Laurieston Hall. Saturday 4th September

I woke early and had a shower, then went back to bed to read until breakfast at 8. I went out along the drive to call Douglas, tried both landline and mobile with no response. I sent him a text to find out what he's up to.

Our singing workshop was held by Ali Burns. We have sung quite a few of her songs before so it was great to have her teach us a few of her newest peices.

Lunch was a varied menu. Most had cauliflower soup, the cooks made a small batch of courgette and veg soup for me and 3 others. There was a tomato tart, green salad, ?devilled eggs and some brown scones to have as well. I wasn't terribly keen on the soup, but the tomato tart was lovely so had enough to eat.

I found myself sitting on the same table as the cooks, so I was able to question one about yesterdays peanut sauce.. I now have the basic recipe!

After lunch there were various things going on, I plumped for a lesson in onion plaiting! This will help the onions to keep over the winter, to feed yet other guests.

Brigitte, from Voca Loca plaits. The Hall can be seen in the background.

Onions, all plaited, ready for storage.

In the evening, we sat round a bonfire, and the sauna was lit. We sat round the fire, singing songs, watching and listening to the women who had a sauna. Some of them got into the very cold pond. The water, that comes via the surrounding hills, the stream, through the hydro power unit into the pond is incredibly cold.. there were quite a few shreiks as people got in!!

As before, I went to bed with songs singing round my head.

Laurieston Hall. Friday 3rd Sept

Woke at 6am, had promised to phone Douglas to make sure he was awake. I had to wander out of the building down the track a little as the house has a lead lined roof!

The morning was beautiful, mist still hanging around, the end of the Dawn chorus, and a bat busy having breakfast in and out of the trees. D was already awake but it was nice to have a chat.

Breakfast here starts at 8. I had no problem getting some more shuteye until then.. It must be the country air!

Breakfast itself was good.. Home made bread, milk and yoghurt from lauieston cows, fruit, and museli. I did my first duty.. Washing up and cleaning the kitchen- it's great to be able to help!

Doing our warmups before singing

We sang till 1pm, having a break to sit in the sun in the garden. It was so nice out that having collected my lunch ( leftover pizza, jacket pot, leftover carrot salad) I went out and ate at a grockel bench and chatted to a resident who has lived here 30 years.. People truly love this place and life style.

Morning Break

I had a rest then we set off on a singing walk, stopping to sing woody songs to the forest, babbling brook and watery songs to the stream, then laky songs to- and then IN the Loch!!



I was very brave.. After a few other girls had stripped off and got in, I followed. It took me quite a while to pluck up the courage to fully immerse myself swim as it was so cold, but was very pleased I did!

One or two women got up onto a platform floating a little way out in the Loch, and after a bit of sunbathing more women joined in, and soon there were about seven of them, naked as the day they were born, all doing a circle dance on the tiny raft. It was very funny!

I didn't stay in the water long, not wanting my extremities to freeze, but i stayed in long enough to swim round the platform and find a bit of slightly warmer water that had the sun on it. Having got dressed again we walked back to the house and warmed up.

Tea was stir fry veg and rice with a delicious peanut sauce. Even though I don't like peanut butter, I do like Satay sauce, so it was another enjoyable meal. Pudding was a rough but tasty blackberry and apple crumble with custard. Nom!

I wasn't feeling well ( tummy was playing up) so I went to bed after tea. I set my alarm for 9pm to catch a bit of circle dancing which was lovely. We then spent an hour or so doing a "show and tell" I took a lollipop stick Martha gave me years ago.. She had decorated it and written 'friendship stick' on it :-) I enjoyed hearing about the lovely objects other people had brought.

After we had shown/shared our objects, singing started again. I stayed for a while before Heading back to bed. I went to sleep with tunes going round my head, it was lovely.

Laurieston Hall. Thursday 2 Sept

With my darling husbands blessing, I booked a place on a little holiday with my choir (Body of Sound, or BOS for short) to sing and have a nice weekend with an Irish choir from Belfast (Sister choir, you could say) called Voca Loca.

I kept a diary of my doings, and I thought I would share it with you!

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Set off from Sheff at about 11am, piled into a minibus with 10 others. The trip was about Six hours, which included one long lunch break and one short pit stop just outside Dumfries.

Lauieston hall is an old not terribly stately home, (the current building is Victorian) about 26 people live here full time as part of a co-operative. They pay rent and do two and a half days work for the house.. Looking after the crops, animals and house. There is also a business side.. Groups like our choir come and stay through the year. Some of the residents work for the business side.. cooking, cleaning, organsing and playing host to each group.

We arrived here at about five- it was so good to un-concetina after a long journey. I have a room to my own .. Requested due to my snoring and not wanting to disturb Anyones sleep!!!

My room turned out to be huge with enough beds for about 8 people! I unpacked and had a shower (just a dribble of hot water but enough to freshen up). The rest of the group went to the local loch for a swim, so I read and chatted to a couple of the staff and a friendly resident dog. I hear there is a resident cat - a Ginger Tom called Percy who is friendly until he's had enough.. then he bites!!

Evening meal was at 6.30. It consisted of a gorgeous pizza (a special non mushroom one had been made for two of us) a delicious carrot salad and a green salad. Dessert was chocolate cake topped with icing and walnuts, a large bowl of whipped cream was also served.

We spent a while relaxing in the large hall which has sofas and a lovely open fire. Dora the dog was much in evidence enjoying the attention.

