Here is our itinerary! (Click on picture for bigger view)
Saturday, 31 July 2010
The Emerald Isle
On Monday we are off on the next leg of our travels, taking the ferry to Ireland and starting WWOOFing again on Tuesday.
Here is our itinerary! (Click on picture for bigger view)
Here is our itinerary! (Click on picture for bigger view)
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
W.O.M.A.D.
We spent a great evening catching up with the AHRC crew last Thursday in Bristol.
At the weekend we travelled to Charlton Park to partake in our first WOMAD festival of which we are now big fans! We couldn’t help comparing it to Glastonbury as it does have a similar energised atmosphere only without the horrendous queues to get into/out of the car park; without the sweaty 2 hour trek to find a plot to stick your tent on; with a lot less rubbish flying about (mainly due to the gangs of children going around collecting the plastic beer tent cups to cash in for the 10p deposit on each one!); with cleaner loos; and with every age group well represented. We really enjoyed the positive, upbeat music and dancing and will definitely be going again.
We camped with Kelly, her cousin Josh, her mum Carole and friends Liz and Steve. We also met up with Sam and Sarah and my mum who made a guest appearance on Sunday! Just some of the fantastic acts we saw included Dam, some Palestinian rappers, Staff Benda Bilili, LaBrassBanda, a fantastically energenetic Bavarian funk band, dancing Saturday night away (on crutches) to Novalima, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, watching the crazy dancers from the Sounds of West Africa (disappointingly Kelly and Matt did not fully recreate their dance moves!), the musical fusion of Afro Celt sound system and yet more dancing to the hip hop beats of DJ Kentaro.
We are now back in Shropshire, having fully recovered from festival- fatigue, ready to check out some sheep tomorrow. Yesterday we visited Matt’s granny, had a lovely lunch and had a laugh with Matt’s great uncle Ray.
At the weekend we travelled to Charlton Park to partake in our first WOMAD festival of which we are now big fans! We couldn’t help comparing it to Glastonbury as it does have a similar energised atmosphere only without the horrendous queues to get into/out of the car park; without the sweaty 2 hour trek to find a plot to stick your tent on; with a lot less rubbish flying about (mainly due to the gangs of children going around collecting the plastic beer tent cups to cash in for the 10p deposit on each one!); with cleaner loos; and with every age group well represented. We really enjoyed the positive, upbeat music and dancing and will definitely be going again.
We camped with Kelly, her cousin Josh, her mum Carole and friends Liz and Steve. We also met up with Sam and Sarah and my mum who made a guest appearance on Sunday! Just some of the fantastic acts we saw included Dam, some Palestinian rappers, Staff Benda Bilili, LaBrassBanda, a fantastically energenetic Bavarian funk band, dancing Saturday night away (on crutches) to Novalima, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, watching the crazy dancers from the Sounds of West Africa (disappointingly Kelly and Matt did not fully recreate their dance moves!), the musical fusion of Afro Celt sound system and yet more dancing to the hip hop beats of DJ Kentaro.
We are now back in Shropshire, having fully recovered from festival- fatigue, ready to check out some sheep tomorrow. Yesterday we visited Matt’s granny, had a lovely lunch and had a laugh with Matt’s great uncle Ray.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
A busy week
Another week and a bit has flown by, and thankfully Laura’s ankle is mending nicely. Three weeks of being her personal slave seems to be coming to an end!
Again, there has been no WWOOFing – but we have been surprisingly busy and rather cultured:
In Bampton we have been to the very entertaining Gifford’s Circus. Caught up with Ollie, and had lunch with Sarah in Oxford.
We had a weekend in London staying with Dan and Katy where we had birthday drinks with Mandy.
Then went to the Theatre (with Emily too) to see the terrifying ‘Ghost Stories’ and saw a three legged fox on the way home.
And cruised down the Thames to celebrate Laura's uncle Rodney’s 70th.
We have met up with Laura S (and Pinkus the kitten) who told us the exciting news that some of her work has been chosen to be displayed in the V&A in the Autumn.
And we have been to the beach at Milford on Sea where we where lucky enough to see a 22 degree halo.
Then to Winchester to see the fantastic Howe Gelb and Giant Sand.
Now we are back in Bristol staying with Kelly. Last night we watched ‘Inception’ but I won’t pretend that I understood what was going on! More weeding at the allotment is planned for today (still growing strong) and preparations for WOMAD this weekend.
Phew!
