 The alarm went off at 6.00am, and after a bit of yawning and rubbing of eyes I was up to start the day. It was to be a Vanessa day today, for both Richard and myself, and I was hoping that since it’s now Easter break for schools the roads would be a tad less crowded than usual… but no… As we arrived, Vanessa was coming out of Small Barn where she's living at the moment, holding the pans of her airfryer. Wanting to give us a hug, she accidentally dropped one of them and it transpired that this dented it - hopefully one of her craftsmen will be able to un-dent the dent, as one pan no longer fits into where it's supposed so that she can do her cooking. Currently being a one person band, Vanessa uses the air fryer quite a bit as it's obviously a very handy kitchen appliance for a single person. I think, having watched The Secret Genius of Modern Life (BBC2) and its episode on air fryers, it's something that we’ll look at for the future in our next home. By ‘our next home’ time I think things will have developed so they're more roomy inside while still being small. It was a rather gorgeous day at Vanessa, where both of us had expected it to be grey and overcast as it was when we left London. In the end it turned out to be rather sunny with gorgeous blue skies, The Simpsons' clouds and lots of blossoms looking fabulous.  The master photographer at work in the young FES heritage orchard. During the day I did the things that I needed to do in the shop, whilst Richard got on with taking photographs of the dell area of the gardens and also of the heritage orchard, though mainly focusing on the Great Green Barn. We've had a number of events there and photos have been taken at many, and of course we had the Sustainable Wedding photoshoot back in February, though we've had no decent photographs of a bare barn so it was important to get these done as it shows how versatile the space is. Also, interestingly, none of the photos taken so far show the actual footprint of the barn which is a bit of a T shape. It sort of lends itself perfectly to celebrant and wedding ceremonies with a main area between the great doors and a nave leading off from this.
It was a nine hour day at Vanessa, it often is, and I was wrong again about cars on the road - the journey home took LONGER than it usually does… Weather: A grey start to the day, and a little chilly despite it being about 6°. Light rain in the morning gave way to sun, blue skies and fluffy clouds. Breakfast: Bran sticks, yogurt, stewed rhubarb, sultanas Lunch: Greek Lemon & Chickpea Soup (recipe to come at some point!), and toast with mashed avocado and Isle of Wight tomatoes Supper: Crackers, cream cheese, carrot batons and cucumber
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 9 April 2025 (Wednesday)
I was awake and up early, just before 6am. No reason, other than I was. A friend wanted to go to Lidl and do a bigger shop than usual, so I said I’d happily carry things back for her. She’d suggested we go in the car, though with me having gone to do a big shop yesterday (earning £5 off next week when I spent £30 in one shop this week!) I needed very little… so we walked; me with all my bags so I could carry items back for her. There was quite a chill in the air, which neither of us had expected, though by the time we were walking back from the shop the air had warmed as the sun was doing its job. With her ‘big shop’ she got her £5 off bonus for her shop next week too. In this day and age of ever increasing prices, it makes sense to bulk buy things that you will use if you have a) the storage space, b) the cash to bulk buy, and c) things that you want that will store well and not go off! With so much going on, I hadn’t done a FES/GGB Newsletter for some weeks, so cracked on with this first thing. Despite often using the last version as a template, it can take time.. writing, rewriting, checking dates, checking links, re-checking it all, printing it out to read slowly away from my desk to ensure it reads and is all spelt correctly, back to my desk to make any changes, writing the Subject line, setting the time to send… it was all done and dusted within four hours, though that’s quite a chunk of time in my book. I’m using Mailchimp, and for the first time using their suggestion of what time to send the email… I think 2pm or around 4pm is a good time, though the platform’s suggesting 8pm… we’ll see. I had another call with Vanessa, talking about lots of things though particularly the Greek event… an assistant of hers is in on Friday so those questions will be finalised and sent off then, and there are further costs to get too. I was at the plot at about 4.20pm, sowing the tomato seeds I didn’t sow yesterday. I’ve used two half trays and my markers to split the trays into sections; one has three, with Mountain Magic, Black Krim and Rose de Berne, the second has Amish Paste and an Isle of Wight Yellow - it’s called this as the seeds were saved from a yellow tomato in a box we received as a gift from a subscriber, grown by growers for Isle of Wight Tomatoes, hence… The current warmth and being in the greenhouse meant that all the seeds sown yesterday needed a good water, and quite a few of the plants outside too, whether in pots or newly planted out. I have done the switchover of swapping gravel trays with holes for gravel trays without holes - in the summer it’s best to conserve moisture and water, so gravel trays are best - I think it’s the first year I’ve not shown this on camera, though will mention it in a segment