Good times in Gordonton

Judith Chrystall feels more like a long lost auntie than a host. She is only too happy to get a few jobs done around the place, but it’s all managed with a cheeky sense of humour and when you’re finished for the day, you can almost guarantee a big feed and heartfelt thanks.

Piling up the pumpkins

Judith lives on her 18 arce organic asparagus farm with a few sheep, a bunch of chickens and a sprawling vege garden. Her house is large, comfy and welcoming, as too are the guest rooms.

Her property also seems to have an oversupply of sheds. There’s the double garage with shed at the rear that can barely fit the car in. Then there’s the big shed next to the house, which is full of her late husband’s racing cars and associated paraphenalia. And then there’s the really big shed out the back, which is full of tools, car parts, and farm stuff.

There were lots of jobs on offer. The kids opted for picking tomatoes, hundreds of ‘ruby red’ (as Zoe put it) cherry tomatoes. Sarah worked on the rest of the vege garden, pulling out all the stuff that had finished for the season and harvesting about half a ton of pumpkin.

Fixing fences became a team activity

I got to build and fix fances. Now this may not seem like too exciting a job, and to be truthful, exciting is not the word I would use either. Satisfying, however, fits the bill nicely.

1. Get the post, line up the post, hammer in the post.

2. Thread the wire, tension the wire, tie the wire.

3. Stand back and check out your handiwork.

As a highly intelligent computer-code-writing mate of mine once said; “sometimes I just want a job where all you have to do is move a pile of boxes fom A to B”.

The locals seemed to approve of the fence

OK, so if either of us really had to just move boxes from A to B for the rest of our working life, we would probably snap – no disrespect to those who are able to settle into the zen of that sort of work, full credit to you, I think I’d just struggle with the repetition.

Unlike many of the WWOOFing hosts we have met, Judith is actually into healthy organic food, especially the stuff from her own garden and the quantities made me glad that I had been working up a sweat during the day.

I think the most interesting part about staying with Judith is her abundant energy and her zest for life. Judith is a person who knows that life is short and she just gets into things and makes the most of the moment. She has the energy of someone half her age and a no-nonsense attitude that is great, because you know what she thinks and you know where you stand.

We left feeling that our time together was too short and I hope we meet again one day.

Week 4 of WWOOFing – Enjoy what you have, whilst you have it.

Judith and her happy WWOOFers