St. James’ Park

Where to start…. Its been about a month since I really got into this email and of course, loads has happened. After a month on my own, Jennie from Cornwall was here for about 3 weeks. She did loads of work on the fences and really bonded with Alan Shearer who incidentally has forgotten that she’s a sheep and runs around pretending that she’s a dog! I learned loads about Girl Guides from Jennie and she used her knotting skills to make a shelter on the lawn from corn stalks. She is now thinking about buying a house here next year and she’s coming back in April for the barn raising.

Then Max from Australia arrived – he lives a nomadic life around Europe in his caravan and has helped me with all of my computer stuff. The laptop works now and next we’re going to sort out the website. He is going to rent a house in Popovo for a couple of months which also has a washing machine- washing at the spring is fun but putting stuff into a machine is sometimes useful.

Tom and Laura from Ireland and England arrived next and they painted the front of the house – its now looks great – white and yellow and really stands out. We used whitewash (Var in Bulgarian) on the walls – the neighbours all say it will wash off in the rain but we figured that if it stays on in Donegal, it will stay on here. We’ll see! They are now in the process of buying a really nice house in the village so they’re staying around for a few more weeks.

Then Ed came back to sort out the purchase of his house down the road. He and Jess are hoping to move in next spring. Oliver from England also arrived – he had heard of the place from Christina in Finland and he’s been doing loads of weeding – I forgot to say that it rained for a few days and then everything suddenly started growing again.

Alex from Holland came next – he met Jennie somewhere and was interested in doing something different. His project is to paint the windows and he’s sleeping in the hammock under the walnut tree.

So we have quite a little community here right now – we have great food, good conversation and loads of things are getting done. We’ve build a cob toilet and Laura and I have made loads of  jam, chutney and tomato stuff called Lutanitsa – and various bottled fruits. I have so many lovely things in jars that I was inspired to sort out the cellar – a very spidery place that I never really went into. But we cleared it all out – found a few scorpions but nothing much else. Me and Ed, Alex and Oliver spend a very tiring day making cob (mud and straw) and put in a new floor. We improvised some great tools and pounded the earth down to make a smooth floor. I remembered what I learned in India about making cow dung plaster and we’re putting that on the walls – its not yuky or smelly and is a great building material. We should be able to do the whole cellar without buying any extra materials – just using the natural resources from the garden.

Before it rained , I was concerned that I only had 4 pumpkins but now I’ve lost count – they’re everywhere! I took my eye off the ball in relation to the garden cos I’ve been doing house stuff the last couple of weeks and the whole thing is quite overgrown – millions of tomatoes and courgettes and I have great plans for next year!

A couple of days later – Alex and Oliver have left and Aslak from Denmark is here now. He and I spent a couple of days plastering a new ceiling in the cellar – using mud plaster – we’re now waiting to see if it stays on! He’s interested in bricklaying now and has also cut all the grass in the field with the Kosa. Tom has done a wonderful job sorting out the tomatoes which ha gone crazy after a few days of rain. Laura and I are still making things in jars – I have now completely run out of jars!

I am so lucky with the volunteers that I’ve had this summer – everyone has got into the communal aspect of  life at St James – we sit around the dinner table on the lawn every evening, eating great food, drinking rakia and having really good conversation. I’m now going to have lovely neighbours in the village and I’m feeling positive about running various workshops next year. I don’t have nearly enough food in my store cupboard compared to my neighbours but I guess I can live off walnuts and pumpkins! Or and the apples of course! I have a couple of boxes of dried apple pieces, I have apple compot, apple butter, apple and beetroot relish, apple and green tomatoe chutney and tomorrow we’re making apple and mint jelly and maybe apple juice!

Elaine who lives up the road has household encyclopedia from 1905 which has everything you need to know about living, eating and looking after servants! I’m going to learn how to make a press from it and I’m going to try pressing walnut oil – I have 10 walnut trees so I’ve got scope to experiment!