this week. I harvested some lettuce, noticing that woodlice seem to particularly like the endive style; they don’t seem to be doing any damage, though they were in numbers when I was harvesting the leaves. And on harvesting from the curly endive, I must remember to hold the base as it’s not an easy picker in terms of taking off individual leaves. Weather: A bit hazy, though warm in the sunshine. It’s going to be cool overnight again… Breakfast: Bran sticks, yogurt, banana, sultanas Lunch: Leftover Vegan Shepherd's Pie and tinned Baked Beans Supper: Lidl Caramelised Red Onion Tart, lettuce, cucumber, radish and cherry tomato  28 March 2025 (Friday) I didn't sleep well again. It seems to be one of those things now that when I’ve an important day ahead, where there's quite a lot of anxiety, I don't sleep great… have I already said that this week? I sort of feel I have, though don't really have time to read back and check. Today’s the final event of a week that seems very lengthy indeed, albeit that actually it's only been Sunday to Friday - An Exquisite Harmony, air quality monitoring equipment change at the allotment, three workshops at an academy, and The Shakespeare Solitaire, plus the usual work work that has to be done each week. Tonight, as mentioned above, we’ve The Shakespeare Solitaire at the Great Green Barn. It's quite a complex event this evening as there's a number who have booked to have a three course meal and the performance, and others who’ve just booked what’s called Ticket Only. This means that we're going to have about five tables of those who are having a meal and two tables of those who aren't. We decided to do Ticket Only as a number of people said that they'd like to come to the event but they either didn't want the meal or couldn't afford the meal. It didn't seem fair to exclude people from coming to the event simply because of the food element. I think it's become clear that we need a good five or six months to sell an event at the Great Green Barn well. This year, it's likely that each of the shows will have at least four months sales time if not six or more. We've already got shows scheduled and on sale in for the autumn, and I expect those to be near capacity. Anyway, back to today… Apart from getting to the plot to water the recently planted out broad beans, I got on with work work at my desk and also minuteing for a board meeting. This meant that Richard and myself (as Richard was coming with me) weren't able to leave until around 3pm - getting into rush hour. We got into Fenella and started the drive down to Shamley Green. There are various ways to go, and on Friday afternoon it seemed that each of these ways had blockages of traffic at one point or another, with the sat nav saying that it would take about 90 minutes to get down there - so I took it that it would take about two hours. In the end we decided to go straight down the M3, coming off near Aldershot and dropping down into the top of Guildford, through the city centre and then driving further south to reach Shamley Green. In the end I think it took us about two hours five minutes to get there - I guess not too bad on a Friday afternoon. When we walked into the Great Green Barn, I was really delighted to see that it looked so great; Vanessa and her helpers had worked hard and done a fantastic job in putting the tables out, laying them up, with each having a fabulous floral decoration with blooms and foliage from Vanessa's garden. The bar was also set up, which is where Richard and I would spend most of the evening, and Giorgos' of London’s The Life Goddess in Store Street had all the food prepared to finish off in the on-site Event Kitchen, before being plated and taken out to those having a meal.  Shortly after we arrived, the Guildford Shakespeare Company's cast and director arrived, and started blocking out how they’d work the show for that evening. I haven't been at a mixed performance event of tables and theater for quite some time. I've been to quite a bit of cabaret, though that’s mainly stage centered. This evening was always going to be a mix of promenade performance, with the actors in character bringing the customers sitting at the tables into the performance. Being a murder mystery evening, there was always going to be a lot of interrogation of the characters at the tables. That's how these evenings rumble.  Guildford Shakespeare Company cast of The Shakespeare Solitaire at the Great Green Barn. Photo by Richard Leighton (richardandpaul.com) With everything prepared, people started arriving around 6:30; a little earlier than expected. The thing is these people that arrived very early had not been to the Great Green Barn before, so they’d come early to make sure that they didn't get lost. That was absolutely fine, and we welcomed them through the great barn doors. They sat down at their table, ordered a few drinks, and twenty or so minutes later others started arriving too. By 7.25, five minutes before the show was to go up, everyone who had booked had arrived and Vanessa took to the stage to give a little speech, then the actors came out and it was ‘curtain up’
