Campsite Improvements

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May in Review

June 5, 2013 in Camping News, Campsite Improvements, Den, Environmentally Friendly, Frugal Living, Fun Stuff, Healthy Eating, Making & Baking, Nature, Naturist, Organic Gardening, Reduce Reuse Recycle, Team News, book review by fullmonte | No comments

Growing Green

If nothing else, the awful weather this month has been good for the garden…

Butternut squash and pumpkin are forming & storming

A first for the organic garden – purple brussel sprouts…

I had high hopes for the cucumbers, which were good strong plants and romped away well but I followed advice in a veggie book for maximising yield, pinching out their growing tips and removing the first fruits and really wished I hadn’t as they seem to have faltered ever since.

Another first – yellow courgette…

Tomatoes are doing great. They’re certainly getting enough water and food but we really need the sun to come out & stay out & ripen these babies.

We pulled our first garlic mid May and our first crop of broad beans. We’ve also been picking salad leaves, chard, rocket & loads of herbs.

The herb bed is planted and flourishing, apart from the basil which seems to need more heat than we’re getting. We’ve got a new herb in the bed – Chop Suey Green (a type of chrysanthemum – the tallest plant in the photo below) the leaves of which we’ve already had in stir fries. Dead easy to grow, tasty and decorative too (when the flowers eventually appear!).

The tyre wall is looking colourful already and we’re looking forward to it really taking off when the sun comes out and brings on the heat-loving flowers (Livingstone Daisy, Sunflowers, Zinnia etc).

Baking & Making

I spray painted an old coffee tin, got out the metal paint & thin brushes and made a smart new tin for contributions to teas & coffees.

Notable successes on the culinary front this month… Hummous. Turns out I’m not allergic to chick peas, just lentils, so I celebrated by making tons of hummous. Unfortunately I ran out of tahini but found that using sesame oil worked just as well, if not better (thank goodness for all the goodies we inherited when the Lane family left!). Have also made some good veggie curries too…

Feelings & Musings

It’s been a month of ups & downs. It started pretty well, excitedly opening up the campsite, eagerly receiving first guests early on and having fun making everything clean and tidy.

The arrival of Richard was a welcome boost – he motivated us to do so much. But the weather turned a bit cold & damp towards the end of his stay and when he left the sun pretty much left too. The weather has been mostly miserable – really chilly & lots of rain. Even wrapped up in jumpers & hats, we’ve been cold and the damp seems to get inside our bones. A few guests have come & gone, for a few days here & there, but the weather is very bad for business and makes for a strange vibe with guests huddled in their tents and us in our caravan and a deserted feel to the place…

At this point we’re both feeling a bit flat and fed up. We are trying to keep ourselves amused with crosswords and games of Scrabble & Backgammon and try to remain positive (“Well, at least we don’t have to water the garden…” “We’re getting all the rain out of the way now and will have a cracking summer” etc, etc). Obtaining a licence remains an ongoing battle – another thing beyond our control that’s wearing us down.

We miss our buddies Matt & Amy and miss our cuddles from Gracie, Eloise & Miles. We’re not seeing much of our mates here as understandably no-one wants to brave it up to the campsite and we’re prisoners in our own paradise when there are no volunteers on site – only one of us can leave as the other has to stay to guard the place to avoid closing everything up or take a big risk.

Of course we’ll be fine but we’re a bit grumpy and frustrated right now.

Reading

Despite all the time on my hands I’ve only managed to read one book: “The Unnumbered” by Sam North. It was mostly a good read and at points I felt really engrossed in the story and the lives of the key characters: Nio & Mila. But contradictions opened up like cracks and make me frown and the ending was deeply unsatisfying. Now I really dislike a “happy ending” for the sake of it and I’m quite a fan of sad endings when appropriate, but this was just a weird wrenching and totally unbelievable. Needless to say this novel hasn’t improved my mood…

Work

Richard was a star and the reason we now have a porch keeping us dry. We’d not been tackling this particular problem because we didn’t really know where to start but Rich drew a few scribbles and came up with a plan. He re-used old wood from the depths of the workshop where he could and here are the boys sawing and sanding…

In this rare shot of Rich with his clothes on you can see how the porch ended up.

The original hatches for the compost loos which have been knocking about the place getting warped got re-glued and varnished, sprouted legs and became tables under Rich’s magic hands…

Steve tackled clearing the upper terrace above the raised beds.

Here you can see the terrace completely opened up, creating quite a different view. The smoke in the background is from the fire that Rich stoked most of the day burning the huge pile of debris that emerged as Steve hacked his way through the undergrowth.

