The Estate Team. A small branch of the far broader Land Group, with its own mandate to “maintain and enhance public areas”. We set about our tasks in all weathers, hitting the road at 0900hrs sharp(ish) in our green and yellow 6-wheeled, go-anywhere-we-want-to, beast. The Estate Team’s consciousness is, little-by-little and season-by-season, spreading further across the many acres of Newton Dee. The work is wide and varied and we have some very, very cool tools with which we can carry out our tasks. It is near-impossible to describe to you in words the pure joy of spending so much time outside. It may be though, that you can see it in our faces as we go about our business.

At the time of writing, we are busy (when rain permits) cutting grass. Soon the leaves will begin to fall and we will turn our attention towards this. Grass keeps growing and leaves keep falling!!  Some may say that our daily routine echoes that of Sisyphus - the man who was doomed by the Gods to shove a rock up a hill for all eternity! Yet, as Sisyphus groans beneath the weight of his punishment, we revel in, and within, our challenge; for repetition opens the possibility to focus, and offers opportunity for growth.

We receive much support and guidance to equip us for functioning properly. A valued forum in which jobs are discussed is the fortnightly Land Group Meeting. Though we travel through the estate with open eyes, these meetings with our fellow land-colleagues are invaluable in orientating us towards what needs doing and how to set about doing it! We are grateful too to HR, for equipping us with arms and legs, indeed a body, with which we can set to work. We also remember that we are a service within a community, and as such we listen and act when appropriate. 

Part of the Estate Team has been quietly busying itself with readying a pony and cart, in order to help with deliveries throughout the village. We were gifted an old cart from Camphill Estates; this has been repaired and the pony prepared. 

The Estate Team is fuelled on tea-breaks, and we have enjoyed tea-breaks all over the village. We love tea and company… and biscuits – chocolate/caramel ones, to be specific!  Though itinerant, we gravitate around the Phoenix Centre for tea. We love being homeless, of sorts. For as Roger Deakin writes in ‘Wildwood’, “There’s more truth about a camp than a house… because that is the position we are in. The house represents what we ourselves would like to be on earth: permanent, rooted, here for eternity. But a camp represents the true reality of things: we’re just passing through.”