[sandy]

I run our B&B which has been very busy for the last two years but to get me through the quieter times I do some care work and I am going to do some youth work, that is what I qualified in although I did all forms of Social Work with children and families and  child protection. My partner works with homeless in Glasgow, we were both at colledge together and both went on to do a degree in Youth and Community work so have very similar interests, working with peoples emotions is hard!!! but I must admit, I realy enjoyed it.  Running the B&B is great, it's brill when we are full as we have some very interesting guests, often I apply my counselling skills, I trained and worked with the Alcohol and with the Drug advice service so that along with assessing parents caring abilities, Fostering, working in children's homes and mental health etc I have heard some very harrowing stories, so, moving here and doing this has done me the power of good, my partner would love to be here all day but we cannot both live of the B&B income as most money goes back in, now I am rambling but I love our  home the chickens and we both really enjoy the garden and our dogs and are going to breed "DOG'S" soon......hope our happiness continues!!!

[sellickbhoy]

me and the OH both work full time 9-5, I work for a computer manufacturing company as a planner (but i largely work from home - not that my boss knows as she is in the US) and Karen works for HBOS

I've got a number of properties i let out and before that i started my own company which was a bit of a rollercoaster - but managed to come through the other side OK.

i'm hoping the property/credit crisis is over soon, i'd like to sell up the properties and be "retired" by the time i'm 45. (8 years to go) then i can devote a suitable amount of time to "the good life"

[Rhyan & Melissa]

I hear you on the property front - we are sat on a bunch just waiting for the turn around.
It will come, it always does!

[juliag]

I have 6 children ranging in age from 23 to 4 yrs old. I have always worked fitting in jobs around the children. I got married when I was 18 and had my first daughter at 19. my husband  a year older than me then went to Bristol University, I had a young baby and also worked nights when he came home to support the family. Then I became pregnant again and had 2 young children whilst he was still at Uni. I Still worked nights to support us all. He was at uni for 5 years, when he left and got a job I was able to take on day work (the girls  were at school and nursery then) finishing at 3pm to pick them up and starting again at 6.30 and working for 4-5 hours in the evenings.
  I ran a successful Internet company up until last summer when my son started school in september. Everyone said to me, 'you can get a proper job now'!! but I stopped work and have pottered around ever since. I decided to take 2 years off, I needed it and deserved it! Now believe it or not I am making a decent part time wage from the smallholding! We cannot keep up with demand!
It seems there really is no rest for the wicked!
ps well done Russ, an inspiration x

[woollyval]

Well......we are both based on our holding. Pete runs a countryside management business and is a fully qualified ecologist and tree surgeon, spends a lot of his time locally doing surveys and chopping up peoples trees! We also have a 7 acre wood where we base our charcoal making and provide wood for the house. Pete used to be an ecology officer, then a sustainability officer for local councils before becoming self employed. I have been involved in agriculture and smallholding all my life and run my own business The Woolly Shepherd, based on my sheep and the wool of sheep of the west of england. I process wool into knitting wool, felt and now starting down the insulation route. I also do countrysode management consultancy........and run and facilitate courses in countryside skills and livestock management. So we both base what we do around our holding.....and we work long and hard.....and have 2 out of 5 children still at home (aged 6 and 15)

[Townie]

Great idea for a post!

Here goes .... we both work full time, I work in Financial accounting and my OH is an electrician.

We would love the house in the country etc... but just cant see that happening for a very very long time *sighs* 

On the upside, we do what we can, with what we have... and although overlooked by several neighbours, our reasonable sized back garden allows us to have 3 raised beds, a greenhouse, our eglu, 2 big chooks and 3 little pekin bantams.

I make all my own cards, sell them at work for extra income.. next step perhaps.. selling them online.   My OH takes on extra work in the evenings and weekends to help boost the coffers 

[Rosemary]

Still manage Goldie,

Dan was looking at the forums this morning and noted the above. The fact that he knew who Goldie was just shows our diversity!! Goldie to me is the Blue Peter retriever... Oh dear, I'm a bit out of touch with popular culture, I guess.

I bet a few others out there din't know either, though?

[xxmillyxx]

Awww and there was me not liking to ask 

But ok then who is she ?

[Fluffywelshsheep]

with all these people on here we could create a Lets group (for all the locas that is)

* Fluffywelshsheep thinks that bartering is better than money

Linz

[Rosemary]

Goldie's a bloke! Good start to our knowledge of popular culture!

[sandy]

I remember his Golden teeth, not sure if he was a singer or actor first.