Laura from Manchester is coming next week and hopefully her and I are going to focus on the field and the land for a god few days. I also have volunteers booked in for October – very hard work time!

Love to everyone and look forward to hearing from you all.

Black hands again.

I’ts walnut time again and that means everyone is walking around with black hands - you see people everywhere carrying sacks of  nuts and people drive around with loudspeakers shouting ”orihee, orihee” (орехи is BG  for walnut) and its also the time of millions of peaches. They’re actually nicer than they were last year but its still hard to use them all! I’m making rakia again, I’ve bottled loads, I’ve made peach jam, peach chutney, peach cake, had peaches baked in honey – and the other day I reached out of my bed room window and picked one to eat in bed.

I’m having a volunteer free couple of weeks and its really nice and peaceful. There has been so much work going on and so many people around that I feel i need to have some space to engage with the land again. The trees are starting to turn red and yellow and the light is quite lovely now that the sun isn’t burning my head off. I’ve advanced a little further into the field – Laura from Manchester was here for a week and we spent most of the time digging next year’s potato bed – its half way along the field between 2 walnut trees – then I read in my biodynamic book that walnut trees are not good for growing vegetable nearby! This will have to be an experiment.

My potatoes are out now but it was probably the worst crop I have ever grown – a combination of drought, no manure and Colorado beetle – but next year I have a plan! (and I have some manure now).

I had a lovely visit from Jenny from the Co-op in Manchester last week – she helped me with a load of bottling, found a place for a swing and was generally very encouraging about the benefits of having a break in a place like this. She enjoyed the simpleness of the life here and she learned how to light a fire-that is always an  easy thing to do especially if you normally live in a city and don’t cook with wood.. Actually the whole thing about cooking on a wood stove is a whole new way of thinking-you cant just turn up the heat when you want to – you have be a couple of steps ahead of the fire. You really have to anticipate what the fire is going to do next and be ready for it. Also the two cooking stoves and the other wood stove are all quite different when it comes to lighting them. You have to learn how to live with the fires and I guess in the winter, it’ll be a different ball game cos I’ll also have to think ahead of the weather. I don’t want to have to go out in a snow storm to chop kindling. I’m thinking about the logistics of where I store my wood (I’ve just bought 10cu. Metres of mixed wood and its coming next week) but I bet there will be times when I have to go out in the snow to get my morning fire going! I don’t anticipate getting it together this winter and I’m sure I wont have enough to eat. I do have 24 pumpkins! Any interesting pumpkin recipes will be useful.

Laura and Tom are in their house up the road and they’re having a great time getting it oragnised. They had a wonderful infestation of ants but I think they’re winning. Bookluk is the Bulagian word for rubbish and its very important to try to acquire as much Bookluk as possible when you buy a house here-the barns here were full of bits of wood, tools,straw, bits of metal, old stoves and loads of etc. Its all been so useful-if you want something to do a job, you just wander about for a bit and then you’ll find the perfect thing! Laura and Tom got Bookluk in their house instead of the barns- they got loads of old clothes-we had a dinner party one night and all dressed up in old polyester dresses and sombre suits-they also got lots of great kitchen thing-pots and pans and lovely glasses plus a great 70’s standard lamp-so kitch. Elain and Keith also got house Bookluk(as well as ants) – loads of communist memorabilia and more clothes.

I almost forgot about my last volunteer – Aslak from Denmark. Max rescued him from another volunteering project that wasn’t working out very well. He was great and did all the big heavy things plus he started the bathroom with Tom. We’re converting the spooky spidery little room into a shower room-although I haven’t touched it since they left- I’m waiting for a  rainy day-meanwhile the weather has gone back to being hot.

I a now full of admiration for the Danish education system- Aslak’s English was amazing and he’s\never been to an English speaking country. We had some great conversations about language and also about puddings. We started this conversation with Alex from Holland who didn’t understand what a pudding is. After much debate in which Laura and I were the only ones qualified to make the definition, being English, we decided that custard is the defining factor and that things can have potential to be a pudding ie if it could have custard poured over it! These were long conversations! Aslak is now thinking of doing Erasmus (student exchange) in England and exploring puddings around the country. These discussions were prompted by Laura and Jennie bringing some Birds custard powder. Its great when people arrive with cool bits of shopping and I got a lovely Red Cross Parcel from Jennie Hayes- thanks-the Mars Bars were fantastic.

