland which will be fantastic – we’re missing them and they are missing us, five months is way too long!

Today We set the alarm and got up, fed, packed away and on the road just after 9. We struggled slightly to find this place but eventually tracked it down and were given a lovely warm welcome from Ruth, Andy and twins Rochelle and Hollie. This is a big (nine bedroom, four storey) house in North Yorkshire (near the border though) sitting in 2.5 acres of land including some woodland, large gardens, a river running through, veg patch, chickens. The original house was a large 70s house that has been extensively extended and changed and is now just stunning. Andy and Ruth have two older (in their twenties, no longer living at home) daughters and are foster carers; currently to five children with a sixth due here for respite care next week, another two or three here unofficially and a grand total of something like 42 children over the last 20 years altogether. The current residents are 13 year old twin girls, a pair of brothers aged 16 and 18 and an 8 year old girl with cerepral palsy who is totally immobile and has no speech. Very humbling to meet a child almost the identical age to Scarlett who cannot even really hold her own head up and is fed by a tube watching my daughter leaping on a trampoline, paddling in the river and wolfing down her food at the table.

Also here at the moment is Ruth’s cousin who has a broken foot so has extended her visit from Amsterdam but is leaving this week, Ruth’s sister who lives in a bender in the garden and makes the most amazing art from recycled and waste materials – in our bunkhouse there is a very cool lamp made with a plastic water bottle base stuffed with plastic beauty product packaging. It’s like staying at the Dumping Ground in Tracy Beaker! There were 14 of us for dinner tonight and various other people dropping in and arriving and coming and going all the time.

We’re staying in a straw bale bunk house just off of the main house. It has a musty, damp smell to it but it’s not actually cold or damp. It has mains electric and lighting, a table and chairs, and a funny bunk bed system of a platform just off the floor with a double and single mattress, then another platform suspended above that with another double and single mattress that can be pulled up when not in use. It is very basic but perfectly cosy and comfortable. Ady is slightly freaked out by the stains on the mattresses but we have covered them with clean sheets and are instide our own sleeping bags, using our own pillows. He is also not liking the no curtains on the windows but we’ll bring some fleece blankets in from the van tomorrow to drape at the windows to combat that. The kids think it is cool and are fast asleep from a full day playing and I am very relaxed and enjoying the idea of yet another interesting place to tick off having slept in.

I think the work here will be fairly random – today we did some mowing and strimming and have already been told there is some painting to do, some wood store stacking and maybe wood chopping, some helping to assemble solar panels, some building and stone walling. But we’ve been told we can make our own hours and work when we like and offered adventures like going caving one afternoon with Andy (caving is one of his hobbies), walks around the area, a trip to the open air swimming pool, going to the cinema etc. so although we will undoubtedly be lacking structure and roughing it a bit with sleeping arrangements we will certainly not be worked to death and there are some really interesting people here to hang out with and chat to.

Ruth and Andy are really involved in the local community and help run the local shop which is co operatively owned by the village and run with volunteers working in it, play music at the local pub and are heavily involved with the church too. At 830pm the wine bottles came out as I get the feeling they may do most nights and they seem very interested in Home Ed and love the fact that D&S were off playing in the river and clambering up trees as none of the foster kids here play like that or ever have done so were quite enchanted by as they put it our ‘swallows and amazons children’ :). I think it will be an interesting one :).

God my parents can be annoying!!!!!

First the rant then 🙂 Ages and ages ago we decided that a holiday cottage rental would be a better plan than a B&B for them when they came to visit us. They end up paying at least £60 a night for B&B and then spend loads of money on food because we eat out when they visit as we are so rarely in a place where we can actually cater for them and entertain them – either with a WWOOF host or simply at a campsite in Willow which isn’t really big enough to cook and serve dinner for six, let alone clear space for the feline swinging after dinner entertainment! About a month ago I started getting twitchy about it not being booked so spoke to my Mum, did some googling and emailed her a load of links for suitable places. She did nothing 🙁 I rang to remind her a week or so later and she assured me she was dealing with it, that she would ask for help from someone at her work if she couldn’t sort it out and was also going to ring my Dad’s cousin who lives in the Durham area (where we would be) and deal with it. Nothing more happened 🙁 Eventually we arrived at our host who was off grid so technically couldn’t actually get online to do anything any more. As it happened we were able to charge up laptops but as any payment needed to be done online to book something we couldn’t book anyway. This situation went on and on until finally the night before we were due to leave and my Mum had merely managed to book two nights in a city centre (with limited parking) Holiday Inn for her and Dad I relented and found somewhere, rung them to check availability and left a message for them to ring my parents back. That was duly booked and as they were paying for it from Saturday anyway it was arranged that we would go there on the Saturday and my parents would go to the Holiday Inn, spend some time with Dad’s cousin and then join us on the Monday. This is such an example of my parents ineptitude for organising anything! I really should manage my own expectations better and usually I do because actually they are no different now to how they have always been and if these things bother me then I should just do the sorting out and make my peace with it, but I didn’t and I got cross instead!

Anyway…. 🙂

Saturday: morning we packed up the yurt, fed the chickens and loaded Willow up. This always takes way longer than I expect it to and I get grumpy because once I am leaving somewhere I want to get going rather than stringing it out. We left a note for our hosts and actually did see Matt and Pip to say goodbye to. We rang my parents to check on their progress as they were intending to leave home early and meet up with us in Durham for lunch before heading to their hotel in Newcastle. They were doing really well having left nice and early so we headed south on the A1M while they were heading north and talked on phones to work out the best place to come off and meet. We ended up having our reunion in Durham services and then decided to drive along the nearest A road and find the first suitable place for lunch we could. That happened only a mile or so along at The Old Mill Hotel which was easily the best meal out we’ve had in a very long time, the food was delicious and the service was really friendly :). We said goodbye to Mum and Dad again (who had a really nice evening and following day with Dad’s cousin Dorothy and her family, so they were really glad they had made the effort to go to Newcastle) and headed to the holiday cottage.

