Fateful encounters - good ones!

About two months ago I set about trying to find a useful 'Workaway' (for those who don't know - people that have signed up to said site to help out others while being lodged, fed and hopefully enjoying some cultural exchange) to help out in our scarily rampant early spring garden.

It can be a mixed bag - Workaway; we've found some fascinating, warm hearted and hard working folks over the years, and others who have wished to find themselves (or not) while smoking and sitting on the terrace, the work reluctantly done, without care and timed to the millisecond. 

The last woman, who arrived with allergies, barely concealed anger over her unraveled life and an annoying habit of telling me how everything should be done, gleefully announced after a few days she had contracted covid and would therefore be taking up residence in our almost finished gite, while I trotted backwards and forwards with carefully prepared meals. I consider myself to be a mostly very tolerant person, but I almost revelled in telling to remove herself to wherever she had appeared from. We are pretty sure that the covid deal was an excuse to settle in to our lives and welcome a steady stream of pity and food. We didn't contract the malady, despite her hissing into my face - don't put a comment on Workaway and I won't put one on you as she left.

I almost closed my account after that episode but decided she was just one amongst hundreds of good souls, ands therefore started a search for someone who knew a fair bit about gardening, and or DIY. All these types were well and truly booked up, and this time I really wanted someone with actual knowledge so I could show them the outdoor madness and say -off you go, lunch at 12.

After a week of no replies I was contacted by an enthusiastic young Swedish guy who issued me that although he didn't actually have plant knowledge that he was good humoured, hard working and 'self-propelled'. The latter part of the paragraph made me smile, and encouraged me to hit reply with a yes, why not.

I went to collect Gustav from Tours station late one evening, and despite that he had been on a bus for 50 hours, he was alert, super friendly and interesting. We struck up an immediate friendship as if we had known each other for years; the drive back a melange of discussions over politics, literature, nature, cookery - his next project is to take up chef studies.

After a very long lie in - understandably - he emerged blinking into the early spring sunshine, amazed at the early spring colour after a more winter-bound Sweden, and we continued our conversations over lunch. The next day he started on the work and despite a lack of knowledge was incredibly helpful in the garden especially with things I have rather had to give up on - moving rocks, gravel, reinstating collapsed rose structures, etc. 

Over the week he fitted in more and more with all of us, until it seemed as he was really living with us, and could continue to do so pretty much indefinitely. This is the best side of Workaway, finding someone who shares many interests, wishes to exchange things about their life and culture, and is genuinely enthusiastic about helping out and leaving their own positive mark on their hosts' lives.

I'm sure we will see Gustav again. And I wouldn't mind a trip to Stockholm one day to discover the city with a knowledgable guide. 

A pair of boots, a pair of trousers, and fate

I'd nearly thrown out Mark's ancient walking boots but as I was about to hurl them to the dump pile we'd decided they might be useful . . . for something, so, they'd returned to the dark place under the stairs and I'd though no more about them.

A couple of months ago Mark had bought a pair of brown jeans from our favourite charity haunt without trying them on. They were just a little to large - waist wise, so I was about to put them in the bag for the next trip to afore-mentioned shop, but wondered if they might be useful, for something . . . so they remained in a drawer and I'd thought no more about them - until, our latest Workaway arrived almost a month ago. Christopher had noted on his profile that people call him the gentle giant, and he is, almost as tall as Mark - 6ft 6 - and just a little wider in the waist, his feet the same size 13!  As some of the work I had lined up was muddy garden/rock moving stuff and Christopher was traveling very light with no work boots or rough clothes the put-to-one-side garments suddenly had a purpose, as if they had been waiting for our visitor.

I've probably mentioned before on this blog that I think I do rather believe in fate. I'd approached Christopher on the Workaway website along with a few other people to come and work with us on various large garden and reconstruction projects. He'd declined at first saying he was looking further south, and I'd concentrated on trying to get one particular traveller to come and help as his profile looked perfect. After much chasing and stupidly long useless texts, etc, I realised it wasn't going to work and gave up, or perhaps decided to go with the flow a bit more, let the idea drop and see if anyone else approached me.

Then I had a response from Christopher saying he'd changed his mind about the south and would like to visit us. We had a brief chat and then a few days later I picked him up on a freezing morning at a motorway péage at 5:30 am. Fate obviously had stepped in, or maybe it was me just letting go a bit and stopping trying to make something happen. From the moment he'd reemerged from his room following a much needed sleep, it was clear we were not only all going to get on but he would very quickly become a member of the family.