It’s the first of October tomorrow and I have to keep remembering that winter is just around the corner – there was no snow last winter but judging by the amount of berries on the trees, it’ll be different this year. Its such a big unknown- I don’t know what happens here when there is 2metres of snow for weeks on end and it gets to minus 20 –might just
spend a lot of time in bed!

I think I’m now qualified to say that yes you can get sick of peaches! They’re almost finished and I’ve added peach nectar t my list of ways to use them –that was pretty brilliant actually. We’ve now moved on to quinces- I have 2 trees full and so has Laura. Yesterday, being the correct day biodynamically, we had a mammoth session of making quince cheese – a bit like lemon curd but pink. If you’ve never seem a quince, they’re like very big, hard furry pears. It actually took us all day to do this – peeling ad chopping, chopping wood, cooking on the open fire for an hour, pureeing, cooking again and bottling 25 jars plus having visitors ad cutting my hair- but now we have Christmas pressies for all our friends in the village. Must make some cute little frilly lids for the jars.

At the beginning of the summer I was being really challenged by the whole bottling thing-I never seemed to have the right lids for the right jars, not enough jars(everyone has about 500 in their cellar), I didn’t have the right huge pot to boil the bottles in – but now I have all the right bits of equipment and best of all I’ve found a shop in popovo that has a room full of jars of all shapes and sizes. It’s a doddle now-just got to wait and see what they all taste like!

I’ve also got to think about what to do with loads of meat- Alan’s days are numbered now. That’s going to be hard but I’m not thinking about it just yet.

 Lots of love from the lovely autumn sunshine of Bulgaria.

I might have to put a little note on the website to warn people that when they come to Voditsa, it might be really difficult to leave! So far this year I have had 10 volunteers or friends staying and 8 of them are now interested in buying a house and living here!
There is going to be a realy interesting little community in this village soon but my Bulgarian friends are puzzled by this! they cant see why we all want to leave our developed and income obsessed world in the UK for this basic life. But thats exactly waht the attraction is - its lovely here and we can do things that most of us cant afford to do in the UK- like having a field and 10 walnut trees and practising biodynamic gardening and using the resourses around to make things. It’s hard to explain sometimes why we reject the ‘easy’ life in the UK.

I have 4 volunteers here right now and talk about the Universe providing…. Max from Australia arrived on my doorstep and has reorganised my whole communications stuff - I now have a landline and I might even have the internet soon - he’s also going to help me with the website and he’s interested in staying around Popovo for a a while. Then Laura and Tom arrived just for a week and they’re painting the house - just when i thought it wasn’t going to happen cos 2 volunteers let me down. They are now looking at property in Voditsa. and Oliver arrived from England last week - he’s doing the weeding in the field - note that we now have weeds! it has been raining!!! Wonderful for the land - I have pumpkins, happy tomatoesand weds!
and before these volunteers, Jennie stayed for almost a month - she was great and guess what - she is also thinking about buying a place in Voditsa!
I’m so lucky that i’ve had such great volunteers staying with me and now they’ll all be neighbours.
I never have much time to write emails or letters when there are volunteers here - i get caught up in the energy and the work is getting done - so this is a short blog - lots has been happening but you’ll all have to wait.

7/7/07

Serendipity – I love it – I hope Mel is reading this – she’ll know exactly what I mean! The other night I watched a DVD of David Attenburgh – definitely one of my Dinner Guests – and he was talking about the history of the planet and I suddenly realised that I’ve always wanted to be a geologist. I was immediately distracted from the DVD as I started to think about how I could fit that (3/4 years of study)into my current plans – it would have to be a University in an interesting place – Australia maybe?

