Take The WWOOF With The Smooth

Now that I have had sufficient time away from the soil-face for my old acquaintances Perspective and Clarity to pop by for a rare chat, I thought it might be useful to do some kind of general write-up of the WWOOF thing as I see it so far.

WWOOFing is strange, there's no two ways about it.  It without fail involves situations and experiences (both good and bad) that you wouldn't normally encounter, but what exactly are the pros and cons of WWOOFing?

The Pros

From my, albeit fairly limited, sampling I would say the most obvious benefits are those I wrote about wanting to achieve back in August -  learning practical skills, improved health and fitness, and the reduction of the role of money in life. Tick, tick and tick!  However, the things I have actually appreciated most about WWOOFing have been subtly different to those I anticipated.  I think my top three pro's are:

Freedom of Movement: WWOOFing is a loose arrangement.  Although ideally you should keep to the dates and time-frames you have committed to with the various hosts - out of common decency apart from anything else - these are usually only brief periods. In general, with a bit of warning and planning, you can go wherever you want, whenever you like, with no real ties or responsibilities. For a fickle and flighty person like myself, this is very liberating!

Holistic living: With this kind of lifestyle there is no unnatural separation or segregation between work (a place where you trot off to for an arbitrary number of hours and do a specific type of task completely unrelated to the rest of your existence, ad nauseum) and home/life (everything else). Plus the work you are doing comprises real tasks that need to be carried out for concrete and tangible reasons, e.g. pulling the ingredients for that night's meal straight from the ground, feeding the chickens so that they don't die/stop laying eggs for you to eat, etc. It feels good spending your time like this, you feel connected to reality and, well, kind of wholesome if that word isn't too sickening.

Meeting people: Before I started WWOOFing I fully expected to either be working on my own a lot, or to hate any other WWOOFers I might end up thrown together with.  WRONG! Despite a natural tendency toward misanthropy and my advancing years (ehem) I can't think of one other volunteer I didn't either immediately like, or grow to feel massive affection for.  I was expecting to encounter mostly young, silly, gap-year partying types that I would be in a completely different life-phase to, but in fact they were nearly ALL interesting, genuine people, with whom I got on well and had stuff in common, despite big differences in background, age, life experience etc.  I can't explain how pleasantly surprised I am by this! I would even go so far as to say it has been the best thing about the whole experience. 

The Cons

And so to the cons - as there are sadly also some significant cons to WWOOFing, in my opinion.  I have to say as a disclaimer here that a lot of people, especially younger or less fussy people, probably wouldn't feel the burn of the negatives in the same way that I have, but I think it would be remiss of me if I didn't highlight the following:

Lack of Boundaries/Control: Unless you are happy to be very firm and don't mind incurring displeasure, when you are WWOOFing you have little-to-no say about basically anything.  For example: what hours you work, what tasks you do, when you take breaks, what you eat, when you eat, how much you help out with cooking/housework, how much time you spend with other people, or basically anything about your 'on-duty' days (days off are of course another matter).  Plus, any of these things can be switched around on you at a moment's notice  This is perfectly understandable as WWOOFing is, by it's nature, not a defined thing with set boundaries but it really pisses me off.  I'm used to the normal working world with it's regulated structures and lines that are not ever crossed, and it's been a difficult adjustment to say the least.  I have been pretty lucky, if other people's accounts are anything to go by, and have had fairly reasonable hosts, but it's still annoying having no control over your daily life!

Food Hygiene: I wouldn't say I am a clean freak, far from it, but I have noticed a common theme in my experiences so far has been feeling uncomfortable about  poor food hygiene.  Without being unnecessarily rude, I would say I have learned that everyone has different ideas of what constitutes 'clean' when it comes to washing-up, kitchen surfaces, pets' access to food preparation areas, how often tea towels and hand towels are washed and where they are kept, how long food remains edible and how clean it should be before it is consumed.  I have not been particularly ill during the last few months so ignoring practices which I would normally have recoiled from doesn't seem to have done me any harm, but I can't say it makes me feel comfortable or happy either.

Other Food Issues: There is something about effectively 'paying' people in food that creates conditions for some strange old behaviour in this area.  This was not a problem at the community I stayed with, but it was definitely a bit of a thing at the other places and I wonder how common it is with WWOOFing.  Giving people food in exchange for labour turns it into some kind of currency, which surely has a lot of potential to be problematic, especially as many hosts take WWOOFers due to lack of funds with which to pay waged employees and they naturally wish to be frugal about their outgoings (aka food purchases).  I definitely picked up on some tensions about how much and/or what I ate anyway - being closely watched by hosts, being told I couldn't eat certain things, different people around the table being provided with different portion sizes, being offered seconds a lot more freely once the host had decided they liked me etc.  At first I wondered if I was being paranoid, but having discussed it with other volunteers I don't think this was the case.  One girl was actually accused of being 'greedy' after having an extra helping of food at lunch one day. In her words: 'That kind of thing is not appropriate! Even as a joke. Is it going to take a fat person crying to make them realise that?'

