Dorms for grown-ups with green thumbs

Overall, I'm really enjoying my stay here in Herefordshire at Canon Frome Court. This farm is actually a community. There are a bunch of people sharing a big, old house and its outbuildings and running an organic farm for their own consumption. It would not be quite accurate to call it a commune, since many people also have outside jobs and all the families own their flats within the estate, their own possessions, and they only eat one meal a week together, but it's definitely a more communal lifestyle than the norm. In a way, it reminds me of an adult version of living in Mary Lyons, my beloved college dorm, where everybody has their own things to do but they socialize and help each other out. They make group decisions by consensus, just like Swatties prefer. (Unsurprisingly, I met one woman here who's Quaker.) I don't know if I could live here or a place like it permanently, since the farm work, food prep, and upkeep mean that you don't seem to have a lot of truly free time, but it's a majorly idyllic place to visit. They get all their own milk from two cows and several goats, and much of the cheese, yogurt, and ice cream are homemade,n as is the jam. The fresh produce is really good. I'm feasting on odd English fruits like red currants and gooseberries. Kids run around, climbing trees and generally having the sort of freedom and space that very few have these days. There are a number of ridiculously friendly cats of the sort that get so happy you are petting them that they start drooling. There are also lambs and goat kids, currently making a racket because today was weaning day.

I was almost glad when I heard about a group meeting that turned somewhat contentious about certain issues. Before that it seemed almost too perfect, and I was beginning to suspect that there must be some really serious catch like a yearly human sacrifice or something. So far, no sign of that.

Anyway, I've been doing a mix of jobs: weeding, clearing patches of nettles and poison hemlock, washing off the front of a flat in preparation for painting, picking and sorting fruit, digging up a pile of muck and leveling the ground in preparation for new compost bins, and hacking my way through a jungle of holly and ivy in an attempt to cut the ivy off at its base to keep it from overrunning an outbuilding. Some of it has been hard, but the berry-picking has been nice and low-key. The people are very hospitable and interesting, and I've eaten with a different family every night, so the company is varied. I especially enjoy this 75 year-old lady who has lived all around the world and still works in the garden.

The house is a handsome Georgian mansion, retrofitted into quirky flats with multiple levels and brightly colored walls. I have my own room with a window seat, plus a wee kitchenette so I can do breakfast on my own. This suits me fine, since I'm not much company at breakfast anyway (unless, of course, you like people who grunt and glare a lot). There's a church on the grounds, independent of the community, with a small but interesting graveyard. Much of the garden is walled in to shelter it from wind and rabbits. I'm enjoying myself here, although today I tired myself out with too much digging. Later, while I was trying to plant spinach, it started pouring down rain. That was fun, though I got rather thoroughly soaked before admitting defeat and heading inside.

My last blog entry didn't get to my trip from Abergavenny to here. I went through the town of Hereford, where I owe eternal gratitude to the nice lady in the tourist info office who let me stow my luggage so I could go look at the cathedral. In the cathedral, they have something called the Mappa Mundi, a big medieval map showing the known world. Out at the unknown edges, it has things like dragons, people with their faces in their chests, and other such craziness. It was neat, although they have the map mounted too high, so you can't see the top part. They also have a chained library, a collection of books chained to their shelves because when they were collected books were so valuable that they had to be guarded from theft that way. It reminded me of Terry Pratchett's Discworld and all the books in the library that had to be chained up to protect people from the bloodthirsty books. Sadly, I saw no orangutan librarians in the Hereford Cathedral, just aggressively informative volunteer ladies.

I'm here for a few more days, then I head north and get to see my fabulous friends. Yay!