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September in Review

October 1, 2011 in Camping News, Den, Frugal Living, Fun Stuff, Making & Baking, Organic Gardening, Reduce Reuse Recycle, Team News by fullmonte | 5 comments

Check it out – first of the month & here I am ready to review!!!!  You can tell things have changed around here…

What’s fresh?

From the store:

  • Lettuce (someone around here is managing to grow them successfully, even though they are a little bitter)
  • Melons
  • Aubergines

From the garden:

  • Lots of green leaves – lettuce  & spinach has refused to grow so our salads for the last few weeks have been created from young, tender leaves of pak choi, swiss chard, silverbeet, beetroots, wild & salad rocket, sorrel, nasturtiums & handfuls of fresh herbs. There are some strong flavours here, so they are all shredded, thoroughly tossed & served with a dressing sweetened with honey.
  • Tomatoes – kilos of them, including the green grape variety
  • Marrows
  • Courgettes
  • Chillies
  • Carrots
  • Cucumbers

And finally… beans!  The combo of our watering regime (which included spraying the flowers well every evening) & the cooler temperatures seemed to be having an effect.  The flowers which had been coming all season but not opening fully, were now properly agape & a dedicated bee sweetshop!  Pods started to form and last night we had our first harvet (just a handful) in our chicken stew.  If things continue like this we’ll have a freezer full of runners for the winter.  Hurrah!

And for the first time this year:

  • Cabbages
  • Aubergines
  • Peppers

It was also a fruity month with the sweet, juicy joys of melons & strawberries:

In the bo-flo-grove, the bourgainvillea is getting established and spreading out branches, the passion flower is climbing far & wide and a sweet potato that went to seed in our friend Therese’s cupboard & was chopped up & planted by me, has flourished fast with leafy green stalks pushing high already.  Will it wither and go dormant before producing flowers this year?  Probably.

The Cosmos has been fantastic value, flowering its head off in the tyre wall and self-seeding new plants too.

And the tyre wall is looking so mature it’s hard to believe that only a handful of months ago the view was more rubber & clay than anything else!  The Sunchokes (just found out what they’re called, thanks to this post on a co-operative blog I frequent) growing tall & strong in the greywater baths, finally flowered and their bright yellow faces were a delightful backdrop to the tyre wall.  But you can see from the shot below how parched the ground is – the grass brown & dead.

Sowing & Planting

I haven’t given up on the passion flower cuttings.  I took 4 more & just kept them in a jar of water for a month until extensive root systems had developed.  They are potted up and I am nursing them through the autumn & winter at the house.

Baking & Making

Lots of vegetarian baking again this month.  We (yes, including Steve the great meat eater!) went veggie for a week when the last wwoofers of the season came to stay.  2 of them were vegetarian and 1 was moving more towards being a vegan.  Our challenge was to eat as much produce from the garden as possible and create something different & tasty every day with minimal cost.  And not to cook a single pasta dish.  The three travellers had been existing on little but pasta before coming to us on the last leg of their journey & were past-a pasta!  We made a Crumble, a Bean Hotpot, Veggie Wraps with homemade salsa and Onion Bhajis & Dhal.  The welsh wwoofers were chilli freaks so there were always a spicy dish somewhere in the menu.  Here’s Steve dishing up on Veggie Curry night:

Reading

Apparently, David Nicholl’s “One Day” is a much-hyped book & film.  All the selling-up had passed me by so I  read it with no expectations at all.

I enjoyed it.  I looked forward to the hours before shut-eye when I’d get to know more about Dex & Em, Em & Dex.  I like them both – & even when I didn’t, I appreciated their portrayal.  I thought Emma, in particular was real & funny & engaging.  But the whole premise of the story hangs on the connection between these 2 and to me it just didn’t seem an authentic enough bond.  As friends – yes.   But as lovers & life partners – no.  With diverse attitudes, backgrounds, views & opinions that seemed to push them apart not together, the only attraction was a physical one.  To me, believing in the strength of Emma’s character, this seemed too weak & implausible.

I did applaud Mr Nicholls for not collapsing, sloppily into a happy ending and I liked the edge he allowed the tale to have, not sparing details of drug-induced degeneration, sad & love-less relationships & failed marriages.  It was a good yarn but it didn’t fully knit together for me.

Having said all that it was far superior to C J Sansom’s “Winter in Madrid”.  I feel especially cheated as the cover note suggested that if I liked Carlos Ruiz Zafon, I’d love this.  Apart from the fact that they are both set in Spain, the only book I’ve read by Senor Zafon “Shadow of the Wind”, is in a very different league.  Spine to spine, Zafon ’s masterpiece wins… with knobs on.

