Volunteering at 13 Market Street - Abbotsbury, Dorset
with WWOOF or helpexchange.net
Introduction
We are a house with a large vegetable garden ... in Dorset - a very beautiful part of England!
We are (almost) self-sufficient in vegetables and have been growing produce for our own family (with a small excess for sale outside our house) for the past 12 years.
We also have fruit trees and established shrub and herbaceous flower borders.
We are located in the beautiful and picturesque village of
Abbotsbury, in West Dorset, southern England, with views of the countryside and sea (20 minutes walk away - our volunteers often go to the beach in the afternoon).
We are Mary-Clare Buckle, an artist, and Andrew Green, a web designer and have twin boys (Arran and Fingal, aged 15), who are entirely home-educated (except for a short spell in school in 2008). We have a small gallery behind the house, where we sell Mary-clare's art and some jewellery. We are trained and experienced in the use of natural medicines and therapies.
We have been involved in the environmental movement since the early 1980's and think that what we are doing here is very important - there are many organic farms, but very few people with the tenacity and drive to be (virtually) self-sufficient in vegetables. If everyone grew their own food, people would be a lot healthier and we would have far fewer lorries driving up and down our roads!
However, despite all of this 'alternative' stuff, we like to enjoy ourselves and not make life difficult - we have a dishwasher and central heating, go on holiday every year (often to the Far East - India or Thailand) and don't spend too much time worrying about whether our radios are on standby!
(Most of our volunteers come via WWOOF - which is why we refer to 'WWOOFers' on this page. If you're come to this page via Help Exchange, for 'WWOOFer', read 'helper'!)
Abbotsbury village, West Dorset
We are located right in the centre of the village, which has 2 pubs, a post office, a general shop and some gift shops. The nearest towns in this part of Dorset are Bridport, Dorchester and Weymouth (all 10 miles away).
The amount of space around here means that you shouldn't ever feel cramped, even though this is just a house and (large) garden. Our garden, in particular, has views of the sea and countryside, which gives a good feeling of space and peace when you're outside.
You can see photographs of Abbotsbury on this page and this page ... and a 'walk' into Abbotsbury on this page
Work
The general volunteering work here is mainly general garden maintenance, together with some help in the house -
- weeding
- hoeing
- tying up tomato plants
- picking vegetables, for eating and for sale - see the photographs of Patricia (far right), from Switzerland, picking beans and Kamila (below), from Germany, picking tomatoes
- using strimmer (powered grass trimmer) and lawn mower
- cutting back overgrown shrubs
- making paths around vegetable beds
- using electric shredding machine to break up shrub branches for composting/mulching - see the photograph of Camilla (right), from Verona, Italy
- helping Mary-Clare in the gallery, with exhibitions or with her work
- in Spring - clearing used vegetable beds - ie digging the beds and removing weeds (can be quite hard work!)
- in Spring and October - covering (with plastic sheeting) vegetable beds not being used this year
- chopping firewood
- possibly using chainsaw for firewood (if you are qualified or have experience with a chainsaw)
- maintenance of garden buildings
- some carpentry and electrical work
So, as you can see, there's a lot to be done!
We work hard ourselves, but are quite easy-going and don't require long hours working - we normally get up about 8.30-9.00, have breakfast mid-morning,
lunch about 2 and dinner about 7-8.
Our volunteers normally work around 5-6 hours every day and have one full day off per week.
They often take a few hours off during the day to go for a walk on the hills, or down to the beach (only 20 minutes walk).
We expect our volunteers to be 'self-starters' and not require too much attention or looking-after from us - we are busy and don't have time to 'mother' you.
Also, please don't think that WWOOF is an easy way to get a free holiday - that way of thinking won't go down well with us or any other WWOOF hosts. We have been fortunate with most of our WWOOFers, but have had a couple of bad experiences with free-loaders ("Right, I think I've done my 5 hours now") who have failed to understand the need for give and take on both sides.