Again, there has been no WWOOFing – but we have been surprisingly busy and rather cultured:
In Bampton we have been to the very entertaining Gifford’s Circus. Caught up with Ollie, and had lunch with Sarah in Oxford.
We had a weekend in London staying with Dan and Katy where we had birthday drinks with Mandy.
Then went to the Theatre (with Emily too) to see the terrifying ‘Ghost Stories’ and saw a three legged fox on the way home.
And cruised down the Thames to celebrate Laura's uncle Rodney’s 70th.
We have met up with Laura S (and Pinkus the kitten) who told us the exciting news that some of her work has been chosen to be displayed in the V&A in the Autumn.
And we have been to the beach at Milford on Sea where we where lucky enough to see a 22 degree halo.
Then to Winchester to see the fantastic Howe Gelb and Giant Sand.
Now we are back in Bristol staying with Kelly. Last night we watched ‘Inception’ but I won’t pretend that I understood what was going on! More weeding at the allotment is planned for today (still growing strong) and preparations for WOMAD this weekend.
Phew!
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
What do you call a woman with one leg...?
...Eileen.
So it’s been nearly two weeks since the accident and I’m still not walking. But I am getting rather good at manoeuvring with crutches which is pretty lucky as I had my toughest trial yet on Sunday: getting into/out of a punt.
Looking back through the diary it seems I have spent most of the past week sitting in the sun, reading, knitting cakes, watching tennis/football, eating strawberries, painting and trying not to eat too much yummy food whilst Matt has been busy pruning, strimming, picking, freezing, lifting, plumbing, driving and also being my personal slave.
In Shropshire we went to see Kath, Greg and baby Tilly plus the veg garden that we’d helped plant back in April. My how both Tilly and the garden had grown! We also went to visit Christine, our first WWOOFing host from Smiling Tree Farm who gave us a tasty lunch and advice on keeping sheep (something we’re currently looking into!).
On Saturday we left Matt’s Mum and Dad’s hospitality and headed to Bampton. En route we drove (I say we, I mean Matt) to Bristol to visit the allotment and see if it had survived the late frost in early May and the subsequent lack of rain…we were half expecting to have been chucked off our plot for lack of cultivation so imagine our surprise when we arrived to a bountiful plot overflowing with squash and brassica leaves (and a few weeds)! After cutting down some grass, doing a spot of weeding and picking pots of blackcurrants, raspberries and worcesterberries, along with some cherries from allotment neighbour Phil, we drove to Bampton.
There we met King Henry VIII and a unicorn (a.k.a. dad and mum off to a “Legends” party). We spent Sunday on the river, had a picnic with the Freemans and Geakes, just like old times, and then watched the footie in the Mo’ Clo’.
So it’s been nearly two weeks since the accident and I’m still not walking. But I am getting rather good at manoeuvring with crutches which is pretty lucky as I had my toughest trial yet on Sunday: getting into/out of a punt.
Looking back through the diary it seems I have spent most of the past week sitting in the sun, reading, knitting cakes, watching tennis/football, eating strawberries, painting and trying not to eat too much yummy food whilst Matt has been busy pruning, strimming, picking, freezing, lifting, plumbing, driving and also being my personal slave.
In Shropshire we went to see Kath, Greg and baby Tilly plus the veg garden that we’d helped plant back in April. My how both Tilly and the garden had grown! We also went to visit Christine, our first WWOOFing host from Smiling Tree Farm who gave us a tasty lunch and advice on keeping sheep (something we’re currently looking into!).
On Saturday we left Matt’s Mum and Dad’s hospitality and headed to Bampton. En route we drove (I say we, I mean Matt) to Bristol to visit the allotment and see if it had survived the late frost in early May and the subsequent lack of rain…we were half expecting to have been chucked off our plot for lack of cultivation so imagine our surprise when we arrived to a bountiful plot overflowing with squash and brassica leaves (and a few weeds)! After cutting down some grass, doing a spot of weeding and picking pots of blackcurrants, raspberries and worcesterberries, along with some cherries from allotment neighbour Phil, we drove to Bampton.
There we met King Henry VIII and a unicorn (a.k.a. dad and mum off to a “Legends” party). We spent Sunday on the river, had a picnic with the Freemans and Geakes, just like old times, and then watched the footie in the Mo’ Clo’.
Friday, 2 July 2010
Edinburgh or Bust
Our next WWOOFing adventure didn’t quite go to plan, but thankfully not in a ‘that Devon Farm’ kind of way. I had a horrible cold for the entire time but Laura has managed to trump my pathetic sniffles!
