First WWOOF: 10 days of retired living with Jo and Rosh

A beautiful country property in Burra, 50 minutes outside of the country’s capital of Canberra, is where I spent my very first Willing Workers on Organic Farms experience. Jo and Rosh were a lovely retired British couple living on a good piece of land with Lola the Ridgeback, Chado the Pekingese, 9 chooks (hens) and three cows they were babysitting for a friend. Our days went something like this:

8:00 am: wake up for tea and breakfast of fruit and toast

9:00 am (but usually more like 9:30): start working on stacking firewood or weeding

Midmorning: break for a cold drink

Back to work until 12:30 or 1:00 and then a lovely sandwich lunch

After lunch was a siesta for a minimum of two hours ended with afternoon tea and bickies

4:00 pm: ride the mower to clear one of the 5 paddies (fields)

6:30 pm: watch the news with a glass of red wine, cheese and crackers

8:00 pm: dinner

They even found time to drop me at a few sights in Canberra while they were running errands there, so I saw the War Memorial museum, plus the new and old Parliament buildings. As a bonus, Matt Clarke, a very good friend from high school, met up with me on one of these little excursions and we got a quick chance to catch up. Otherwise my quiet time was spent listening to the Magpies sing, the Galahs cry, Chado snore and some wonderful classical music recordings, as Jo is an opera lover. In addition, my siestas and evenings were spent reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time. In the end I left feeling very proper and very British