We gathered in a large room- Bos and a choir from n. Ireland called 'Voca Loca' I think this makes about 40 of us! We sang many simple songs, mainly rounds, starting with

Asalam asalam
A le cum asalam

It is from the Koran and means peace be with you.. It was beautiful. By ten I was falling asleep, singing at the same time. By this time, everyone had gathered and eaten so we went round introducing ourselves. I shall never remember all these names!!

After signing up for some jobs, I trundled up to bed, read for a bit and zonked out.

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Sunday

Today Douglas was not feeling on top form, so he had a quiet day at home, whilst I went over to my younger brothers, and after a few games of swingbat and a nice chat, we walked down to the local swimming pool that has flumes, waves and a river rapid with his two sons, Carlo and Leo. Martha was away for the day with friends.

I took this picture just before we left. A few weeks ago, we found out that like his Uncle, Carlo is a big Spongebob fan, so we found him this colourful T Shirt on e-Bay.

When we got back from swimming, Carlo came up to me and told me he wanted to tell me how much he loved his new T-shirt, and Thank you Very much :-)

Kids can be so sweet sometimes!! lol!

Curry means Money

A few weeks ago, my team from work went to Heely City Farm to create some fencing for a paddock.

We saw what good work they do with inner city kids, the general public and adults with learning disabilities, and decided it would be great to raise some money for them.

Being a lover of a good curry, I suggested it would be a good fund raiser to make lunch for anyone in our office. My friend Robyn said she would be happy to help. We decided to hold our curry day at the same time as a "dress down day" also being held for the farm.

We got loads of orders from our colleagues.. I think about 30 people ordered in all!

On Tuesday, I spent most of my evening peeling, slicing and frying a very large bag of onions (with a large amount of garlic in too!).

On Wednesday lunch, I went to the local wholesalers and purchased large amounts of rice, naan bread and mango chutney...

After work I went back and purchased 50 chicken thighs! Douglas and I spent all of Wednesday evening giving the curry its first cook. I was a bit worried as it didnt smell right, but Douglas reassured me all would be well.

On Thursday evening, after a day in the fridge, the curry was ready for its final cook. The house filled with such a great smell.. I knew everything was going to be fine :-)

Robyn spent the evening making a huge vat of lentil dhall, which was our veggie option.

Another member of our team, Arshid, who used to be a chef in an indian restaurant kindly made us 70 veggie samosas (even kinder if you stop to consider that its Ramadan!)

The big day arrived and I was very excited. I managed to get all three vats of curry into the fridge, then Robyn managed to put her dhall in too, which was great.

We started serving at 11.45, then it was non stop until at about 1.15 our last customer arrived! We worked very well as a team, which was just as well since at times we had a queue of 5 hungry diners!! Everyone was most complimentary about the food, and some were very kind and washed their plates up so we could re-use them.

By 2.30 we were exhausted, all the food had gone, and we had cleared up the tremendous mess in the kitchen. I think the kitchen looked better than it had before by the time we finished :-) You can see how red I have gone with the heat, and that was just heating up pre cooked food. I think I would melt in a real kitchen lol!

After the final customers had paid and we had taken the cost of the food out of the takings, we had made about £85.00 for our chairty.. we were very proud of this!!!!!!!!

After such a busy day, and a few sleepless nights worrying about how this would go, I was glad to go home and collapse into bed for an hour and a half.

I would do it again.. but not for another year I think :-D

Summer Holiday

Time flies!

I have been gently reminded that I have a blog (thank you DAIL lol) and that I really need to reassure my readers that Douglas and I are still alive.

well....... good news!

Douglas and I are still alive and kicking!!

Last week we went on our mini summer holiday up North to our usual destination of Pagan Camp, held in a couple of fields near Ripon.

As usual, rather than camping, we found a B&B fairly close to the site. I had told Douglas that it was a pretty standard B&B, but as a little surprise for him, I had booked a really rather nice looking place.... and booked into one of their best rooms!!!

The Old Coach House, North Stainley is a really lovely, and very superior B&B, with very friendly owners, nice breakfasts and very comfy beds. Our delux room had a bed about a mile wide, a really lovely powerful shower above a decent sized bath. Douglas particularly liked the old wooden beam in the ceiling.

We spent most of the weekend with our friends from the Pagan security firm, the Dagda (named after an Irish God) whom we have known for years.

Whilst on camp, photos are only allowed with the permission of all who appear in them.

Sadly, even in this day and age, many Pagans are not "out" and if their friends/family/employers found out, it would cause a lot of upset, so I only have one photo to share with you.. and thats one of a mysterious Green Woman who appeared on camp. You might be able to work out who she is.. but there are no prizes for doing so! (Photo will appear tonight)

Whilst on camp, I offered to be taxi driver for some people who wanted to go to the supermarket. He, a tall skinny morose fellow with a leather hat sat in the front, his girlfriend, one of the Dagda, sat in the back.

As you do, we got chatting, and I found out he came from Leicester where I spent much of my childhood. I enquired what area, then as I lived there too, I enquired what street, then the penny dropped.. he said "you are Anna Cossham, aren't you?" My jaw dropped as I realised that this "stranger" sitting next to me was someone in my class at junoir school.. and his younger brother was my younger brothers best friend for some years!

Small world, innit?

I didn't like this boy very much at school (he was always getting into trouble) and discovered that lepoards (and some school mates) dont change their spots!!!