I’m trying not to be unfair & will begin this ‘review’ with “in my opinion” but…

The characters were mostly weakly portrayed & therefore hard to relate to or care about.  Bernie was the exception – Sansom could have written the entire book about his experiences in the labour camp and it would have been more impactful. There was something flat & weary about the book, that’s hard to put one’s finger on.  I kept plodding on hoping for passion but I didn’t find it.  To be fair there were a couple of twists at the end that made one think “Oh, maybe he’s finally cracked it!” but generally the ending was deeply unsatisfying.  And that’s probably the book’s greatest quality – to stay with the grey, dismal futility of these people’s lives and not be tempted to give them a happy-ever-after make-over.

In complete contrast, Marina Lewycka’s novel was well-written, witty & wonderful – stuffed with cracking characters, not least Noami Shapiro & her delightful accent

It made me chuckle & sigh and taught me lots about glue!  It was such a readable book that I raced through it in and then was sad when I ran out of story.  I had briefly wrapped myself in the lives of a few fine folk and I was loathe to let them go.  That’s the power of a good book.

In a bumper month for reading, I’m already half way through Amanda Smyth’s “Black Rock”.

What’s the vibe?

A rollercoaster ride.

It’s been a funny old month with the best & worst of times.  A month of contrasts, with spirits soaring high and then low.

The difficult guest last month, in no way prepared us for September’s challenging visitor.  It’s the other guests I felt sorry for – Steve & I have had enough practice of slapping on our ‘neutral’ faces, nodding, “umming” and generally ignoring – but in a group of really lovely people the metaphorical sore thumb stuck out.  The group did really well at tolerating and remaining polite but the suggestion afterwards from Duncan that we should hold Big Brother-stylie evictions will be remembered for next time…

We had a pretty good start to the month financially with guests staying longer, eating more & drinking lots but then the accountant’s bill arrived just in time to wipe the smile off our faces.

It was still hot, we were still bothered and despite enjoying the company of great people and special friends this month, we were getting a bit tired of sharing space with people 24/7.  Despite needing the energy & enthusiasm of the 3 wwoofers from Wales who joined us half way through September for some camping in Montenegro & stayed for a week, it was a difficult time socially.  Our ‘friendly host status’ had pretty much expired and yet with no other guests or friends on site, there was only us there to look after the volunteers.  It was more than worth it in terms of the list of jobs jobbed but when they left us on 23rd Septmber and our last guests cancelled soon after, we breathed a big sigh of relief, de-camped to Topla and wallowed in peace, quiet & nobody’s company but our own.

Listening to

Groove Armada as Steve dives into the “unplayed, unrated” section of our music collection…

Fun Stuff

We were lucky enough to host our dear friends Jess & Dunc for a week – this time with baby Islay in tow.  She’d been a mere bundle of cells, just a few weeks old last year during their previous visit so it was wonderful to meet this living, breathing, gorgeous human – as cute as a button (despite looking like Duncan) and so calm & happy.

Babies are cute but they are crap at crosswords and can’t play Bridge or drink Loza, so we were really glad J&D were there!

We had some lazy days with them and some fun evenings, eating & drinking and playing games.  As usual Jess & I wiped the floor with the boys at Bridge despite all Duncan’s (LOUD) posturing and bluff.

We had some great evenings with some of our guests in September – special campers on our special campsite in Montenegro.  Einat & Auva were a special, memorable couple.  Two friends from Israel, travelling together – very serene and lovely human beings.  Einat was an amazing cook and one night she, aided by Auva & Andrew, cooked us up the most delicious meatball dish.  It was such a treat to have someone else cook!

Suzanne & Sylvie was also great fun – straight-talking Germans, whose no-nonsense approach had us in fits.  We had a great evening with them chilling under the stars as we shared stories and much, much more.  They loved my vegetarian cooking & would recommend us as one of the best places to eat & drink in Montenegro

Dear friend Annie was around for a couple of weeks too.  Unbelieveably we have no photos of the gorgeous Irish lass from this recent visit but we do have some lovely memories.  She helped us out keeping the place clean and entertaining guests (& journalists!) with her colourful stories and looking after the campsite for us so we could get off site & get stuff done.  And we helped her out by giving her a safe place to chill & be herself, happy camping in Montenegro.

Some guests easily turn into friends, and this is definitely the case with Terry & Emma who have returned to us 3 times this year.  Towards the end of their last visit, things were finally quietening down for us and we enjoyed a couple of evenings just the 4 of us, playing games and listening to each other stories.  We will be following their progress here and hoping one day we can join them aboard…

And on our last night with the Welsh wwoofers, we found out what a talented guitarist & song-writer Efa was.  As we stared into the flames of our first fire for 4 months, Efa’s beautiful voice rang out in the starry night.