Thanks to missing the M6 turn off and so taking a parallel route which was much windier and slower, if not actually any further it was quite a long journey. We did drive through Kirkby Stephen which I had recalled as having a converted chapel Youth Hostel that had always looked very pretty (but not big enough for our camp bookings) on the website and was indeed very pretty in real life and signs for the waterfall that Kirsty had been to recently. And we had sherbet lemons and our collection of tapes with hits from the early 90s which took me back to my clubbing days to keep us going though :).

We arrived at Silverdale where the holiday cottage was and found a Co Op for some food supplies before tracking down the actual cottage. It had been arranged that the door would be unlocked for us so we didn’t need to see anyone to check in (the owners on site are actually retired and the business is now run by their daughter who lives nearby but is not always around, I think they prefer guests to be fairly self sufficient unless they really need anything). The cottage was nice enough although I think we may have been spoilt by Jill’s cottages as we found it very poorly equipt. There was nothing in the kitchen at all – no tea, coffee, sugar etc. no soap in the bathrooms, just one roll of loo paper in each toilet. As we were in the van none of this was an issue for us as we carry all sorts of things like that obviously but usually in a holiday cottage I’d expect at least a starter pack of tea /coffee and a spare roll of loo roll too. The cottage was ‘upside down’ with the bedrooms and bathrooms on the ground floor and the kitchen, dining room and lounge upstairs. There were two double bedrooms, one with en suite shower and bathrooom (my parents), one single bedroom upstairs and one downstairs. Davies and Scarlett, most amazingly did not leap at the chance for a bedroom each and refused to be parted, particularly by a whole floor so were given the choice and decided to be upstairs.

We’d decided to do nothing other than relax in a large space for the evening so had readymade pizza for dinner, a bath each and then ended up watching documentaries on the TV – the kids were up til midnight watching something about the start of the universe which was excellent and educational but very slack parenting ;).

Sunday: we got up late and set off in search of mobile phone and internet signal as we had neither at the cottage. In many ways this was hugely annoying – I’d been really looking forward to catching up with blog posts, flickring and various other online stuff. In other ways it did mean we spent more time not plugged in which I guess is always good. We walked through the woodland next to the cottage and finally arrived at the beach where Ady and the kids played at crab catching while I did lots of online stuff. We walked back to the cottage via the village for a couple of dinner ingredients we’d forgotten the night before and some chocolate to sustain us for the rest of the walk :).

Dinner was roast chicken, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, yorkshire pudding, gravy – the lot! All the things we had been so missing 🙂 The kids went to bed slightly earlier and Ady and I watched a documentary about Amy Winehouse.

Monday I needed to check emails again as I’d written a sponsored post which was awaiting approval and I also needed to see the state of our bank account. I walked into the village – getting lost on the way through the woodland – and went to the little branch library there. It was very charming and the village generally reminded me of the Vicar of Dibley. While I was in the library about 3 people came in and out and all of them chatted and included me in their conversations, which was sweet but very distracting! I had a talk with the librarian about libraries generally which made me slightly nostalgic for my old job. I was able to check emails and find the article had been approved – the person said it was a ‘wicked piece of writing’ which I took to mean she liked it and was very young rather than it was written with evil intent 😉 😆 – but that the security on the library internet wouldn’t let me log in to any site requiring passwords so I couldn’t actually publish it, check my bank account or get into blogger.

I walked back, stopping every few paces to check signal on the mifi until I found somewhere I could get online. I tried in the church yard, a bus shelter and a park bench but finally found somewhere on the bank of a footpath up into the woods and installed myself there for an hours tucked up against a tree furiously typing away. I was visited by a farmer on his tractor checking I was okay and three people walking past. I’m fairly sure they all discounted me as a nutter when they realised I was on a laptop, sitting on soggy ground halfway along a public footpath in a field but I am quite used to being considered a nutter these days 😆

I got lost again in the woods on the way back to the cottage and arrived in time for lunch – home made rolls (I had made myself in the morning) with homemade chicken soup (made by Ady from the previous dinner leftovers). Having explored some of the cupboards in the cottage we had found that there were four puzzles, all marked as having several pieces missing on the boxes, so I decided for want of anything better to do I’d start one of them. I chose a 500 piece blue tits eating strawberries picture which had six pieces missing and was very proud of finishing it in under 24 hours :). Little things …

Ady and Scarlett went out for a walk in the afternoon leaving Davies and I at the cottage. As we didn’t know what time Mum & Dad would arrived (and couldn’t ring them to find out!) I hung around and did more puzzle while I waited.

They finally reached us and Mum & I popped out for food supplies. We had a very late dinner of lasagne which set the tone for the week being with very slipped mealtimes.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are all slipping into each other so I think I will just round them up really. We had several walks through the woodland again and never managed to take the same path twice. We went to the beach a couple of times, seeing both very low and very high tide and doing more crab hunting, stone skimming and internet using. We went to the village a couple of times, nearby Carnforth a couple of times and Lancaster once. Dad and I completed a 1000 piece puzzle we bought for 50p from a charity shop but ended up having 3 pieces missing. We finished it just as we were supposed to be leaving the cottage this morning :). We ate lots, drank lots, baked bread every day, made a birthday cake for Dad to celebrate his 73rd birthday today, saw loads of wildlife including deer, crabs, toads and frogs, butterflies, a sloworm, various birds including woodpeckers, kestrals, buzzards, cormorants, different gulls, geese and did loads of walking.