Phantassie was quite different to all the places we have previously WWOOFed at, it is a largeish Organic market garden that supplies a veg box scheme and local restaurants with organic veg. It has a couple of big fields with very happy organic free range chickens in, a field of potatoes, beans and other things and also has a huge and very pretty Victorian walled garden where a lot of the salad is grown.
It had a slightly ‘communely’ feel to it as there were other WWOOFers, and permanent members of staff (some who also lived there) and all were very friendly and all were good fun making the working time go very quickly! Everyday a different member of staff would cook for everyone else at lunchtime and we WWOOFers cooked for ourselves in the evenings, picking whatever took our fancy fresh from the gardens – delicious!
There were a number of interesting characters working, but the most memorable was a slightly crazy old Aussie guy who held a lot of opinions and liked to share them whether you wanted to hear them or not. When he saw a badge on my hat he went off on this very memorable rant: (for full comic effect please read this out loud in your finest and loudest Australian accent) “I BETTER READ WHAT IT SAYS ON YOUR HAT MATE. ‘I HAVE MORE TREES TO CLIMB’. YOU LIKE CLIMBING TREES? I BET YOU HAVEN’T DONE WHAT I’VE DONE UP TREES. ONCE I CLIMBED RIGHT TO THE TOP OF ONE, GOT A POSSUM BY THE TAIL AND BROUGHT IT ALL THE WAY DOWN AGAIN CLIMBING ONE HANDED. HAVE YOU DONE THAT? I BET YOU HAVEN’T DONE THAT. AND ANOTHER TIME, I CLIMBED RIGHT UP A TREE, SAWED A BRANCH OFF WHICH HAD A BEES NEST HANGING OFF IT, CARRIED IT DOWN ONE HANDED AND WALKED A MILE CARRYING IT. RIGHT THROUGH A SCHOOL PLAYGROUND TOO. AND I DIDN’T GET STUNG ONCE. HAVE YOU DONE THAT? AND THIS OTHER TIME, I CLIMBED A TREE AS TALL AS THAT ONE RIGHT THERE CARRYING A MATTRESS, PUT IT ON THE TOP AND LAY ON IT. SUNBATHING ON TOP OF THE TREE. LIKE A TREEHOUSE. BUT WITH NO ROOF. HAVE YOU DONE THAT?” Amazingly I had done none of these things…
The first day working was good, the work was very varied, and we did several different tasks and none of them for too long. And the weather was hot – almost too hot by the end of the day. The second day wasn’t quite as good, we worked entirely in the walled garden, mainly planting lettuces and by the end of it I was trying to weigh up in my mind which was more boring – fingerprints or lettuces! And it was very hot and sweaty again, and my cold was wearing me out, poor me!
But after work was over, and we’d had a refreshing shower and some food we decided it would be a good idea to play tennis on the farm’s grass courts with Thomas (a French WWOOFer) and Tony (a WWOOFer turned permanent member of staff). It was a lovely cool evening after the balmy day, and the tennis was great – all of us being pretty evenly matched and enjoying it. Then Laura chased after a shot that had gone quite wide (and bounced a few times!), caught her ankle in a drainage ditch running down the side of the court and went over. And her ankle swelled up like a huge bulbous balloon! Oh dear… So Thomas and I carried Laura back to our caravan, and fetched Rose who is a Herbalist who looked at Laura’s ankle and then made a salve to help reduce the swelling.
We decided to leave it until Thursday morning and see what the ankle was like, but come the next day it wasn’t much better. Laura was unable to put any weight on it and I was having to carry her everywhere by piggy-back! A trip to the local doctor, then Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for an X-Ray resulted in the diagnosis of damaged ligaments and the need for several weeks of complete rest. No work - oh dear!
Today we had to leave and I drove us 300+ miles south to Shropshire so Laura can convalesce and knit cakes whilst watching tennis (no playing) and I can try to be helpful for a week or so… My Mum has even managed to source some crutches from the local Red Cross so that I no longer have to piggy-back Laura about!
So, just as we were getting into the swing of things at Phantassie, our adventures in Scotland have come to a somewhat premature end. We didn’t even get to visit Edinburgh (apart from the hospital!). But at least this didn’t happen at the start of our trip, which would have prevented us from seeing some truly stunning scenery and having lots of great experiences, and at least the ankle wasn’t broken. We hadn’t planned to travel to Ireland until the start of August anyway, so hopefully Laura will be fit and ready for our WWOOFing to continue by then!