I guess the important question is: do the positives outweigh the negatives? I think at a good host's, one where you are genuinely learning and being provided with interesting tasks, they do, especially if you hit it off in terms of personalities and human relations. But one thing that I have definitely learned from my first experiments with WWOOFing is that the best way to appreciate the positives and minimize the negatives is to keep the initial stay to around 10 days.

A lot of hosts specify a minimum stay of 2, 3 or 4 weeks, but in my opinion 10 days is enough to properly sample what life in a place is like, explore the area a little bit, get to know the hosts and try your hand at the type of tasks carried out.  Any longer than that, if it's not completely the right place for you, starts to feel like an endurance test.  On the other hand, if it is the right place for you, then 2, 3 or 4 weeks isn't remotely enough and you would need to arrange longer to really have a chance to settle in, get some stability and benefit from the learning opportunities. 

So, on the next leg of my farming mission, I intend to arrange shorter stays with a larger variety of hosts, at least until I find somewhere I would like to stay for a significant amount of time.  However, I have also decided that, quite frankly, it's too freakin cold to be working outside at the mercy of some random strangers who may or may not be reasonable for the next few months and I will instead be found hiding in a cosy nest (aka caravan) at my sister's.  I will also be writing a PhD proposal, if that sounds a bit more constructive! Keep your fingers crossed for the success of my funding application...

See you back here in March :-)

Host 3: Smallholding in Devon - Reflections (Aka, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly)

 Host 3.  Ahhh, host 3, where do I begin?  Let's start with the Good.

The Good

This Devonshire smallholding was an amazing creation of Mr Host's,  a guy who took over a blank slate of a field 15 years ago and has gradually transformed it into an idyllic place, comprising an orchard, forest garden, market garden, and flower garden/workshop/lawn area, with packing/storage sheds, polytunnels, chicken, geese and duck enclosures, compost loos and compost heaps. He had placed an emphasis on planting heritage and rare strains of plant species, and creating the types of habitats that attract the birds and bees etc.  Clearly a labour of love, it was pretty darn cool, and basically the dream smallholding of any self-sufficiency aspirant. Mr Host was hugely enthusiastic and a mine of information, and I learned a lot from him.   I was also provided with a nice variety of jobs (apple-picking, log-sawing and goat-milking were my favourites) and the work was paced nicely with tea+snack breaks. Although the days were longer, they felt a bit easier than previously, I think this may have been because I've finally got my stamina and muscles trained up a bit, yay! 

Mr and Mrs Host were both very patient and welcoming; this was the first place where I felt like the spirit of WWOOF was really entered into, with them taking a personal interest in their WWOOFers, providing a stimulating experience for them and making sure they lived as part of the family. They were happy to give lifts to the nearest town with a bus stop on days off, recommend places to visit and made an effort to be generous and considerate. Mrs Host was a good cook and the food was tasty, vegetarian and wholesome. They also had a huge collection of books, which they were happy to lend and recommend, a definite plus for a book nerd like me!

The location was lovely with some nice seaside towns and beautiful countryside within reachable distance. I even managed to get to Totnes (a car, bus and train ride away but just about do-able!) one weekend, a town I have heard so much good stuff about - I had a bit of a mission on to see it for myself.

However, as with many things in life, the goodness of this place was accompanied by some down-sides...

The Bad

Living as one of a complete stranger's family when you are in your thirties is challenging! At various moments I found myself beginning to feel a bit stifled and restricted. I had to suppress some inner 'Kevin the Teenager' urges which I reckon are the natural result of having to surrender your independence to someone else, live right on top of them 24/7, be ever polite and obey all of their household rules even if you don't agree with them (I don't know about anyone else, but I also tend to get a bit Kevin the Teenager when I stay with my own family for anything longer than a few days!).

There was hardly any proper down time at this host's.  In fact, each successive host has made a mockery of my silly little qualms regarding people-time at the previous place! At this one, I was pretty much 'on duty' until about 9pm every night when I would excuse myself to go to my room and relax for about an hour before passing out into a physical-work-and-fresh-air coma. It felt rude and lazy if I escaped at any other point in the day, and there was a definite emphasis on helping with/cooking dinner, washing up, being available to help out with whatever was required during breaks and in the evening, chatting and spending time with the hosts etc. Which is totally reasonable, but I couldn't help resenting the lack of time to myself. 

I also struggled with the beloved other 'members of the family', i.e. the two cats, dog and puppy. I have never had any pets and was brought up by a mother whose advice re: animals was along the lines of 'Don't touch them, they're DIRTY' and 'Don't go near that doggy it will BITE YOU!' I have kind of got used to being around animals at friend's houses, but here one of the cats' main mission in life was to  try and sleep on my pillow, which I found absolutely, shudderingly horrendous. Despite me hightailing it out to the caravan, in a matter of days it seemed like everything I owned was covered in pet hair, including my tongue. Even worse, the puppy of the house was going through a biting stage and particularly liked to bite holes in my favourite socks.  Grrrr!

