Forgot to mention

I jumped straight from college to working at a country park. They did overlap be about a year. It was ideal really because I could work the times when college was on holiday. There were certainly some adventures to be had....

 

 The course was more like an adventure working holiday than a college course. Each day I was there I asked myself the question whether I was really on a college course. We did various subjects like fence building, tractor and quad driving (personal favourites), dry stone-walling and many others. We also did several wildlife studies, often involving wading about in the river. It was a fantastic experience and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the countryside.

While still at college – towards the end of the first year, there was an advertisement for a seasonal countryside officer at a Northumberland woodland park. It would fit in perfectly: I would be working there while the college was on holiday and I could get some valuable experience. So off went the application form, with little hope of success on my part. Then the letter arrived inviting me to an interview; I was ecstatic and extremely nervous. It seemed like a good idea to visit the park so that I would know more about it for the interview. As I walked around, the beauty of it took my breath away; the ancient trees, the birds singing and a woodpecker drumming just the other side of the slow-moving river. I absolutely had to have this job – it was ideal.

So came the day of the interview, and I found myself in my smartest clothes, feeling vaguely nauseous and shaky. To be honest I remember very little about the interview; I don’t remember the questions or my answers to them. I left, feeling I had done my best and could do no more. The clock reached five-thirty and I convinced myself that I had failed, as there had been no phone call. The next morning, having convinced myself I didn’t want the job anyway, I received a call from the manager offering me the position.

After an interminable wait for the criminal background check to be carried out, I started my first day of work as a park ranger, or information assistant to give it the correct title. This involved the removing of weeds from the edges of the car park in the pouring rain. Eventually the park manager told me to come back into the building as the weather worsened.

The following Sunday began with feeding the Highland Cattle and filling the bird and squirrel feeders. This is what I had set out for. It was a beautiful day and it was too early for most visitors. It was just us, the squirrels and the birds – Heaven.