Blog 15 - Dogs, frogs and hedgehogs. Life at the castle.

Blog 15 - Dogs, frogs and hedgehogs. Life at the castle...

 

Twelve months of travelling will naturally toss up various highlights for various members of the family, but I'm confident we will all look back on the last five weeks as something unique, wonderful and (without trying to be overly grand or naïf) life changing.

When the prospect of working in the UK was scuttled, we looked for various damage control options to stem the financial bleeding. Living on UK pounds is hard, but not earning them makes it naturally harder - besides, we had run out of cars to sell, and there a precious few coal mine or chimney sweep positions for the girls to take on.

Renae hit upon house sitting as a way to gain free accommodation and see a bit of England, and registered for a few websites. We weren't really committed to an area or timeframe and we hoped the fact that we were a family and love/keep animals would endear us to prospective "employers".

For the first twenty five or so, not so much...

But we got a few days in Islington which was good, but then got word of a prospect for March/April, which, after sitting a surreal job interview-esque phone call (while sitting in a freezing car in the north of Scotland), we were told we had it.

It tied in frighteningly well, sandwiched between one set of grandparents leaving, and the other grandmother arriving. All we knew was that it was in Devon (cool, haven't been there yet. It's very green isn't it?) and there were two dogs called Jessie and Sparky.

About a week before we were to arrive, the owner sent us his address. It was called Reeve Castle.

I will remember forever the look on Jessie's face as she walked down the curved driveway up to the castle after we were buzzed in. It was sheer disbelief, her mouth a perfect O.

Reeve Castle was built at the turn of the 20th century (which I think makes it a "folly" rather than an actual castle). It indeed has a colourful history that we picked up through a bit of rumour, gossip...and Google. It was used as a key aviation marker by the Germans during WWII, prompting the owner to paint it green from its original yellow as a form of camouflage. It was owned by a member of the band Level 42 (don't know them? Lessons in Love? Running in the Family? '80's gold!). And it had a long period of being left derelict and neglected (think the Miss Havisham final bit of Great Expectations) where local kids would sneak around and probably get up to all sorts of illegal and/or immoral things.

It was then rescued and resuscitated by its last two owners, and the most recent family have invested considerable time and money (and still are) to bring it back to its former glory. And they are doing a great job, because the place is truly beautiful. Here's a few pictures...

We stayed very comfortably in a well-equipped house down the hill a bit from the castle. From the projector/TV that dropped from the roof and had speakers in built into the walls (the only way to watch Gravity!), to the beds that went up and down, through to waterfall showers, it was a little like a resort.

The grounds spread over 16 acres and had a tennis court, an adventure playground (the kids very occasionally came home for lunch...), huge old growth trees (pine, sequoias), a quarry area that was being renovated and we didn't really go into as it was unstable - though it will look amazing when it's finished and fully restored. It also had a koi pond with about 70 of the Japanese fish. They were strangely friendly, and would come over to be petted. They were all different as far as their markings too, and I think the kids named every one. They were my favourite thing.

Our job was primarily to look after the dogs and keep them fed and watered. There were works being done on the roof and grounds, as well as cleaners and gardeners so we also kept on an eye on who was in and out of the property. We checked the castle for water damage when it rained, aired it out on hot days, that sort of stuff.

So when I broke the TV day one, when the dog nearly sliced its own ear off day 17 running through barbed wire, and when the ceiling fell in in one of the bedrooms in the castle day 29, we were questioning ourselves significantly. Should we just do a runner??? (But I fixed the TV, the dog's ear healed with stitches, and the roof collapse...was expected. I kid you not)

I suppose after the last eight months, and being accommodation #61, it was a chance for us to try to remember what a "normal" (and after the last few paragraphs, I'm using the term very loosely) life was like. We cooked meals, we put our clothes into cupboards, we started a more structured schoolwork regime, we even got the kids into swimming lessons in the closest big town, Crediton. We didn't feel the desperate need to fill the days up, see every castle and do every touristy thing Trip Advisor recommended.

What we did do was check out Exeter and Torquay as our obligatory bigger cities. They were okay. We rode bikes along the Tarka Trail and saw otters in the river. We visited the northern beaches and towns, including Clovelly (a beautifully retained old seaside town which has the weird feature of charging a not particularly small admission fee to enter it), and the rather awesomely named Westward Ho! which is the only place in the UK with an exclamation mark in its name.

But the best stuff was done at home: walking around the grounds, going on night walks and findhedgehogs, frogs, newts, owls. We played tennis, we ran, we painted, we read. The girls spent their time outside with the dogs and on the playground screaming and carrying on. They tended to collapse at night like toys with flat batteries.

Renae and I were more mindful, remembering what peace there may be in silence (to borrow off the Desiderata). We discussed the books we were going to write and the lives we were going to lead after all this. It was the place and time on this trip that leant itself to that sort of introspection.

I think that may be it. I won't presume to say "we", though I'm confident the family share these emotions, but I feel remarkably fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience what I did over the last five weeks. I feel grateful. I feel re-energised and slightly recalibrated too. That's not a bad thing at all.

And now, heeeeeeere's Oma!!! Next post we'll be back on the European mainland commencing the "final push". For now though, bye from the Carolin-Vandenbergs!!

 

 

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