The first week of farm work is always the hardest. I have cleaned many onions at this point. I work in Polly tunnels which we call green houses at home.

I met a really nice young woman from Mexico called Beatrice. She is on the farm for a few weeks then she will travel to Ireland.

I found that after two days of weeding my back was pretty sore. Paul was nice enough to give me a back massage which helped a lot. I did go up to Timsbury to do yoga but found the YMCA there chilly and not really worth the 20 minute hike up the hill.

Wednesday night is community dinner night and its enjoyable to sit around share food, wine and conversation. I talked with Frank who is a fiddle player who lives on the farm and plays in a few bands. He asked me if I would like to sing on a song. Paul McBeth is a songwriter/guitar player who also lives on the farm and was looking for a female voice on a new song. They were planning on recording in a few days and would I be interested? Why not? I practiced some harmonies and we did a run through Thursday night. Friday morning we headed to The Rec House to record.

I loved singing with Paul and his family. His dad, who is also named Paul, played bass and his brother Daniel sang the main chorus. The song is called “A Donegal Tale” and it is about Paul’s grandparents who came originally from Ireland and met each other in Glasgow.

We spent the weekend in Bath. We saw some music (Tori Freestone jazz trio), a movie (Doctor Strange), had dinner with Lynda and Derek, and ran for about two hours on the Cotswold Way. We then headed back to the farm. The weather was looking bleak and rainy but the animals are still out and about.