Old Chapel Farm

We're here in Wales since Tuesday at Old Chapel Farm and its been GREAT!

There has been about 5 - 6 other wwoofers and its all been set up real nice.

First up, our sleeping accommodation is LUXURY. We're in a room part of the main house and its got so much room, comfy cozy beds and a wonderful view/window thingie. WOW. There was even fresh cut flowers in a vase.... awwwww.

Wwoofers have our own little kitchen where we eat breakfast and hang out during break times.

Working times are real nice and relaxed. 9 to 10:30. Tea break from 10:30 to 11. Work again from 11 to 1. Lunch at 1, then work again from 2 to 4. And thats it! Relax time the rest of evening!

Each wwoofer has their own 'garden' that we are in charged with during our stay. I think thats a brilliant thing as it gives us each a sense ownership and all. Mine (crystal) is quite a nice big area with a polytunnel as well. We spend each moring in our gardens and pick the veg thats ready etc.. then in the afternoon we do other things ilke maybe animal/sheep work or building work.

The views from this valley is storybook breathtaking.

More on Old Chapel Farm later.... its watering in the polytunnel time & a walk before the lunch bell rings!

Farewell Cornwall 2

So here's more photos of our 2nd placement in Cornwall, Little Meadows farm. It was a very different experience there (its all been different!). For one week, it was Sarah our host, me and Bjorn. There was no family, no other wwoofers, even no animals! So you can imagine the environment is just... much more quiet and serene. Sarah, being a more 'matured' and wise host, and being only the 3 few of us, we had much more serious deep conversations about life etc.

Bodmin moor was also apparently a really harsh place to farm in. The land/soil is not great, really acidic and the winds stronger, and it rains more coz its a bit higher up than most places. Less people, more remote. We got to see wild cornwall really. Weather was so-so... it's been a really sad wet July, coz June was amazing.

Sarah treated us like guests more than just wwoofers. She made an effort to fill our week with different activities like working in the other farm shop one morning for fresh veg, took us to the coast for a picnic and a swim and a walk, brought us to her friends at a biodynamic farm down the road, and even drove us to the bus stop etc to go to the eden project. In a nutshell, she was fantastic.

And here are some snap shots!

This is the resevoir which Little Meadows overlooks:

The next few beach shots are of Lundy Beach... which I think really, is the most beautiful beach I've ever been to. Its only at low tide where you can actually have a beach. It's got thousands of mussles all over its beautiful rocks where people can collect and eat! There were so many little nooks and crannies to explore too. Definitely a big highlight in our cornwall adventure. (lady in blue is sarah, shes camera shy)

Then we went for a coastal walk....

Overall, I felt Cornwall has its stunning natural beauty. Mainly, its its long summers and beautiful beaches that lures people here. But what perhaps I feel is missing, is calmness. Well, at least for me... I never felt a sense of calmness, stillness... which is what I like about the countryside in the first place. The weather changes every 10 mins in Cornwall. Its either too windy, or too sunny or too rainy. At least here in Wales,... it will rain for a good few hours before it gradually turns.

When our train left the borders of Cornwall yesterday and rolled into Devon, near the station at Saltash, I actually saw an otter, or a sealion! Its bald head popped out of the sea and its eyes followed the passing train as I fixated my eyes on its cute little face, feeling otterly (haha) lucky that I got to see him. And as the train chugged on and my brief encounter with the little creature passed, I bade goodbye to wild Cornwall.

Farewell Cornwall

We havent updated the blog in a while coz internet connection was not great at Little Meadows in Bodmin moor.

We just left there yesterday after staying a week at Sarah's. And she was really an inspiring lady. Coz she was almost 50, she could look at us and tell us that its ok to be where we are in our lives. At the beginning of our journey towards a much more meaningful life. And she was a wonderful host. We were actually her only wwoofers this year! (She is choosy she says :)). She was attentive when appropriate, gave us our space when we needed to. And we had a nice loft in the actual house!