Tim Time

We’re back at Topla and the neighbourhood girls are pleased to have Daisy back. It makes me smile how they just let themselves into the garden to pet her.  They think nothing of it and we think nothing of letting them.  How different to the UK?

One Green Thing

The prize this month for the best thing crafted out of bits of scrap materials must go to Nik for his beautiful Draughts Board:

Weather Report

Finally, in the 3rd week of September, the ridiculously hot, dry weather ended abruptly as an amazing storm erupted.  It bucketed it down for a few hours on & off for a couple of days as the thunder roared and lightning crashed.

When the storm broke, I was alone at the campsite.  I’m not ordinarily spooked by storms (especially after 5 years in Monte!) but I was under orders to clear out all the bedding from our tent (as Steve felt sure the pods would finally start leaking under the pressure of BIG rain) and had to make a dash for the tent to bundle up our duvet & check for leaks.  Whilst in the tent the thunder & lightning intensified and realising there was nothing but a bit of thin canvas between me & the full fury of Nature, I felt very vulnerable.  I legged it back to the building unscathed and Daisy’s distress at the turn of events soon took my mind of my own woes.  It was a good test of the rain cover though.  Sadly the design was flawed & did let a lot of water in but it was better than nowt.

After a couple of soggy days, bundled up in jumpers and thick socks, the sun came out again and all the clothes came off.  The nights stayed chilly though and we swapped to a thick duvet for our last few nights of camping.  The garden and grounds sucked up the water and a greenish tinge replaced the fried brown look.

And now we’re experiencing a Europe-wide late heatwave with temperatures in the late 2o’s/ early 30’s and the 2 soggy days already seem an age ago.  We need more rain.  Soon.  Please.

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August in Review

September 23, 2011 in Campsite Improvements, Den, Environmentally Friendly, Frugal Living, Fun Stuff, Making & Baking, Nature, Organic Gardening, Reduce Reuse Recycle, Team News by fullmonte | 2 comments

Hot, bothered & super late again.  Apologies, as usual…

What’s fresh?

From the store:

  • Watermelons.  Still overdosing on ljubenica, since every guest that comes buys one because they are so novel and so cheap…
  • Tomatoes

From Montenegro’s best organic garden:

  • Lots of green leaves – pak choi, swiss chard, silverbeet, beetroot leaves, wild & salad rocket, sorrel & tiny amounts of spinach & lettuce (struggling to grow in the heat…)
  • Tomatoes – kilos of them, including the green grape variety
  • Marrows
  • Courgettes
  • Chillies

  • Onions – some nice big ones this year too.  This baby was half a kilo:

  • Carrots – mostly funny shaped (forked due to planting in freshly manured soil – doh!) but sweet & carrot-y as can be

  • Sweetcorn – small but absolutely delicious.  Probably the best thing I’ve eaten from the garden this year is a plate of these babies, dripping with butter and well seasoned.  Heavenly!

  • Herbs – chives, basil,  parsley, mint, rosemary, sage & tarragon

The continued heat & lack of rain has sucked a lot of life out of the bo-flow-grove, with things looking wilted and parched.  The lavateria came & went, but the nicotiana are still providing scent & colour:

Marigolds & Zinnia continue to be good value, their vivid petals providing regular splashes of colour.  And in the tyre wall, the lavender finally flowered!

Sowing & Planting

The belting sun is a killer.  I had nursed a few more passion flower cuttings but they all got fried and out of the 6 Echinacea seedlings coaxed to life, only 2 remain and they are very stunted.

Baking & Making

Not me (well, aside from the usual daily chore of feeding the campsite, which this month included some particularly yummy dishes for our vegeterian guests).  But our Chilean wwoofers, Fran & Yocelyn made a cover for the 2nd gazebo:

And here’s the finished article, on the frame:

And the 2 gorgeous girls cooked us a fabulous, traditional Chilean dish one evening: “Pastel del Papas” (Potatoe Pie with minced beef & olives inside):

Nik crafted a net covered frame for sun-drying tomatoes:

We now have one small jar of tomatoes baked in the Montenegrin sun and look forward to enjoying them soon with Nik when things calm down enough & find us in the same place at the same time for long enough…

Reading

Khaled Hosseini’s “A Thousand Splendid Suns” was a gift from Becky when she visited last month.  Having read “The Kite Runner”, I was expecting an impactful, compelling book that tugged on my heart strings & I wasn’t disappointed.  Miriam & Laila’s stories revealed the horror of life for women in Afghanistan.  This was a sorry tale, laden with violence & cruelty and although love & sisterhood shine through in the end, it’s almost too incongruous to succeed as believeable – with all that sadness, I didn’t feel like being happy at the end…

