Our time wwoofing was a wonderful experience in many ways, but it was also a somewhat challenging lesson in tolerance and patience while we attempted to adjust to new people and their different ways of living. While we are quite comfortable with roughing it and "making do", one night of sleeping in an unheated cabin with a compost loo out back in the coldest part of the damp English winter was the final straw...
We spent our first two weeks at Fingringhoe pruning apple trees (see previous post). Afterwards we boarded the train to Norfolk and spent a week with beekeeper Steve in the Stallands, near Wymondham (pronounced Wind-um). And then we were supposed to spend our final week with Mark and Christine in nearby Spooner Row. However, after that first sleepless and cold night, we knew we couldn't make it through the week. At lunch the next day we booked the first ticket back to London we could... Monday morning. So, we had three nights in our cramped and cold cabin and two days of collecting tree trimmings, which was far from the romantic notion I'd had of working on an organic farm, milking cows, feed hens, collecting eggs and planting seeds! A little naive I suppose... especially at this time of year, but they sure did feed us well! We've never eaten such good, healthy, vegetarian food in our lives. I definitely learned some great new ways of cooking.
And so we are back in St. Albans and know well, that while we love love love to spend time in the country, we are definitely, definitely big city people. I kissed the air when we stepped off the bus in London.
As for beekeeping... our new friend Steve, the beekeeper taught us quite a bit about the ins and outs of it all while we replaced last year's frames with new wax for the bees and labeled many a jar of honey. We've been enjoying the delcious honey we were able to take home with us and look forward to returning later in the season to see our frames put to use. To see pictures visit this album on facebook.
Robin (& Dan)
PS The title of this blog is a quote from Emma: "I don't play Monopoly. Frankly, I just don't see the point". Funny, funny, Emma.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Hams Farm in Fingringhoe
For a little over a week we have been at Hams Farm in Fingringhoe near the town of Colchester in Essex County pruning apple trees. It's been quite rainy, a little cold, and a lot of trees (:-P), but we've loved (almost) every minute of it.
Emma and Andrew, our hosts, have been most gracious and we've eaten very very well. They have the most adorable white Alsacian dog, Sharky (Sharky-warky-barky, as she is often called), who is the sweetest dog ever and loves listening to music. While here, we have been able to explore the village of Fingringhoe, visit nearby Mersea Island (Eastern-most island in the country), and Colchester (the Roman town Camulodonum). Check out our pictures.
We've learned a little about maintaining an orchard and a lot about keeping warm during the damp English winter. We are here for a few more days before we head to our next farm in Norfolk. There's been talk of beekeeping, but we're not sure what's in store for us there...
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Emma and Andrew, our hosts, have been most gracious and we've eaten very very well. They have the most adorable white Alsacian dog, Sharky (Sharky-warky-barky, as she is often called), who is the sweetest dog ever and loves listening to music. While here, we have been able to explore the village of Fingringhoe, visit nearby Mersea Island (Eastern-most island in the country), and Colchester (the Roman town Camulodonum). Check out our pictures.
We've learned a little about maintaining an orchard and a lot about keeping warm during the damp English winter. We are here for a few more days before we head to our next farm in Norfolk. There's been talk of beekeeping, but we're not sure what's in store for us there...
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
St. Alban's
We have fallen in love with Annabel's town, St. Albans. We've spent the last few days here with her and it seems to offer everything lovely about a smaller English city. It was once the Roman town Verulamium and is supposed to be the oldest continuous settlement in Britain. It has some remnants of the Roman walls, lovely old pubs, narrow winding streets and little crickleways (small passages from one street to another), cobbled roads, etc. The river Ver runs through it, which is covered with ducks and swans and surrounded with green parks. We ate at the Waffle House beside the river and had the most fantastic savoury waffles ever. We will definitely be spending more time here, and pictures will come soon.
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Around Town
What a week! I didn't realize just how much of London I had left unexplored, but we've been busy everyday and have had a wonderful time reconnecting with this fantastic city. For the rest of last weekend, we just relaxed and didn't get up to much. On Saturday night, we met up with Annabel again, and walked around Covent Garden after dinner and on Sunday, Annabel took us out to St. Alban's, which is just north of the city, to see her town and new condo. The rest of the week, however, was just go-go-go.
Before we left, Robin had found online a package called The London Pass. For a certain fee, you are allowed into a long list of London attractions over a certain period of time. We bought a 3-day pass, thinking that we might save a few pounds. Well, it was actually worth it just for the first day, and everything else was basically free after that.
On Monday morning, we started off with a Thames river cruise that took us from Big Ben and parliament to 'Bankside', with is where they recently reconstructed Shakespeare's old theatre, The Globe. We took the tour, where we watched an actor audition for the role of Borachio in Much Ado About Nothing. While we didn't think that HE was right for that role, we do hope to come back to see the production. It used to cost the people of London a penny to see a performance five hundred years ago, which works out basically to £5 by today's standards. Tickets, then, for the performances here are only £5 ($10).
After the globe, we walked across the recently constructed Millenium footbridge, which takes you across the river to St. Paul's cathedral. We climbed the 450-500 steps to the very top, for a fantastic view of the city, and thoroughly enjoyed walking around one of Britain's most beautiful churches. It was then only a short bus ride to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, two of Britain's most recognizable landmarks. Oddly enough, there seemed to be a rather macabre theme running through our tour today. Just as a point of interest, apparently the men behind the creation of The Globe, St. Paul's, and Tower Bridge all died before their resepective completions. Just a piece of useless knowledge for you should you ever need it.
