Courgette = Zucchini

Generally, Britain is not unlike the U.S. but there are a couple of things that I’m noticing that are different. First, some of the names of vegetables are different here: they use the French name while we use the Italian. For example, they don’t say zucchini, but courgette and they call eggplants aubergines. The other difference we’re noticing in the homes we’ve stayed in is that they don’t use napkins nearly as much as we do in the states. We’ve eaten three meals with our new family in Wales and we haven’t seen a napkin in sight. I end up using my jeans instead. Good thing they’re already dirty and I don’t mind a bit more grit. They also put cream (whether clotted or double) on everything. Can’t complain too much about that though, cream makes everything better.

We’re at our new farm in Wales in a small town called Pencoed, pronounced “Pen-coid,” 15 miles from Cardiff. Today was our first day assisting them on their farm and we’ve already learned a bit about growing plants. Our schedule is not too different than our last farm except we’re done after lunch here and then have all day to putz around. We plan to take a few day trips and many walks in the area using their public footpaths, one of our favorite things about Britain so far.

Our day has us eating breakfast (porridge) with our hosts by 7:30 in the morning and out in the fields by 8:00 a.m. Today, we planted leeks into their fields (they have 23 acres and all plants are hand planted, weeded and maintained etc.). Then, we moved a number of french beans and squash into a cooler polytunnel (kind of like a greenhouse) to get them used to cooler weather. We’ll be planting those next week. As our host Yvonne says, “plants are like people, they don’t like to be too warm or too cold so you have to get them used to different temperatures gradually.”

By 1:30 we are eating lunch. Today we had homemade pizza, cous cous and amazing salad. The salad is the best part of the meals here since it’s literally cut from the garden and put into our bowls. Fresh salad greens make a huge difference. Devon and I plan to walk to the windmills tomorrow. You have to get creative with activities when you’re in a small town, that’s for sure. Windmills here we come!