Finally, I had some stuff with Mr Host which it's difficult to explain without sounding like a total bitch. Mr Host was one of those incredibly talkative and enthusiastic people who you immediately warm to.  However, he was also one of those people who hardly ever lets you speak, which after a while gets very frustrating. I totally respect the fact that he had gigantic stores of knowledge and it was a privilege to learn from him, but after a few days the frequent 'discussions' we had began to feel like lectures. Ones I had heard already quite a few times.  Ones which I couldn't really participate in, or contradict in anyway, because Mr Host was so very sure he was right about everything! Despite being in agreement with many of his views, after two weeks of hearing them A LOT, I began to feel like actually I might spend the rest of my life shopping at Tescos,  never recycling again, working in IT, reading the Daily Mail, supporting fracking and big business and becoming a member of the Conservative Party.  He also spent a fair bit of time moaning about other WWOOFers to me, even before he knew what kind of WWOOFer I would turn out to be, which was kind of unpleasant.

The Ugly

Me.  Me and my teenage feelings of resentment and irritation towards these lovely people, that was the Ugly in the situation!!

I can't emphasise enough that Mr and Mrs Host (or perhaps in this case I should say Mama and Papa Host) had total hearts of gold and were super kind and friendly to me and the other WWOOFer staying with them. Yet somehow I still had to fight quite hard not to have a total breakdown and scream 'I can't listen to even one more word about climate change! I want to kick your puppy in the face! I am a grown woman with my own opinions and ways of doing things!...and, oh yeah... can I have a lift into town please?' in true hypocritical teenage fashion. 

Although I managed to restrain myself, I still felt guilty for having such horrible thoughts about people who only meant well towards me. Ugh! The only other people I have felt such a mixture of affection and frustration for have been members of my own family - which probably just indicates how close I became to Mama and Papa Host even in the short time I stayed at Host 3. 

The verdict? Holy crap, I have no idea!  I'm still processing.

At the moment I am having a little time out from WWOOFing, doing the rounds of family, with a nice trip to Brittany thrown in. I'm definitely in need of a break, so I'm taking one, because I CAN. Woohoo!

Host 3: Smallholding in Devon - No Pictures, Nothing To See Here, Move Along

During my stay at his smallholding, Mr Host 3 mentioned, amongst many, many other things, that he has been very offended in the past by a WWOOFer from London blogging pictures of the inside of his house without consulting him. (Kids these days! The iPod generation! Etc.)  This raised a thorny and slightly squirmy issue for me, which is - do I request permission from my hosts before I write about them and display photos of their properties on the internet?

I gave this some thought before I began my travels and eventually decided that I would not consult hosts before posting about them, or alert them to the fact I am keeping a blog, because this would affect how honest I could be about my experiences. Instead I would just omit the name of the places I visit and keep the location vague.  I mean, if you tell someone you're going to be writing about them it's possible it will a) inhibit / make them feel uncomfortable with you and b) make it fairly likely that they will read it at some point which then c) means you feel you should be polite and possibly not completely truthful about how things went.  Host 1 for instance - could I have written honestly about my time there if I'd known he may well read it? No.

However, do I feel slightly guilty about posting photos of Host 1's farm without his knowledge, when what I wrote about him wasn't particularly positive? Yes I do.  I'm not sure how to resolve this, except just to carry on as I have been - writing frankly, but not naming my hosts so that it is unlikely to ever be associated with them by anyone who isn't already in the know.  And, in the case of my most recent host, not posting pictures of the inside of his house without obtaining his permission, only including a few unidentifiable pictures of smallholding Stuff to add a bit of visual interest to my main post.

Plus it's not like I have an enormous readership so I don't think it's really that big a deal at the end of the day.  Right? Right! Good.

Host 2: Community in Dorset - Reflections

 

Two and a half weeks with Host 2: Tick! 

My second WWOOF host has been a community living deep in the Dorset countryside, housed in a big old Victorian rectory and various satellite structures (cabins, yurts, caravans).  The place itself is incredibly beautiful and atmospheric – full of unexpected nooks and artwork.  It has everything you could wish for from an alternative/rural living space: a farm, dairy, kitchen garden, fruit garden, poly tunnels, fields, streams, wooded areas, compost loos, a rope swing, cob oven, fire pit, a little Pub-cabin, picnic tables etc.  

The community proper has only 4 members, which seems shockingly small for the size of the overall operation - it includes a B&B business and a venue for hire - but the set-up is super efficient and there are a number of almost-members (people doing a six-month trial), long-term volunteers and kind of ‘affiliated’ people living here.  From my outside perspective, the community seems very open and non-hierarchical – it took me a good few days to even figure out who was a member and who was a volunteer, for example.  The population is also ever-changing and shifting as volunteers and visitors come and go, some staying for a day, others for months.  This has advantages from the point of view of a short-term volunteer as you feel included and comfortable very quickly, but I can imagine that for the members it comes with a certain element of strain.  Having new faces around constantly and being required to be welcoming and conversational all day, every day, ad infinitum? Jeepers! 