[rustyme]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIcMolthnX0

ye gods...... I have turned into my dad !!!!!! "you call that music" ? .... NOT my sort of thing at all really ....Still, to each their own ... The nearest I get to getting down with it is 'The Gypsy Kings'. Oh god .....just thought , they are getting on a bit now too...and I remember their dad/uncle ,'Manitas De Plata' . Yes there is a recuring theme in  there , the guitar. My all time favourite piece of music is 'Recuerdos de la Alhambre' by Francisco Tarrega .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIzKsNIRrV4
   Some may remember it as the theme tune to 'Out of Town' With Jack Hargreaves, what a truly lovely old man he was .....It was he who started my whole love of things country and past crafts.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CVmeDWqJpE&feature=PlayList&p=61A47A4E02D91306&playnext=1&index=23
 Still , no disrespect to Goldie !!!! Just not my sort of music.

yo bro

Russ

[carl]

Hi everyone, remember me?. I used to contribute on here quite a bit, upto @11months ago.However, i have had a technology problem( bad bt connection and worse advise from techy friend). so I have only been able to look at the forum and not contribute. I am clinging on to a carreer in engineering/ manufacturing, while slowly increasing my smallholding activity. i still work 40 hours plus a week in the family business but for a diminishing return, ( it's more like being a curator in a museum for British industry).Luckily my wife is in a strong position to support us financially, but it has meant selling her soul to the devil, and is hampering our desire to add to our family of one son, at junior school. I had no luck last year with veg or fruit, but we have an abundance of meats and eggs which i sell or barter locally. I hold a dream of starting another web based business, selling our own manufactured  products and similar on to end users. ( as our distributors are scared of commiting cash to stock,so end users are having trouble sourcing it). i probabley need someone like dan to hold my hand through the techy stuff, as my skills are a bit rustic and blacksmithy. i'm also very good at shifting neighbours excess fertiliser from by their stables, a much underrated task.(ok also underpayed). Old age has also seemed to catch up with me as i have had a couple of ailments which have held me back. An impingement in my shoulder, which was very sore and restricted some activity, and has now finally been treated by a specialist ( local anesthetic and manipulation) and also the dreaded back and neck pains from overdoing it. I had dreams of retiring early , but the dreaded credit crunch put paid to selling up my shareholding, and some property. My OH is definitely more a Margot than a Barbara, and she has a habit of giving away my produce for free, but will never help me with anything outdoors( this christmas she gave her hairdresser a turkey which i could have got £30-40 for). but i love the outdoor life and would love to be self sufficient ( as long as my wife can still provide the goodies from waitrose etc ). I am so glad i can now actually use this forum again without my overzealous internet security system, and dribbley connection c*cking it up for me. i have followed you all avidly and am still in awe of some of your efforts, especialy russ.Also best wishes to my piggy friends in france, and to flluffywelshsheep. I don't wear the wellies much, i prefer fur lined riggers, they are more pig proof and cosier?. whatever we do, or did do, however successfully or glamorous i bet we all get the same buzz fromm home produced stuff, like eggs, fruit, meat, veg , craftwork or even heat and power. up to our necks in debt and fertilliser, but always willing to laugh at ourselves and keep trying. :farmer:etc.

[ballingall]

Not very glamerous jobs here I'm afraid! I work full time 9-5 for the Royal Bank of Scotland (waits to be lynched now) in the fraud department. My only consolation is that we save the bank money! My other half needs to find a job- he inherited some money from his grandad, and when he didn't like HSBC's working practices he quit. However he can't live on that money forever, but right now, having never lived on a smallholding before (he moved in in January) he's enjoying the novelty of the animals and garden etc etc.

My mother also lives with us (we all share a house), and she is a qualified vet. She never practiced for long because having a family and their own nursery business got in the way- but believe me you have no idea how useful it is having your own personal vet!

My sister also qualified as an animal nutritionist (specialising in pigs!) Sadly she doesn't have enough room to keep even chickens let alone pigs- so if anyone knows of a place with land within the Linlithgow academy catchment area... 

Beth

[Rhyan & Melissa]

  Thats made my day, the replies about Goldie!   

I can assure you, its not whats on my stereo! But it keeps the cat in cat food

FYI: He is an actor, musician and artist. He was in Snatch, Bond - The world is Not enough, Eastenders and a few other things. These days he concentrates mainly on his paintings and DJing. Not a bad life I guess!

Anyways, this is so cool, getting to know what everyone does and how they balance the muddy side with other things!

We spent the weekend getting bogged down in the car, trying to dig it and the tow truck out for 4 hours, had a cut a neighbouring plots tree down to get out and now generally hiding from the allotment for a day or 2!!!