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It was a predominantly lovely week. My Mum irritated me a fair bit, we had some very heavy talks about what happens next which were not totally resolved and I know us four left more tired than we arrived thanks to late nights, lots of looking after my parents with food and drink and far more drinking than we are used to these days BUT it was a lovely area, it was good to spend proper time with them, nice to have use of a kitchen and a bath and a real treat to have the place to ourselves for the first two nights :).

Today: Dad and I had stayed up til nearly 2am trying to finish the puzzle so we were pretty tired this morning. We packed everything back up, gave Mum & Dad some more stuff (including our tent which we had decided we didn’t need any more but feels like a big deal to have gotten rid of – it was our emergency home!) to take home. We’d booked a campsite yesterday for tonight and tomorrow – cheap, nasty and slightly rough but cheap, in the right place and with hook up and most importantly mucho signal for mobile and internet :). We got here within about half an hour and the bloke let us pitch up depsite it saying we couldn’t arrive til after 2pm and it only being 1130am. We had a cup of tea, snaffled an emergency packet of cheese biscuits between the four of us and then walked into Morecambe. It’s a very typically northern seaside town – a slightly seedy air about it and depsite it being peak season there is a lost and left behind feel to it too with lots of the shops and hotels boarded up 🙁 The town was full of people smoking and I heard about five children being threatened with smacks within about half an hour! 😯 We walked all round before heading back which felt like a huge walk by the time we arrived back at the van although I am sure it was no more than 5 miles round trip. A little girl came to call for Scarlett to come and play which she was rather reluctant to do but did in the end. She is not one for making friends without Davies really and I don’t think she actually talked to the girl much but she was clearly interesting enough to be called for again later in the evening :). We had dinner of leftover lasagne from a dinner during the week. I caught up with Jill on the phone and am finally now caught up with my blog so I can start tomorrow ready to blog the day on the actual day :).

We’re done here and have learnt tonight that it is our last night in the yurt as my Mum has finally booked a holiday cottage (that I found in the end) from tomorrow. They have two nights booked at a hotel in Newcastle so are heading for there for the weekend and will meet up with Dad’s cousin who lives in Newcastle, while we head in the opposite direction to enjoy two nights in the cottage just the four of us before they join us on Monday.

Today we have been in the garden all day. We spent the morning working with Wilf on carrots. Some evidence of rat damage was discovered in the carrots yesterday so we swung into action. The first bed of carrots was all pulled up as they are grown, although they could potentially grow to double their current size the risk of leaving them with rats around is too great now they have started munching on them so a full crop of half size carrots is better than a total wipe out of any crop at all. We pulled them, cut the leaves off and any undamaged carrots are now stored in the dark until next week ready for the customers veg boxes, while any nibbled ones have been cut and put ready for carrot soup for everyone here next week. The second bed (later sowing) needed thinning and the skinny but supersweet carrots from that will be used here for eating or as salad for next weeks veg boxes and the third bed which had only just germinated was weeded and covered with netting. All of the beds were then watered with a comfrey feed which is reputed to disguise the smell to foil the carrot flies. We also set some rat traps and laid out instant mash potatoes and coke which is Chris (Ady’s brother)’s method for rat disposal which we have shared with various people this year.

That took us to lunchtime so we came down to collect lunch supplies including fresh from the oven bread and then Ady and I sat in the garden eating lunch together and reflecting on this host as Wilf went off to do some paperwork leaving us to it.

After lunch we did some moving tyres – they have them delivered here for free to use as building materials on the new build house, weights for the netting, pots for growing potatoes and so on and dropped off at the gate so we moved a huge heap into the land properly. We counted 60 moved which we thought probably qualified us to work in Kwik fit should the need ever take us 😆

Jo arrived back then and we had a lovely couple of hours working alongside her planting out various brassicas and salad leaves and chatting. We have not spent as much time working with Jo but she is lovely, very peaceful and kind and it was really nice to chat to her, get to know her a bit and hear her perspective on the community. We finished our working day by gathering some empty egg boxes and taking them down to the chicken house ready for next weeks egg collecting.

Ady went off with Matt to do some shooting practise as Matt has recently acquired a gun but didn’t know much about it so Ady showed him some safe use ideas, some hints and tips and also got a look around the new build house inside. Matt is the person here we have had the least time with, which is frustrating as he has so many skills, many of which I’d have loved to have learnt more about.

Beth and Wilf headed off on holiday for a week so there were teary goodbyes and cuddles and promises to stay in touch and invites to come back any time. We’ll see Matt and Jo tomorrow to say goodbye but we’ve been presented with wine and chocolates from them all and lots of lovely exchanges of thanks going both ways for a fab two weeks WWOOfing experience.

This time tomorrow we will be back in the real world, the right side of a bath, a dinner containing loads of meat and things like plug sockets, sofas, TV and so on. Personally I am in no rush to return to that at all and will be mourning what we leave behind here for some time to come.

We started slightly earlier today just because it is so interesting being part of Veg Box Day. Ady did lots of harvesting veg, salad etc. mostly working with Ange and Pia who were still here today. Davies and Scarlett did some pea and bean picking (and eating) with Pip before disappearing off into the woodland for the rest of the day. I mostly worked in the field shelter getting stuck into the packing side of things. First thing I was with Wilf (who is very interesting and reminds me loads of Chris P. He has the same measured way of talking and dry sense of humour), learning the Ways of The Veg Bag. This included some admin type stuff with labelling bags and then some weighing of potatoes. The scheme here is about 80% what thet grow and 20% bought in from an organic wholesaler. This week they bought in potatoes and cucumber only. They are very honest with their customers about the bought in element which apparently some veg box schemes are not, they also work with other local-ish schemes to swap gluts and even barter with some of their veg box customers for their gluts – eg one of the people who has a weekly box from them had a huge amount of rhubarb last year, enough to supply all their customers for two weeks running in exchange for 2 months worth of free veg.