So, enough of all the technical description already, how was it? Well…I’m still not completely sure, to be honest, but I will endeavour to piece my scattered thoughts together.

I was very apprehensive before I arrived.  After my dubious experience with Host 1 (incidentally I have now met two other people who have WWOOFed at that farm and they both hated it and left early.  One even said that the host man made her cry. I feel vindicated!), I was not at all sure what to expect and feeling quite negative about my whole volunteering plan. It probably didn’t help that the two hosts were not that far from each other geographically, so, having run away to London for a few days recovery, I had to arrive back at the exact same train station and wait on the same bench to be collected. UGH. 

However, from the moment I was greeted by the community member who had been dispatched to pick me up, things were completely different.  Throughout my whole time with this host I was spoken to - by everyone without exception - as if I was a human being, worthy of consideration, interest and respect. What’s more, whichever community member I worked for on a given day said thank you at the end of the work period, even when it had been a very relaxed session. It’s such a simple thing but I can’t tell you how much I appreciated it. I was carried through the usual tricky first few days of acclimatisation on a giant wave of relief and joy at the contrast!

I really liked pretty much everyone I met, members, volunteers and all; strangely, those who I didn’t warm to straight away, became some of my favourites as time went on. Communal living is a great way to properly get to know people in a short amount of time as you are both working and socialising together.  You can get into some serious conversations that you wouldn’t have in other settings, and also have some fun, with people of very different backgrounds, nationalities and ages (while I was there the population ranged from 6 months to 63 years!).

That middle compost heap there? I helped make that.  It's a damn fine compost heap!

My main reason for going there, apart from a certain curiosity about how it would be to live in a community, was that the growing is done biodynamically and luckily for me the gardener was very enthusiastic about sharing his knowledge. I requested to volunteer predominantly in the garden and so spent a fair amount of time working for this guy, who, as an energetic, curly-haired Garden Sprite with a West Country accent was pretty much everything you could require from a biodynamic, alternative community gardener! He was also really kind to me and we got on well.

Because of the nature of the operation, I couldn’t just spend my whole working week in the gardens, but actually doing the odd day on House (cleaning and making up rooms) or Kitchen (food prep and washing up) was nice for a break when my back was starting to feel like it would snap from digging or weeding. 

The absolute best thing about Host 2 for me, though, was the FOOD, oh yeah! Vegetarian/vegan only, amazing cooking, healthy and flavoursome, plentiful, snacks available, raw milk, home-made butter, yogurt and cheese, dessert provided nearly every day – I was like a pig in clover.  (A literal pig; probably not that great for my waistline but I’m hoping the more active lifestyle has counteracted the gluttony?  With no access to weighing scales I’m going to choose to believe that it has). Since Host 1 was a ‘No meat, no meal’ type of man, I had eaten more red meat in the preceding two weeks than in the whole of the rest of the decade and thought I might have some trouble adjusting, but it wasn’t a problem at all.  

Fake grapevine pruning for the camera. Smile!

Does all this unrelenting positivity make it sound like there might be a ‘But’ coming? Well of course there is, there’s always a ‘But’!  And here my reservations mostly sprang from my introvert’s need to BE ALONE.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy spending time with people.  A couple of hours in the pub, say, a working day, perhaps the odd road trip.  Just not all the time! And there’s the rub for me; community living entails living in a community.  There are people everywhere, all day long.  You can just not talk to them if you like, but it feels rude and surly if you don’t.  Twenty people at dinner is not a particularly comfortable experience for me, despite having grown up in a large family.  I still haven’t really figured out why, but I found mealtimes tough; I felt awkward and self-conscious and like I wanted to take my plate and run off into the field.  I guess it’s because in my life I’ve mostly only eaten in small groups, or in front of the TV with housemates (for shame!), or with very familiar family? Who knows why I have a problem with it, I’m probably just a freak, but it tended to put a downer on my day.

At various points in my 2.5 weeks I was seriously considering the possibility of applying to return to this place long-term – and I’ve still not made up my mind – but this too-much-people-time thing is a real obstacle.  I figured I would adjust to it eventually but it’s been a month already and I’m still feeling unhappy about it so I’m no longer so sure! I just like reading and thinking and daydreaming and stuff, and, well, peace and quiet. Am I old before my time? 

My other reservation about living here is that people are moody -of course they are, including (especially?) me. But I’ve seen a few hints of barely contained ‘paddies’ just in this short sampling of community life and I’m sure that the more time you spend with people, the more aware of the currents and eddies of their happiness and unhappiness you become, plus the more it affects you.  I’m not sure I would like to be in a situation where there is no escape from that.  