On Tuesday, we took the train out to Hampton court; Henry VIII's palace, which had been used as a royal residence until about 250 years ago. We walked the grounds, and took the tours, and pictured what it must have been like to hold feasts in the great hall. Afterwards, we went for dinner, and then found a pub that was showing the Chelsea vs. Everton football (soccer) match. I've been following the premier league since shortly after the last World Cup, and have taken a bit of a liking to Chelsea FC, despite how uncoothe some might say that is. The important thing is, my team won :-P
Following up on my (our) team's win, we went on a tour of the stadium's facilities on Wednesday and can't wait to catch a game live. Tickets for premier league matches are quite pricey and are hard to come by, so we'll probably wait until after we start working before we get any. We spent the rest of the day walking around and visiting museums (including the museum of Tea and Coffee, and the Tate Modern) and enjoying Cream Tea (pot of tea, scones with clotted cream and jam, and cake) before collapsing back in our hotel room and watching a few hours of British tele.
All in all we saw a ton of amazing sights and have lots of pictures to share. Just click here. And here is a video tour of our small hotel room:
Before we left, Robin had found online a package called The London Pass. For a certain fee, you are allowed into a long list of London attractions over a certain period of time. We bought a 3-day pass, thinking that we might save a few pounds. Well, it was actually worth it just for the first day, and everything else was basically free after that.
On Monday morning, we started off with a Thames river cruise that took us from Big Ben and parliament to 'Bankside', with is where they recently reconstructed Shakespeare's old theatre, The Globe. We took the tour, where we watched an actor audition for the role of Borachio in Much Ado About Nothing. While we didn't think that HE was right for that role, we do hope to come back to see the production. It used to cost the people of London a penny to see a performance five hundred years ago, which works out basically to £5 by today's standards. Tickets, then, for the performances here are only £5 ($10).
After the globe, we walked across the recently constructed Millenium footbridge, which takes you across the river to St. Paul's cathedral. We climbed the 450-500 steps to the very top, for a fantastic view of the city, and thoroughly enjoyed walking around one of Britain's most beautiful churches. It was then only a short bus ride to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, two of Britain's most recognizable landmarks. Oddly enough, there seemed to be a rather macabre theme running through our tour today. Just as a point of interest, apparently the men behind the creation of The Globe, St. Paul's, and Tower Bridge all died before their resepective completions. Just a piece of useless knowledge for you should you ever need it.
On Tuesday, we took the train out to Hampton court; Henry VIII's palace, which had been used as a royal residence until about 250 years ago. We walked the grounds, and took the tours, and pictured what it must have been like to hold feasts in the great hall. Afterwards, we went for dinner, and then found a pub that was showing the Chelsea vs. Everton football (soccer) match. I've been following the premier league since shortly after the last World Cup, and have taken a bit of a liking to Chelsea FC, despite how uncoothe some might say that is. The important thing is, my team won :-P
Following up on my (our) team's win, we went on a tour of the stadium's facilities on Wednesday and can't wait to catch a game live. Tickets for premier league matches are quite pricey and are hard to come by, so we'll probably wait until after we start working before we get any. We spent the rest of the day walking around and visiting museums (including the museum of Tea and Coffee, and the Tate Modern) and enjoying Cream Tea (pot of tea, scones with clotted cream and jam, and cake) before collapsing back in our hotel room and watching a few hours of British tele.
All in all we saw a ton of amazing sights and have lots of pictures to share. Just click here. And here is a video tour of our small hotel room:
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Some pictures, finally!
Here are a few shots of our first couple of days in London. We were with Annabel at Giraffe for dinner our first night and then on Saturday morning we wandered the Camden market area. More to come!
Saturday, January 5, 2008
London! (WOOT!)
We've arrived in London at long last. The flight over was filled with understandable excitement, and mild giddiness on Dan's part. We were kindly met at Heathrow by Robin's former co-worker, and good friend, Annabel. She drove us to the EasyHotel at Earl's Court, passing by Dan's old flat in Acton along the way. We squeezed our bags into our cramped 6-square metre room (video to follow), and had a quick dinner at Giraffe.
We accidentally slept through most of our first full day here as our room has no window and we didn't get much sleep on the flight over. We were only woken by a hotel employee warning us of test fire alarms that would be going off shortly and realized it was already 1:30pm! We had 3.5 hours before we were to meet Annabel at the pub, so we dashed off to grab some breakfast on our way to Trafalgar Square - Dan's favourite spot in London, and now pigeon-free. We spent the evening wandering the city in the rain after a delicious meal at Wagamama's
This morning (Saturday), we wandered the funky Camden market and are now headed to the British Museum this afternoon. There's talk of seeing a West End play, and tomorrow we're taking a day trip to St. Alban's to visit Annabel's new flat. We were hoping to add some pictures here, but the USB port doesn't seem to agree. More to come!
We accidentally slept through most of our first full day here as our room has no window and we didn't get much sleep on the flight over. We were only woken by a hotel employee warning us of test fire alarms that would be going off shortly and realized it was already 1:30pm! We had 3.5 hours before we were to meet Annabel at the pub, so we dashed off to grab some breakfast on our way to Trafalgar Square - Dan's favourite spot in London, and now pigeon-free. We spent the evening wandering the city in the rain after a delicious meal at Wagamama's
This morning (Saturday), we wandered the funky Camden market and are now headed to the British Museum this afternoon. There's talk of seeing a West End play, and tomorrow we're taking a day trip to St. Alban's to visit Annabel's new flat. We were hoping to add some pictures here, but the USB port doesn't seem to agree. More to come!
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