I palmed the new fence having worked out a technique to attach the palms from the road-side rather than stream-side and Steve and I spent a day patching up areas of the fence inside where palms had degraded. The new stretch of palm fence is a recycling triumph – palms reused rather than burnt, bits of green mesh from around the site “re-purposed” for the job and bits of the chain link fence cut up and re-used as ties to hold the palms on.

Play

Not much playing this month. Steve got off site for a night without me to join a bunch of our mates on their boats to celebrate Tony’s 40th. And Nik joined us for a couple of nights bringing new games to play and some welcome company.

Nature Watch

So, the weather’s been awful. Thunder, lightning, high winds and buckets of rain. Here’s one of the gazebo covers ripped to shreds after a storm…

Steve did find a cute baby tortoise though…

And some butterflies..

Meanwhile Daisy dreams dreams of sunshine for us…

Tags: cucumbers, grow your own, growing brassicas, growing green, herbs, month in review, organic gardening, palms, recycling

Season’s Greetings!

May 12, 2013 in Camping News, Campsite Improvements, Fun Stuff, Organic Gardening, Team News by fullmonte | No comments

This season, I’m thinking blog posts will be short & sweet or not at all – since I’m hoping beyond hope that we are too busy with our happy campers for much else… So I’m here to tell you we’re open for business in 2013 and have already had 2 sets of guests and 2 volunteers.

Our season has begun!

There was a load of stuff that had to be done before we were ready to open and we ran around like maniacs for a while trying to get everything done. Here’s what we’ve been busy doing…

Maintenance of sewerage system: grey water baths dug out, cleaned out & mended – plug holes re-sealed, new pipe (for distributing the waste water more evenly around the bath to keep the plants moist) purchased & drilled (see photo below) – and each bath filled with fresh gravel & completely re-planted

Gardening: Steve had been nurturing veg & flower plants which had all outgrown their pots and were desperate to romp away in the ground. Before we planted the tyre wall we first had to paint it:

The new cream colour blends in well with the stone surrounds but more importantly, the tyres don’t get so hot now they are painted a lighter colour. Aster, Sweet Pea, Snapdragon, Livingstone Daisy, Pot Marigolds, French Marigolds and Petunias have all been planted. Waiting to join the flowery throng in the next few weeks are: Zinnia & Sunflowers (all self seeded and popped up in the compost) and Pansy & Lobelia which were sowed much later, are still growing on.

Flowers-to-be can also be found in the stream-side beds, the area just outside the building around the grease trap, my toilet garden (toilet bowls and sinks as planters in an area of shade below the main building) and, for the first time in hanging baskets.

In the beds we’ve planted out: the squashes & curcubits, tomatoes (5 varieties), capsicums, brassicas and aubergines. Seeds for beans, peas, carrots & salad greens have all been sown and in some cases thinned and transplanted already…

The herb garden which was created last year but never used was planted with green manure over the winter. This was dug in and left to rot down in situ and the soil was in pretty good condition. It’s now been planted/ sowed with: coriander, basil (3 varieties), parsley (2 varieties), dill, marjoram, mint, lemon thyme, chives (2 varieties), tarragon and some edible flowers: Garland Chrysanthemum, wild pansy, borage and nasturtiums.

Cleaning and moving in: Floors, furniture, cupboards, shelves, showers, loos, sinks, tables & chairs were scrubbed clean in a 2-day marathon. Bedding, tents, books, kitchen equipment, storage containers, towels, throws, games and loads of other stuff had to be carted down all the frigging steps at our Topla house, loaded into the van and unpacked the other end. We were pretty sick of walking up & down stairs & lugging stuff about.

Our first guest was supposed to arrive on May 1st. The same Greek guy in his own tent booked to come last year and didn’t show up. True to form, there was no sign of him this year either (next year we might just be fully booked when you enquire Mr Ionnis!) but mates Katie, Tim and their (& now our) friends Cath & Andy all the way from NZ turned up to more than compensate. So did Jamie, our first volunteer. He arrived late and we were all pretty wasted by the time he actually got to us and he had a great introduction to CFM – invited to share food, beer and a place round the fire, he joined the 6 of us in party mood.

Amazingly he did not surface until nearly 11.00 am the following morning and that was our first clue that he may not exactly be the greatest volunteer ever. He was a harmless, but in many respects clueless, 21 year old, addicted to sugar and allergic to mornings – he even outdid Steve for the amount of time it took him to be ready to start work each day. He provided the extra pair of hands needed to erect the gazebos and level the sofas and tables and he did a good job at strimming the grounds:

Our first guests arrived on May 2nd. They had inquired but not booked, so we weren’t exactly expecting the 2 German bikers who turned up. Timo & Katja were the perfect first guests – super people who fell in love with Daisy and the campsite and were fantastic company.

