KW-35 Then and now
Hoyle Family newsletter takeover.
Ahoy me hearties. Pirate Ben here.
This week’s newsletter comes from the guest pen of my old friends, The Hoyles. There were just about the first guests to The Barracks, and they popped in again this week on their Interrail tour of Europe. It’s all their own, unedited words. Except for the captions to the photos, which I wrote :)
Please give them a warm welcome.
In the summer of 2019, the Family Hoyle (three children aged 3, 7 and 9, one Trepidatious Mama and one Robot Dad) came to visit their favourite Pirate for a week as part of their interailing tour of Europe.
We were assured there would be water by the time we arrived. Sure enough, the day after we arrived, with some pirate action in the cellar, the well finally became functional again. Great excitement (and relief), although we decided initially only Pirate Ben would risk his kidneys drinking it and we would only use it for washing until we were sure it was safe. It was.
A very happy week back then was spent in the making the Hoyle Suite. Furniture was gathered from abandoned rooms, curtains were hung, door signs were created. We even built two very swanky car beds with working headlights, once we figured out exactly what the brightly coloured scrap wood pile was. A highlight of the week was when we found the key to our rooms from a roomful of keys.
The Hoyle’s are sadly inept gardeners, but we did lend a hand with blackberry picking (which the Pirate and the middle kidlet made into Jam) and raspberry patch taming. A day trip to the garden centre resulted in the kids being able to choose their own fruit trees to grow at the barracks. The eldest chose an apricot (ambitious), the middle chose a sour cherry and the littlest chose an apple tree.
The pandemic prevented our return any sooner but in the summer of 2022 a half-price Interrail offer meant the Hoyles were able to plan to return to the Barracks and see what had changed and how the fruit trees were in the three years since our last visit.
We were all suitably impressed by the new orchard that had sprung up from a patch of empty grassland at the back of a building since our last visit. Six-year-old decreed herself to be the ripe plum expert and fetched us fresh plums at regular intervals.
The growing beds had tripled in size and the beginnings of a red-bricked border made it look like the market gardens imagined in fairy stories. We were delighted with a ripe off-the-vine melon one morning for breakfast. We made a lovely potato, tomato and spinach curry, fresh from the vegetable patches, which even the fussiest ate.
Our last visit had half the produce available to us compared to this trip, despite the drought that has unfortunately scuppered some of the options. Rain hadn’t come to the barracks in weeks and it was overdue, so the children drew large chalk rainbows imploring the rain to come and on the second day of our visit we were rewarded by plenty of water from the sky.
The official line* on the most exciting change to the barracks since our last visit is the addition of the three piggies who grunt excitedly at you if you go near them, causing the 6 year old to declare pigs were now her second favourite animals (usurping ants). 10 yo was an enthusiastic helper to the “eco pigs” (her words) and she insisted on summarising her barracks experience in the following emojis: 🐷🥬🍇🍈🌳🌲❄️🌧 with the 6yo adding: 🥒and 🥦.
*(The unofficial line on the exciting barracks change for several members of the family was the addition of WIFI to the Hoyle Suite.)
The new enclosed field of maize and sunflowers is very impressive, converting what we imagined to be infertile rubble into a productive pig-and-human fodder farm. We also enjoyed the improvements to the cinema and rooms generally. The 12yo remarked “Now almost every room is decorated with its own style making every room unique which I really like. It’s so cool how sustainable everything is!”. The car and kitten room (so called because it has car beds and kitten drawings on the walls, now with carpet!) has been improved with additional chalk artwork to the walls.
With the lack of running water, both trips have felt like posh indoor camping. All our water needs being supplied by two ten litre containers of water. Our last trip we had to go down 3 flights of stairs and outside along the road to the portaloo to use the toilet, but the portaloo is now long gone with a composting toilet in its place. Since only vegan poo is allowed, we were relieved that we could relieve ourselves in the toilets as the drains can now be used. With no running water we became dab hands at flushing the loo with our washing up water.
As on our previous trip, we again became much more aware of our water consumption. While 60-80 litres a day for a family of 5 (or 12-16 litres per person) is not excessive I bet we seemed profligate to our friend, the Pirate, who had sustained himself on under 1 litre a day for personal use at the start of the barracks adventure. The average water consumption of an adult in the UK is 142 litres a day according to Google. A sobering realisation is that a family of five, even when being frugal, uses nearly 200 litres over three days.
Our second visit, confirmed to us that the Barracks is a very special place. Peaceful yet full of life. A place where time doesn’t matter, and side-missions can be had because all ultimately lead to change and incremental improvements.
Robot Dad added, “There is a timeless serenity that greets you like an old friend. The days and years are measured by the growth of vegetables and fruit trees. You feel a peace that is often missing from our modern always-on lifestyle. I particularly enjoy hearing the changes of weather in the trees and smelling the rain. The kids, when not fighting or retreating into their devices, also seem energised by the constrained measured freedom you find here.”
In the intervening years since our first barracks experience, two out of five family members have become vegetarian and as one of those members is the cook, then effectively the whole family is now predominantly vegetarian. It’s perhaps not as big a step as the change we all need to making, but it’s a step.
While we will never become permanent barracks residents, we remain in awe of the Pirate Ben and all he has achieved in the 3 years of ownership. It’s funny how what many would see as degradation or “roughing it” is actually a gift. Human beings are remarkably resourceful and adaptable, and are more than happy to pitch in and work within what is available when the siren call of “more” is rightfully ignored. Maybe Ben needs to have more heads of state volunteer on the farm …
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The kids might have swapped sides in the the car beds but so did the beds so they have maintained their preferred colour three years on!
I also realised we forgot to mention the infamous top secret Pirate Potato Salad. The kiddos having two portions each is testament to how good it is. Please please please can we have the top secret recipe?