Growing up, we always had a full house. On top of my 5 siblings, there always seemed to be extra people about. If it wasn’t my best friend Nate, it was a gaggle of boys my brothers always seemed to be hanging around with, Jane, my now sister in law who was in love with my brother from the moment she laid eyes on him, or my parents’ friends or the neighbour who just happened to pop by or a visiting relative. It was never just us around our dining room table in the evenings, it seemed. Extra places were easily set and there always seemed to be something going on.
I never realised how much I missed that until we didn’t have it. With Kevin and I both being immigrants and living away from family, we spent a long time as just the two of us. It was fine and we were happy, but we knew something was missing and, in moving here to Gartur, we sought to change that.
These days our house is full of volunteers, extra kids that come up to play or work for us, a revolving door neighbours who come to drop something off and stay for dinner, workshop participants, meet the goat visitors who linger and become friends. There is rarely a day where we don't feed at least one extra person, which is strange considering we live down on one and a half mile road in the middle of nowhere.
Our on farm retreats are really the best version of that. I get to bring people here to hang out and make all the things for a weekend. We get to laugh and drink coffee (or sometimes a bit of prosecco) and build community around fibre and textiles and food in a way that scratches a deep itch for us. We love running them and are so excited to announce our programme for 2019.
All of the retreats will feature good food, beautiful scenery and lots of animals! Retreats sell out quickly, so please book now. If you have any questions, please get in touch.