Ex pats: A post in the wilds

Nov 4 2009 By Graham Denby

AFTER the scrub was ploughed from our land, as per last issue, wife Ruth put her master plan into effect.

This is the reclamation, fencing and conversion of the former barren wilderness into useable grazing for her mini herd of munchin’-moochers – the horses.

The seeds had already been sown for the operation and I’m not talking about grass seed here, I’m talking about seeds in our lass’s fertile imagination.

She had registered us with the Workaway organisation. This is an international operation that offers wage-free workers for projects such as ours, provided they are housed and fed.

We had to register with the site and submit our details and then we could check out the extensive list of volunteers and weigh up their suitability against our needs.

The workers are of all ages and situations, from students on a gap year through to the older end who still have that get up and go ... but see the value in a low cost outing!

We also had to fit around their existing schedules and commitments as we could only accommodate when the apartment, normally let out, was available.

We finally narrowed it down to a couple in their forties who were already based in Spain with family but fancied a bit of Portugal!

They joined us mid-October and will be with us for four weeks.

The couple are Tony and Samantha. He’s a Brummie, former Army Transport Corps and photo copier service engineer.