A wwoof and a doof...

We spent the last week wwoofing in the little town of stratford, or Stratty as it became affectionatly known, staying with Beth and her grand-daughter Tilly. They have a lovely little rainbow coloured B&B with a small organic garden.







Beth is very active in the local arts community, and as we arrived they were in full swing rehearsals for Ruang-a-bang-bang; a musical piece for the up-coming Water Water festival. Ruang was a bit like Stomp, a big precussive peice with all the intruments made from recycled materials, They had got a great guy called steve to come down from Queensland and create all of the sounds, he tuned old car alloy wheels, and gas bottles and made 'thongaphones' from drainpipes, and doofs, drums made from old chemical bins.



They soon had us pitching in and we soon started to get to know everyone, from Darren the town crier (with the best aussie 'How ya goin' that we've heard) to David Luxford, the local taxidermist and bow hunter!

We also managed to time our arrival with the Sale Show, basically a rural funfair with rides and games plus cooking competitions and loads of things for the locals to get involved with, It was good fun, especially for Tilly, who found the bouncy castle and didn't want to get off, plus Lizzy (Bill and Leanne's daughter) came second in a local cooking competition, although the general consensus was it was a fix, as she definatly shound have won.





So instead of spending the week gardening as we had expected we ended up getting fully involved in the show; from helping to build the stage to playing in the show itself, which we ended up staying around for a few extra days to be in.





The whole experience was amazing and we were really taken aback at how the community took us in and made us feel like one of the family, most nights we seemed to end up round at Bill and Leanne's house for dinner (which usually their daughter Lizzy had cooked-jamie better watch out!) and we even ended up out at their holiday home were bill took us out fishing in his little tinny (small boat).