I then did cucumber inserting into each bag before going to do some harvesting – nasturtium flowers, chard and spinach. I then helped Jo with salad bag packing – she did the leaves and I did the twiddly bits – rocket, flowers and basil leaves and then it was lunch time. We all had lunch together which was a lovely communal affair.

After lunch Ady did some more gardening type stuff while I did packing up of stir fry bags (spinach and chard) and then helped Beth load the various rounds of bags into the car ready to be delivered to the pick up points.

Ady and I finished for the day and spent far too long looking for Davies and Scarlett who were happily and obliviously playing in the woods before cooking dinner. We’d been given sausages so Davies and I had them with new potatoes, while Ady and Scarlett had tuna and new potatoes fishcakes – Scarlett, Ady and I had salad too including all the little flowers :).

Must end here as laptop is beeping about the battery dying and I don’t want to lose what I’ve written!

This morning started with breadmaking for me again – today was raisin bread with cinnamon and sugar, it was delicious and tasted like hot cross buns 🙂

Then more building. A final application of render and then the start of the cob layer. We were working with Wilf today and two women who have been on one of his permaculture courses and instead of paying full rate have bartered some hours work instead – they are here tomorrow aswell helping with veg box picking and packing. I love this alternative tender to cash for things that happens round here :). They were interesting people to chat to; both very much with a foot in both the conventional world and the alternative community type world and both agonising over where they belonged. It’s always interesting to see ourselves through others’ eyes and chatting to them reminded me that most families don’t go off in a campervan for a year but hopefully reminded them that there isn’t really any good reason not to if it’s what you want!

The cob layer is the same mix of sharp sand and clay with added chopped up straw, applied much thicker to the wall on top of the clay render mix to fill any gaps and create the undulating but smoothed finish prior to the lime render level. There is something hugely pleasing about this type of building, very reminiscent of playing with mud or playdoh as a child and almost instinctual in the smoothing and shaping. We had an interesting conversation as we worked about how most historic building was done simply using the land content in the area and how many large buildings such as cathedrals have a quarry next to them where the stone came from – often the only remaining sign is streets called Quarry Lane in the vicinity but it was the way all architecture was formed. Certainly all of the green buildings we’ve come across this year are using reclaimed, local materials – stones or clay dug up from the land itself.

We all had a go at all aspects today, from mixing the cob in the bathtub which involves treading it in, shovelling it from one end of the bath to the other and generally agitating it, sieving the clay to get the stones out (which will be used as drainage material elsewhere on the land), applying the render or cob or spraying the walls in preparation for each new layer. I did a full on up a ladder right at the top stint of cob application which was slightly daunting as you had to wedge the heavy bucket of cob between you and the ladder, rest your head on the roof struts and lean out to apply handfuls of the mixture. Very rewarding though 🙂

Lunch was a shared affair and then after work we walked to Matt & Jo’s flat which is just around the corner from the land and was bought fairly recently with an inheritance. It is a small two bedroom flat that Matt & Jo sleep in at weekends and they all use for the washing machine, bathroom, getting away from the land when necessary and a postal address – a toss up between a haven and a reality check into suburbia! We all had a bath – blissful, I brushed my teeth with running water, we stuck a load of very dirty washing through the machine and then walked back again. A friend had bought over a huge salmon he’d caught yesterday so that had been cooked for dinner and a large chunk of it offered to us for our dinner which was a real treat :).

We had new potatoes and salmon and a cheesy sauce all rather grudgingly cooked by Ady while I read through a folder Beth had lent me containing all her celebrant work, copies of her notes and services and the thank you cards people have sent her after her services which was all really interesting, and often very tear jerking to read, particularly the memorial and funeral services. Definitely something I want to look further into in the future.

I can’t believe we only have two more days left here, visiting the flat today was a stark reminder of the outside world.

We’ve had a great day today, loads more green building :). We started with chicken feeding and breadmaking (Ady chicken feeding, me breadmaking). The kids came into the house where I was breadmaking and while Davies played with the boys Scarlett came and did some breadmaking with me. The kids then disappeared off for the entire day, finally coming back at 515pm asking if it was nearly lunchtime! 😆

We worked with Wilf and Beth, listening to music and chatting about all sorts of things while mixing up clay render, stapling chicken wire over straw bales and then applying the first ‘slip layer’ of render to the wall of the house. We’re really getting an understanding of how these houses are constructed and although we’d still need loads of guidance and help to do it ourselves it is fab to grasp how they go up and what is underneath – they are built in the same was as Ben Law’s house which most people have seen on Grand Designs.

Beth is a celebrant, which is something I have thought I might like to do one day so I spent some time chatting to her about that and she has lent me a load of her paperwork and work on that to read through and is very encouraging about that :).

We had lunch and then did another couple of hours on the rendering before finishing for the day. Ady and I picked some salad and greens for dinner, which was communal today as happens here once a week. It was the massive courgette that Scarlett found last week and we cooked as a stuffed marrow. Our contribution was new potatoes cooked by Ady and a cake cooked by me. Last week for communal dinner Frankie made a cake which utterly failed to rise and was only really saved by it’s butter icing so the bar had been set pretty low although I did joke I could still attempt to limbo under it! I went for an equal weight of butter, sugar, flour and eggs batter and thanks to it being barley flour it was slightly on the heavy side but as we were having it with custard it being more pudding-y than cake-y went down and storm and *everyone* had seconds and raved about it 🙂

Dinner was really nice, lots of chatter with everyone there and we got talking further about unschooling, parenting generally and autonomy and other such stuff. I recommended some of my favourite books on the subjects and we talked about things like pocket money, chores, reward and punishment and so on. Davies and Scarlett have proved very popular here with the children and the adults so are thankfully being glowing examples of what I believe in. They said thank you for dinner as they left the table tonight and Jo went after them to thank them for doing so. Davies explained that he has helped prepare dinner before and knows how much effort goes into it and also that it made him feel good when everyone thanked him afterwards so he likes to extend the same back when someone makes a meal for him which was the perfect answer really 🙂 It’s been lovely having them all say how much they’d like to stay in touch with us all :). This has been somewhere where we have really felt like we have brought something in return for what we will take away over and above the WWOOFing relationship – the spending time with the people here has enriched our lives and taught us new skills in just the same way as we have given them new ideas and things to think about. It is a very open and supportive environment where ideas are constantly tossed about, everyone is open to suggestions and input from each other and all viewpoints and opinions are valued and appreciated. I like it here a lot :). The other three have been slower to feel that way but I think all four of us will leave a little bit of ourselves here, just as we have at a few other favourite hosts.