The Kite Runner still has the edge for me though.  The story of the young boys growing up together, but miles apart, made a big impression on me & there is something lacking from Hosseini’s female characters in this book.  I wonder if it’s just that he was able to tell a tale from a male perspective much more fully…

I think I’ve commented here before that having started a book I feel compelled to finish it.  Not so with Kathy Lettes “How to Kill Your Husband”.  I began reading it at a time when I actually wanted to kill my husband but after several chapters of dull-as dishwater, over-cliched prose that was tripping over itself so hard to be funny it simply fell flat on its face, I couldn’t bear to proceed.  Luckily, there had been plenty of blah about how awful husbands were: selfish lovers, unfaithful & absolute experts as taking women for granted so I already felt better about my (apparently) only slightly imperfect hubby and was ready to love him all over again!

Moving swiftly on… to David Nicholl’s “One Day”.  Enjoying it so far but jury’s still out.

What’s the vibe?

Slightly frazzled.

August launched itself into our laps with a fizzle of mini dramas: minor car crashes; sickness & diarrhoea amongst friends & guests and quite a few folk around having a crap time one way or another, giving me plenty to fret & frown over whilst trying to hold it all together in the searing heat.

August looked gloomy on the bookings front and we weren’t hopeful of banking the cash we needed to.  Thankfully, drop in business made up for any short-falls but lovely guests turning up all the time meant no relief from the Stick on Smile.  I began to lose the plot a bit as I toiled to fit all the jobs in every day: cleaning, cooking, watering the garden, emptying the compost tea tank – and though I know I wasn’t doing it all single-handedly, I did feel (rightly or wrongly) that I was taking the brunt of the chores.  Steve would be distracted by a conversation or a project and wander off whilst I frantically tried to cook dinner & water the plants (garden duties could only now be attempted when the sun was starting to fade after 5pm ish, precisely the time when I needed to start the prep for the evening meal!).

In a bid to fit everything in I started preparing the evening meal earlier but this wasn’t practical as people would arrive half way through the day and decide they wanted to eat with us so I had to remain flexible and also with the temperatures up in the late 30’s the poor gas fridges were struggling to perform.  Food was going off fast if left outside and the basement was no longer a safe haven, after we discovered a trail of mice-nibbled tomatoes…  The evaporation fridge at this stage was utterly useless and since water was now so, so precious we couldn’t afford to waste any cooling down the bricks regularly enough to make it work.

The frazzle-factor went up a notch when combined with interrupted sleep.  Daisy got close to being throttled a few times in the middle of the night with her mental barking & howling.  To be fair to her she was doing her Guard Dog thang, hyper-aware of all the potential threats and constantly patrolling the site on her mission to serve & protect.  We tried to explain to her that at 3.00 am we really didn’t care if there was a rustle in the bushes, but she didn’t get it.  Thank God for my dear friend Ditsch, who sensibly suggested we tie her up on a shorter leash around the back of the building.

And in August the inevitable happened.  Our first ‘difficult’ guests.  I guess it was impossible to expect all guests to be like-minded dudes who we feel comfortable around, but it was still an ‘ouch’.

Listening to

Amy Winehouse c/o Yocelyn’s iPod whilst chillin’ with the Chilean’s.

Fun Stuff

Sarah, Hazel, April, Adam, Lily & Fern & all the associated drama & laughs that went with them…

Chilling in our comfy outside living room with our wonderful guests, loving their first camping holiday in Montenegro…

The “Dutch Invasion” – as plenty of folk from Holland turned up and fitted right in: Ella & Tjipke; Jonathon & Marieke & their 3 fantastic kids; Rob & Renate; Saskia & Teus… We made special connections with these people and we very much hope to see some of them again here or in Holland.

One lovely family we literally had to push out, though we wanted them to stay!  Here’s girl power as Marieke, Mare, Renate & Ella (& me when I’m not taking photos!) push the Schenk family’s trailer tent out…

We enjoyed quality time in the sun with dear friend Ditsch…

We had a very precious 24 hours off site when Nik returned from his many travels and agreed to let us leave the camp in his capable hands to get some time away.  Katie & Tim picked us up in the Monty B and we sailed over to Sveti Marko in time to watch the sun set.   We drank, ate, laughed, swam in the phospherence under a bright moon and generally came down a couple of notches, freed from all duties for a day.