After about half an hour, the first course was served which was celeriac soup and a roll. Stupidly, we’d forgotten to get some gluten-free rolls so the three customers who were gluten intolerant, who had told us in advance, didn’t have a SØDT bread roll. This is a mistake that will not happen again! Vanessa apologised to each of the gluten-free customers personally, and they each took it in their stride, though this is something to note for the future. Once the soup bowls were cleared, the performance recommenced, which was further interrogation of the characters at the tables. After about another 20 minutes, there was another interval and the main course was served (a choice of Chicken in a Lemon Sauce or Feta Stuffed Aubergine - no vegans had booked). Within 40 minutes all main plates and cutlery was cleared then the performance began again, with a short break where puddings were served. The evening ended with the reveal of ‘who dunnit’ it just before 10pm. I have to say that despite actually working, and therefore not being able to partake directly in the interrogations, I really enjoyed the evening, and the Guildford Shakespeare Company did us proud. There were four mysteries to detect, including two murders - and I got three of the four. Happy Murder Mystery Days!! I didn’t hear one quibble about the evening, other than the missing gluten free rolls, and one table who bought a bottle of white wine and wanted an ice bucket, which was fair enough. The customers left in its usual orderly fashion, and that left us staff to do some clearing up… quite a bit of clearing up. There's another private event tomorrow evening, and the hall needs to be clear for that so the younger guys who were on hand cleared the tables out of the main hall and all of the chairs too. After about another half an hour, the hall was clear and partly prepared for tomorrow's event. Richard and I left just about this point, as we had to drive home. Everybody else lives locally or relatively locally so I think Vanessa was quite happy for us to get away because she knew we had at least an hour's drive back home, as the drive home most of the time is shorter than the drive there by at least 45 minutes. Thankfully, the M25 junction at Wisely was not yet closed (it’s fully closed this weekend with planned roadworks), even though I’d read it would be. This meant that we could go straight down the M25 and didn't have to go around the back roads that I sometimes have to drive down when the Wisley junction’s fully shut. We got home around half eleven, had an Ovaltine and watched Paranormal, the new series. Then it was time to get to bed. As I got between the sheets and duvet, picking up my book for a quick few pages, I breathed a huge sigh of relief that this heavy week was behind me, and that it had all gone extremely well. Happy Days!! Weather: A little bit of rain, though generally sunny and warm. Clear sky overnight. Breakfast: Bran sticks, yogurt, mashed banana Lunch: Microwave Frozen Mixed Veg Omelette, Pitta and Cucumber Supper: Spanakopita  10 February 2025 (Monday) What an appalling night's sleep I had… I was woken around 2am by noise in the street and didn't really get back to slumber time until after I’d heard five bongs of our chiming clock, and as I was to be driving down to the Great Green Barn for an important styled sustainable weddings photo shoot and would be leaving home by 7am… when the alarm went off in time for me to hear six bongs I really hadn't had enough sleep for the day. However, I had to get up, get ready and get on with the day. The drive went OK. I listened to the Today programme on Radio 4 and how one bishop is being thoroughly open in her belief that another bishop who’s about to be anointed as the new Archbishop of Canterbury is, in her opinion, unfit and unwelcome in the job. Just like the last archbishop, he appears to have a history of burying certain unpleasant happenings under the carpet. I was somewhat surprised when another bishop, who was interviewed later in the program and I'm sure we’d all expect to have Christian leanings, commented that the dissenting bishop is no longer a friend of his.... He didn't say this in so many words, though he did say that he hoped they’d be friends again one day, which for me is the same thing. Christianity, as most organised religions, is something which I don't understand nor adhere to. Fortunately, I can be kind, thoughtful, understanding, forgiving and generous without a doctrine, I just needed my parents to bring me up right, which they did! So, back to the drive… It was pretty easy, though as per usual there was a delay getting off the M25 at the Wisley junction (Nightmare Junction it should be renamed!), further delays going through Guildford as there was a set of temporary lights at roadworks where no-one (except lots of drivers and passengers) was to be seen, and I didn't get to the Great Green Barn until just after 9am… yet another two hour drive, and I am so thankful for Radio 4! As I got near the end of Upper House Lane, turned in on the right and parked up on the shingled side courtyard between Small Barn (where Vanessa currently lives) and the Great Green Barn I noticed through the vast glass doors that there were already sundry people in the body of the barn. I’d meet them all soon enough, though first, and most importantly, I went into Vanessa's to make myself a cup of tea; there was no way I was going to carry on with my work work day without at least another modicum of tea inside of me. The day continued swiftly, with lots of introductions as I entered the barn and as others arrived… Zoe Mills, our calm and hugely talented photographer who I already knew as she’s done various shoots for us before (including last year’s Winter Wassail where she took my favourite photo in the barn so far - today may likely change that!). There was also Helen who’s the most delightful celebrant, person and terrific organiser, Claire of Plant Passion doing amazing seasonal flower displays and bouquets including beautiful, delicate hellebores, Claudia of Green Box Bakery with that delicious cake (!), Tanya of TH Design Studios who creates the most amazing and intricate bespoke stationery, Mel and Tracey doing fabulous hair and makeup to make our models even more gorgeous and handsome than they already are… and lastly, though by no means least the said gorgeous and handsome models Danielle of Blooming Love Stories, Sarah of Beyond the Brief, and Eres of Atlantean Life. It became clear I was amidst a bunch of true professionals in their fields, each knowing what was needed for them and for all, and how to get it!  