Argh, struggling to keep abreast of all the things I want to write online each day before laptop battery dies 🙁

Today we have barely seen the kids – Oaken has finished school so the four older ones were off for the whole morning playing down by the river – Davies definitely much happier with Oaken around aswell as Pip, they seem very balanced as a foursome, Oaken is just a few months younger than Davies although he towers above him.

Ady and I had a first task of getting chicken feed out of the car and taking it to the chicken house and feeding them. This involved wheelbarrows up and down hills so slightly more complicated than it sounds. I was issued with a red pencil to mark some eggs as when I was talking to Beth about chicken keeping and breeding she said one of the problems was knowing which eggs the broody hen had been sat on when she nicks all the other ones laid each day too, so I suggested marking the eggs (we don’t usually have to do that but have done in the past when that has been an issue). Scarlett came too and passed out the eggs to mark. Cool to think there will be chicks running around 3 weeks from now thanks to our help :).

Next we were told about some green building. There is a house almost built here and the tiny dwelling every one currently lives in which needed some maintenance / finishing off. It is timber frame with straw bale infill, covered with clay render, cob render and lime render. There are some areas which need straw pushing in to fill gaps and then the layers of render putting on. Our first job was to dig out some clay, which is simply the soil from here that was previously dug out to put the foundations in. That was mixed in an old bath having been saturated with water, 2 parts sharp sand to 1 part clay to create the clay render which will be a very thin layer over the straw. We did some of that, mixing it up in the bathtub by trampling on it, moving it about with a shovel and generally digging it with hands. Other jobs included spraying the current surfaces ready to take the render, which meant climbing up on a ladder against the side of the house with a 12l water tank on your back and spraying from it. Quite scary as the house is two storeys and the ladder is on a veranda which is about 12 foot off the ground anyway so the top of the ladder is a good 30 foot off the actual ground, with a very heavy load on your back! We learnt loads though and it didn’t actually feel dangerous. We were working with Beth (who is our favourite!) and Beth’s Dad who had come along for the day and is very nice, a retired vet, very posh and supportive, if slightly befuddled at how his daughter and grandsons live!

We had a late lunch, all very communal as we were all darting in and out checking on the bread baking in the oven and passing things out over the ladders tied to the veranda to each other and the children must have sensed it as they appeared just as we sat down to join us. Jo came back too, having had to go and open the hall for a home ed session that Pip had flatly refused to attend due to Davies and Scarlett being here but Jo had the keys for so had to go on her own anyway!

There wasn’t much afternoon left to work really so we did a little more of the same and that was our working day done :). The kids had been invited to go swimming with the kids here as Pip, Hollin and LLeu had swimming lessons but Oaken and D & S wanted to watch a film that Pip wasn’t allowed to see so that was the perfect opportunity and they ended up doing that instead. Ady and I chatted, read and had a walk and enjoyed being briefly childless :).

We cooked dinner and ate before the kids came back, so they had a later dinner than us while I caught up with Julie on the phone, then we had wash time and stories. This morning I had my first outdoor hair wash using heated rainwater and a tub and I am very much enjoying the feeling of clean hair :).

My (one remaining) wisdom tooth is moving about and rather sore so I am hoping it is merely a bit more errupting that kept clean will be fine as I am worried about needing to find a dentist on the road. I’m also feeling quite disproportionately tired which Ady is attributing to lack of meat!

It’s been a fantastic weekend off. This is most definitely our most hospitable host for all sorts of reasons 🙂

Saturday It was Wilf (one of the host)’s birthday and we were invited to participate in the celebrations which included rowing on the river and a picnic in the park. We declined, partially because we didn’t feel we wanted to intrude having only met him a few days ago and mostly because we were keen for some ‘just the four of us time’. As it happened we would have been very welcome to join them and would probably have had a great time but we did really enjoy our day so it was the right decision.

We decided to walk into Durham – about 2.5 miles away so after breakfast we set off. We didn’t really know where we were going so we decided to head off and just keep asking people, well we made Ady ask people actually. We were all in quite giddy moods and speculated on asking for more indepth directions each time ending with just getting in someones car and asking them to take us there! We didn’t go that far in the end although we possibly should have done as we went in a big U shape rather than an I and did three sides of a square on the last bit making it a longer walk in than it should have been.

We did the charity shop circuit, found toilets (flushes made us jump!), bought stuff from the bakery for lunch, I purchased two hats in the Millets £1 sale shop that had sprung up. We also bought two kag in a bag waterproofs for £1 each and then realised when we got them back that they have massive England flags on the back and all of our remaining hosts are in Scotland so they may not be totally appropriate! 😆

We bought ice creams from Iceland (£1.50 for a box of 6 instead of £2 each from the ice cream van!) and ate them down by the river watching the ducks, black headed gulls and cormorants that were gathered there.

