Sorry, I thought you said you wanted to help, for free!

I'm 24 but have had a hard life!

Now, call me suspicious, but when people want to come and help for free, well apart from some meals and accomodation that is I get a little spooked.

So it was only natural that I felt a similar trepidation as to that of trying pumpkin soup for the first time when Nanny Southwellski sugested the wwoofer/helpx thing.

Wwoofers (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) and Helpx'ers are basically people of all ages/genders/nationalities who want to travel and experience first hand living and visiting different parts of the world.

Ben tilling the soil.

 Our first experience has been great, we had a Helpx'er, Ben, from Australia arrive three weeks ago for a one week stay.

He stayed three weeks and we were sorry to see him go, especially Coco who shared many rounds of toast with him and had lots of stories read to her.

Ben helped us get the new veggie plots turned over, the polytunnel up, dog run finished and the fencing finished and stained.

He fitted into our way of life and joined in with what we were doing when both we and he felt like it and did his own thing when he wanted to. 

Is that a cross word to Monty, Anna?

Anna, our Wwoofer, lives locally and cycles three miles each way on Mondays and Tuesdays to help out.

We did ask the question of why come and help us when there are so many exotic places to choose from on the wwoofer site to go and help.

It turns out that along with a lot of other young people, Anna has finished University and is finding job hunting very difficult and so thought she would try wwoofing locally before venturing further afield.

During a conversation this very morning,  Anna just happened to mention that she had a blog called 'Velvetalphabet'.

'Velvetalphabet' is not a blog, its a masterpiece in how to live well, live cheaply (sometimes for free) and live ethically.

Nanny Southwellski and I are blown away by the huge amount of knowledge this young lady has about the environment in which we live.

However, our opinion of Anna is very different to the one that Ben formed, mind you she did give him a cycling tour of most of West Norfolk in just three hours and he suffered for a few days afterwards because of it.


My thoughts now are, if you have the room and have the work that needs doing give wwoofing or helpx a go.

Great, Great Grandpa Southwellski's medals from WW1

On a slightly more sombre note, we have just had rememberance day, and each year we see fewer of the old veterans turning out, but we do see the younger veterans from later conflicts replacing them.

It surprises me, and saddens me that young people today are not told very much about the history of the two world wars, why they started, what happened and how mankind dealt with the aftermath.

We always observe the two minutes silence at work and at home and it gives me a great feeling inside when the 'troublesome' youngsters we have at ZFL stand perfectly still and silent for the whole two minutes despite their 'alleged'  ADHD, Lack of social skills and anger.

Gives you a bit of hope that despite what society thinks, there is still a lot of good in our young people.

Now, those who have known me for a while will know that as each year goes by I hone my 'Victor Meldrew' skills a little more.

But its not in vain, about three months ago I tripped over a raised paviour at Tesco's in Brandon.  I spoke to the Assistant Manager who promised to sort it.  Six weeks later it wasn't done so I spoke to the manager who said he would get it done that very day.

Four weeks later it still wasn't done, so I spoke to another assistant manager who appeared irritated by my bringing this to his attention, I did tell him he was very rude!

"I will see it's done" he said "thank you for telling us".

"No problem" I replied "every little helps". 

If it's not done when I next come I'll write to the papers I thought, but, true to his word, two weeks later they are all repaired and level and lovely. Go Victor I say!  Oh, and well done Tesco.

Isn't Autumn lovely!

I love Autumn, I love the freshness, I love the cold and I love the changes in colours.

Our fruit trees are as beautiful now as they were when they were laden with fruit, this is our apple tree (left) which earlier was covered in the brightest red apples I have ever seen.

And now it's off to bed as we have the landscapers in tomorrow.

Fortunately they have to go to the yard first to load up so won't be here until 7.45!

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