The day after they left, a Dutch couple arrived in their Landrover Defender with integral tent that had to be pitched in the only space for such vehicles, next to the workshop. Not a pretty spot but they were glad of a place to make a base for the night as they travelled through Montenegro. I wanted to take a picture of their South African designed tent, which enfolded from the top of the Landy but they were just too quick at de-camping…

And look who else has been visiting:

A Giant Peacock Moth! This gives you a great idea of scale, as it’s perched on a full sized colander. And right next to it, in complete contrast was this tiny moth – delicate and almost shell-like…

Jamie left us after a week and our next volunteer arrived. Richard couldn’t be more different – he’s in his 60’s but fit and strong and very talented. He’s a passionate naturist and spends as much time naked as possible. He rises early and works late and doesn’t even eat us out of house & home. So far he & Steve have: erected a new bookshelf in the basement & patched up the areas where water was seeping in (so hopefully we won’t lose any more books through water damage next year); dug out and concreted around a new drainage channel in front of the workshop; dismantled the boundary fence near the workshop (that was falling down due to weak posts and poor construction the first time around) and cemented in 4 new posts and as I left today he was drawing detailed plans of the new porch he’s going to build! Thank goodness for his skill and experience – we are very lucky to be working with him.

It hasn’t been ALL work though – as well as the very pleasant diversion provided by mates on May 1st, we’ve also had an evening with Blazo, Dado and Vedran with much booze and food and laughter. Maja, Keith, Charlie and Richard came armed with goodies for an evening picnic and we had a super time – it was wonderful seeing Maja visibly relax as she sipped her chilled Rose and wallowed in the loveliness of the evening. And yesterday Fi & Dave came to visit after some 2 years absence and they brought Fi’s Mum to see the campsite for the first time. Evelyn was totally enamoured by the place and as a naturist herself in years gone by she vowed to come back and camp another time.

Right, time to pack up and run back to site to make pizza for the hungry boys… A month in review to follow at end of May, if you’re lucky.

Tags: friends, Giant Peacock Moth, grey water system, growing green, herbs, organic gardening, Painted tyre wall

A quarter of things…

December 28, 2012 in Campsite Improvements, Den, Fun Stuff, Team News, book review by fullmonte | 1 comment

It’s official. This is “Den’s blog”. Steve’s October update never materialised and 3 months has passed without a word from the great man so it falls to me to stop the story unravelling at a loose end. These days, after 2+ months in the UK and 2+ months there to come, I’m feeling a bit disconnected from our Full Monte dream and somehow writing about it keeps it alive…

Here we are, a handful of days away from a fresh new year, so it’s time to round up the last quarter. I need to reflect before I can move forward. This is one several changes I’ve noticed about myself since living the UK life again. After 4 years of moving to the beat and pace of our own drum, with different values governing my daily patterns, stepping back into a relative ‘rat race’ highlighted some things about my character that felt different.

I’m not as ‘driven’ as I was 4 years when I last adopted the Working Girl disguise: I will ‘make do with less’ rather than ‘have more‘; me & my ego are not trying to prove anything, I don’t feel the need to compete and earning funds for Team FM is important but not paramount. Even in Montenegro, money makes the world go round, but over here sunshine (in all it’s forms…) comes a close second. I did an OPQ test as part of an interview process in October and found the feedback fascinating, especially with my Social Psychologist’s hat on (“What’s the impact of nature vs. nurture on personality traits? Discuss.”). I have a very rare profile because it’s so well balanced. Most folk have tendencies to extremes on some dimensions, thus giving the classic bell-shaped curve. Me, I’m flat-lining I’m so even. This wasn’t always the case. And during my regular check up at the ‘Well Woman Clinic’ the nurse was at pains to tell me how normal my blood pressure was (“It’s amazing, it’s just spot on!” ). Either I’ve got more chilled out or high blood pressue is way more prevalent now – both probably…

And what does a girl who does this for a living need to sustain her ? Regular exercise; time in the great outdoors as much as possible, healthy eating, her own space & time. Time to stop & take a breath; time to read; time to consider the way of things and time to muse on what’s behind as well as anticipate what’s ahead.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to how my new shape fits into the holes available in the UK… Now on with the tale-telling!

******************* STEVO & THE GODS OF WATER ******************

A week after I left Monte it rained. Heavily. By the time it stopped and Steve got up to the campsite, this is what had happened:

Relentless rain + debris washed down & blocking drainage channels + a crazily swollen, stream building pressure = a deluge strong enough to raise the iron supports of the fence spanning the stream from their concrete footings and push the sheets of metal mesh & palm leaves over!