It was gone 5pm by then so we started the walk back – a much shorter route but very steeply uphill for the first bit, which in the still surprisingly hot sun was hard work! We got back just after 6pm and collapsed in the yurt. No one was back yet so we debated dinner and decided to cook pancakes for tea as we had lots of eggs (we got a dozen in our veg bag) – that was delicious and everyone was stuffed afterwards. We heard about Amy Winehouse on the radio which made us all very sad and we sat talking about her and fame and drugs for a while. Scarlett and I enjoyed lying on our backs on the bed with our feet up in the air doing some upside down dancing to the music on the radio :).

Beth and Wilf came back and invited us over to their house for birthday drinks so Davies and Scarlett got into bed and had some DS and PSP time while Ady and I went over there to join the last few party revellers. Wilf ended up going to bed early as he was all birthday-d out (drunk!) but we sat on Matt & Jo’s bed with Beth, Frankie (the other WWOOFer), Frankie’s girlfriend Liz and two other friends Jack and Ruth, drinking wine out of the bottle, eating trifle and being very silly and talking about sexuality spectrums. It all felt very lovely and cosy and was the sort of evening you remember and smile for ages afterwards :). We left about 1am and did some star gazing through the clear panel in our yurt while lying in bed.

Sunday A lovely drifting into consciousness morning with lots of in bed cuddles with the kids. Jack stood on our front steps chatting to us while Tarly and I were still in bed – it’s just that sort of place here, lots of instantly feeling like family I guess :).

Davies and Scarlett went off to play and Ady and I went off to do some Willow tidying. We knew we had various things that can go home with my parents – mostly clothes – when they come up next week so we wanted to weed them out and generally rearrange stuff a bit. We also did a bit of clothing inventory work. Davies and Scarlett now seem to have communal jeans as they wear the same size anyway and S favours boys styling so it doesn’t even make sense to try and work out which pair belong to which child anymore. Scarlett seems to be lacking pants and Davies socks though so that needs addressing next time we’re near shops. Ady thinks he needs some jumpers but that is only because I have convinced him I do *need* all mine incase it is cold in Scotland and he doesn’t have anywhere near as many as me! 😆

We exchanged texts with Kirsty and decided to walk along to see where would be good to meet them as the track here ends in a very steep bridge which many cars seem to bottom out on and we didn’t want to be responsible for bringing them somewhere their car got damaged. We walked along and had a look at the village, which isn’t really a village other than having a green with a swing and a roundabout on it which the kids were playing on for longer than we realised as suddenly Kirsty and James were ringing to say they’d arrived so we dashed back to meet them.

We gave them the full guided tour and some people had a go on the rope swing. The kids went off to play and we sat in the yurt for a while drinking tea and chatting. I chopped some onions and then we all went up to the top to cook outside in the sunshine. We had some sausages in rolls that Kirsty and James very kindly bought along with them, some people had a go in the extreme compost loo and finally we waved them off. It was so nice to have friends actually come and visit us at a host and see how it all works, even better to have people come to this one as it is so special and different to how we all live and so very close to the sort of lifestyle we think we might end up living one day.

We walked back to the car to wave them off before heading back to the yurt for washes in the baby bath, stories for the kids and some online time for me as Wilf had kindly charged my laptop up for me again. And I have now drained it again! 😆

Thursday is Veg Box Day here each week – they run a veg box scheme for 40 local people selling small or large bags of fruit and veg and eggs. Everything has to be picked and packed the same day and delivered to four different drop off points – they leave here with the car loaded up at 330pm so it’s quite a tight schedule. It’s all very military precision and I am in awe of their set up here on that, although they are ten years in to their time here and have various uni degrees in such things as permaculture. They certainly know their stuff though, although they shared some hilarious stories about the early days which heartened me that they have not always been quite so switched on :).

So work involved picking various things – salad leaves, basil, garlic, chard. Davies and Scarlett came and helped during the morning and were set to work on courgettes and marrows. I was really proud of them actually; they did a great job of finding and harvesting stuff and talked to all the adults around them (Beth, Wilf, Jo, Frankie the other WWOOFer and Jan who comes to do veg box stuff) asking all sorts of interesting questions and making observations about things like different coloured flowers on borage plants and which the bees prefered and speculation as to whether the flowers changed colours at different points in their pollination process.

We had tea breaks (all four of us rather cautiously trying the mint tea on offer and being surprised at how much we liked it!) and lunch breaks all together chatting and laughing. There is a lot of love in this place, it’s very inspiring and lovely to be part of – we already feel like part of the family and today I was greeted with a big hug and kiss from Beth who is particularly tactile. Of all the places we have been this is definitely the one I feel most at home in and could totally see myself fitting in to. The others are less sure and it is not something we are even considering but it is a mark of how welcoming I find it here.

We’d started work early so finished early and got our veg bag and went for a proper explore of the land as Ady and I had not walked around much before although Davies and Scarlett have thoroughly explored the land. They have about 15 acres here including a section of river, some woodland, some open pasture, the areas of land with dwellings on, the land given oven to the chickens and the growing areas with polytunnels and raised beds. It is a very cool place for the kids with loads of camps, dens, treehouses, rope swings, places to scramble across the river and so on.

We tracked the kids down and walked back with them to the yurt then I got dinner going (pasta, made with a tomatoe, garlic, onion and basil sauce with grated cheese, mostly from the gardens). The kids went back out to play after dinner – they are getting on well with the boys here although I think Davies finds Pip the 9yo a bit needy and rather prefers Oaken the 10yo who has been at school this week. I rang my parents and the letting agent to find out whether the tenants want to stay for another 6 months and deal with some issues our neighbours have been having with the chickens and a pet ferret the tenants have got.