Of course, at a photoshoot there’s always a need for hires and props, so as well as the vast amount of items Vanessa has to hand, and elements brought by those taking part today, we had some hires from AB Event Hire in Woking, bridal dresses from Catherine’s Bridal in Horsham, a light and floating dip dye evening gown (shown above) from Lucy Can’t Dance, and a fabulous suit from Dapper in Dorking. Oh, and there were a few cocktails from Mandira’s Kitchen of Guildford, just to set the scene! Now, having worked in theatre and events for many, many years I’ve run many photo shoots in my time; Cliff Richard and Helen Hobson in a studio near Angel (Islington) for the main graphics for Heathcliff the Musical, and an immediate post-Atlantic flight shoot for Lynn Redgrave in Shakespeare for My Father at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, to pre-production studio shoots of quickly costumed actors for publicity images used to promote a show for months or more prior to rehearsals even starting; and then of course the many, many production shoots on theater stages around the country, and on Broadway, running three or four scenes from myriad productions several times for photographers from the main national and regional press to either publicise the show prior to opening or sit alongside reviews following Press Night. As an organiser, it's not something that’s particularly easy, though at the same time it's not rocket science! The most important thing is to know what the right shots are that you need, and ensure they are got… and when you’re working with professionals, well, the job is much easier. So, the good thing about today is having so many professionals in their individual fields knowing what is needed, especially with sustainable weddings which will be the only weddings allowed at the Great Green Barn. You see, I’m not a regular wedding attendee, so I was very glad others knew what today’s style choices and arrangements for weddings are, and for the Gen Z brigade in particular (sweetheart tables… who knew?). I was delighted that with so much knowledge and talent in the barn, others took charge and got from the long day all that was needed; it was to be a micro shoot, giving a taste of all that these amazing sustainable suppliers have to offer, and of course the backdrop of it all were the walls, and the floor and the ceiling and the ambiance of the Great Green Barn. So, once all the shots and setups were agreed, I got on with my day and kept on dipping in and out whilst sorting out all the other jobs I needed to do. Vanessa was on hand in the barn should anything be needed, and with a few members of her team and me popping in and out the day went incredibly well, albeit being rather tiring for some. So, I got on with the many other jobs I needed to do whilst I was down at For Earth’s Sake and the Great Green Barn: changing prices on the scales and on the till to ensure that we sell products at more than we buy them for; working alongside Vanessa's new personal assistant who started in the role a few weeks ago, showing her the ropes on a number of regular tasks that are really in my wheelhouse of teaching; ensuring that we processed through an order with Suma so that we had the right amount of goods on the shelves to be able to sell to our customers once shop opened on the Wednesday; informing people about the local village shopping hubs that we’d be collecting empty shopping bags from on the Wednesday to deliver back full shopping bags on Thursday; plus a host of other minor jobs that are best sorted on site rather than at my desk. And so the day wore on… As the light began to fade in the late and the shots required were all ticked off, people began to collect the tools of their trades, and props and returns and wend their ways home. Vanessa, Zoe and I sat down for a quick debrief and had some tea and warm scones (there had been an Afternoon Tea micro-shoot, so of course we needed the goodies for that which came from the lovely Ellie of Figs Bakery who supplies these for the monthly afternoon teas in the Great Green Barn). All in all a great day! The drive home was not too bad, and by 7.30 I came through our front door to a heavenly smell… Richard had made a vegan Lasagne, and god it was rather fabulous… and leftovers for tomorrow!!!  Weather: Wet… and cold - both in London and Shamley Green.
Breakfast: Bran Sticks, yogurt, oat milk, and a few freeze-dried pineapple pieces Lunch: Half a round of cheese sandwiches and two scones with butter (photoshoot food!) Supper: Vegan Lasagne ( ie, no cheese!) - made by Richard and bloody delicious! |
Paul SavidentFollowing on from A Guernsey Gardener in London, I've decided to try and write a regular blog, and we'll see how it AND 2025 go! Archives
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