Tim Time

Sad to say it’s not a happy tale this month.  Karim & Claudia, motorcyclists who travelled to us from France, left their bikes & expensive Bell helmets on the roadside outside the camp.  Someone came along in the night & cut the chain locking the helmets to the bike & stole them both.  Probably €1,000 worth of kit – gone.  No-one ‘randomly’ ventures up to Prijevor or Malta.  It had to be someone from the village who did the dirty deed and as I was exploding with fury to every villager I met the next day and swearing (in local language) at our local community policeman, Zeljko, the mild mannered copper agreed with me but made a pathetic “what can I do?” gesture…  As I couldn’t persuade Karim to lodge an official report with the police (he probably realised it meant wasting a day sitting around & being worn down with boredom & red tape), I had to let the matter go.  But this experience has left a bitter taste in our mouths & made us think long & hard about our place in the community.

One Green Thing

Under our direction, Fran & Yoce crafted a cover for the open space in the kitchen where the rain lashes in if the wind’s in the wrong direction (it seems hilarious to be rain-proofing, when we’ve almost forgotten what the wet stuff from the sky is all about, but still…).  We had saved the canvas from the old army tent we used to camp in before it got struck by lightning & shredded in a storm.  Here’s proof that it pays to keep random bits of material to recycle in useful reinventions.   I’ll share a pic of the finished article in place once it’s painted as it looks a bit of an eyesore right now, but here’s a photo of Steve & the girls with the rain cover in the making:

Weather Report

Still HOT.  It got insane for a while in the midst of August when temperatures peaked at around 36 degrees in the shade and even the nights offered little relief for a while as cloudy evenings seemed to hold the heat in & we still sweated in the late 20’s late into the evening.  It hasn’t rained properly for 2 months now.  We and the garden are gasping.  Mare’s picture of the campsite is pretty representative – bright and stark & not much greenery:

July in Review

August 9, 2011 in Camping News, Den, Environmentally Friendly, Frugal Living, Fun Stuff, Making & Baking, Nature, Organic Gardening, Reduce Reuse Recycle, Team News by fullmonte | 2 comments

Late again and grabbing moments in between the madness that August has brought us already!  Gone are the fancy narratives now… the pictures must mostly speak for themselves…

What’s fresh?

(Noting what’s fresh & local to know what I can grow & when and a record of fresh pickings from our garden to improve future planting plans, manage gluts better etc)

From the store:

  • Watermelons in abundance!  Since a HUGE one costs just a few cents, we are overdosing on ljubenica
  • Tomatoes
  • Peaches
  • Nectarines

From the garden:

  • Lots of green leaves – pak choi, swiss chard, silverbeet, beet root leaves, wild rocket
  • Cucumbers (funny looking pale yello round thing in the shot below – but sweet as…)

  • Tomatoes – kilos of them, including the green grape variety (see below – the less red ones!) which are super sweet

  • Onions – hurrah!  Finally picking one of our staples on site now!!!
  • Sorrel
  • Courgettes
  • Pumpkin
  • Marrow

Pumpkins came so early but the plants are re-grouping and still flowering so we’re hoping for later crops too.  Courgettes & marrows just keep coming… YUM.

  • Herbs – chives, basil,  parsley, mint & tarragon

Beans have flowered abundantly but no pods forming apart from the few randoms in early June.  Apparently fruitless beans are a big & common problem – who knew?? (Could be roots weren’t damp enough or that bees were over-enthusiastic and damaged the fruit production, or so I’ve read… any other ideas???)  So I’m trying to re-frame the situation telling myself I’ve been lucky so far (rather than unlucky this year) and we enjoy the pretty flowers and the beautiful tendrils reaching for the sky…

Sowing corn direct seemed to have given us shorter, less vigorous crops, but WOW are they sweet!

And in the bo-flow-grove, the petunias turned out to be lavateria after all.  Nicotiana are drawing the blue-black Carpenter bees to their trumpets and filling the air with a delicate scent.  Bourganvillea has joined the ranks when my birthday brought me living goodies from dear friend Danny.

And here’s the tyre wall – maturing nicely and truly a living wall of colour, (and a mini nature reserve to boot – alive with butterflies, bees, shield bugs, lizards & frogs)

Sowing & Planting

(Building a record of what I need to prepare for next in the garden)

Sowed beetroot, silverbeet, spinach, rocket, lettuce & more herbs – especially coriander & dill which bolted too quickly in the heat.

Baking & Making

(A chance to reflect on the culinary success & failures of the month & share crafty moments)

The prizes for creative prowess go to Steve this month, most notably for his seamstress skills in transforming a few old sheets into a gazebo cover to be proud of:

And the finished article, on the frame:

He also, patiently, coached the Doyle kids through the making ’shakers’ out of bits of old wood (which they sanded and then decorated with felt tip pens) and bottle tops loosely nailed on.  Don’t tell the health & safety mob, but here’s Alex banging holes in the bottle tops with a hammer & nail:

Apart from endless cooking duties, the only thing I’ve done is conduct the final stage in the making of the St John’s Wort potion – squeezing the rich red oil through muslin (aka cut up Tesco woven dish cloth!) into a jar.  Pics to follow!