Today Ady and I have been on our own – Beth and Jo were out at a Home Ed / Steiner kinder group with the little boys, the older boys were at their grandparents, Matt was building and Wilf was doing admin, Frankie the other WWOOFer was busy on another task. So we spent the whole day in the gardens, completely clearing two raised beds of weeds and transplanting some stuff that had been mistakenly planted in one of them, watering in the polytunnel, digging the paths either side of the raised beds onto the beds (they do this every couple of years as the earth is like a sort of compost there by virtue of having all the weeds etc. left to rot down on the paths) and then spreading a couple of barrow loads of actual compost on the top. A very enjoyable day in the sunshine with the radio on and visits from the kids every now and then and Wilf coming up to join us for lunch.

Afterwards we went to the rope swing to watch Davies and Scarlett act out a scene from a film they had been practising using some daring rope swing stunts which had me cheering and Ady hiding his eyes 😆 We then both had a go on the swing too, it’s very exciting 🙂

Back at the yurt everyone else had gone out this evening – we had been invited too and even offered babysitting 🙂 but had declined and had a very delicious dinner of stir fry using herbs, greens, onions and garlic from our veg bag, spices, peanut butter, soy sauce and noodles and rice from our store cupboard. Davies and Scarlett added some spam from our own food stash too but Ady and I enjoyed the healthiness of it without!

We all had washes in the baby bath using boiled rainwater – it feels quite sufficient although I’m not sure I’ll be able to effectively wash my hair that way, I don’t think I can get the shampoo out properly. I read several chapters of story to the kids.

We’re looking forward to a weekend off, planning on walking into Durham tomorrow and hoping to see The Barts on Sunday 🙂

Monday More hanging around at Babs where I even got lured into Playing A Game (I know!). Ady took Scarlett and Rachael for a walk in the morning and in the afternoon Babs, Scarlett, Rachael and I dropped Suzy off at the station and headed over to collect a few bits from Willow when we heard that she wouldn’t be ready to take away that day.

We had communally cooked dinner (although I am unsure whether my contribution of grilling the dish was altogether well recieved I think the home made garlic bread went down well ;)), jelly madness for the kids and a final evening with Chris and Babs. We really can’t thank them enough for their amazing hospitality – FabBabs and Chris, we heart you lots! 🙂

Tuesday morning we rang to check on Willow’s progress and were told she’d be ready by midday so Ady and Babs went to collect her while I packed everything up ready to go in the hall, fed the kids some slow cooker rice pudding which was finally ready at about lunchtime, and made some sandwiches for our journey. We packed the van up and finally headed off about 2pm feeling slightly teary-eyed at saying goodbye again – this time I really do think it will be Christmas camp when we see each other again but as we said that at our Bye Then Party and we’ve now caught up with them various times since I’m not putting dates on anything now!

We had a straight run to Durham and found the hosts farm no problem, thanks to some very comprehensive directions they had emailed us (they are not at an actual postal address as they are on land without planning permission). We were shown to our yurt, made a cup of tea and left to settle in with a WWOOFers handbook which lists pretty much anything you could think of to have questions about along with loads of things you didn’t even think about but are very useful to know. It has lovely stuff like ‘STAYING HEALTHY. Everyone is allowed to get ill and if you are ill you do not have to work and we will look after you’ and ‘if there is anything at all you need please, please tell us so we can get it for you’. The yurt is fully set up with a double and two single beds, chairs and table, woodburner with stash of fire making stuff and an axe, candles, full kitchen set up including oven, full stock of food – tins, dry stuff, fruit fruit and veg, home made bread, tea, coffee, milk, butter, cheese. Rainwater to heat for washing, fresh water for drinking, a baby bath and towels and flannels for having washes, waterproofs to borrow etc. We sort out own breakfast and dinner out from these supplies, have lunch with the hosts and once a week we will have a main meal with them too.

The hosts are two couples; Beth & Wilf, and Matt & Jo. They have two boys each – Beth & Wilf have Oaken who is 10 and at school (but only since this year) and 4 year old Llew, Matt & Jo have 9 year old Pippin and 4 year old Hollin – all the other 3 boys are HE. They have 15 acres of land including woodland, a river, polytunnels and organic growing space. They currently share a house (tiny space) made of strawbales but Matt & Jo will be moving into their own house at some future point which is nearly finished and is stunning – straw bale and tyre build, 3 storey, 3 bedroom with grass roof, fully renewable energy etc. When that happens the currently communal house will have a double extension too and become full sized for Wilf & Beth.

They all do various things off site including green building, woodworking, blacksmithing, basket weaving, permaculture teaching and they co-operatively run a veg box & eggs scheme locally too. We have felt instantly at home and Davies and Scarlett have fallen straight in with the older boys here (although they both said the younger two are a bit annoying) and so far everyone and everything seems lovely :).

We shared dinner with them last night before settling in to the yurt for bedtime stories by candlelight and a first ever night sleeping in a yurt.

Today we breakfasted in the yurt and then ventured out. The kids were invited in to play Lego with Pippin which they did for most of the morning before venturing out to play near the river when the rain finally stopped. Today was communal dining day so we did food prep in the morning as it was so rainy which involved chopping veg, making a flapjack, drinking tea and chatting. There is another WWOOFer here this week, Frankie, who has been here 3 months and is about to leave. She has had a great time here and exchanged gifts with the hosts tonight at dinner which is always a good thing to see – WWOOFers and hosts who make it work for that length of time are always reassuring.

The rain stopped mid morning so we went to do some chicken house clearing out and some fence mending before lunch. In the afternoon Ady carried on with that and I did some watering in the polytunnel and some garlic harvesting and that was the day over with – six hours goes very quickly, particularly when over an hour of it is spent eating lunch!

