The Gang

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Helping Hands

February 5, 2010 in The Build, The Gang by fullmonte | 1 comment

“Many hands make light work” or in our case… “many hands fill ditch in & stop lightning striking”!

Here’s who’s been mucking in over the last few days…

Blazo & Vedran made short work of 3.5 cubics of ’slunak’ (large gravel) and really helped move things along.  Their strength & youth made us feel old & weak but we were grateful anyway!

With those 2 on the only barrow and Steve preparing the ditch for the boys (ie. digging out where the mud had fallen in & packing the sides with fresh mud/ clay when they had collapsed & were too wide), I started to tidy up areas of the grounds.  This is where the wood pile used to be:

Just got to get the last of that muddy spoil levelled out & the paths around the back & side of the building will be clear again.  The soil I am trying to shift is so horrid – blue, glupy, clay they call ‘dead earth’ here.  So once we have scraped all the clay level we will let it settle for a while and one day, when funds allow we’ll invest in a load of top soil and grass seed and make it green again. The best way to shift the clay is to pick it up with our hands …

(No, I have’t dyed my hair – it’s just had all the summer blonde cut out of it!  Not the best shot of the new hairdo, but hey…)

And throw it…

Here’s the new location for the wood pile:

And here’s another area I have lovingly removed the rocks & clods of nasty clay from & raked level-ish.  It’s the nearest patch of earth to the compost chambers & it will be where we unload our well rotted compost from the loss this summer.  It’s also nicely in the shade & so I’m hoping to grow lettuce, rocket & other summer greens there that refuse to grow in the raised beds at the height of the heat…

Matt brought over his climbing ropes and got up on the roof to attach the lightning strip to the ’sponjicas’ at the top of the roof.

Meanwhile his sidekick, Lubo, shovelled & barrowed gravel.

Here’s a shot of the ditch a couple of days ago. It’s even closer to being finished now but I’ll wait until it’s DONE (and tidier) before I take more shots…

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Farewell Mr Nik!

September 19, 2009 in Team News, The Gang by fullmonte | No comments

This is all that remains of Mr Nik… A pair of totally buggered sandals and a disintergrating pair of shorts:

Sacrificial offerings

It’s really hard to describe the range of emotions associated with saying “do vidjenja” to our buddy and the ‘third arm’ of Team Full Monte… So, I won’t even try.  Suffice to say the farewell hug was long and warm and sprinkled with tears.  We miss him and fight over who makes the coffee now and we look forward to welcoming back whenever…

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Crazy Things…

September 17, 2009 in Environmentally Friendly, The Build, The Gang by fullmonte | No comments

Nik said it was the craziest thing we’d done on the campsite that he’s been involved in (and that says a lot because let’s face it he’s been involved in a lot of mad ventures!)… the man-handling of the huge, heavy water tank.  The tank is part of our solar thermal system – once the water has been heated by the sun’s energy it will rise into this insulated tank and be stored.  It holds 400 litres of water, is 1 metre 60 cm high by 80 cm wide, awkward & HEAVY.

It took 5 men to carry it in a makeshift sling from the workshop to the kitchen – only 30 metres or so and all down hill.  Then it had to be hoisted up the large step up into the kitchen…

5 men & a tank

Somehow it had to be lifted up onto the concrete platform in the roof space.  With much pushing and shoving and grunting Matt, Steve, Slobodan & Mil managed to get it part way up the wall.  Then the problem was the boys needed more height to be able to hoist it the rest of the way so some of them had to hold it whilst others grabbed chairs and stood on them.  At this point I had to abandon the camera and take the ladder up to the platform to join Nik who had hold of the ropes that were slung around the tank.  We tried to pull on the ropes to heave the tank up and when we had enough of the tank to grab onto we literally threw our bodies onto the end of the tank and tried to weigh it down whilst reinforcements arrived to push & pull the tank fully onto the platform.

Nik - still holding the water tank

Once up there it was a relatively easy task to stand it upright and inch it into position.  A cold beer and a jolly good sit down was required after that scary interlude!

A long way up!

