Sunday – breakfast with Big Dave and Faye over at the cabin and then we headed down to the village for a workshop. It was using a mechanical theatre and started off really well but a rather woolly collaborative story telling session followed by an even woollier joint art creation left the whole thing a little flat. I was very candid on the feedback form! It did lead to interesting conversations about collaborating, working together, sharing ideas, compromising and knowing stuff about yourself afterwards though.
Back at home BD and Faye came up for dinner – roast gammon cooked by Ady followed by cheesecake made by me. A really lovely evening with lots of laughter and fun.
Monday – A very productive morning with Tom (WWOOFer) digging on the houseplot. After lunch BD and Faye came over to say goodbye and then they headed off to the boat. Davies and Scarlett went down to the village to patronise the Star Wars themed teashop while Ady, Tom and I did another hour or so digging. Feel like we made a good dent in that.
Tuesday – Ivan appeared to help so I didn’t do digging and left Ady, Tom and Ivan to it, they were super productive and got loads done. I went through my seed box which had been left out in the rain last week. The TV crew had planned to film me planting stuff and then I had done digging instead and the box had gotten left out in the rain. It’s not waterproof so lots of the seed packets had got sodden. Most are rescuable I think but the few that were not and the seeds had gotten wet needed to be sown so I spent the morning in the walled garden sowing parsnips, leeks, carrots and salad directly into some raised beds and then covered them with plastic from the polytunnel. I also sowed in some seed trays and covered those. Not really according to any planting plan or ideal but better than just throwing the spoilt seeds away. More to do on that tomorrow as all the peas had got wet so may as well be sown but I’d like to do those in the fruit cage I think and create a pea archway in there so need to plan a little bit more.
Lunch was cheese and onion pies I had made last night with some pre made pastry the crew left me last week and needed using up. Served with leftover dinner from last night (Fish cakes and mash potatoes) made into patties and shallow fried – a good WWOOFers lunch!
Cripsy Duck had hatched more ducklings. Two dead – one just found dead, one dead in it’s shell, and another drowned in the water 🙁 We’ve tipped that out so it won’t happen again, hadn’t even though of it as a risk for ducklings and had worried more about ensuring Cripsy had water. Two more were looking iffy so we brought them in for the kids to raise, not sure if they will cope with the temperature of the caravan at night without a head lamp or a warm mummy duck but they have each other so they might. Better odds than outside anyway. That leaves her with five fluffed up ducklings and another few potential eggs to hatch. The first broody goose has started hatching goslings too, Ady reckoned he could see at least 3 tonight. Yay! Now the battle to keep them alive against the weather, rats, crows and hoodies commences.
I walked down to the village for a cup of tea with Fliss and then a beer at the shop. It rained and rained but I borrowed Ady’s posh SNH waterproofs which were excellent.