However, I'm not sure about Cornwall. I (crystal) fell sick 3 times in the 3 weeks we were there. That's not usual for me at all. And I dont know what it was really. The experience wwoofing there, the landscape, the winds (its way more windy there) or what it was..?! But there was a stirring that wasnt quite right during my 3 weeks there. Bjorn thinks I'm mad. And most people who've been to Cornwall say its beeeauuutiful. It is i know... But... funny, Sarah was telling us about how she believed in reinarnation... that our souls might have lived different lives in the past etc. I never thought much about it before. But if we use that theory... perhaps in my previous life, I was an enemy of the old people of Cornwall? In west cornwall, there are so many iron age (12th centure BC!) ruins all over the place. Apparently in the whole world, that part of cornwall has the most density of iron age ruins scattered in that small area. So I dont know... maybe I once lived there and experience some kind of trauma? Or maybe in another life more recently, I was one of the many pirates that landed in Penzance? Who knows. All I know is that we're here today, in North Wales, in perhaps (its a bit early to say i know) the best wwoof place to be yet - Old Chapel Farm and though its been raining today, my spirit suddenly feels so much more at ease.

I realised I havent put any photos of cornwall yet on the blog.... so here goes. Here's west Cornwall first... (plan it earth wwoof place). I'll put pictures of Little Meadows (North cornwall) in another entry:

A bunch of staring cows. So cute arent they? We chanced upon them while trying to walk to the nearest pub from Plan it Earth. Bjorn so thought they were going to charge and trample us! Hahaha. But we learnt that would be very rare for a cow to do that.

A try- hard artistic shot from Plan it Earths Veg garden

Plan it Earth's wonderful family kitchen.

Veg garden again with the Biodome in the background

The stunning Porthcurno beach

The 1mile walk from Lands end to Senna Cove on the most southern western tip of Britain.

wwoofing, meadows & gyms

One of the really cool things about wwoofing is that you get to live in people's homes for the time. Not a hotel, a hostel or B&B. But you get to learn about how people store their things, cook their food, their routines, rituals and habits.

Its something i definitely didnt think much about before we embarked on this journey. Small example, is that we've always had our butter in the fridge. Obviously habit from Singapore coz u have to!

But in the 3 homes we've been to now, their butter sits outside! which makes so much sense coz u need it softish to butter your toast! And how silly of us to have our butter in the fridge all this time in London. Oh well, we didnt have that much toast anyway.

Also, because we wash our clothes at each different home, your clothes will smell of the place its been at last. that strange. Now they all smell of the detergent from Plan it Earth. Which is the same smell of the duvet that we used there. Its sorta like bringing something from the place before to a new one.

We're here at Little Meadows, a little more north Cornwall, on Bodmin Moor, which is harsher weather, winds and really really remote. THere's definitely no pub or store nearby, just sheep and quite a nice smallish reservoir.

We're sleeping in a room in the house finally! Not that a caravan was not cosy, but its like living in the wild for a while, and its nice to be like, really inside, with brick/stone walls. When we were in the caravan, the winds or rains outside felt so close.

Sarah, our host has bee really really lovely. It feels that in the last 24 hours, we shared and exchanged so much more than we had with R&D in the last place. I know its not fair to compare, but it is what it is isnt it! She's a vegetarian so we've been eating really wonderful healthy vegetarian food. Which i welcome so much as we were honestly had a lot of pork in the last week (so much I puked alot of it out).

