The three of us all met back up in Hastings in the middle of November. We spent two weeks together WWOOFing on a fruit and vegetable farm. We worked from 7:30am until 12pm every day, with a 15 minute "smoke-o" (tea break) at 10. We spent hours and hours picking strawberries, a job that left me with legs so painful I struggled to bend them. Our other jobs including strawberry plant maintenance, broccoli picking, green been picking, fruit thinning, packing the veg for the shop/market stall, and working at the market on a Sunday. Everybody took it in turns to cook on a weekly rota. We cooked three times: jacket potatoes, butter chicken curry, and my cawl. All three meals were a huge success!
This is also the farm Meryn is still working on, for those of you wondering why she has been absent from all my social media posts lately. She's saving up for a car. She's staying here for at least the full year of our visa and so has more time to explore than me or Tom. We miss her a lot, and especially missed her over Christmas, but we at least know she's happy and in a place with lovely people. Plus she's moved out of the caravan so I know she's sleeping well!
We hated that caravan the day we arrived. It was raining and the floor ended up covered in mud after we brought in all of our bags. It felt cold and damp as well, and the idea of living here for two weeks felt like torture.
First impressions do change though, and by the end of our time here I think I'd say it was definitely in my top 3 places we have stayed in so far. I grew to love that rickety old thing. It was outrageously hot during the warm weather (we probably would have been cooler sleeping in the greenhouses) and even with all of the windows open you were at danger of melting into the ground.
When the train roared past - on a track that was only on the other side of that greenhouse - the entire caravan would shake and you could barely hear yourself think over the noise. We had to walk to the outside toilet, and at night it was terrifying to walk on your own in the dark by all those farm buildings.
We loved that awful thing.
Mine and Meryn's side of the caravan! Notice how our stuff has just taken over everything? What isn't picture here is how Meryn was the only one who could comfortable fit in her bed.
Also not pictured: how strategically I slept in the covers to minimise any chance of me touching anything undesirable in my sleep.
If you look carefully, you might be able to pick out some broccoli trees peeping up amongst all the green leaves.
Sarah, Tom and I spent an afternoon cutting these broccoli ready to sell a the Sunday market. Sarah cut them from the plants using a machete, threw it to me, and I threw it to Tom who stacked them all in the crates we brought with us. You can see the red of the crate in the middle of the greenhouse.
This was a very welcome break from strawberry picking. Even if finding the green broccoli amongst the green leaves was a task that took longer than we would have liked!
Of the two coffee shops I visited on my trips into town, the one in the local cinema was my favourite. I used to love to sit in there with my kindle, my coffee, and the free ice cold water.
I spent the majority of the two weeks reading Lolita, and I was hooked. I absolutely loved the book. I found some fascinating articles to read about it afterwards as well. The language in that book was pure wonder. (I'm going to stop now because otherwise I will have to just dedicate my blog over to my ramblings about that book).
One evening there was a rainbow in the sunset and I swear, I was almost done with how beautiful this country can be.
I HATE STRAWBERRY PICKING AND STRAWBERRY PLANTS AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS THIS PICTURE BRINGS BACK TO ME.
Strawberry picking was by far my least favourite of all the jobs we did over those two weeks. It makes sense then, that it was also what we spent most of our time doing.
On the 4th day of work, my legs hurt so badly that I couldn't fully extend them. I had to ask Tom to help. He ended up helping me stretch my legs for the next 3 days.
I had to wear plasters on 3 of my fingers because of my weird strawberry picking technique. I had blisters for the first few days before I bought myself those plasters.
The rows were so long, and there were always so many punits to collect afterwards. It's a bloody good job it meant we had almost unlimited strawberries to eat because I may have lost my shit otherwise.
By far my favourite part of the two weeks was working the Sunday Farmer's Market. It's very cool to be able to say that I've not only visited the "must see" market, but I've worked it too.
Sundays started at 5:30am, and we had to be packing the van by 6. That gave us juuuuust enough time to feel sorry for ourselves, get dressed, and have breakfast. Once we'd loaded everything up, we drove the 10 minutes or so to the show grounds and got everything set up.
During my first market shift I was selling to the customers. I only asked for pounds instead of dollars once AND my maths skills didn't let me down. Proud moment! I was too tired to be sociable during my second shift so I took on the role of "restocker". I had to keep replacing the items that customers were buying to make sure the stall always looked full. This was a lot easier said than done when the strawberries kept flying off the shelves!
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