Our experience (as WWOOFers ourselves) is that large WWOOF sites often tend to rather treat their volunteers as 'slave labour' - working outside in the pouring rain and mud, etc. In contrast, we have a much more relaxed approach and aim to treat our WWOOFers as part of the family.
By the way, it's always useful to know if you have any special skills - particularly carpentry, wood chopping, electrical work and building.
What to bring with you
Gardening can be quite dirty work, so you will need old clothes. It's useful if you can bring thick gloves, leather boots for working outside and also possibly (rubber) Wellington boots, if you have them (these take up a lot of space in your luggage, so you could buy them in England).
It an get quite hot here in Summer, so if you need to wear a hat in the sun, then bring one with you. If you want to wear gloves for weeding, etc, you will need to bring some thin ones with you - but we always feel that it's better to 'get your hands dirty' (figuratively and literally!)
You should bring some light indoor shoes, because we don't wear our outside shoes in the house.
Also - but only if you have room - a sleeping bag is always helpful.
Accommodation
Accommodation here is normally in our tree house (with great views of the sea and the hills!).
It is small (only about 2 metres x 3 metres) and only sleeps one person, but has electricity (with a light and a heater) and a nice bed, with room underneath the bed for storing things.
It is 2 minutes walk down the garden, with solar-powered lights on the path.
See the photograph of Teresa sitting in the treehouse - she is from near Stüttgart, and was with us for 2 weeks in May 2008.
Two weeks is about the maximum amount of time that we can accommodate anyone.
It is difficult for us to accommodate more than one person at the same time ... but not impossible! You'd probably need to camp if there are two of you (we have a tent).
Early or late in the year, in can be rather cold in the tree house, so some of our volunteers have camped, slept on the fold-out sofa bed in Mary-Clare's very large studio, or slept in our large sitting room. See the photograph (below) of Daniel, from Switzerland, who helped Andrew build the studio - which he's standing outside.
We are unlikely to accept volunteers with children, since this will simply increase the amount of work in looking after you; we are not comfortable with the idea of getting children to work sufficiently much to offset the extra work on our side.
Our house and facilities
We have a large sitting room and very large kitchen (where we eat our meals). There are two toilets - which is useful when there are more people here (but there is no toilet outside). Just outside is a pretty courtyard (with fig, olive and lemon trees), where we eat our meals when it's warm. We have 3 cats.
We have 5 (!) computers in the house and a fast (broadband/ADSL) internet connection, which you're welcome to use for keeping in touch with your friends and family by email or with MSN/Yahoo Messenger.
We also have Skype -
andrew..green
Because you will be sharing our life in a family house (not a farm), it is important that you should be able to get on with us, clear up after yourself and keep things tidy. We are quite easy-going, but there needs to be tolerance, understanding and flexibility from you and us!
We can put you in touch with previous volunteers, so that you can find out all about what it's like being here.
Food
We normally eat a lot of vegetables and vegetarian dishes, but also eat meat and fish, especially at lunchtime. We were vegetarians for about 15 years and we're still not really that keen on meat, so can happily cook vegetarian or vegan meals - but any special dietary requirements (eg gluten or sugar-free) can create too much need for complex meal planning!
We normally have breakfast mid-morning, lunch about 2 and dinner about 7-8.
... oh, and we have a Gaggia espresso machine, so all our German, French and Italian guests don't have to go without their morning coffee!
In the evenings
In the evenings, we normally talk or watch a film on the television.
We are also very into dance music (called techno and trance in Germany) and often go out clubbing (to parties) ...
so if you like that type of music, you might like to come out with us!
We are probably older than you (!), but most of our (clubbing) friends are in their 20's.
... hope this is all interesting!
Getting here
You can get a train or bus to Weymouth, where we can pick you up. Getting to Abbotsbury from London - the coach is cheapest, from London Victoria Coach Station to Weymouth.
the view from our bedroom window
a view of the garden
13 Market Street, Abbotsbury, Dorset, DT3 4JR, UK
tel: +44-1305-871561 fax: +44-870-831-2726 email:
