muhahahaha :D

Uh, geheimnisvoller Posttitel!
Nächsten Montagabend passiert etwas ganz Tolles, etwas Wunderbares; Maxime und ich haben ziemlich viel Glück. Mehr dazu nächsten Dienstag ;)
Es geht mir gut, auch wenn die Arbeit hier manchmal echt langweilig und total simpel ist. Das Wetter ist zur Zeit hammermäßig und ich kann euch ganz genau sagen, wie gut: so gut, dass wir heute Heuballen vom Feld auf den Traktoranhänger geladen haben und als der Anhänger voll war (und damit etwa 4 Meter hoch), haben Maxime und ich oben drauf gelegen und sind zurück zur Farm (die eigentlich gar keine mehr ist, die Milchkühe haben sie schon in den 90ern verkaufen müssen; jetzt vermieten und verwalten sie Ställe an Pferdebesitzer und haben einen ganzen haufen Hühner).
Naja, soweit alles paletti!

Hab euch lieb,
Katrin

[day 43]

hmm...

Tja, da bin ich schon auf der zweiten wwoofing-Farm und somit meiner letzten Station hier in GB angekommen. Die Morgans (Jane und David) sind nett, aber Jane scheint ein bisschen sehr vernarrt in ihre Hühner ;) Verglichen zur Hazel Brow Farm wird das hier wohl eher leichte Arbeit sein; ich habe das Wochenende frei und mehr oder weniger feste Arbeitszeiten. Ich werde gut gefüttert (Cath, you still cook the best!), hab wieder ein eigenes Zimmer und Maxime (23 Jahre), der französische andere Wwoofer, ist auch meganett. Die Umstellung nach drei Wochen in North Yorkshire (hier ist es wärmer und so unglaublich flach =D) bei den Calverts ist grad noch etwas krass und ich denke ständig "Das war bei Cath anders (und besser)!", aber das legt sich in den nächsten Tagen, hoff ich (beim Kochen will Jane z.B. nicht gestört werden; hat mich und Max zum DVD gucken weggeschickt, wie 14-jährige, die man mit sowas immer ruhig stellen kann. Da kam ich mir schon ziemlich dämlich vor, der Ton ist so 'n bisschen "Geht schön spielen, Kinder"-like...) =D
Computer- und Internetzugang hab ich hier leider nicht so frei zur Verfügung, muss an den PC von Jane, Max fragen, ob ich seinen Laptop benutzen darf und als letzten Ausweg hab ich immer noch mein Wi-Fi-fähiges Smartphone :P Alle zwei/drei Tage alles (Mails, fb, Blog) durchchecken müsste drin sein ;)
Mal sehen wie das hier so wird!
Bis bald,
Katrin

[day 40]

so much to say, too lazy to express

Today with categories.
#Cambridge/London

Wanted to meet Maria (who's staying as an au-pair in London right now) but since she was free for the evening only and I didn't want to spend a day in London again I decided to go to Cambridge. Did a walking tour (how surprising! =D), had a glimpse into the Fitzwilliam Museum, wrote a postcard and - whoosh, caught the train to London. Here three impressions of Cambridge (I now visited both University Cities! Yay *.*)

 The Cam. Actually, it's quite obvious why the city is called Cambridge ^^

 a college. forgot which one =D

King's College!

Then I met Maria (was ein Wiedersehen =D), we had a beer, a walk around and very good talks :) Caught the train back to Darlington and fell asleep in my bed around 2.15am after a 20 hour-day!

#tasks

My bigger and smaller projects here on Hazel Brow: creosoting the inside of the field shelter, clearing out the office, doing the visitor centre's paperwork, weeding a large horseshoe-shaped flowerbed, feeding&mucking out a quantity of animals (nearly) every morning, serving visitors in the tearoom for 1 1/2 days, helping Cath with farm tours, sheep races etc., doing the social media stuff of Hazel Brow (which I'll continue doing when I'm back in Germany!), a big muck out I did together with Issey (Cath's niece; took us roughly 20 wheelbarrows to empty the goat pen entirely). Apart from these activities I did a lot more and all in all I can truly say: I achieved what I aimed to get: (ooh, double colons, the tension's mounting  =D) an insight into the life on England's countryside.

#eating

I don't know who/how often/where I told THAT but here's the inevitable truth: Cath is the master of cooking and baking. Even if she'd never heard of the recipe before the result was always stunning! I cooked once (Pfannkuchen ^^', das einzige deutsche Gericht, dass mir zu "typisch deutsch" eingefallen ist). Said enough =D I enjoyed every single meal; I'm looking forward to try all that myself (und ihr werdet meine Versuchskaninchen sein. Muhaha.).

#other people leaving

Lisa took her plane to Madrid today, Pia is going to China tomorrow (Pia's blog: http://piasara2liuku.jimdo.com/blog/pia/). I'll miss you!

#last day

Today, I worked in the tearoom in the visitor centre and did the animals for the last time. We're having tea in a few minutes and Cath suggested to go to Tan Hill Pub tonight, the highest pub in England :) Packing is half done, I'm pretty sure that the backpack's zip won't close properly. Planned arrival at Colchester Station tomorrow: around 2.30pm.

CU soon, love,

Katrin

[day 39]

I think we're having green gazpacho tonight

Hey there!
Had a 2 hour walk to Reeth today (impressions can be seen on facebook as profile/cover photos) to visit Reeth Show, an annual agricultural show that had its 100th birthday this year. There are competitions in all sorts of disciplines:
- bakery
- art (with food, knitted stuff, photography, painting etc.)
- craftsmanship (hiking poles, sheperd's crooks etc.)
- agricultural products such as vegetables, wool, hay etc.
- best sheep/poultry/horse/pony breeds (in different classes)
- nicest vehicles drawn by horses
- some curiosities, mostly for kids ;) -> best hand writing, nicest painted picture etc.
- fell racing in all age groups (the fells are the hills so some sort of a test of stamina, for both males and females, mainly carried out in the Dales as well as in the Lake District which is Cumbria)
In addition to that they presented:
- a tractor parade
- a Zetland Hunt display. Two men wearing hunting red coats on very well-behaved and -trained British hunt horses with a pack of hounds, Foxhounds to be exact, and the host with the microphone said something about 16 1/2 couples. Cath and I are musing about what he might have meant with that, we suppose he was referring to the dogs but we're not sure and google doesn't speak to us... Anyway, impressive thing those hunting displays! Oh, one information for all animals' rights activists out there: hunting was banned in Scotland in 2002, in England and Wales in 2004. But still it's lovely to watch, very majestic horses, the sound of the horn that keeps the hounds together, the hounds themselves! Actually, this hunting thing is quite interesting and very traditional in England, so why not take an hour or so and google it? ;)

I have just three days left here on one of which I'm in Cambridge for the day and in London for the evening (meeting Maria! :)). Time went by so fast and it was a lovely time I enjoyed a lot.

Lots of Love,
Katrin

[day 36]

Newcastle!

The blogger account is bonkers so I'm using this wonderful send-an-e-mail-to-the-blog thing :)
Some photos from my day trip to Newcastle!
1. Grey's Monument marks the centre of modern Newcastle
2. Replication of a stage prop
3. Grainger Market
4. view on Tyne Bridge (with Olympic rings attached) from Millenium Bridge
5. :D

Newcastle's the first city I had to explore myself (guided walking tour started too early) but that was a welcome variation. Was a bit disappointed by the art gallery and the museum I visited; anyway, the walks I did were interesting and I took more photos than in York.
When I arrived back in Darlington I had to wait 2 hours for Cath, she'd been to somewhere west of Manchester with her daughter and they came back with a huge delay. Was quite boring, I just had my music (couldn't even wander around Darlington, it was late so all shops etc were closed).

I started to creosote the field shelter which I'll finish within the next few days. Unfortunately, the weather up here is very changeable, rain, sun, warm, cold, morning fog.
On Wednesday, I have another day off and I'll go to the next village Reeth where they're having a show (http://www.reethshow.co.uk/); on next Friday I'll make use of the next to last travel day on my Interrail-Ticket and on next Sunday I'll use the last one to get to my last station here in the UK: the farm of the Morgan's near Colchester.