Reading

(Love sharing the books I’m into)

Audrey Niffenegger’s “Her Fearful Symmetry” was a jolly good read with good dollops of all the right stuff.  It was intriguing, strange (but not unbelievable), funny (in a dead pan way), full of interesting characters (I loved Martin, especially) and love-lorn, sexy & sad all at once quite a lot.  The description of Robert loving & missing Elspeth after her death was touching and wonderful.  I loved the inclusion of all the ordinary stuff that is often glossed over and nothing is left out when describing, for example, Robert’s pain on loss of a loved one & Martin’s OCD.

It deals with ephemeral stuff, like ghosts, really brilliantly and has a nice twist at the end.  I haven’t read “The Time Traveller’s Wife” or see the film but I will seek it out if it’s of this ilk.

Michael Cunningham’s “The Hours” is a beautifully written book.

Another recommendation from Fiona, I was actually uncertain about reading it.  I had watched the film some years ago and didn’t remember much other than it had Nicole Kidman in it.  If it was an unforgettable film, was it really worth a read?  OMG – yes!  The writing is exquisite.  Rich without being overly flowery it conjures up wonderful, impactful images – that sometimes startle, sometimes sadden, sometimes amuse but always impress…  I had also completely forgotten how the stories come together at the end.  It was over too fast.  I loved it and cherish the imprint that lingers still.

What’s the vibe?

(This month’s gut reaction)

July felt a little more ‘normal’.  Volunteers came and contributed but as the heat intensified (pushing 40 degrees at times) it was clear we weren’t going to move mountains with these guys in quite the same way.  Reality kicked in as a busy June faded into a sparse July and we realised that feeding hungry souls unconditionally just wasn’t on.  We made volunteering in July provisional on a contribution to food costs and thankfully we didn’t put too many folk off, but it had a different vibe.

I marked another year off on my play card of life and found 41 was peculiarly underwhelming.  There was a party but not a raucous one rather one where a bunch of people (some random, some cherished, some who’d never visited before) turned up and enjoyed good food (but this year I was not exempt from making salads!) and a very pleasant soiree in the cool campsite air.

The sun has scorched the land – brown grass doesn’t look as inviting as green and wilting, under-performing plants aren’t so attractive.  There’s a lot of maintenance and “Forth Bridge” moments.  And there’s bugger-all time to ourselves, to be a couple.  We’re living with and a round people 24/7 and it takes its toll.  Despite the shine wearing off a little, this life is still sparklier than the one we left behind and we enjoy much more than we endure.

Listening to

(Trying to listen to some new tunes every month)

The Rundek Cargo Band.  Live on a beach in Herceg Novi.

Darko Rundek is a huge musical hero (figaratively – literally he’s an ordinary bloke who resembles a leathery-skinned fisherman you’d find beside the Boka).  It was only when our Serbian volunteer Djura described the gig as like going to see Elvis, that I appreciated the scale of the adoration.  He was accompanied by a percussionist-cum-keyboard player and a stunning female violinist, Isabelle.  That 60 year old woman in a red leather basque took our breath away.  It was an AMAZING gig.

Fun Stuff

(‘Nuff said)



My school friend Becky, whom I’ve known for 27 years, finally made it to Monte with her family.  They had a great time (though it was not without its dramas with her youngest falling over & splitting his lip so badly he needed 2 stitches) and the kids loved the Nature at & around the campsite.  They stayed a night in a tent and here are the kids having breakfast with Steve in the morning:

Here they all are with their musical ’shakers’:

Tim Time

(Bizarre & extraordinary happenings?  This is Montenegro)

The Prijevor village sign which may or may not include Eko Kamp Ful Monte, depending if we can ever get our money’s worth and make ourselves understood.  Long story – will tell it if/ when we know an end!

One Green Thing

(One more step along our green journey)

Tents abandoned at a festival in the UK were gathered up by a really good mate and shipped to Monte via another really good mate’s kayak transporter.  With much sewing, patching and mending of poles and guys and rubber bands we now have 6 new tents – 3 Snugs and 3 Lodges.  Here’s one…

Weather Report

(Charting the weather for us and our garden)

Still HOT.  Daisy doesn’t like it much.

But we have had rain towards the end of the month – enough to make the grass grow again and be let off tedious and time-consuming watering duties for a couple of days.

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The BIG LIST and the small dog…

May 4, 2011 in Campsite Improvements, Environmentally Friendly, Frugal Living, Team News by fullmonte | 3 comments

I’ve been wanting to blog about our BIG LIST ‘11 for weeks but the further we got from ticking much off that darned table of tasks, the less I wanted to be reminded about it…  And then recently, we’ve been so busy working away at getting the jobs done that I haven’t had time to blog!

