Little Oak

We both love to travel and in fact, took a middle-aged-gap year about 10 years ago, so we know what it's like to want to see the world - we found that it's great to see the sights but the most memorable things were always the people we met. We are now experienced hosts having had 100+ helpers in the last few years, we really enjoy having people come to stay and based on our reviews people love staying here too.

If you would like, we are happy to help you improve your English and will sit down most evenings with you to have a chat over a meal. We are used to people coming with all sorts of different levels of English and are happy to help even if you are just starting out. For those who already have conversational English, we have 4 housemates and run a small campsite so there are always people coming and going to practise your English with. I also try (although it is not always possible) to make sure that if we have more than one volunteer you don't speak the same language as you learn a lot more English this way.

You may also end up learning all sorts of things from the varied tasks and you will hopefully find out that some English people can cook!

In your free time, you can explore the countryside here, we are in the heart of Robin Hood country Nottinghamshire. There are some beautiful walks just outside the front door and the old Market town of Retford is just 20 minutes walk away so it doesn't feel isolated. We are surrounded by several historic old towns a short train journey away. There is lots to see and do.

We would ask for 5 hours of work 5 days a week, We will provide you with a caravan to sleep in and all the food you will need. We have a large house, small tent only campsite and garden with lots of outbuildings so there are always small tasks to keep everything under control, such as gardening, cleaning, building maintenance, fruit picking and cooking. If you have any gardening experience or eco-experience, we would love to hear from you. But it really doesn't matter what experience you have as long as you are happy to muck in. We would normally ask you to work 9am-2pm with a coffee break and take Tuesday and Wednesday off. If you have a reason this won't work for you and need to change things we can and have been flexible. You will be sharing our kitchen with us and the other volunteers and you can choose between the toilet and shower block outside the camper's use and the toilet and shower inside the house. You may be asked to share your caravan, this would happen when you are travelling with a friend or as a couple. Occasionally you might have to share with a stranger but this would normally be when you arrive and your replacement is leaving a few days later or when you leave and someone is arriving a few days before you leave. I try hard so this doesn't happen but plans change and as a host, you have to be flexible. You will have access to the kitchen all the time and we will pay for all the food. You will cook your own breakfast and lunch. For dinner, all the volunteers and Andy & I will take it in turns to cook and we will all eat together in the evening. So for instance if there are three volunteers then you would cook the evening meal for everyone 1 in every 5 days. If you can cook something traditional from your country, then we would love to share that with you, but if you are not a good cook, don't worry we are happy to eat whatever you can cook. Simple food can be the nicest.