The following week, we attempted another daring do… We were having an evening with friends at the campsite, when the wind started to pick up.  Cups were being blown over and stuff was swirling around the kitchen.  So, Steve had the brilliant idea of trying to erect a piece of canvas over the biggest open window in the kitchen where the wind was howling in.  It had to be looped over a piece of wood, the wood screwed to the outside of the building to hold it and then the canvas tied at the bottom to create a makeshift screen.  This may sound fairly innocuous but it involved: Ray standing on a ladder at full stretch; a huge flapping piece of canvas acting as a sail and not being at all co-operative; lots of dangerous power tools and lots of people – shouting ideas, hanging onto bits of canvas, dropping things, trying to drink beer…

The gang on a daring do

Nik - multi-tasking

Crikey Ray - it's a long way up!

Somehow we managed to get the thing erected and it did make for a much more pleasant evening and although the sound of flapping canvas was a little annoying it did make us think we were on a boat (helped by the copious amounts of alcohol making everything wobble!).  But Nik was heard to mutter:  “That’s the second crazy thing we’ve done in as many weeks”… and a few days later he was off!

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Wearing my Scars with Pride!

July 13, 2009 in Fun Stuff, The Build, The Gang by fullmonte | No comments

By Nik Paddison

Come to Montenegro they said, join us for the summer they said, enjoy the nature of The Land, the sun and our company.  So I did, trouble is ever since I arrived they have stuck me down some hole in the ground that will someday be a toilet and made me work 12 hours a day!  I have a hammer and a chisel and spend my time breaking up concrete.  I get fed bread and water and am allowed to wash once a week.  They said it was a camp site they didn’t say anything about it being a sunny version of a Siberian Gulag!!!!!

Nik in his hole!

Actually I am having an amazing time – though I really am mostly working in a hole in the ground that will one day be a toilet, and I am using a hammer and chisel to break up concrete, but you will be happy to note they are feeding me more than bread and water and I do get to wash more than once a week!

If you have not visited The Land then I can only encourage you to do so.  It is a place of tranquility – often crazy but always tranquil. This is not a cliché, even if it sounds like one.  This small piece of Montenegro on the border with Croatia really has something special about it.  Added to this is the rare combination of Den and Steve  – put this amazing couple with this amazing land and something special was sure to happen.  And note I am referring to ‘The Land’ all the time. It is a strange phenomena here, people, ex-pats and locals, refer to; this persons house or that persons land or that persons project. But when it comes to Den and Steve, everyone refers to ‘The Land’, you don’t need to ask which land or where?  It just is The Land.  This is a place to relax and enjoy the moment and the moment can last a few hours, all day, a week or a month, its length is dictated by you.  Hmmm, starting to feel like an advert, so I will stop with this.

The Land is slowly but steadily becoming a camp site – or maybe that should be ‘The Camp Site!’ .  The toilets/kitchen block is the main focus of attention right now.  Steve working diligently on the electrics:

Stevo in his posing pouch - wiring up a light fitting!

Den painting anything that doesn’t move:

Den & yellow paint

And me, well you already know about me, I am down that hole! While waiting for construction materials or just looking for an excuse to stand up straight I have been planting a few things, Pear tree, Kiwis and Passion Flowers.  Saturday, Den and I spent most of the day in the basement (yes underground again, is there some kind of pattern here?), laying out floor tile designs with the amazing odd assortment of tiles they have accumulated.  We have most of the floor area sorted now with some pretty funky designs.  I am really looking forward to starting the tiling, it should be this coming week. Though I suspect that after several days of tiling I will be wishing for that hole in the ground again.

Nik & compost loo pipe

My small contribution to this camp site project is my limited abilities in labouring and the fact that I spend my life sitting in front of a computer so am incredibly unfit – believe me when I tell you that at the end of the day working up on The Land I can hardly move, but it’s a nice kind of a feeling.

It is a pleasure to be with my friends with their tanned bodies, their building scars, lean muscles and relaxed ‘we are out of the rat race’ smiles.  That’s not to say they don’t have stresses and worries especially with this economic climate, of course they do, just like everyone else.  But they have The Land, that special something.  I have been up there on and off for more or less a week now.  My body is still pale and white, it is certainly not lean and muscley, but that smile is spreading across my face more and more each day and I have my first working injuries; bruises, grazed knuckles, knee cut and a scratch on the top of my head!

I guess the best thing about all this is that Den and Steve do not hold their dream and The Land as something they greedily own and is only for them, they hold it as something to share with others and let others feel a part of.  I am looking forward to them welcoming their first guests and am glad of the opportunity to leave the desk behind for the summer to be part of their project for a short while and so I wear my scars (scratches) with pride!

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