Today, our big job was to move the new shipman of wood into the wood shed. For the first time in 2 weeks, I feel about 100%. Fully recovered from flu, and not weedy anymore. Bjorn workd the chainsaw (i hung around like a little worried mom) !. Sarah also showed me (and i helped qiute a bit) to make bread, and we also had gooseberry crumble for pudding, from the gooseberry I picked in her garden. Those thorns are to be wary of! I must say, its the first time in a couple of weeks where I feel invigorated again. As we were moving the wood this morning the wheelbarrows, the physical labour made me feel great. I now think how silly it is to be in the gym, and trying to 'get the heart going' by sprinting on the cycling machine etc. I cant bring myself to go to a gym anymore. The thought of giving a place money, to expel your energy. It doesnt make any sense! They should be paying me money perhaps, and maybe the cycling machines can be hooked up to provide electricity or something. You know what I mean? Gyms are sad mark of city life. An ec0-unfriendly place in the first place with all the lights and the air conditioning,.. where people go to spend more energy that goes into nowhere, trying to burn those calories accumulated from gluttony. Here,... I eat the food that grows close to me in this land, food turns to energy which I spend helping the place grow more food. Its a closed loop cycle.

Anyway, I digress. Im glad to be here now. Its a long day, and a busy day ahead! Tomorrow the 3 of us are going to a nearby farm to work in the morning, in exchange for veg that will hopefully feed us for the next week! Cant wait :)

good bye plan it earth

I really am not sure how to do this journal entry.

Tomorrow we leave chy ena after 2 weeks here. And overall, some highs but many lows for sure. My flu lasted a good week and a half, and then last night, after a sunday roast, i got sick and puked half of it out. Today my body feels tired and useless. Thats just one part of the lows here. The family we've stayed with, are a nice young hippie couple with 2 handsome kids. But I definitely felt that there was no room (emotionally, intellectually, etc etc) for us in the house because their lives were already so thick with getting through each day. Its so ironic, that this place with a curative healing well, bushcraft courses, singing with the wind courses, is the place that i feel the most negative vibe from. I wouldnt go as far as saying that we didnt feel welcomed. I just felt, that they didnt have time or energy to get to know us. And when I tried to get to know them, I dont get further than superficial facts before they get distracted with something else (usually the children or giving us more tasks to do). This was a definitely a strange wwoof placement. The location is/was stunning to be in. So unique and quirky in many ways. Penzance, St Ives, St Just... the beaches, quite incredible. Unfortunately, the experience was tainted with my illness & our unavailable yet quite demanding hosts. One thing Im grateful for is that Bjorn and I got our alone time. He has been soooo good at taking care of me when I was sick, delivering food from the house to the caravan when I was banned from infecting the rest with my germs. And tolerating them all by himself when I am not there.

I hope Im well enough to leave tomorrow.

Plan-it-Earth , Cornwall

So I've been sick for the last couple of days (crystal). We arrived here at beautiful Sancreed, Cornwall on Tuesday. Worked on Wednesday, then fell ill with sore throat, fever, stuck nose, headache and everything on Wed night all the way through to yesterday (Saturday). I feel so bad coz I'm obviously not going to do the hours required here, and still eating all their food. (I have this ability to be dog sick, but still eat full meals :))

Its Sunday evening now, we've been here5 days, and we havent left the farm! Feeling a little weird about that. I always wanna go exploring, but obviously I was too weak to even get out of bed. I definitely havent been this sick in a while. I really really hope Bjorn doesnt get what I had.

So a bit about Plan-it-Earth, it began 6 years ago by Rachel and Dave Smart Knight and they've got a nice thing going here. Decent size market garden, holiday yurts for rent, and lots of evironmental sustainability programs that they run. Location wise its a beatutiful place. This evening , i could see the black and white cows in a nearby farm in the distance. Picturesque.

The work here has been different! Lots of harvesting. Strawberries, rasberries (lots), black currents, mange tout (too much), peas, broad beans. Last night we had a nice veg stir fry all from the farm! The above mentioned plus carrots, beetroot, celery, courgette, chard, spinach... I know. Coz i stood in the miserable rain harvesting them!

They have 3 geese here, which are really funny. They kindda hissed at us when we arrived, and have this evil look in their eyes. What characters. Apparently they are good lawn mowers. You dont really have to feed them anything much, they just eat all the grass.

