March 2010

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Green shoots of hope…

March 30, 2010 in Nature, Organic Gardening, The Build | No comments

Monte welcomed us back with warm sunny arms.  When we left England it was in it’s ‘yellow phase’ – the daffs just blooming, forsythia about to burst forth, broom blossoming – whilst here in Monte the wild narcissi are nearly done and everything is white (daisies, star flowers) and pink & purple.  We stomped around the land admiring nature’s new growth and were delighted to see the orchids were back…

In some fantasy, I imagined returning to the site to find the garden aburst with flowers and green lush grass covering the clay.  But it had only been 10 days and who was I kidding…  The clay was still there, looking very un-green, just dried up rather than claggy.   And on first glance nothing appeared to have changed in the flower garden at all.  Gutted…  But on closer inspection I noticed lots of tiny green shoots!  There are lots of little flowers-to-be and if I close my eyes tightly I can see the bright hues and pleasing forms…

There were more hopeful green shoots in the garden where the garlic was getting big and the onions were taking off:

Unbelievably the cabbage that got munched last year was still holding its ground and putting on another growth spurt!  (If you concentrate, you’ll be able to smell the very niffy animal dung that we have spread around the beds that you can see in this picture)

We daren’t sow the seeds for this years crop before we went away because they’d need too much tending in the early days, so it was one of the first jobs we did having got settled back in.  Here’s a picture of our bedroom which will now double as the nursery for the next few weeks:

We have sown runner beans (enorma), tomatoes (local variety this year), peppers, chillies, sweetcorn, cucumbers, courgettes, cauliflowers, cabbage, melons, pumpkins, a whole host of different lettuces, lots of flowers (sweet peas, cinia, marigolds) and a some fruit stones saved from plums, dates, japanese apple and tamarind.  I am trying to chit parsnips and we have a bunch of other seeds that will be sown directly into the ground in the next month (carrots, beetroots, radish, more lettuce, rocket, more lettuce).  I was aghast to find I had NO marrow seeds!  Our marrows were the STAR crop last year (see… this post) and I can’t believe I committed the fatal error… I didn’t save a single seed!!!!  All those marrow!  All those seeds!  And now I have to get a packet of seeds bought and brought over from the UK (they don’t do marrows in Monte!). BIG lesson learnt.  Luckily the lettuces cheered me up, bursting forth in just 3 short days (this is a crap picture, but trust me, there are tiny green shoots here & yes, this is an old egg box…):

Shorts on & shirts off, we were back to work on the campsite where the next new terrace wall is taking shape:

Here’s a shot of the old wall I’ve been uncovering.  I started chipping the clay away from the wall at the point where the spade is and have uncovered about 2-3 metres of old stone…

Having cursed the claggy clay that had to picked up with hands and thrown, we are now cursing it’s dried up form which is rock hard and has to be whacked with a mattock to be broken up.  But as we see the land really taking shape, nothing can stop us now.  We are spurred on every day by the appreciable difference we are making.  We are desperate to get all the new walls built, all the clay shifted, all the ground levelled and then to sow grass seed mixed with compost and muck, stick the sprinkler on and keep everything crossed as we move to indoor jobs and let nature take its course.  We are hoping against hope that green shoots will appear and the newly landscaped land will be carpeted with something other than clay chips!

We should be ready to move onto the internal works (tiling & painting and kitchen-building) in the next few weeks.  We’ll have to see how much work we can do whilst holding our breath and compulsively checking for signs of growth!

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50 Years Young

March 28, 2010 in Fun Stuff, Steve | 1 comment

I’ve blogged off for so long, I hardly know where to start…

Let’s start with our trip to the UK, which was all about Steve turning 50 among old friends and family  (those dearly beloveds who would mock him shamelessly and show terrible photos of him!).  Yes, my old man (I can really call him that now!) has made it to his half a century mark despite the years of sex, drugs & rock & roll and all the stress of putting up with me!  We had a brilliant time and packed a lot into our 10 day visit.  50 people made it to his party and Steve even tried to look surprised (bless him).

Here’s some of the characters we hung out with at various points:

Steve’s sister Dawn drove from Wales to be at the party (probably why she looks like a zombie here!)…

And here’s a pic of the woman to whom I am most in debt for the party going smoothly, or at all in fact!  Conveniently, Kate lives in a little village, centrally located between the extremes of where the guests were coming from, with a hall (that hubby Rol is on the committee for!) that has lights, sound system, kitchen, cutlery & crockery and cheap booze.  As if that wasn’t enough the telly in the bar next door had the rugby on all night which kept all the boys happy.  Kate blew balloons and helped dress the hall; she laid on food and gave us comfy crash space.  She was a star, especially since she fitted all the party nonsense around her barkingly busy life which includes being a Director of a Charity, a Master Degree student, a wife and sex kitten!  Thank you dear friend!