After work we had a couple of hours to ourselves and the kids came back into the yurt with us – Scarlett to play on the digeridoo and bongo which are in the yurt and Davies to do some drawing – I think they are almost socialised out after such a full on weekend 😉

Dinner was done in two sittings – kids first and then they went off to play leaving the adults. We had elderflower wine with dinner which was lovely. Lots of chat over dinner about Home Ed and parenting as Jo is having a crisis of confidence about her approach which has previously been a bit structured but has been reading some Sandra Dodd and even met her on her recent UK trip so is thinking about different approaches and was very interested in how we do things – I’m guessing there will be lots more of that sort of conversation – hopefully Davies and Scarlett live up to their usual selves to demonstrate we are indeed raising fab individuals ;).

So, an excellent and heartening start to this host, long may it continue!

Friday morning we packed up Willow and prepared to head off. Bob came over to say goodbye and offer us the visitors book to write in – I struggled to think of an appropriate entry and settled on “a unique and insightful WWOOFing experience” which I felt could be taken pretty much any way and hold true ;). I did go on to mention how very helpful and informative Bob had been and that we were very grateful for his hosting too.

Bob had arranged for us to visit a neighbouring farm – Riddings Park Farm and we were unsure as to whether we were actually working there or just visiting. It quickly became clear that we were to be given a guided tour and a cup of tea and a chat and then they would be grateful for us heading off and leaving them to their very busy day. Do look at the website though – they are *very* close to my end dream and do it very well with a variety of rare breed animals, a very small area of land, holiday cottages, yurt camping, B&B, a teashop, educational visits etc. That was a great couple of hours and they were very informative about the whole Bob and Mary situation too which helped us to feel better that it wasn’t just us who thought the whole place was bloody mental!! 😆

We had a few hours til Babs would be home so we decided to head in that general direction, call in to a supermarket when we found one and see where the road took us. We ended up driving through Matlock, where Ady and I had been with my parents abouy 15 years ago and often talked of since so as a parking space at the end of a run appeared with perfect timing for us to just pull into we did that and decided to get some food and have a look round. The parking space was limited to an hour so we headed straight to the bath aquarium where we blew a quick tenner on admission and dashed around. The thermal baths were just as we remembered them with carp swimming about so we fed them and read the signs explaining about the water source, the origins of public baths and local history then walked round the aquarium, the hologram gallery and the petrifying well. To be honest an hour is probably as long as you could spend there anyway so that was great – we all really enjoyed the holograms.

Then we had chips and ice cream for lunch (we had a definite food deficit to make up so felt quite justified in eating crap!) before getting back into Willow to carry on to Babs’. The brakes on the van have been playing up a bit on downhill roads causing Ady some sleepless nights. He was very stressed about it on this journey as it was particularly hill-y so we decided to take advantage of the fact we were in one place and not actually sleeping in the van for a night or two and take it to a garage while we were at Babs’.

We got to Tescos at Chesterfield and stocked up on emergency food supplies for the van (having been so very grateful for things like tinned ham this week we wanted to make sure we had adequate stocks for the future), some snack food and alcohol contributions for Babs, some more pants for me as it had become clear a one week supply was not enough and in the scheme of things having excess pants is definitely better than not enough pants! Davies and Scarlett both came to us with pleading looks on their faces and a dvd each in their hands which we agreed to but were still quite shocked when the total was over £100 – we then went to Halfords and bought a set of levellers for the front wheels of Willow too having had several occassions recently where we’ve struggled to find level ground to park on and had to use blocks of wood to do the job. Rather regretting that little spend up now with the brakes to pay for 🙁

That took us to about 6pm so we headed to Babs’ arriving not long after they’d got home. Chris was out for the evening and after some online research at takeaway / delivery pizzas we ended up nipping to Asda to buy some and had a feast of pizza which was delicious. We utterly failed to get the kids to bed before Chris came home so we eventually chased them off and followed them some hours later 😉

Saturday morning Ady headed off with Willow to the garage. This was about as poorly executed an idea as possible – he woke me up to say he was leaving NOW and so I was out in the street, in pjs with bare feet and no contact lenses trying to think of all the things we might need out of the van for the day. Retrospectively we should have taken loads more things out AND thought about the possibility of an overnight stay away from us too. I only just remembered to get the dirty washing out as Babs’ had said we could stick a wash (or three!) on, but forgot clean clothes, my pillow, fleeces and various other things including the alcohol still in the van.

Ady arrived, the mechanics looked at the brakes and said yes the back ones did need repairing and the front ones were okay but would probably need replacing at some point soon so we decided to have the whole lot done. No idea really if we are spending money we don’t really need to spend yet but I guess brakes are something you don’t really take risks with and as Willow has barely cost us anything so far in maintenance (the work Alan did for us only cost £50 in bits and the flat tyre ended up being a valve that was fixed for free) we are happy enough to splash out on her I guess.

Ady was then stranded at the garage, about 6 miles away, in the rain, with a texted list from me of all the stuff we needed out of the van, a failing mobile phone battery, no cash and no real idea of the way back home again. Chris and I were at home with no car to come and rescue him and struggled to even locate him on googlemaps and give him directions to walk. Ady did check with a taxi rank he walked past how much it would be to get a cab back but they said about £20 which he wasn’t up for paying so he continued walking in the rain, hauling bags of stuff until Kirsty and James rang me to offer to rescue him. By then he had found a pub to sit outside so he was easy enough to find and bring home again!

We had a lovely afternoon and evening with everyone including Bab’s sister Suzy, eventually drinking the house dry and resorting to mulled wine with cherry brandy and watching youtube clips of Sorry I’ve Got No Head – always a winning evening! 😆

Sunday More chatting / playing / drinking tea / watching TV / sitting on sofas – all the things that are a novelty to us this year ;). Babs had put so much thought into food for us and got a leg of lamb so we could have a roast dinner, which was just delicious 🙂 We all pitched in with peeling, chopping, cooking etc. and sat down to a communal effort dinner in the evening, followed by a much earlier night all round 🙂