A window into LandWorks

I’ve met some very interesting people who volunteer to come and cook, and that’s been my highlight really so far, because I like people, I like to pick people’s brains and things, and I like to listen to people’s lives, and I’ve met some interesting guys and girls that are on community service here, doing the same sort of thing, and I like to listen to their story as well, which is quite interesting, and if I can help them through my experience being that little bit older, I try to a little bit…

Cooking, planting, watering, woodwork, pottery, painting, I think I’ve done. I did three pots, these are mine, I didn’t want to do my one’s perfect, so you know you could have keys, house keys on one, and perhaps on the top some mints, or something and you walk past, and they’re on the table in the hall, and I’ve also made a design to sell some pendants…

And I just walked around taking pictures of like the salad, the greenhouse, just the food, the car park, and the bench for sale and the shop. I took a picture form a distance and then got a bit closer, so you can read some of them, that was just random as I was walking around…

I must have had a hundred questions in the day from Marshall about prison, he was fascinated but not in a way that he wants to go, but in a way that he doesn’t want to go, do you know what I mean? It’s interesting and the same with Brett this morning, he was fascinated, and a million and one questions, and you don’t think when you’re in prison that it’s that interesting, that people want to know, who’d want to know about bloody prison but they all do, and I think it’s good that you’ve got people here form prison because then, they can share their experiences, because I always say to them, look if you’ve got the choice, you know you don’t go, trust me, and they go, ok, ok…

I like my cooking, yeah I cook five nights a week (on the resettlement wing) and I cook for mainly, for about five prisoners, sometimes six, we’ve only got a microwave, Carbonara we do, spaghetti Bolognese, curries, that kind of thing, sometimes two people will go in a prison cell together, like I’ll sit with Lifer Rog on the end of his bed and he’ll sit at his table, and now [Name] is back on the wing, and he comes in, so I have both of them, now Rog in the chair, and whoever gets there first gets the chair, and then I get the end of the bed and we sit there eating…

I’ve done the watering in all the green houses, I’ve picked all the vegetables in the field, I’ve laid the plastic on the floor, I’ve done a lot of weeding, tidying up, everything grows really fast, I’ve made my tile for the wall, I’ve burnt my name in to a piece of wood, that everyone does when they come here, I’ve done a bit of sales of the fruit and veg, chatting to people, I like all that, and that’s it, in my first two weeks, I’ve done quite a bit, and a lot of cooking, I’ve done four meals, the people I’ve worked with have been great, they are so interesting and so, I don’t know committed I suppose…

I do like the way people talk and not listen to radios and TV, it would ruin the place, that’s the whole point in a way, communication, there’s no communication in the world anymore…