The fence had to be secured, if not for curious passers-by then definitely for roaming livestock which would damage trees and plants if they got access. This meant opening up the workshop door. Which meant moving the Fiesta (whose primary role these days is as a burglar deterrent parked tight up against the workshop doors). Which meant getting it started… Steve tightened the battery connectors and it revved, reliably into life. The headlights protested though, as the bonnet was slammed shut one of them popped its glass onto the driveway. Steve had to meticulously pick up all the lethal shards before attempting to move the car. He managed to unobstruct the workshop without punturing the Fiesta’s tyres. Only to find it swimming in water. It had to be completely emptied & dried out:

Then Steve noticed the hatches of 2 of the compost toilet chambers had popped off and the chambers were soaked. It’s unclear whether the weather had somehow forced the wooden covers off or whether pressure had built up inside the chambers through water ingress and pushed them off from the inside out but it did highlight the fact that the tap to the compost tea tank had been left shut. When Steve opened it he released a plume of water some 2 metres high!

Remarkably, the basement in the building seemed dry – all our hard work earlier in the year sealing all the holes where the reinforcing metal poked through seemed to have paid off.

But if he thought that indicated an end to the water dramas, he was wrong… Trying to take a picture of the damage by the stream with the camera on his phone, he stepped back lost his footing and dropped his phone in a puddle. It is now officially beyond repair.

The following day he noticed water dripping from the shower room ceiling when the safety valve on the hot water tank blew and flooded the top floor of the house & he wondered what he should do to appease the Gods of Water…

Meanwhile, back in the UK…

… life passed by in a blur of dog walks, various job-seeking activities and socialising with mates whenever possible. And I finally made it back to my spiritual home: Othona at Bradwell-on-Sea for the first time in over 7 years, with dear friend Ditsch. We were there for Fireworks Weekend and the weather was glorious. We walked on the beach and breathed deep and long. We sat in the chapel & wallowed in the peace there – I thought about my wedding day and wished Steve was there. We were reunited with old friends and made new ones. Within hours of arriving I was singing harmonies in rounds with a bunch of folk I barely knew and songs I’d never heard before. I took part in a yoga session and came out feeling taller and full of energy. We ate amazing food – healthy, homecooked and full of flavour. The evening was perfect for fireworks, clear & dark. We oohed and ahhed as the rockets soared and the sky was filled with sparkling colour. Then it was off to the beach for a huge bonfire, the burning of many Guys and hearty singing of all the good ole songs. Thanks be to Kate with her fiddle and her amazing capacity to get everyone singing along. It felt so good to be home and hard to leave again.

I had a happy reunion with an old buddy from my TK Maxx days. The intervening years seem to fall away when we’re together and we act as if we’re still 20 something, getting totally hammered. Haven’t been that wasted for a long time – the day after our session was a total write off but totally worth it. I made it up to Liverpool (a day late due to impassable hangover) to see Jess, Nick & Molly and made it in time for a lovely walk and Sunday lunch with Ray who by happy chance was visiting too.

Money was going out with nothing coming in. Mum’s old car, the trusty Nissan Micra, needed the CV joints replacing and 3 new tyres – costly but MOT’d for another year.

A day’s work came up in November helping Carrie with a workshop for a big client of hers. And then an offer of work from an unexpected source. Duncan, now Chief Exec of Who Cares? Scotland, invited me to facilitate an away-day event for him & his entire team at the beginning of December. It was just enough cash to justify me being adrift for 2 months plus a chance to visit Jess, Dunc, Islay & Mila on their home turf. The full implications of visiting Edinburgh at the beginning of December didn’t really dawn on me at the time. I said yes.

I was counting down until Steve’s arrival on 15th November. On the evening I drove to Gatwick Airport to pick him up, I got confirmation of a short-term contract with Save the Children UK starting 2nd week in December. We celebrated the happy reunion & the new job with fish & chips & a tipple or 2.

The next 3 weeks together flew by. We decorated John & Anita’s living room as a ‘thank you’ for putting up with us:

Here we are in the newly transformed living space (finished bar the curtains & these were put up before Steve left) scoffing a delicious Chinese feast on our last night all together at Mill House Farm:

Throughout our my time at MHF, John has kept us fed with delicious meals and tempting loaves, so here’s a photo of the master chef & baker in the kitchen doing what he loves best:

We made ourselves scarce at weekends to give the family some space and had great fun in Northampton with the Barnetts and then in Lavenham with at the Cock Inn, where Val & Gav gave us the usual warm welcome & we watched the last qualifying session of the F1 season, drunk real beer & cider and ate delicious homecooked food.