The final thing stopping me from just joyfully crying ‘Hurrah I have found my niche!’ and asking to stay for longer is that, although this is a ‘community’, there doesn’t seem to be a common belief or principle that the community is based on.  The ‘Why’, or the ‘glue’ of the community seems to just be a loose wish to live an eco-friendly/sustainable lifestyle with some other people around; the members appear to be almost just doing jobs which entail that they also live there.  Not that that is a major problem necessarily, and it certainly allows for a more inclusive place, but for me personally to feel inspired to live communally I think I would probably need a common… ‘spirituality’ for want of a better word, with the other members. 

Maybe.

But it is really beautiful.  And the food is like, sooooo good! And the biodynamics! And the people are so nice! 

I’m confused, I tell you, confused.

Host 2: Community in Dorset - Pictures

My second WWOOF host has been pretty much as different from the first as possible.  I am still trying to get my head around it and only have a few more days to go...hopefully I will have some kind of coherent post assembled in the next week or so!

This interim photo splurge is a bit late due to the fact I was waiting for a sunny day to get my camera out, but the clouds have finally parted this weekend (in fact it has been ridiculously lovely for October) so I can now present the following:

 

BEST. GRAPES. EVER.

Host 1 - Farm in Devon - Reflections

I have officially completed a two week stint at my first WWOOF host; a small, beautiful farm in Devon with meadows, orchards, cows, sheep, veg garden, cider press and hay barn.

The farm is run by a man in his forties (at an educated guess), who is doing everything organically and traditionally, including animal husbandry, growing fruit and vegetables, hay-making, re-laying hedges etc. He is teaching himself skills from scratch and restoring his 18th century farm-house painstakingly by hand. Divorced, he juggles maintaining the farm, looking after his two children for half the week, a new relationship and managing an endless stream of WWOOFers - he is a man deserving of respect.

This man and I did not exactly hit it off.

I always knew that the first few weeks would be a tricky adjustment period while I got used to the new 'normal' of WWOOFing and boy was I right!! Some of the things I was worried about were hard, but not really so bad - for instance doing physical work all day - but others I very much struggled with.  The lack of Alone Time, for instance. Even though I had my own room I was still spending at least 12 hours a day in the company of other folks, not really at liberty to take myself off without seeming rude.  I think, however, I am starting to get used to this and it will gradually become less of a problem. Hopefully I will soon get to the point where I no longer want to punch people if they speak to me before I've drunk my morning coffee!

The absolute hardest thing, though, was being in the host's house 24/7, with very little independence or escape.  Imagine you start a new job and the boss doesn't seem too congenial.  At the end of the day, you're pretty glad to go home right? But when you're WWOOFing, you go home WITH your boss, to stay at his house, and help him cook dinner and wash up after it, whilst making small talk.  I'm telling you, it's intense.

Without wanting to sound churlish or ungrateful, I found my host's attitude towards me erratic, sometimes friendly, but frequently condescending and critical  His instructions were vague and often contradictory.  Although he did most of the things a WWOOF host is generally expected to do (feeding, giving a place to sleep, lending books/bikes etc.) he seemed to have little empathy for the WWOOFers he was hosting.

I understand that it must be very difficult having strangers in your house all year round, and that maybe some WWOOFers need keeping in line when it comes to helping etc., but I am not one of those and nor were the other girls I was there with! He seemed to be completely unaware of all the efforts we were making to be polite, friendly and helpful 100% of the time (something which personally nearly killed me).  Instead of explaining house-rules or the way he liked things to be done, he waited until I was attempting to do something helpful e.g. washing-up and then would tell me angrily that I was doing it all wrong.  The result of this, although I'm sure it was not intended, was to make me feel constantly anxious that I was annoying/offending/being a nuisance.

I don't for a minute think that my host was purposely trying to make anyone feel uncomfortable, and actually he did seem to warm to me a little about half way through my time there -  occasionally making clear attempts to be pleasant, humorous  and conversational, plus cooking up the odd truly delicious meal.  But this didn't particularly alter the sense that he didn't really want me or the other WWOOFers there and was tolerating us at best - something which could have been easily mitigated by the occasional word of praise or thanks.

I thought perhaps on one of the days we had spent busting our asses logging for him he might just say 'thanks for that' or 'you've worked hard today, well done'. Or maybe, just maybe, at the end of the day we spent 6 hours shoveling cow shit in the pouring rain?  But no, he merely smirked at the sight of us looking like drowned rats and then told us off for digging up some carrots. (He'd previously instructed us to dig the carrots up, then changed his mind but not informed us - a not uncommon occurrence).

There's nothing like a total lack of appreciation to make all your scratches, stings, bruises and exhausted aching muscles seem worth it!

I felt a lot harder and more manly using this saw than I look in this photo! Maybe a dress was the wrong outfit choice?

So what do you do, if you're a WWOOFing guest in someone's house but you don't like their... well, attitude?  Personally I came to this conclusion: at the end of the day, it's their beautiful farm which they are letting you stay on, their idyllic life which they are letting you share and, most importantly, it's their home.  No matter how you look at it, this trumps any of the petty irritations or grievances you may have stored up against them.  What you do, (or try to do) is give them the benefit of every single doubt. You smile, make an effort with conversation and maintain a friendly, open attitude. You are polite, respectful and generous-spirited even if you feel they are not matching this.  In the end, this is kind of rewarding in itself. It means it's almost irrelevant how someone is behaving towards you, because it has no bearing on the way you act yourself - which is liberating in a strange sort of way.

