back in Scotland

Hello intrepid readers, I am currently at the wonderful Wiston Lodge in southern Scotland (picture from their website). This is another place I found through Help Exchange, and I'm really enjoying it here. The lodge is on a very beautiful 50 acre wooded property, the work isn't strenuous, and the food is good. There are about 10 other staff and volunteers who live on the property, and most are British, though there is a girl from France and also one from Taiwan.

My basic schedule is 7 hours a day, 4 days a week, though that 7 hours includes lunch and a couple breaks. Two days a week I do housekeeping, the other two is either work outdoors or with the groups doing various activities. So far, I've done houseekeeping and grounds work. I have three days off in a row next week, so I'm planning to go on a little trip, but I haven't decided where yet. The possibilities: Glasgow, the far north, northern highlands. I'm thinking of going to the far north (beautiful scenery, loads of ancient viking sights to see) because it will be getting colder soon!

The Lodge is a charity that mainly does work with "at-risk" children. They do various activities with the kids that mostly consist of outdoors sorts of things. There's a ropes course, a canoe lake, fire starting, bridge building, those sorts of things. I haven't helped with any activities yet, but I think I will be a bit next week, which should interesting.

Also, I have now loaded more pictures onto facebook, which you all should be able to view: PICS