The following week I made an unscheduled trip to Clacton again to attend the funeral of school-friend Becky’s Mum, who had been suffering from Alzheimers for years. There wasn’t a dry eye at the Crematorium, where tributes from Becky and her sister Kate were read out. This was followed by a service at the Church just down the road from the family home, where I had spent so much time with my buddy as a teenager being hugged by Mrs Ransom and plied with peanut butter & lettuce sandwiches. It was a trip down memory lane for me & incredibly moving – Rita was a much-loved wife, mother, grandmother and teacher. I was so glad to be in the country and be able to support Becky.

Before we knew it our time together was nearly up and it was time for the last big family weekend in Wales. We left late so the journey on a Friday afternoon was horrendous. But ’twas all forgot when finally at Dawn’s lovely house, stuffed with risotto and endless cups of tea, warming our toes by the fire. We had a great evening and a slow wake up the next day. We pottered into the next town, did some shopping and had a pint in the Harbourmaster. Then we drove onto Llanilar to visit Steve’s parents. The following day was Gerry’s birthday and the birthday meal was a family Christmas dinner (on account of it being Devember and us being there!) with all the trimmings cooked, wonderfully as ever, by Pam. Dawn & Ruby joined us but so did Leon, Steve’s nephew, an unexpected surprise all the way from Winchester. It was a very happy day.

On Monday Steve & I made the big trek back down South and after big hugs & reassurance that in a couple of weeks we’d be back together in Monte, he dropped me off at Luton Airport where I flew to Edinburgh to begin my next adventure.

I arrived on a freezing cold evening but to a warm welcome from Duncan & Jess amidst the chaos that was their home at the time, with building works being completed on an extension. I spent the next morning with Jess, Islay and Mila on a nice big walk in the icy park before Duncan returned from his meeting and drove us up North. Not far out of Edinburgh it started snowing and didn’t stop. The last few miles to Aviemore were pretty hairy. It was totally surreal driving snow-bound roads with Duncan in Scotland when I’m used to seeing these guys in Montenegro in the sunshine!

The venue at Aviemore was great – better than we all expected I think. However the first night I was violently sick after eating the curried lentil soup. Dunc & Jess & Islay had suffered from a vomiting bug a few weeks before so I assumed it was a left-over germ I’d picked up but I did start to worry when Curried Lentil Soup was on the lunchtime menu the following day. Thankfully no-one else was ill and my bug, vile though it was, only lasted a few hours. I woke the next morning feeling a bit feeble but no longer sick.

The week with the gang from WC?S was challenging but rewarding. It was a bit like herding cats at times and it was hard enough to get Duncan to focus at times, never mind the 40+ others too but we got through it and achieved everything Duncan wanted to. Everyone left on a high, feeling inspired and full of hope for the future and Dunc & I were still talking to each other, which was Jess’ only stipluation about us working together! Thankfully the snow had stopped by Friday and the journey back to Edinburgh was fine.

We had a great weekend together notwithstanding my poor timing in relation to the building work . Highlights for me: getting to know Islay better; an awesome Indian feast & meeting their truly BONKERS friend, Ali; belting out Christmas carols in McEwan Hall in Edinburgh with 1000’s of others; a fabulous Sunday morning walk despite being up to my knees in mud at times and a day of culture & impromptu shopping with Jess. Dunc gave me his sister’s book to read and it was my constant companion for the week ahead. A cracking good read and funny to have Jess & Dunc mentioned in a book!

I flew back to Luton on Tuesday evening and got back to MHF in time to pack a bag for my 4 days in London before grabbing a few hours sleep. My first day at the new job went well and that evening I made my way to Walthamstow to move into the spare room at Ditsch & Vince’s place for that week as a trial run for staying in January. We all rubbed along fine, despite Vince being ill and Ditsch being knackered. The journey to Farringdon was really easy and pretty cheap (get me & my first ever Oyster Card!). I could get up just before 7am and be at my desk by just gone 8.00!

Truth be told I had been dreading those few days in London. I was nervous about the new job – full of self doubt about my value to the organisation and whether I could really pull this stuff off after 4 years out of the game. Any worries I had were allieviated when at the end of day 2 my boss expressed relief and delight in having me there and asked me to stay another month!

It was with great relief that I made it back to MHF on Friday evening. I had booked a massage & aromatherapy session as a treat to myself and Ruth, the amazing therapist did an awesome job at de-stressing me. The weekend was a blur of washing, packing and enjoying the last of my time with Applegarth-Ellingtons in 2012. And finally, thankfully it was Sunday evening, I was back in Monte and in Steve’s arms again.

Being home was wonderful: a super-excited Daisy, a warm fire, the luxury of space and our huge bed and the awesome views. We had a chilled week doing crosswords, catching up with friends and walks with Daisy along the beach. We spent a day at the campsite gardening and dealing with the urgent stuff (the leak in the basement, protecting citrus trees from the wind & cold weather sure to come) and it was great to get re-connected.