Plus, whilst doing all of this, you can build and maintain a giant internal boil filled with rage at the injustice of it all, which you then lance all over the internet!! I would have loved this first post to be full of tales of the joys and warmth of sharing and human togetherness, rather than the enormous bitch and whine-fest that it's turned out to be, but I also promised myself I would be honest about my experiences... so here it is, the unvarnished truth in all it's glory. 

It's not like there aren't any positives to be drawn, there definitely are:  I am currently feeling fitter and stronger than I've ever felt in my life, I got on really well with the other girls volunteering even though there were quite big gaps in age and differences between us, I got to spend time in a truly lovely place and discover a new bit of the country, I genuinely liked a dog for the first time ever (!!) and I learned that I can deal with awkward social situations in another way than just avoiding them like the plague.  Plus, I tested myself at several points with the question 'Is this better than working in an office?' and the answer was always 'YES'. 

Two more things sustain me.  Firstly, one of the other WWOOFers I met has been WWOOFing in the UK for two years, she said that this host was not typical and gave me a few recommendations for onwards travel.  Secondly, I had a little surprising moment, somewhere among all the uncomfortableness and tumultuous lifestyle changes, of feeling like this: 'I'm doing the right thing. This is going to work out just fine'.

I hugged that moment to me and it felt good. 

Host 1: Farm In Devon - Pictures

It's early days, but so far WWOOFing seems to be a rather intense full-immersion experience - with an attendant rollercoaster of emotions and impressions.  I have therefore decided to wait until my time with a host is complete before writing anything about it.  This will hopefully give me time to process, reflect, summarise and avoid bi-polar posts of 'OMG this is amazing!' vs 'OMG I can't take even one more day!' 

So, anything substantial will have to wait for now, but in the meantime here are some photos:

 

 

Just one of the 15(!!) cats kept by the old man who lives next door

 And a song that has, gently and unassumingly, captured my heart this week:


I can't stop listening to it!

Farewell Bristol

'Til next we meet.  I will miss your harbours and hippies!

What If?

Less than a week to go!

A photo of lovely Pembrokeshire, just because.

My life is now packed away into boxes, which have been duly strewn around various family members' attics and sheds in Pembrokeshire (where I am currently holed up 'spending time with family', aka avoiding the 7,000 things I still have to do in Bristol before I leave). I had grand Zen-inspired ideas of getting rid of almost everything I own, but when it came down to it I failed spectacularly. There's a very real possibility that I will need all those scribbled notes and books from my Contemporary China MA, even though I have no intention of using them again! That collection of useless bric-a-brac that I have accumulated over the years? Er, MEMORIES MADE TANGIBLE! And the clothes, well the clothes are all absolutely essential for future...just in case-ness... darn it.

Anyhow, despite all that storing of rubbish I can't quite bear to part with, for the foreseeable future I will be using only those possessions which can be squashed into a rucksack. It's a weird feeling; shifty, unsettled. Who am I without all of my belongings around me?

I know that identity shouldn't be bound up with material things (if identity exists at all, a subject of much debate I believe, but let's not get into that eh) but I suspect for me it is. Spiritually undeveloped materialistic slob that I am.  I guess that's something I will be working on in the coming months, or else my locus of individualism will just shrink down to the two or three skanky farming outfits I'll be sporting for autumn/winter 2013 and a couple of books.

Now that the major life change is terrifyingly imminent, my old enemies the 'What Ifs' have come to call.  Sneaking, slippery things, sliding in under my door in the dead of night to whisper their sibilant poison in my ears:

'What if you hate it?'
'What if you don't get on with the hosts?' 
'What if you don't get on with the other WWOOFers?'
'What if you can't deal with suddenly doing physical work after so may years of sitting on your lazy ass?'
'What if living in someone else's house 24/7 is horrendous and awkward and uncomfortable?'
'What if you don't get enough time to yourself?'
'What if you get too much time to yourself?'
'What if you don't like other people's cooking?'
'What if you have to cook for other people?!'
'What if having to be on your best behaviour all the time means you internalise so much grumpiness you crumble away into a little pile of dust?'
'WHAT IF YOU GET BORED?'

Ugh.

As a worrier, raised among worriers by a worrier, I do find it quite hard not to worry about such things. But I came across this quote today:

'After careful examination, understand not to discriminate, to neither accept nor reject.  As anything can happen, peace will arise from within.'

This makes me feel a bit better.  Good old Buddhism. Peace will arise from within; external things are all filtered through my own mind; I am responsible for my own emotions; whatever happens, I will cope with it just fine.

Begone dastardly What Ifs, you are not welcome here!!