Phantassie was quite different to all the places we have previously WWOOFed at, it is a largeish Organic market garden that supplies a veg box scheme and local restaurants with organic veg. It has a couple of big fields with very happy organic free range chickens in, a field of potatoes, beans and other things and also has a huge and very pretty Victorian walled garden where a lot of the salad is grown.
It had a slightly ‘communely’ feel to it as there were other WWOOFers, and permanent members of staff (some who also lived there) and all were very friendly and all were good fun making the working time go very quickly! Everyday a different member of staff would cook for everyone else at lunchtime and we WWOOFers cooked for ourselves in the evenings, picking whatever took our fancy fresh from the gardens – delicious!
There were a number of interesting characters working, but the most memorable was a slightly crazy old Aussie guy who held a lot of opinions and liked to share them whether you wanted to hear them or not. When he saw a badge on my hat he went off on this very memorable rant: (for full comic effect please read this out loud in your finest and loudest Australian accent) “I BETTER READ WHAT IT SAYS ON YOUR HAT MATE. ‘I HAVE MORE TREES TO CLIMB’. YOU LIKE CLIMBING TREES? I BET YOU HAVEN’T DONE WHAT I’VE DONE UP TREES. ONCE I CLIMBED RIGHT TO THE TOP OF ONE, GOT A POSSUM BY THE TAIL AND BROUGHT IT ALL THE WAY DOWN AGAIN CLIMBING ONE HANDED. HAVE YOU DONE THAT? I BET YOU HAVEN’T DONE THAT. AND ANOTHER TIME, I CLIMBED RIGHT UP A TREE, SAWED A BRANCH OFF WHICH HAD A BEES NEST HANGING OFF IT, CARRIED IT DOWN ONE HANDED AND WALKED A MILE CARRYING IT. RIGHT THROUGH A SCHOOL PLAYGROUND TOO. AND I DIDN’T GET STUNG ONCE. HAVE YOU DONE THAT? AND THIS OTHER TIME, I CLIMBED A TREE AS TALL AS THAT ONE RIGHT THERE CARRYING A MATTRESS, PUT IT ON THE TOP AND LAY ON IT. SUNBATHING ON TOP OF THE TREE. LIKE A TREEHOUSE. BUT WITH NO ROOF. HAVE YOU DONE THAT?” Amazingly I had done none of these things…
The first day working was good, the work was very varied, and we did several different tasks and none of them for too long. And the weather was hot – almost too hot by the end of the day. The second day wasn’t quite as good, we worked entirely in the walled garden, mainly planting lettuces and by the end of it I was trying to weigh up in my mind which was more boring – fingerprints or lettuces! And it was very hot and sweaty again, and my cold was wearing me out, poor me!
But after work was over, and we’d had a refreshing shower and some food we decided it would be a good idea to play tennis on the farm’s grass courts with Thomas (a French WWOOFer) and Tony (a WWOOFer turned permanent member of staff). It was a lovely cool evening after the balmy day, and the tennis was great – all of us being pretty evenly matched and enjoying it. Then Laura chased after a shot that had gone quite wide (and bounced a few times!), caught her ankle in a drainage ditch running down the side of the court and went over. And her ankle swelled up like a huge bulbous balloon! Oh dear… So Thomas and I carried Laura back to our caravan, and fetched Rose who is a Herbalist who looked at Laura’s ankle and then made a salve to help reduce the swelling.
We decided to leave it until Thursday morning and see what the ankle was like, but come the next day it wasn’t much better. Laura was unable to put any weight on it and I was having to carry her everywhere by piggy-back! A trip to the local doctor, then Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for an X-Ray resulted in the diagnosis of damaged ligaments and the need for several weeks of complete rest. No work - oh dear!
Today we had to leave and I drove us 300+ miles south to Shropshire so Laura can convalesce and knit cakes whilst watching tennis (no playing) and I can try to be helpful for a week or so… My Mum has even managed to source some crutches from the local Red Cross so that I no longer have to piggy-back Laura about!
So, just as we were getting into the swing of things at Phantassie, our adventures in Scotland have come to a somewhat premature end. We didn’t even get to visit Edinburgh (apart from the hospital!). But at least this didn’t happen at the start of our trip, which would have prevented us from seeing some truly stunning scenery and having lots of great experiences, and at least the ankle wasn’t broken. We hadn’t planned to travel to Ireland until the start of August anyway, so hopefully Laura will be fit and ready for our WWOOFing to continue by then!
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