On the Winter Solstice we packed up our stuff & drove to Dobrota for our annual Maxi-sitting gig and prepared for Christmas. We had Katie & Tim over for dinner on Saturday night and had a fab evening – so good to be reunited with my buddy after 3 months! On Sunday we went for a big dog walk with all the gang who we’d be spending Christmas with – a chance for Carrie to meet one of our hosts, David, for the first time. Katie donned her wet suit and went for a swim whilst we marched around Plavi Horizonti with Carrie, David, Michelle, Tim and the 4 dogs: Daisy, Aoife, Louis & Mollie.

We did our usual Christmas jigsaw, a virgin puzzle this year (bought by Ditsch for Steve’s birthday) and really tough, despite only being 1000 pieces. The light at Danny’s house where we are now staying is appalling – few windows so little natural light and dim bulbs – so it was a mission, squinting at the pieces and trying to match the colours. But we did it, finally finishing it just as Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day…

Christmas Day was bright & sunny and we made it over to Plavi Horizonti again in time for our traditional 11.00 (GMT) toast on the beach with Katie & Tim and a bottle of Port. The dogs raced about & wore themselves out and we had an energising stomp about. It was glorious!

We drove to Muo, scooping Carrie up en route and were greeted by Father & Mrs Christmas and delicious mulled wine:

The Christmas dinner was stupendous, as always… A smoked salmon & prawn starter, followed by turkey breast stuffed & draped with bacon and loads of veg including a delicious braised cabbage dish prepared by Katie to Delia’s recipe, all washed down with fizz.

We were bellied and had to have a break before tackling the Christmas pud. We had a lovely evening, slowly getting tipsy, opening pressies, playing games and stuffing our faces with Quality Street. We were all pretty sensible since us & the Monty B gang had an invite to lunch on Boxing Day at Ann & Richard’s house up above Kamenari which meant an early start. Despite it being a bit of a mission to get up there (a scary drive on a road that barely clings to the hillside as it winds it’s way ever up and then a 10 minute walk up an old Austro Hungarian path with lots of steps) it was an entertaining afternoon with some real characters and stacks of lovely food. The desserts were particuarly note-worthy: Maja’s chocolate & sour cherry trifle; Nadia’s walnut pie and pumpkin cake and Robin’s apple crumble.

Now we’re enjoying the last days of the year together, watching films, doing crosswords and walking dogs whenever the weather’s fine. I only have a week left here before I have to pack up & fly back to the UK so these are precious moments which will sustain me over the next 2 months separation from my home. I’m not particularly looking forward to the first couple of months of 2013 but I am looking forward to the freedom from financial worry that the money I earn will afford us…

Tags: angry Gods of Water?, Christmas jigsaw, decorating for our supper, family reunion, flooded workshop, friends, rat race re-visited

September in Review

October 7, 2012 in Campsite Improvements, Den, Environmentally Friendly, Fun Stuff, Nature, Organic Gardening, Reduce Reuse Recycle, Team News, book review by fullmonte | No comments

Growing Green

We had some rainy days in September and a drop in temperature (albeit briefly!) which the garden was appreciative of but it was mostly a case of too little, too late. Despite that, last month we picked:

Rocket
Silverbeet
Aubergines – Stripey & Black Beauty
Peppers
Chillies
Courgettes
A pumpkin
Tomatoes – regular, cherry, plum & green grape variety
Fresh herbs: chives (garlic & ordinary), tarragon, sage, rosemary, lemon thyme, thyme & basil

And even, finally, a few runner beans …

Great excitement as we picked a Camp Full Monte first – Butternut Squash…

We left the carrots alone. I can see the top of a Purple Haze specimen poking through the soil now, so October might be time to pull but hopefully the extra month in the ground has improved their size.

It was a fruity month. Strawberries only came a handful at a time but were delicious:

The wild fig tree by the stream finally bore enough fruit for us to compete with the birds and the edible doormice for the fresh pickings:

And we enjoyed grapes from our vine at our rented house and, unexpectedly an old vine on the land finally recovered enough to fruit and bore some nice dark grapes.

Towards the end of the month as things slowed right down and we finally had more time to potter in them and water well, all the gardens were looking great:

And the tobacco plants finally started to flower!

As the temperatures dropped to mid/ late 20’s rather than 30’s and the evenings were much cooler, we decided to sow more seeds and this autumn/ winter make a concerted effort to get more produce from the garden.