Walk The Line

  

Everybody has a place where they draw the line, right? I mean, in what they are willing to entertain the idea of.  For some people, for example, it’s the power of crystals - that just seems silly.  For others, crystals are fine, even witchcraft is perfectly sensible.  But primal scream therapy, say?  That’s just a step too far! 

Well, for me, the line gets drawn at dumpster diving, as in the Freegan practice of foraging food from commercial bins. Don’t get me wrong, I am very enthusiastic about the whole concept of ‘free’.  I’m on a mission to reduce the amount of stuff I buy and I’m about to embark on a scheme in which that pesky middleman Wages is eliminated completely.  I’ve been thinking extremely hard about every little thing I purchase for a few months now – do I really need it?  Is it the cheapest version that will do the job? etc.  And that includes food items.

For a friend’s wedding recently, I not only made them a gift (it was nice though! I'm sure they were very grateful), I also squashed my urge to buy a jacket and a new pair of shoes for the ceremony and instead wore a cardigan I already had and spent some time stretching a pair of old shoes that were too small.  And I felt fine! That’s a big deal for me.  When it comes to issues of image and clothes, I have historically ALWAYS allowed my insecurities to take control of my wallet and do whatever it takes to make me feel on a par with my contemporaries.  

I've also been trying the odd super-scrimping meal from this blog: A Girl Called Jack (with mixed results I have to say - although that's probably the fault of my dubious cooking skills than her recipes).

Anyway, you can see that I’m trying to take this whole spend reduction thing seriously.  But dumpster diving?  Sneaking around the back of shops at dusk, opening up their skanky bins and rifling through them to find my dinner?  I, just… no.  I’m aware of the arguments for:  it’s free, obviously;  use-by dates are very conservative and often fairly arbitrary; the food is still packaged; throwing it away is  needless waste and a crime against the world’s finite resources which we are using up with no thought for the future. Yada yada, I know it’s a good thing to do! But I just can’t do it.  And to be honest, I thought this was quite normal and reasonable until the other day. 

I’ve been volunteering at an organic farm just outside the city (to, you know, get a bit of experience in for the big trip, because I’m a giant lame-o with soft office hands) and had The Money Conversation with one of the guys there.  Freeganism came up, I mentioned my resistance and this is what he said: 

‘You mean you’ve never been dumpster diving?’

I’ve clearly been moving in the wrong circles. Wanna take me dumpster diving? No? Good!!

In other completely unrelated news, I finally watched that Tyrannosaur film and like, WOAH, the awful, terrible, relentless awfulness of everything the whole way through!! Also, the touchingness though - I cried, I cried real human tears when they hugged in the kitchen.
 

Well done Paddy Considine, you may remain on the giant pedestal of adoration I have built for you.   I know you're married and everything but, well, I'm here if you if you need me.  That's all I'm saying.

 

Reasons

I realised my first post below sounds a bit flippant - really, I saw someone farming on TV and then jacked in my job to run off to the countryside?  Aren't I a bit old (31 if you must know) for that kind of whimsical behaviour?!

Obviously there's a bit more to it than that, so I thought I should explain more clearly my reasons for doing this, if only to reassure my mum. They are as follows:

1. To Gain Practical Skills

I want to learn to farm the land, and maybe some animals (the crazy-looking ones like alpacas, and the ones that produce stuff I eat like chickens for eggs and goats for milk/cheese), organically, to live sustainably and provide for myself directly rather than paying other people to do it while I faff about on a computer all day. Considering my total lack of experience or qualifications in this kind of thing, WWOOFing seems like a good way to convince people to teach me stuff for free, whilst having no overheads!

Oh, also, I am a VERY unpractical person.  Everything I've ever done is academic/creative and I feel annoyed that I'm so useless when it comes to stuff with my hands... this shall be rectified.

2. To reduce the role that money plays in my life

I read a book by Mark Boyle,  The Moneyless Manifesto.  He kind of comes across like a bit of a knob*, but if you only read one book this year, make it this one - seriously.  It's totally changed the way I look at the world, convinced me to stop being such a mindless consumer and try and escape ze filthy lucre as much as I can.

(More on this later maybe, as when I started thinking about it loads of ranty stuff came into my brain and there's no place for it in this list).

3. To improve my chances of actually living Buddhist-ly

This isn't me, but you knew that.

In all honesty, I cannot call myself a Buddhist.  I eat meat and fish, I sometimes drink (only on special occasions though, I swear! Oh yeah I swear as well but I don't think that's expressly prohibited in Buddhism), I hardly ever meditate even though I know it's massively helpful and I'm a beginner at yoga. If I'm a Buddhist then I'm a pretty crap one.

BUT, I am very interested in Buddhism and I'm trying quite hard to live more mindfully.  In fact, trying to live mindfully is probably the root of this whole business as it was through applying Buddhist 'awareness of the present moment'-type principles to my daily life that I realised just how bad my office job was for me and just how much I want to live a more ethical life.

Phew! That's a bit heavy, sorry.

If you're interested though, this is a good place to look: Free Buddhist Audio. Those guys know way more about it than me.