Anyway – the next day I had a lovely hostel guest come to stay – Mike from the Boro decided to get off the beaten track and check out Voditsa. He was a great guest – good company, interesting conversation and he worked for his food. And he left a book to add to the library here – the book is a history of mountains and of course that means its mostly about geology. So now I’m reading this book and the little planning track that continually runs through my head, alongside my life, is thinking about how I can make this happen –it doesn’t fit very well with the Boat Plan - hmm – but the Universe will provide in good time meanwhile I’m going to check out the rocks around here.

The weather has been really strange the last few days – it has been windy! There has been a pretty strong North wind blowing for three days – this is the first time since there has been anything other than a light breeze. The temperature has dropped – it was actually deliciously chilly last night but I’ve found it a bit disquieting. I had an email the other day from a woman who was sitting in a caravan near a Northumbrian beach –I could smell it and feel it and of course it was windy. I was feeling nostalgic and then, serendipity again, the very next day the North wind did blow. My head has just got used the stillness of the air and now everything is moving.

I’m taking a break from the field and decorate the hostel room – actually I’m on a roll with it and its going to look brilliant.

8/7/07

This is turning into a diary – I quite like that because I’ve never really kept a diary before – tell me if it’s boring!

A little message for the people who love me and are wondering what to send me for my birthday – here are a few things that I really miss: marmalade, Patak’s Aubergine pickle; anything in a jar by Patak; Bisto; Birds custard powder – what else could possibly go with these million apples? Marmalade; Stilton – how ripe it would be after 5 days in transit! Any cheese that isn’t white,soft and comes from goats or sheep; marmalade; anything sweet and delicious that doesn’t look like it’s got a shelf life of 5 years; Basmati rice – I’m getting used to the stuff here but its like glutonous Japanese rice; mindless magazines. The things I’m running out of are Norwegian fisherman’s handcream, thatlovely pink foot stuff from Lush, The address is on the website! All Red Cross parcels will be happily received and I’ll stop with that train of though as I’m getting carried away.

The weather has gone back to melting today. Since I came here in the middle of April, it has monsooned for about 4 days in mid May and there hasn’t been a drop since. The ground is like rock with big crevasse’s like you see on parched desert scenes. I water the veg about every other day but my neighbours can’t afford water – they have virtually no income – and all their water has to come from the spring which is now a trickle. Pretty serious stuff because for them, the food they grow now has to keep them in the winter and spring and everything is dying. There was also no snow here last winter – a unheard of thing- so the water table is already very low. I gather most of the missing rain has been falling in the UK!!

I went to buy paint the other day and I was reminded of a visit to B&Q last year when I was astonished to see a whole aisle of different types and shades of white paint. Here its just white paint! But I have to admit,there were a few times when I thought longingly for non-drip paint.

Another nice thing about Mike the Smogy, he left me some great music – I cant get the Mark Viduca song out of my head! and he had DVD’s.I watched the whole series of Blackadder II.

I bought and SLR camera in a charity shop before I left and now I’m practising to be a famous photographer but I don’t under stand the numbers on the lens about the light – can anyone tell me – simply and untechnichally.

Had an email the other day from 2 people who want to come and camp in the filed for 6 weeks – that would be so great – I hope they come.

My Bulgarian is coming along – I’m kind of getting the hang of the grammar now. They don’t have a subject pronoun in the sentence – its implied in the verb ending so I’m practicing with that bit now but I’m still in the present tense. I have hit a couple of snags though – whilst I’m getting my sentence construction together, my pronunciation is obviously appalling because people don’t understand me! Also, when people write, they write a whole load of letters in a different way – like D becomes g and T becomes m – how confusing is that? I’ve also started having practical Bulgarian lessons –I learned how to make plum compot the other day and tomorrow I’m making walnut banitsa – its like a baklava I think but that reminds I need to set aside an hour or so to shell a couple of kilos of walnuts – I’ll think twice about every buying whole walnuts again –it is so hard to get them out in one piece and some people have to sit there and do it.