Have been eating super healthy. Apart from the flu, I feel great about myself. Am I'm really starting to get a farmer's tan. Which is ... my face, neck and forearms are really dark, and the rest of me, fading into yellow again. Lol.

Rachel and Dave's house is lovely. Thy have the most cozy kitchen with fariy lights and everythings rustic and woody with pots and pans all hung up and quirky door knobs etc. I wanna kitchen like that next time.

Oh! And the kids have a trampoline! On Wed night, me, Rosie (the very smart 8 year old), Jacca (the charming little 5 year old) & Bjorn jumped up and down the trampoline with gorgeous views again. We looked at clouds and pointed out to each other what they were. We saw zeus on his carriage, a guy giving the thumbs up (although, i thought it was the other finger up but not so appropriate to mention to young children), a dog.... it was gread fun.

Im still missing crooked end farm though... Maybe its because the past three sickie days has just been awful. We have 2 days of freetime ahead. Yippieeeeeeee. Hope the weather holds...

The end... at Crooked End Farm Organics

We left crooked end farm yesterday morning. And we're here now, in west cornwall (most southern west tip of the uk) and its so different! Penzance is the nearest town and it reminds me of australia as its a seaside town with seagulls flying around. English people here own tank tops! And some are actually tanned! (amazing).

Last night, I actually felt so suddenly homesick. For crooked end farm! I didnt realise how much I'd miss the place until we left and is in someplace all new and foreign again.

Crooked end farm organics were like a huge family to bjorn and I for 3 weeks. They were really. Im not saying this new place is not great, it seriously is. Its a gorgeouslandscape and views, their house very warm and charming. Love the kitchen too!. But we really started to get really comfortable at crooked end.

I miss the hens roaming around everywhere, in the back garden, in the barm, poking their noses into everything! Pecking at me when I'm lying in the garden and then running away when I try to catch them! hee hee. I really loved the hens. Here, there are only 7 hens and they dont get to roam as wildly as crooked end. And they are agressive the ones here!

I miss the three black dogs with, all with such different personalities. Celine, who didn really like to run or make any fast movements, lovely shiny coat and loves being massaged. Jess, the sheepdog who was quite annoying coz she barked at everyone (esp men) but was in the end, a sweetheart who was abused by her previous owner. And sasha, who just like to steal celines food all the time!

And I miss the children... Lottiieeeeee. oh what a sweet child, I miss her. James, whose smile and baby garbled words melted my heart every single time. When we arrived, he could hardly crawl, when we left, he was crawling everywhere! Even Theo, our alpha male little boy who loves to chatter endlessly about his collection of toy swords and his peter pan alter ego. Ahhh.

Of course, our fellow wwoofers who we got to enjoy each other's companies so much. callie's off centre humour and similar love for alcohol, erin and her gorgeous sincerity and love for life, raphael's frenchness. hahaha, pia's enthusiasm and laughter, ciaran's experience, knowledge and later on we discovered, his wicked sense of humour.

We also of course, miss our lovely hosts, bruce, brenda, anya, barry kate. They were our surrogate parents, always taking care of us.

I can go on and on about all the other things we miss. The pub, the general store, our caravan, the pigs, the horses... but...

But crooked was only the first out of the 8 places we'll be wwoofing at in the UK. And like all first loves, we'll have a special place for crooked has we had no yardstick to compare it with when we first got there. And what a great first place.

If the rest of our trip will contain such incredibly great overwhelming experiences, wont my heart burst trying to contain so much good stuff?

Its much quieter here now at Plan-it-Earth (Chy Ena). There's only one family, with 2 great kids. But no dogs, no other wwoofers, no hens pooing and pecking around our caravan. Maybe we just need to get used to the change. I was looking forward to a quieter time. More us-time, more me-time.

More about this place in up coming blog entries - i have a feeling its going to be awesome! There's limited internet so less photos, but I guess, we'll have to paint them with our words instead....