Good Honest Graft

With school out and nothing much to do, Jon hooked me up with a couple days working with him at his family friend's house. Basically this family live in a big house with loads of land around it, the house is fuelled by a wood burner that sits outside and Jon makes money cutting up trees and stacking them in the woodshed for the family to burn when needed.

Firewood Anyone?

The first day we transported timber from where it was cut to the shed and then cut up the larger logs to a more manageable size. Hardly brain surgery, but hard work as temperatures hit 30 degrees celsius and sweat poured down our faces as our shirts stuck to our bodies. A lovely sight, but after a few beers the night before, it felt good to sweat it all out.

After all the logging it was time for some weeding and mulching the dozens of sections around the property. Now before the house was built, it was just woodlands. So even though the house is now here and grass surrounds it, you cannot escape the weeds. What they really need is a professional outfit to dig up the soil along with the weeds, stick some tarp at the bottom of the hole, fill it up with compost and start again. What we were doing will no doubt result in the exact same work for Jon to do next year.

I Cut Your Grass, I Clean Your
Windows, Senor!

After all the heat and humidity on the first day, the second day was wet and the air was full of midges and horse flies biting every piece of exposed skin on offer. They were in my eyes, up my nose, in my mouth, and buzzing in my ear. I was not happy and I must have put on a hell of a show to any potential onlookers as flapped at the air in a fit of rage. A day later I'm an itchy, lumpy mess, but with money in my pocket. To celebrate we stopped of at a cider tasting mill on the way back to Jon's and treated ourselves to some local vintage that went down like a dream.

Despite the aches and pains once we were done, it feels good to work again after not working since I got here. Hopefully there will be other odd jobs available to fund another trip before I return to God's Green Land Of England.