When we wrote the BIG LIST, we didn’t have Daisy Marmite on board.  A small, mischevious puppy with curiosity as sharp as her teeth is not overly conducive to getting stuff done!  The action of sweeping anything is fascinating to her, so cleaning up after projects  with Daisy attached to the broom has been challenging.  We can no longer leave objects within puppy range whilst working.  The list of things we’ve turned around to find her hareing off with excitedly currently include: Nik’s phone, lighters, gloves, hand trowels, flower pots, hosepipes and fittings and (most hilariously) Steve’s underpants.  Disappointingly he disposed of them before I could take a picture of the shredded bits of cloth that the former M&S tackle-huggers had become!  Despite this, here are the achievements to date:

  • Compost loos

  1. re-concrete the floor of the toilet chambers, raising the level to meet the drainage pipe
  2. re-construct the crates and mesh on the chamber floor
  3. put extended hatch sills around all the openings and weather proof the actual hatch covers

1 & 2 – done.  Only one chamber has an extended sill and water ingress in the front of the remaining chambers during the recent rain has continued to reinforce the importance of doing this for them.

  • Tyre Wall

  1. constructed
  2. topped off with a new stone wall
  3. planted

After much digging of clay & ramming of earth, the wall of tyres is complete.  The stone wall is half finished so only some of the planting has been done (can’t risk wrecking the plants with rocks falling on them!) but so far, so good:

For me, this task won’t be fully ticked off until I post a photo (late summer?) of the completed wall aburst with colour, foliage & tumbling fruits…

  • Tent Pitch #3

Done.  And grass seeds are already beginning to sprout on all 3 new tent pitches.

  • Generator Shed

Done.  But not as originally planned.  Rather than build an entire new structure for the trusty genny to live in, why not keep it in the workshop but extend the exhaust to be long enough to expel its fumes outside?  Steve’s brainwave was made a reality by the clever guys at Auspuh Servis:

A hole then had to be drilled through the workshop wall:

And the modified generator was installed:

It’s quiet.  It’s out of the weather, although we still have fashion a surround (we’ll recycle an old tin can) around the hole so that water won’t get into the gap in the wall and we’ll need to sheild the end of the pipe to stop water dripping down the exhaust and rusting the engine.  It doesn’t fill the workshop with fumes anymore.  This solution has saved us time & money – bravo Stevo!  Drawbacks – it’s not exactly portable anymore.  But  that’s ok.

  • Fencing

This was the task that held us up for so long & that I blogged about here.  Strictly speaking it isn’t completed.  There is still a piece of mreza (thick metal mesh) to erect in place of the tatty-looking and vulnerable (security-wise) stretch of fencing from the upper gate to the new boundary fence.  There’s also the small question of the stream-side fence, which is non-existent and we currently have no-friggin-idea how we will secure this.  But no goat or cow debacles to report so far this year and we’re hoping that here at least Daisy Marmite will come into her own… although based on her uncouth eating habits so far, she’ll probably just follow them round and eat their poo!

  • Restore table & chairs

Not even attempted yet, but an absolute MUST if our beloved wooden furniture is to survive another year.  This is a job for a run of sunny days when we are living up there but before our guests arrive as the task will be messy & noisy, involving belt sander & the like.

  • Maintain grounds

  1. Sow grass
  2. Strim, stump, mow
  3. Re-gravel drainage ditch

1 & 2 – done.  Although mowing and strimming will now be an ongoing task.  And there are more areas to try to level with the remains of the topsoil that arrived way back then and then to seed.  The ordering of gravel has to be done.  We can’t put it off much longer.  In digging out clay for the tyre wall construction, we started to uncover the terrace wall that is a priority re-build:

This stretch of wall runs along the last 2 grey water baths.  If we re-build it well, and incorporate steps, it will give us easier, more stable access to the orchard, flower garden & compost areas.  You can see from the picture above how eroded the gravel ditch has become here as the clay has fallen onto it and we’re re-cutting ground level by digging out clay.

  • Tile the last toilet & grout all loos

Done. Done. Done.  We’ve even painted over all the tile adhesive marks and scrubbed the loos to within an inch of their long-drop lives.  The only picture I have is of the toilets finished but not cleaned.  It does NOT do the job justice so will have to wait for a sunny day for a re-take.  Trust me, it looks great – except in the now brown & cream tiled toilets with dark brown wooden toilet holders & light brown wooden toilet seats, the green & blue galss bricks do not co-ordinate well at all!