4. For Health

Spending 8 hours a day hunched over a computer screen grinding my teeth with stress vs. spending all day out in the fresh air and using my body to do actual tasks? No contest!

5. To Travel

I have itchy gypsy feet.

Itchy Gypsy Feet - Duncan Disorderly & The Scallywags - Demo!! by goodtimes music

6.  To Improve My Language Skills

I have started learning quite a few languages and never become fluent in any of 'em.  Welsh, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Swedish... started and stopped, started and stopped.  So I would like to get at least my French a bit more up to scratch - my sister lives there after all and my 10 year-old nephew speaks like a native; I am ashamed of my stupid British mono-lingualness.

7. To Discover Writing Material

I want to write.  I've gone off writing fiction, I'm much better at reading it, so non-fiction it is!  And to write non-fiction it very much helps if you're doing something more interesting than sitting in an office all day.  At least I hope it does...

8. Regain My Faith In Humanity

I am a jaded and cynical being.  I hope that by living and working with people who are doing Good Things I will, well, regain my faith in humanity. 

There we go, a nice list for me to look back on in a few months time when I'm covered in goat shit and snow and crying into a pail of milk, to remind me why I came up with this crazy plan in the first place!


* I mean, he's probably okay, but he spends the whole book going on about how if you're REALLY a good person you will eliminate money from your life ENTIRELY, but then when it comes to the 'feminine hygiene' section he's like - 'errrm, you can use a mooncup, but then you have to buy it with evil money and they only work effectively for some women.  Or you could make your own sanitary towels from hemp you grew yourself, but really who wants to do that? Ew! Or you can just go sit on the ground with no pants on for a few days every month, there we go.'  Thanks Mark! So, 50%ish of the population can't be truly moneyless unless they are prepared to be rather inconvenienced/scratchy and unrealistic every month.  (You probably have to read the book to realise how annoying this is). Also, there's a reference to women and shoes that I found rather offensive and I'm only mildly feminist.  But honestly apart from that it's amazing!

So then!

The horrible, terrible, odious office job has been QUIT:

01 Quitter's Raga GOLD PANDA by ANNIMULL FORRILLA

Notice on the flat has been given.  Host farms have been emailed.  

Preparations In General have begun. I am going WWOOFing!!

In case you haven't already read it a million times (I guess not everyone Googles 'WWOOF blog' incessantly like I've been doing), here is the WWOOF explanation bit:

WWOOF, or Willing Workers On Organic Farms, is a worldwide network of organisations which allow volunteers to contact host farms and arrange farm/gardening work placements.  Each country has it's own separate organisation, e.g. WWOOF UK (which is  a little annoying as it means you have to join - and pay for - one in each country you want to go to).  WWOOF volunteers, or WWOOFers, generally don't receive financial payment, instead the host provides food, accommodation and opportunities to learn, in exchange for help with farming or gardening activities. WWOOFers get first-hand experience in organic and ecologically sound growing methods, along with the chance to sample life in a rural setting or a different country. 

Photo from www.ediblelandscaping.co.uk - this is not me but I did a weekend WWOOF here to try it out!

Although I've been dimly aware for years that such a thing existed, I had it lumped with 'gap year' and 'Australia/New Zealand' in my mental filing system and had never given it a seconds thought, quite frankly, until a bizarre Eureka moment in February this year.... cue wavy screen indicating back-through-the-mists-of-time section...

It was a dark and dreary Sunday night.  I was doing my customary beached whale impression in front of the TV, simultaneously watching Countryfile and dreading work the next day in a stunning example of multitasking, when suddenly a lightening bolt of realisation hit me.

Countryfile were doing a piece on a biodynamic farm; Julia Bradbury was chatting to a man who had filled a number of cow horns with manure, buried them in the ground for 12 months and was now stirring the aged manure into a tank full of water.  For an hour.  Ready to be sprayed over his crops by hand. 

Now, normally this would have filled me with dismay - that a perfectly sensible human being could waste their time on such hippy dippy bullshit (haha) - I had on many an occasion raised a cynical eyebrow at my sister when she mentioned biodynamic growing, or cultivating plants 'in tune with the moon'.  Indeed, on screen even Julia was looking deeply skeptical/as though she thought the man was certifiable. But on this day, on this particular day, a little chime went off in my pea-brain.  THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT', my thoughts said.

I dragged myself up from my beached-whale pose in outrage and sat forward, examining my traitorous thoughts again.  I wanted to go and work on a biodynamic WHAT now?! Yep, there was no mistaking it; I wanted to get me some of that.  

Fast forward through some extensive internet research, tedious soul searching, a gradual dimming of biodynamic to bog-standard organic, experimental volunteering and months - months! - of suffering through work whilst fantasising about the feel of the sun on my face, the wind in my hair, oh! a farmers life for me! etc.  and here we are.

SOD YOU OFFICE/CITY LIFE, I'M GOING WWOOFING! YEAH!!

For a bit anyway.  Let's see what happens.