United Kingdom
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Looking for help from end August and September
Hi, we are Jane and Dave. We live in a small village in rural Lincolnshire in the East of England where we keep bees, chickens and pigs, and a lovely cat and grow fruit and vegetables in our large garden.
We’ve travelled a lot ourselves, so it’s great to welcome people from around the world into our own home. We get the benefit of all the help with the animals, the garden and our various projects and enjoy the company of so many interesting people. We particularly want to hear from people with specific skills such as a real knowledge of gardening, carpentry or construction work.
This is a home stay, you live as part of the family, and it is really important for us to know that we will all get on well together. Part of living as a family involves helping with ordinary household chores in addition to the 'work' that you do - simple things like washing up, hanging out the laundry, helping with cooking - whatever needs to be done. It works best for us when people just slot in and take their share in anything that needs to be done. We'll always make sure that you have enough free time to do whatever you want to do and we will enjoy sharing our lives with you and showing you our local geography and history.
We may need people in September because the Workawayers we thought we had invited have not confirmed their stay. We are looking for a really committed couple who could stay for the whole of September and who would not mind looking after the house and garden on their own for two of those weeks while we go away. If you have your own transport that would be ideal, so that you can get out and about while we are not here. You would need to be very practical people, ideally with some experience of caring for animals (pigs, chickens and a cat) and of vegetable gardening.
We are also interested in hearing from people, singles or couples, who would like to stay for 2 week periods only during October and November.
Gardening
Building
General Maintenance
Help in the house
Animal care
In return for your great help and company we enjoy taking our helpers out and about at weekends if you would like to see more of the area. We could go walking in the beautiful Peak District, visit places of historic interest, look around some of our interesting cities - whatever you most enjoy. We also like taking our volunteers to the local folk club and, although Dave always tries to persuade people to sing, you really don't have to!
You could be weeding, mucking out pigs, digging vegetable plots, building paths, painting, harvesting vegetables, spinning honey, making country wine and a whole range of other activities. If the weather is bad there is always house cleaning and organising to be doing! We try to match tasks to your skills and we are happy to teach you.
We really appreciate people who are competent, practical, hard working and able to take the initiative and think about what needs to be done, particularly people with gardening knowledge, woodworking or construction skills, or general handiness working with tools.
Please read what we have said above about projects. If you think you'd be able to help with any of these, let us know, and tell us what experience you have already. If you have a special skill or interest let us know that.
English, some French if needed
You'll have your own room and use of a shared bathroom with any other volunteers who are here. All food is provided, generally you will make your own breakfast and lunch and then we all eat together in the evening. We spend a lot of time in the kitchen working and talking, and you are welcome to use the sitting room in the evenings to watch television, play chess, play the guitar, play cards, read or relax.
We can generally be quite flexible about which days you help so this can also be a great opportunity to use our house as a base for a few weeks, helping and taking time off to explore places a bit further away. We live in a small village (about 50 houses) with no amenities, so you need to be comfortable keeping yourself occupied when you are not working - whether it is reading a book, using the internet, painting or whatever your own interests are. We have a wide range of books that you can borrow and you can use our wireless internet and TV. There is countryside all around to explore on foot or by bike and we can often offer lifts to the nearby towns in your spare time. Newark is a lovely market town. Lincoln is a small, historic, university town with a beautiful cathedral. Further away there is Nottingham or York and we are on the main train line for London, Newcastle and Edinburgh.
We don't smoke, so if you do smoke we ask that you only ever smoke outside. We eat meat but if you are vegetarian, we don't mind and will try to give you an alternative to meat. It is difficult for us to provide a vegan diet though, as we eat a lot of eggs and dairy produce. As a general rule we don't take people under the age of 22 unless they are used to travelling and living independently.
Thank you for reading to the end of this profile! Please tell us that you've done so in the first line of your message to us and please make sure that you have a picture on your profile. We get lots of applications and it helps us to work out who is serious about wanting to stay with us and who is just 'spamming' lots of people without really reading the profiles.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Jane and Dave
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
More than two
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week
Accuracy of profile:
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Cultural exchange:
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Communication:
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