The people who drive around with the loudspeakers buying things came today and Jorge brought one in to buy Alan. He was very confused when I said no. I really can’t decide what to do about her –there are so many different ways to look at it. 2 people are coming to stay this week so they can help me decide – I could have website poll! “Shall we eat Alan Shearer or not?” vote here!

After gushing about the wild flower meadows, I have to tell you about the stars last night – when there’s no moon, there are always lots of stars to see but last night I could have been on the Enterprise! It was really marvellous. I lay in the filed for a while and got carried away in to infinity and thought about the poor people living inn Manchester. I’ve now added a telescope to the list of things I need.

I wonder what evil spirit was around when I decided to paint the dull grey ceiling with white gloss! What an idiot I am! Its not like I’ve never decorated before and remember we are talking about drippy paint! Anyway the rest of the room looks great.

Lots of love to everyone.

Tuesday 26^th – a flower day so I don’t get to mess with the vines till tomorrow after 7am. This biodynamic stuff is pretty precise and its actually really interesting. I’m now tuning into the energies in the field and practising listening to them and I’ve just found a load of resources that I’ve downloaded –a whole course actually – which sadly gives me another reason to not have time to learn Bulgarian! Time is so weird here –I do actually wake up at about 6 and usually go to sleep around 11 – in between there is so much to do that sometimes its hard to know what to do next. I spotted a plum tree yesterday that I hadn’t seen before –it was previously in disguise as a green tree – now its bright yellow! So today I went up to pick plums – followed by 2 dogs and a sheep. I was there a couple of hours and picked masses and also discovered a new part of the field. There’s a lovely little flat bit at the foot of the hill that’s actually in shade till mid afternoon. I sat there for ages just looking at the field from a different direction and tuning into to the energies. That was a lovely way to spend half the morning but what I have realised over this last month when I’ve been working this place on my own, is that it needs people. Its fine enough having volunteers but sometimes it’s a very frustrating thing when people say they’re coming then they don’t confirm and then you don’t hear from them again and meanwhile I’ve said no to other people. I have been really lucky with the volunteers who have been here – they’ve all been wonderful and I’m very grateful for all their work but organising it all is a hassle.

But I was thinking about Jorge and Vasilka next door – there are three of them and usually Vasilka stays around the house, gets the food together, makes jam and stuff like that while the guys are off doing the field work. When there’s just me, I have choose which of those things to do. Its wonderful having so much fruit, but will I have the time to pick it all and them do something with it?

I need a couple of other people to come and live here on a longer term basis. That means people could take a bit more responsibility and I don’t have to make all the decisions although, to be fair, all of the volunteers who’ve been here so far have taken loads of responsibility.

Wednesday

Had a visit yesterday from three 16 year old girls from the village – one of whom speaks very good English. We had afternoon tea on the lawn – they loved my tea pot and they all want lessons in scone making. They gave me an idea for getting rid of Alan – periodically people drive around in a car with a loudspeaker and offer to buy things – so I’ve just got to get it worked out what I need to say and run out next time I hear them. But it’ll be sad to see her go – we’ve kind of got used to each other but she really is a hassle.

I’ve never really been an animal person – except cats of course and all farm livestock has always seems to me to be a big hassle – correct on that one!

There are fireflies around at night and last night there was one in my bedroom when I switched off the light – it was lovely watching it. I captured one and watched it through my little magnifying glass – fascinating and thank you Eden for the glass.

Saturday –full moon. Two Scottish people have just moved into the village – their house is up the other side of the village and they’ve got loads of work to do on it. They’re not much interested in the land but I’m sure they will be eventually however, they are interested in Alan and they have a whole field for her to eat. So maybe that’ll work out.