We said goodbye to him this morning with great sadness but with the knowledge that we will certainly see him again, maybe often, maybe in his home country of Sicily, maybe here with his new family in France.

I must recommend Workaway. We've met some wonderful people through the site, moved forward with many projects but never quite as successfully as this time. The garden has in many parts been transformed, much wood has been cut, rubble cleared, a pond dug, a rustic BBQ made, walls pointed, a garden shelter made, the dog walked even more extensively; we have played rumba in the kitchen, been taught how to make Sicilian dishes, discussed world politics, history, literature, language, nature, environment, music, art, cooking . . . He has learned much too - that vegetarian food is actually really good! new music, life from perhaps a different perspective, improved his English, learned the names of plants, birds, and many other things. 

Happy travels, Christopher; good luck on your long hike, and I hope we see you again very soon. 

 

Nearing the end of a project

A building project that occupied much of our time over the last year. Fearful moments, wonderful moments, great satisfaction, and a collective feeling that we'd probably never want to do anything like this again...

Everything used has been hunted down at recycling places, charity shops, boot sales, online junk exchange, skips and the various local dumps, only the unavoidable basics bought - insulation, plaster board, the electrician and plumber skills/materials, etc.  

It's down to the small stuff now - unearthing the tile cutter to do the one skirting tile we were short of, a couple of curtains to finish, a bit of missed grout, a touch of repainting here and there; and a few bigger items, like pointing the exterior back wall and finishing off the courtyard BBQ area. 

Thanks to our our wonderful Workaway, Christopher, said BBQ area has emerged from a huge mound of earth and rocks at the back of the building which was once the bread oven - sadly neglected and allowed to collapse over time.

A few recent photos, and top one from what now seems a very, very long time ago...

before...

after

The original door knocker from the main house.

remains of the old bread oven - with tree growing out of it...

cleared away, and wall partially pointed 

new rustic BBQ made of reclaimed bits from our local charity emporium. 

Total cost: six euros

The good life

We've had 'The Gladys' - our collection of six chickens for over three years now and they've reached the point of sparse egg laying. For some time I'd been thinking about 'rubbing' one or two out but the actual deed was beyond me, and certainly beyond Mark - very occasional meat-eater.

                                    

Then Chris, a brilliantly-practical Workaway came to stay for a few weeks.
After learning that he had been brought up on a farm in Cumbria. I nonchalantly asked him how he would feel about 'doing in' a hen or two. He shrugged as if I'd asked whether he could wash couple of windows and said, 'Sure. No Problem.'
The days passed and today was deemed the day.

                                                 
We prepared a 'plucking area' and I hid while he did the actual thing. I did witness one of the demises and actually its was very, very quick. One minute, chicken in the pen waiting for the next load of scraps, next minute, gone - a bit of flapping, which I was assured was just the nerves continuing to operate, and then it was over. Two warm and easy (ish) to pluck birds. Freezing morning, so we did it as quickly as possible and then took them in to wash and remove any last feathers.
Oddly, I didn't feel very sorrowful, probably less than I do when glancing at a supermarket fridge full of poor water-bloated birds that have lived a miserable existence for a few months, never having scratched in real soil, foraged or lay in the sun airing their wings. Our flock have done all of that and been fed endless delicious scraps.

                                                        

We don't eat much meat or fish. Probably two small pieces a week - a little bit of organic steak, a mackerel, maybe, but I was keen to involve myself in the process of 'coop to table'.  I feel we - who do eat meat - should understand and appreciate the life and death of an animal, not just be prepared to unwrap a chuck of pink sterile flesh from a polystyrene tray and think nothing of it.
Mark wasn't having any of it and went to play the piano, and our son, who said he would help stubbornly snored on upstairs after a late night.
Anyway, it was fine, Chris cleaned them and I boiled them up before roasting as they were indeed tough old birds. One of the chickens, sub-named Barp, due to the noise it uttered most of the time, had developed over the years a huge wobbling 'front area' which I had assumed was a big juicy breast - it was in fact the 'crop' where the the food gets broken down. The wobbling area was actually a mass of semi-digested grass and small stones. Nice.
Barp without her masses of soft feathers was actually really quite tiny - the difference between egg-laying foul and those produced for meat.
A couple of hours later we all sat out in the winter sunshine and ate roast chicken and it felt oddly okay. A lot more okay than not knowing where the two birds had come from and whether they had experienced any real chicken time.