Old friends turned out in force & brought wonderful photos and funny memories…

Here were 3 of the folk that Steve was most blown away seeing at the party… Jess & Dunc travelled from Scotland and Ray flew from Ireland.  It was so great to see them all.

We spent a wonderful evening with the Wilmer-Barbrooks (below) – sadly we didn’t get a picture of Matt who cooked us an awesome salmon en croute and got us pickled on gorgeous red wine.

We had a very special time visiting Grandson Jack whilst in the UK.  He’s going to be 4 this summer and he’s such a gorgeous lad.  Despite not having seen us since he was a babe, he wasn’t wary or shy.  He climbed into my lap and we read a story together (his grasp of numbers is amazing!) and he let us play lego and do puzzles with him.

Kirst & Tim were key characters in the plot.  They kick started the birthday weekend in a very special way – champers on a Friday afternoon, with all the trimmings.  Kirst helped me set up the hall and lay the groundwork for the surprise and Tim had the tough task of getting Steve to the hall, not too early and without raising suspicion…  Here’s Kirst tickling her second favourite boy – we don’t have a pic of her no.1 tummy tickler… Sorry Tim!

Sadly, we don’t have any photos of the Mill House Farm mob who looked after us so well.  Ben gave up his room for us. Cathy put up with her smelly brother so we could have a room of our own.  Daisy chewed the end of Steve’s brand new binos so we will be reminded of the MHF mob constantly.  Mutley gave us slobbery love & was so excited when we turned up, it was touching!  Minnie & her ceaseless ball-fetching fetish was as endearing and nuts as ever.  Shelia & Hiru sold us their caravan so now we are proud mobile home owners.  And John & Anita – well, words can’t convey our love & gratitude for the home from home; the use of the Merc; the good grub & wine; the early morning walks; the roaring fire; the chuckles… Special, special friends.

Last but not least, here’s the birthday boy himself… the day before the party and then the night of!

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Eating an elephant – an update

March 9, 2010 in The Build | 3 comments

We’re getting a little sick of eating this elephant… it’s stuck in our teeth, we’re choking on it & it doesn’t matter how small the chunks, it’s still taking ages to chew.

But we are getting there – slowly but surely.  We have had a run of dry days which helps enormously with this enormity.  Here’s the view of the side of the shower block a couple of days agao – mud all levelled out & looking tidy:

However, there is still much mud to be moved and we have been agonising over what to do with it.  The first priority was to cover & protect the grey water pipes that protrude from the baths and run our waste water to our gardens.  First the pipes had to be levelled again and thanks to Nik we had a spirit level with blocks attached that give us the level for the 2% drop required.  I am reminded again at what a legend Mr Paddison is.  The grey water system is a triumph largely due to his patience, perseverance and effort.

Steve had a vision of a new terrace wall to give us an edge to level to and to hide the 3rd bath in an attractive structure mirroring the one he had built around the grease trap and first bath.  I have to admit, I was not a fan of the idea.  More rocks to move… my muscles ached just thining about it.  But it was a great way to use some of the excess soil and it would look great.  Here is the start of the sub-project that this elephant task has created – you can also see the mud heap to the right that safely hugs the greywater pipes:

We are in the process of uncovering terrace walls that have been hidden with mud for more than a year so we trawled through old photos to see what the walls looked like before clay mountain.  It was incredible – the land has changed beyond recognition.  That’s a measure of how far we have come…

Today was a beautiful sunny day and more things seem possible with the heat of those rays warming our bones.  So we plodded on as the birds and butterflies painted the sky with bright colours – fragile wings beating orange; yellow wagtails; blue tits; red robins.

I set about prising the mud away from the terrace wall below the baths.  I felt like an archeologist on a dig, gently chipping away at the piled up earth to reveal the stone wall:

Meanwhile Steve was building an awesome wall.  Here’s the view from the side:

The plank was our makeshift ramp for rolling up some of the massive rocks.  Jeez, I’m doing weight training++ at the moment shifting these buggers!  Despite all the agony – cramping hands, aching back etc – it was all worth it when we reviewed our progress at the end of the day:

You can’t really tell from these photos but we have a reasonable wall here (saving us a lot of time as the tyre wall now won’t have to be so long) and we have regained width on the terrace itself – it will look sooo great!

And this is the really cool shot of Steve’s fantastic new terrace wall that made me thank him for insisting – he was right and it will look great.