  • Tiling the steps

Not even started yet although we’re considering trying to get Steve’s Dad, Gerry, into it as a project when they visit soon.  I reckon he’s a dab hand at tiling.  Realistically though we may only get one set of steps tiled this season as it has to be done when there are no guests due to inevitable ensuing inconvenience and mess.

  • Grey water system made optimally operational

  1. Dig out baths & replant
  2. Dig up irrigation pipes
  3. Re-build stone walls and protect pipes

We’ve made good progress with this task.  The baths were totally clogged with over-developed roots that had been greedily feeding on grey water goodness for half a year.  The first task was to dig out the problem baths.  This was no mean feat!  Check out the straining muscles on this poor face as Steve desperately tries to heave out chunks of the bamboo:

All the baths needed attention, barring the first bath which we’d dealt with at the end of last summer and which didn’t have any ferocious bamboo planted in it!  The pictures below barely illustrate the mental-ness of the bamboo roots but…

At least 3 of the baths were completely dug out, de-rooted (made up word alert?!) and washed out.  Gravel & stones were replaced, all clay removed as far as possible and fresh commercial & home made compost added to top the baths off.  Drastically reduced clumps of reeds, bamboo, sweet potatoe flowers, umbrella plants and mint were put back in the baths.

Unsurprisingly, Daisy Marmite was fascinated by the smell of the grey water pipe pieces that we had to dismantle in the process of clearing & re-planting the baths:

We’ve elected not to dig out the irrigation pipes in the raised beds.  Water seems to be flowing away reasonably ok in most beds.  Enough to dispose of the excess grey-water safely anyway, which was one of the key objectives of the design in the first place.  We may have to give a few areas of the beds special attention though, to compensate for blocked irrigation pipes. Timing-wise, it’s too late now anyway.  Each bed now has green stuff growing away in it.  The only bed with no irrigation pipes dug in will be the one that brassicas and other veg over-winter in and the rest will have their pipes dug up, flushed through and re-set before next year’s sowing & planting.

The re-building of the stone wall along the last 2 baths is tantalisingly close to completion.  The topping off of the longer terrace wall from the building all the way down to the 3rd bath is much more of a mission and may not be tackled for a while.  Since the grass has grown over the pipes here they are more protected & less likely to move anyway.

  • Re-palm boundary fence

Most of the fence has been patched up.  We have enough palms to cover the agricultural mesh on the section over the stream that is a big green blot on the landscape when viewed from inside the camp.  But in order to do this, we’ll need to construct some kind of platform over the stream at least 3 metres high and stable enough to work on comfortably. Hmmm.

  • Tile splashback area around gas cooker

We’ve got as far as choosing the tiles.  Our stocks of tiles are seriously low these days.  This is a good thing as we have managed to use so many in various ways and have created tons more space in our basement area as a result too.  But it does mean choice is limited.   It’s a stroke of luck that we have just enough of the same tiles (with a single tile to spare!) to continue the splashback already in place around the sink.  Fingers crossed we don’t break any!

Once the splashback is in place, we can further improve the kitchen area with:

  • the addition of a small wooden unit that will support extra work surface alongside the cooker
  • a bespoke work surface (hopefully home-made but, at a push, purchased) to fit snugly over the floor standing units & into the corner
  • a pole (material as yet undefined…) to hang pots & pans off above the cooking area

And whilst we’re talking about the kitchen, there’s another small (?!) task that’s new on the list.  The construction & erection of a piece of canvas (hopefully made from the remains of our ex-Yugoslav Army tent that Nik & I salvaged) that can be fitted into place over the doorway and last stretch of open, non-bottled-window.  This should help reduce the amount of water that floods in when it rains.

Hurrah for us and the progress so far and this doesn’t even include a load of little things like:

  • sorting out the basement
  • finishing tiling edges and corners left incomplete until now
  • neatly enclosing in trunking, the leads for connecting the solar-powered fan from solar controller box and to the waterless urinals
  • a major workshop tidy up
  • endless ongoing planting tasks

Here’s to the BIG LIST diminishing and to volunteers this season helping us tackle projects not even on the list yet like:

  • re-building endless terrace walls
  • maintaining, cultivating & improving the whole 4,000 sq metres of upper woodland, currently in disarray
  • building an outdoor bathroom
  • re-directing the water run-off from the drainpipes into the ditch
  • constructing/ begging/ borrowing (?!) some rainwater collection devices for the building and/ or the workshop and water tank
  • solving the problem of how to provide our veggies some shade from the relentless summer sun
  • filling in & levelling the ground around the side of the building where the steps leave the shower/ toilet area
  • painting the workshop, the compost toilet area and the compost tea tank

Diminishing? Oh wait, I just made the BIG LIST even BIGGER, Damn.

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