00:00Hiya, so my name is Chloe. I'm 38 years old. I live in a town called Basildon. I qualified
00:08as a nurse 10 years ago, so I'm a paediatric sister now at Basildon Hospital. And during
00:14COVID, we got redeployed to the adult ITU. And unfortunately, we saw some horrific things
00:20where people were losing their lives in these ITU departments. They were saying bye to family
00:25and friends on phones and iPads. Families weren't able to come in and see them. And
00:30for me as a nurse, that took a really big hit on my mental health. And I ended up being
00:36off sick for three months. I started watching Countryfile, This Is My Farm Life, wanting
00:43to look to being outdoors and outside countryside. And Clarkson's Farm came on the telly. And
00:51I watched it and absolutely fell in love with it. So I know obviously it was entertainment
00:55purposes, but it taught me so much actually about where our food comes from and what farmers
01:00do. And I got this little fire in my belly and I was like, right, I want to research
01:04and look into this. So we went up to Chipping Norton to the Cotswolds, went to Clarkson's
01:10Farm, met some people up there, just had a chat. And that's when I decided I want to
01:14volunteer on farms. So it took me about five weeks posting letters, I was knocking on farmer's
01:20doors, putting out social media posts to volunteer on farms. And I got my first job
01:25on a beef and sheep farm. And then all of a sudden, somebody approached me and was like,
01:31you know, we really are inspired by your story. We're going to be getting some rented land,
01:36which was in Malden. So it's about an hour away from us, it's salt marshes. And they
01:41said, do you want to get some Highland cattle and get your foot in the door, basically.
01:45So you're either going to sink or swim. And then all of a sudden, I've ended up with two
01:48Highlands, they were nine months old, and didn't really know where I was going, like,
01:54you know, to progress from that. So went and did some courses, like some animal husbandry
02:00courses, looked into sort of researching, like, you know, owning livestock. I absolutely
02:05loved it. I loved that I had that to go to, you know, so I work as a nurse. I'm also working
02:10at Barleylands, which is part of the education team. But this is almost like my release.
02:15So now I've got five beautiful Highlands. And from what I wanted to do with that, because
02:19that helped my mental health, they basically saved me and helped me from what we went through
02:24with COVID. I've decided to bring the public in. So public come in, meet and greet the
02:30Highlands. And I teach them basically about their breed. If they want to know anything
02:34from like a farming perspective, like, you know, where their food comes from, how it's
02:38produced, what farmers do to produce food, you know, I encourage them to go to their
02:42local farms to see if they could volunteer. And the people that have had to come here
02:47have said actually how much it's improved and helped their mental health and their well-being.
02:52So that is where I am at the moment.
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