I have just been for the most incredible walk – I need to just gush about this for a minute – I walked up the back behind the house but didn’t go into the woods. I wandered along the goat track then came upon miles of the most beautiful wild flower meadows. I was walking knee deep in glorious colours – a whole field of white with tall yellow flowers dotted about then loads of pink and masses of different purples and blues…. and hundreds of butterflies - I lost count of the different types, sizes and colours. I wonder if there places like that still in the UK? How sad if there aren’t but I can’t remember ever seeing so much wild beauty in one place. I walked for about an hour in the flowers and of course there was no one there – just me and the dogs. It was quite stunning – it’ll be really interesting seeing those meadows at different times of the year.

Then I came back to another interesting hour – there was a strange scratching sound coming from the water barrel – I looked in tentatively hoping I wouldn’t have to rescue a rat! But there was a bird – quite big, white and black speckles and quite stuck! I lifted it out and it was too heavy with water to fly so I sat it on the vines where it obligingly sat while I got the bird book out. I really wanted it to be a baby falcon but it wasn’t even in the book – I think it was a young wood pigeon.

The other day I was thinking that it was inconceivable that a Geordie would want to swear at Alan Shearer – even just a sheep named after him but this animal is doing my head in. I think its now a universal fact, agreed by me, Jess, Tino and my neighbours that I made a mistake. I understand now that I should have got two lambs so that they have company but they’re also not used to going out walking in lots of company all day and everyday. This poor animal just can’t deal with being alone.

It was actually quite funny when we were all up the hill behind the field, I hid in the grass, just to see what she would do, and she ran up and down the field in panic when she couldn’t see me and then came charging over when she saw me. I don’t quite have an answer to this problem yet – maybe I could swap her for 2 lambs – my Bulgarian isn’t quite up to that standard right now.

A word on houses and building materials – I can’t believe how cool these old houses are in the height of a hot afternoon and also how easy they are to heat in the winter. They are build so that the house can breathe – bricks and mud I guess with a huge open loft space above the whole length of the house. Sitting in the shade of the porch is cool but its quite chilly in the rooms. Who needs air conditioning? Also, people live their lives outside so much here – everyone has a cool shady place to sit and eat – I’m on the porch at the moment but the vines are growing at a phenomenal rate and will soon be covering the lawn area. I’m also growing climbing flowers and melons across the frame so we’ll be able to sit in the shade and just reach up for a melon or a grape.

A few days later – Alan seems to be getting the hang of this business of eating grass on your own but I’m not sure that I have the patience to wait around till she learns. However, getting rid of her is also a b ig hassle so I think I’m in Scarlet O’Hara mode on this one – “I’ll think about it tomorrow”.

I get a bit despondent sometimes when I look at other people’s gardens and their fields full of vegetables but then I have to remind myself that they’ve all been here for most of a lifetime and even this year, I started nearly two months later than everyone else. And things are growing now so I do feel a bit better but there are ups and downs – millions of cucumbers and tomatoes but the cabbage, turnips and sprouts have all been decimated by white fly when I wasn’t looking. I’m taking the Zen approach to my veg growing and gardening this year – I’m being fairly passive while I get to know the soil which I do now know is pretty crap! But it’ll get there eventually. I’m activating my compost heap biodynamically right now so that should help – I haven’t shared this information with the neighbours as they already think I’m weird enough. Those of you who were here earlier will be happy to know that the fifth apricot tree has now got leaves on it – Rescue Remedy ad lots of attention worked.

I’ve decided to advertise the campsite around hostels in BG even though the toilets and showers aren’t finished – the gazebo and the solar showers will be well good enough. I have to admit that bricklaying is now really high up my list of things I just cant bring myself to do! I’m sending out some really powerful messages to the universe to send me someone to help.

I spent a lovely day doing totally nothing the other day – I was very tired so I put on a skirt and a sparkly top and lay on the lawn, reading and watching the vines grow. I may have no cabbages but I have a lovely lawn but then I am English and I do have a couple of cake stands for when I have afternoon tea.

Thanks for all the lovely responses to mylast blog – great to hear from people.

