Today we had chatty breakfast with the guys in the house before back at the castle offices to help out with some jobs. Everyone was busy in the morning, so we took the time to try and plan and book our journey home. I don’t know why it’s so bloody difficult to travel on the train with your bike, but it is. Some trains don’t take bikes, so you end up having to go hundreds of miles out of your way, spend more than twice as long on your journey, make four times as many connections, and then pay double the price for the privilege!

After phoning Eurostar and Deutsche Bahn several times, we weren’t really getting anywhere, so we left it all to mull whilst getting stuck into some jobs. We were helping them make some wooden cut-out animals, based on ones owned by the hunting committee. We placed the existing animals on top of ply-board panels like a jigsaw puzzle to find the best fit, then traced around the edges so that they could be cut with an electric saw. I did the drawing and Dave did the cutting, managing to finish a wild boar piglet before we were going for lunch with Julian.

After lunch, I left Dave to his sawing whilst I tried to sort out the travel arrangements. 4.5 hours later, he had cut out a hare and a fox and I had found a route and booked the necessary trains. Phew! Feeling exhausted, we picked up some oven pizzas and headed back to Julian’s place for a beer. Then he was going out but we declined the party in favour of watching Soylent Green (so weird) and getting an early night.

I feel a lot better that our transport is all sorted and I’m sort of looking forward to being back in London…

– Anna