So far, so good!
Lots of Love,
Katrin

[day 33]

30 Tage

Heute bin ich exakt 30 Tage in Großbritannien! Kommt mir nicht so vor, eher länger. Ich hab so viel gesehen, erlebt und gelernt, so viel Englisch gesprochen wie nie zuvor, krass viele tolle Menschen getroffen, laut Google Maps (ungefähr!) 2000 km zwischen meinen einzelnen Station mit Bahn, Bus und Auto zurückgelegt, gelacht, geweint und bis jetzt 713 Fotos gemacht, in (fast) jeder Stadt eine walking tour mitgemacht, bisher ca. 423.54£ ausgegeben (entspricht ca. 536€, gut 240€ davon in der ersten Woche in London, 99ct in der gesamten letzten Woche), mich daran gewöhnt, dass die Autos hier links fahren (besonders dadurch, dass Cath mich oft mitnimmt, wenn sie etwas holen oder erledigen muss) und North Yorkshire einen ganz besonderen Akzent hat, in zwei Hostels, bei vier Couchsurfing- und bisher einem Wwoof-Host übernachtet, mein Reisetagebuch über den UK-Trip mit allerlei Dingen, aber vor allem mit Texten gefüllt, mit Familie und Freunden via Facebook, E-Mail, SMS und Telefonaten Kontakt und zu guter Letzt: euch mit diesem Blog auf dem Laufenden gehalten.
Mehr fällt mir grad nicht ein =)

Bald gibt's Fotos aus Newcastle!
Ach ja, eine Info noch, die einige schon mitbekommen haben, aber eben nicht alle:
Mittwoch, 12. September, Rückkehr nach Deutschland

Liebste Grüße,
Katrin

[day 30]

busy week

Heya!
This week will be packed with stuff to do:
We're having a Woolly Day tomorrow; visitors get the chance to watch a sheep clipping, we have plenty of woolly souvenirs (all hand-made from around here) and Low Row village has quite an interesting textile heritage to discover. Hopefully, the weather will be fine...
There's an Australian visitors group coming on Wednesday, I'm curious what they'll tell us if they're also dealing with livestock =)
Thursday will be the first day that I can start late since my arrival. Finally, some sleep in the morning (actually, I had more or less a day off today, just had to look after the animals in the morning as usual and at lunchtime because Cath was working and the visitors centre's closed on Mondays; I used my free time to get some rest =P) and not getting up at 6am or earlier (yes, Mum, last Friday I got up at 5.35am to feed animals =D).
I'll go on another day trip to Newcastle on Friday.
Yeah, and then my 5th week in the UK is over soon. I'm in contact with my second farm which is near Colchester; my arrival on September 2nd is settled, too.

We're having a few problems with some animals at the moment (well, actually we're ALWAYS having some problems here =D). The kittens recover from their beginning cat flu (the medicines we gave them twice a day finally took effect), two of them had bad eyes but that also is getting better. We had a little incident today: one of the dogs somehow managed to get off his chain and messed up our 4 weeks old chickens, one got bitten quite seriously; we treated the flesh wound but we don't know how it'll be in a few days. To me that poor thing seemed traumatized, didn't eat either. Let's hope the best!
Cath is clipping the sheep and Angora goats' bottoms because their fur got quite mucky. The weather conditions are perfect for flies laying eggs in those mucky strands so we better get rid of them!
The pigs (named Sausage and Bacon, ironically ^^' ) have diarrhoea; Cath suggested that they might have got to much food lately but is that even possible? Usually, pigs should be able to handle loads of food (at least that's what I'm convinced of =D). Maybe their nutrition was too onesided.

Okay, how do I manage to make a nice link between unappetising animal problems and a new recipe that I wanted to share with you? =D
Perhaps I tell you something about this recipe: it is very simple (usually it's the first one that kids try when their mums, dads or grandparents want to introduce them to baking) and obviously, as we can conclude from its name, Queen Victoria had a weakness for it.

Victoria Sandwiches
ingredients
# 4-4-4-2, that's some kind of formula which is easy to remember for kids; it means:
- 4 ounces of flour
- 4 ounces of butter
- 4 ounces of sugar
- 2 eggs
- btw, 1 ounce is about 28g and they use self-raising flour in the UK. Since we use mainly plain flour in Germany we have to add a teaspoon of baking powder!

preparation
mix it all together, cut the dough into whichever form you like and put it into the hot oven (165-170 degrees C) for approx. 25 minutes

serve with
whatever you like, be creative ;)

That's it for now!
Lots of Love,
Katrin

[day 27]