And since I am off to the UK to look for some ‘real work’ (well, paid work at least!) Steve has finally got his position as Head Gardener back again! He always was the green-fingered one of our partnership but practicalities around sensible division of labour (i.e. Steve could do plumbing, electrics and other other such stuff much better than me) meant I was given the gardening gig. Now Steve’s getting back into his earthy groove and has so far sown:

local green beans
broad beans
a variety of different lettuce
radish
rocket
blitva
rastan
spinach

So we can all look forward to his updates on his gardening successes from now on!

Baking & Making

My enthusiasm for cooking petered out this month. I confess that with very few guests and mostly just us & our volunteers eating, I churned stuff out and passed the culinary buck to others too.

Steve and Andy buddied up on a cracking Thai curry after I chopped the end of my finger whilst prepping veg. Having retrieved the fleshy bit still stuck on the knife (yuk!) I sat down with a Rakjia and an elevated, bloody finger and conceded defeat.

Feelings & Musings

September was a tough month to get through as we had few bookings, some drop-in business but not much and too many volunteers for the workload. We had hoped that the weather would be less intense and we’d be able to crack through more projects but it was either raining & stormy so the site was a quagmire that couldn’t really be worked in or still too hot for comfort – at least for the rock-moving, stone-walling, back-breaking mission we were on…

Even without those difficulties, we were too mentally disengaged to be the motivating coaches & cheerful hosts we should have been. We were pretty much over being sociable and jolly – a bit over-exposed on the people front to say the least! Having decided to close for business on 21st September we suddenly couldn’t wait to get to that point because we could just see what was beckoning us beyond: the comfy sofas of our house, the space & peace of being alone and the giant bed that we could get an uninterrupted night’s sleep in…

But on some level we were also feeling pretty proud of ourselves and relieved to have made it through another season, relatively unscathed and having successfully welcomed so many great people into our world.

We’ve re-established connections with more returning visitors than we dared hope, we’ve met many interesting people and made some new friends. The www reviews and Guest Book comments continue to be fabulous and I am absolutely sure we have made an important impression on quite a few folk regarding ways to reuse, reduce and recycle & the benefits of a lower impact, more balanced lifestyle …

We may work hard & exhaust ourselves physically and spiritually for 5 months of the year but honestly there are worse ways to earn a living! Our campsite grows more beautiful every year, more comfortable, more of a joy to live in for us and for our visitors. We are brown as nuts and sometimes as mad from living outdoors in the (mostly) gorgeous weather and closer to nature than many folk can dream about. So – no regrets and minimal moans, we are lucky, lucky buggers!!

Reading

Isabel Allende’s ‘City of the Beasts’ had been passed to me by a friend and I didn’t realise she was a ‘young persons’ author. It was one of those stories that tries to cram stuff in every corner and was overly-laden with proverbial tales: ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’, ‘All that glitters is not gold’ etc, etc. Allende was trying to entertain a certain age group with exotic tales of jungle adventures with murder, mystery & suspense, whilst weaving in messages of saving the planet & a lot more besides.

It was too fantastical for me and it didn’t compel me to suspend belief enough to enjoy the story – I already knew part way through the book that it would have a happy ending & that she’d be urging a chant of “Hurrah for the Goodies and Boo for the Baddies” so by the end I just felt irritated and craved a beautifully written book.

Enter Julian Barnes with his “Sense of An Ending”…

Carrie was reviewing the books she had recently read and was ranting about this one. Depressing, morose, blah, blah, blah… Something about the way she was passionately going on about it made me think it was worth a read. When she said “Oh, but it’s beautifully written” I was hooked.

I LOVED this book & it was just the tonic I needed. I didn’t find it depressing at all, despite death featuring highly and no-one having especially happy endings. I like the realism in those kind of tales and any attempt to ‘jolly up’ would be incongruous anyway. I luxuriated in the gorgeous words – I re-read sentences many times because I loved the construction and melody and sense of them so much. You can probably flick to any page in this book and find words that move and affect. I’ve just done it & here’s what I found:

“But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business”

He finds a way to say simply but brilliantly what I would have taken pages trying to explain. The writing is not ‘up its own backside’ clever with pretensions and over-postulations, nor is it laden with unnecessary poetry or goo. It’s just right. The sleeve notes bang on about concluding scenes gripping like a thriller… Mmmm not for me. I sussed out the ‘mystery’ half way through (mostly) but it didn’t detract one jot from my enjoyment.

Work

Despite the heat, our flagging enthusiasm and having too many girls and not enough boys (!) as volunteers, we managed to get a fair bit done.