One of the problems about naming a sheep after England’s greatest centre forward is the expectation that it will have a bit of backbone. This morning I spent about half an hour making a shelter for me to do the bricklaying and another one to keep Alan cool in the melting mid day sun. A short while later a gust of wind blew down her (yes Alan is a she) tarpaulin and she completely freaked. I thought about the characteristics that I had automatically attributed to her just by virtue of the name …… she needs a bit of confidence building! Actually I didn’t realise how ego centric sheep can be – I thought they just happily ate grass all day but no – Alan is very attention seeking and very noisy. She wants to be beside me all the time but if I let her off the rope she immediately eats all the things that she’s not supposed to and tramples over the vegetables. She was just making a big noise there and when I went to check, she had spitefully (and cleverly) tipped her water over and was refusing to stand in the shade! How do I end up with animals like this? Jess kind of likes it here except for the heat but follows me around all the time. Tino, who does have some characteristics of his namesake but is a bit of a woos, runs in mad circles around the field and loves me because I feed him. To be fair, Alan isn’t afraid of the dogs and headbutted Jess the day she arrived. If I was a proper techie (and had the time)I could set up a blog called the Antics of Alan and everyone could share with me the frustrations everytime he tangles his leg around the rope. It also really hurts when he stands on my foot.

Apart from the animals, I’m alone here just now. Ed and Jess, the last volunteers left last weekend but they’ll be back – they liked Voditsa so much they’re buying a house here! Jo and Jacquie are also looking for somewhere in the village – its not an ex-pat invasion because they all intend to live here and invest time and energy into the village. Ed and Jess are keen to keep animals – maybe Alan could go for a holiday down the road sometimes and they’re all into organic and ethical farming – its quite exciting now to think about the possibilities as we work cooperatively.

Ed and I are going to explore the liqueur business – I cant wait for these trees to all start bearing fruit so I can get started.

Trees – there is so much fruit this year, I’m going to be really busy using it all! Last year there were only a few apples on one tree, now there are hundreds on about 6 trees. I now seem to have 4 different kinds of plums and the peach trees seem to be producing the same 5 million that they did last year. There are also loads of quinces and the funny red berry called Drianka which tastes awful but has liqueur potential.

The grass seed that I sowed in Mid April has finally germinated –after not a drop of rain for 8 weeks, it then rained for 5 days almost non stop. One day was just amazing with thunder and lightening all day and a downpour to rival the monsoon. It was also rain that came straight down – wind and rain together seems to be a particularly British thing and it was warm so we just sat on the porch all day and watched it.

Back to the word “bricklaying” – plan B in relation to the toilets and showers is based on the phrase “how hard can it be?” Jo, Jess and Ed did the hard stuff at the beginning – moving up from the foundations to the some eventual straight lines. It looked really hard so I kept out of it and planted vegetables but now its up to me! All I have to do is keep it straight and plumb – I don’t really know how to use a plumb line and I don’t have a spirit level but it all looks quite straight and it seems to be sticking together. Any brickies or builders reading this will be having a fit but it doesn’t seem that hard although I do have a use a lot of hand cream and its really bad for my nails! I’m also quite slow at it – Winston Churchill used to do bricklaying for a hobby – maybe I’ll get into it – there’s a long way to go so I’m going to get plenty of practice.

We have the most lovely sign for outside the gate – Jacquie is now the star pupil in her mosaic class and I cant wait to get it on the wall.

Phew, I’ve finally finished the site!

St. James’ Park is now (as you can tell) online. If you find any problems, please drop me an e-mail (see the Contact page at the bottom).

Good luck with the Winter, Kathy!

…are in season! Last week I just couldn’t get my nails clean – it took me nearly a week to realise it walnut juice! Everyone is walking around with really black hands where they have sat taking the green outer bit off the walnuts. I have about 6 huge walnut trees – must buy some Marigolds but how cool to have a couple of sacks of walnuts to eat.

The trees are loaded with fruit so there’s a lot of harvesting to be done before the winter comes. There’s the apples in the picture, and there are also hundreds of small peaches just getting ripe in the trees outside the house. Don’t know what I’m going to do with them all.