Mari joined us at the beginning of the month. She was French and despite only understanding 50% of what was going on, she got along with us all fine. She transformed the old cupboard we had in the kitchen during her stay, first by patiently picking off all the residue from old vinyl coverings, then sandingthe entire cupboard down and painting it:

Finally, under Steve’s supervision a splash back was attached and tiled:

Yvette remained glued to the sewing machine for most of the time in the mammoth project that was sewing the cover for the massage space gazebo. She was very patient and thorough and skillfully manhandled the metres of patchwork material around the machine:

Andy made a wooden frame for the massage table to sit on and the finished gazebo was something to be proud of:

Yvette was keen to learn new skills and she made a great job at helping Steve with tiling the bottom of the steps and entrance to the basement:

The result when finished looks great don’t you think?

The key focus of the month was continuing the repair and rebuild of the stone wall along the main path to the building. Todd & Cat returned in the second week of September – they were killing time before Cat’s friend arrived at Dubrovnik. There was a screw up with her flight so they ended up staying nearly 2 weeks in the end & although we couldn’t really use Cat for any projects, Todd was a great help in the stone walling mission.

We would all get involved in collecting rocks from the top piece of land, apart from Steve who was mostly banned from lifting heavy rocks due to an injured arm. Even Mari & Yvette helped in the rock collecting slog:

It’s hard to show the progress on the wall but trust me it looks great, with new steps built into the wall up to the orchard area.

Yvette left mid September and Mari soon after her. Paige finally arrived from the US on 19th September and we said goodbye to them all a couple of days later as they left for the 6.30am bus:

Andy remained to help us close up the campsite and was a star – lugging tents & mattresses about, moving furniture and generally doing a lot of the donkey work since we were a bit disabled, me with my poorly finger and Steve with his strained arm.

Andy finally left on 26th to continue his travels and adventures and will be much missed, especially by Daisy who loved the walks and runs that he would take her on every day:

Play

At the beginning of the month Steve and I left Daisy, Andy & Yvette in charge and had a much-needed weekend away. We caught up with the Monty B crew in Muo, where David & Michelle hosted a lovely evening for us and Jen & Nathan joined too. Nathan was hungover from a big sesh the night before so those 2 didn’t stay too long but the 6 of us stayed up til the small hours drinking, laughing & chatting. It was wonderful to stay up ridiculously late with no dread of any early morning ahead on the campsite. We slept well (no Daisy waking us up at 7am to be released from the caravan cage) and had a very relaxed morning with brunch on the terrace.

Then we went to meet Laura & Tony’s new daughter, Freya, just a week old when I had this cuddle with her and her adorable sister Amber:

Then it was off to Carrie’s house in Brugli on the Lustica peninusula. We’d been dying to see what she’d done with the place since finally moving in this summer and getting all her furniture shipped over from the UK. What a beautiful place! What awesome views.

We had a fantastic evening chilling outside with wine, good food and much nattering. Here’s the Lady of the Manor herself…

We had an end of season gathering of sorts when Katie & Tim & the dogs turned up to camp and 4 of our local friends showed up too on a weekend that we had claimed for ourselves (Andy went to Sarajevo for a couple of days so we could have some space). It was wonderful. Truly relaxing – a chance for us to enjoy our campsite as people, not hosts. We ate too much, drank too much and had a lot of fun. The Monty B crew had such a nice time that they changed plans and stayed another day. Bliss.

Towards the end of the month we got sociable again – having rejuvenated a little we had more energy for being with people, as now it was folk we chose to be with rather than the other way round. Maja & Keith invited us over for an evening & we enjoyed an amazing Greek feast – the hummous was so laden with garlic we continued to enjoy it for days after!

The last weekend of the month Fi and Dave picked all 3 of us up on their RIB from Herceg Novi marina and we sped over to Zanjice, much to Daisy’s consternation! She was rewarded by a very stimulating time with the Sawney pack of hounds (now only 7 of them after a couple of drop outs over the summer), including a nice long walk. Having worn the dogs out we made our way over to Jash’s house in a nearby village. He’s a great Irish guy we’d met earlier in the year and he had a gathering of some friends & relatives for his twin neices’ birthdays. His house was beautiful, a really tasteful & well-finished renovation and a great space to party in. We met his gorgeous girlfriend and his 6 month old son and were welcomed by everyone. The bbq got fired up, the locally-made red wine flowed and his brother-in-law Dave entertained us all with great guitar-playing & rousing songs. It was an evening of excess and we were all very much worse for wear the next day – but an absolute hoot!

Nature Watch

It was mostly hot & dry this month, unusually so for September when it normally rains a lot & considerably cools down. The few downpours we had were impressive and there was some fun thunder & lightning too. The ground lost its frazzled brown look finally and greened up a little.

Here’s some cool nature shots – a Praying Mantid eating a Hummingbird moth & a spider with all its babies on its back…