At this rate we will finish filling this area in with soil on Thursday.  We will sow grass seed and let nature be for 2 weeks (we are off to the UK for Steve’s birthday and fun with friends & family), hoping beyong hope that we will return to green shoots of growth everywhere…

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Snow violets

March 6, 2010 in Nature, The Build | 3 comments

It did our souls good to wake to sun streaming through the windows this morning.  But the snow laying on the vehicle windscreens warned of a chilly day.  White stuff or no, with Steve’s cold much improved, it was time to get back on the campsite and get grafting.  Little snowy scenes still lingered in Malta:

We had a great day, trying to stay in the sunny spots – shovelling & levelling mud.  This may not look much, but this is another chunk of elephant eaten… another pile of mud gone (& check out the weird shadows of Steve & I):

And we drove home knackered but content, with the delicate smell of violets in our noses – here’s a bunch fresh picked from the upper plot where the wild narcissi are starting to bloom too…

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Flowers & frugal serendipity

March 3, 2010 in Frugal Living, Organic Gardening | 4 comments

I’ve finished digging the new flower bed.  Here it is edged with stones, incorporating the orange tree (covered for wind protection) and the pear…

We have been collecting seeds from flowers for years – foxgloves from a English country garden, nigella from everywhere because its so easy and a few unusual flowers we couldn’t identify.  We have no idea of the viability of many of these seeds and even some of the packet seeds are out of date so it was time to chuck everything in and see what comes up.  This is also untried territory and when digging it over I found that even within a small area the soil quality varied enormously.  I had, almost absent-mindedly, chucked some soggy leaves and rotted donkey poo onto bits of the garden when I began tackling it back in November and was amazed to see how this had improved patches of the soil even in such a short time.  Other areas were much less fertile and more sandy.  And in parts the soil was reasonable but weed-ridden and/ or rocky.

My biggest mistake in the past has been not documenting what I’ve sown & where.  So I sat on a rock, admiring my handiwork & drew a plan of the new flower garden.  I identified hazards, noted soil quality and thought about what flowers would flourish under the trees in partial shade (foxgloves and campions), which would happily bask in the full-sun (Californian poppies) and the heights of different flowers.  We have 3 ‘unknowns’ – we have no clue what they are, how tall they grow, what conditions they like, how deep they should be sowed so it’s ‘pot luck’ folks!

Whilst the flower garden was a satisfying project (and gave me a free CV workout in the process – always a bonus!) it depressed me that the garden proper, our precious raised beds were in a worse state than this patch of ground.

They had suffered during the ditch-digging drama.  Most of them were ‘infected’ with clay to some degree or another.  And all of them (bar the onion bed, already planted) need topping up with soil.  As we tighten our belts for our toughest summer ever, we have had to question every expense.  We had to face facts – it was crazy to spend money on topsoil that we would not recoup.  How much produce could we generate this summer (Ninja Cow permitting) and therefore how much could we invest?

When we visited the garden centre today, there were bags of compost for only 4 euros.  We debated and finally splashed out on 3.  We knew this would barely touch the beds but wondered about having one or 2 beds in good condition and writing off the rest – marigolds seemed to thrive there last year, we could fill in with those… We were still having this debate when we drew up outside the lock-up we ‘mind’ in Sutorina and noticed the delicious leaf mould, a year’s accumulation all soggy and rotted down, piled up under the trees.  We just so happened to have bin bags & old compost bags in the van and a shovel.  7 big bagfuls of yummy hummus later we drove to the campsite and began to work on rejuvenating the garden.

The good news is that with our own compost and the leaf mould, we only used 2 of the shop bought stuff and the beds are looking groovy.  So for 8 euros, we might just be able to grow again.  The remainder will be used as potting compost for all the seeds we are due to plant when we return from the UK.  I’m taking copious notes this year of what we manage to produce and the value to us in euros.

And another happy coincidence…  We’re getting ready to move the compost heap and take down the ugly pallett structure to reclaim some flat land for 2-3 tents.  This means we’re letting what we have got rot down and not adding fresh stuff until it’s properly re-positioned.  Meanwhile the compost heap in Topla is coming along nicely so we’re adding our peelings etc to that.  Trudging across the garden with my kitchen slops has reminded me how badly it needs weeding so I decided to give the garden some attention yesterday when Steve was still feeling too cold-ridden to work.  In the process I found a big bunch of coriander flourishing in the cactus bed!  Indian food coming right up!

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February in Review

March 1, 2010 in Den, Fun Stuff, Making & Baking, Organic Gardening | 3 comments

I have totally re-vamped my Month in Review post.  I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can make this interesting and meaningful to me.  I suddenly had this ‘Duh!’ moment when I realised I could actually use the monthly round-ups as a useful journal to refer back to so let me walk you through my new headings to explain my rationale.

I’m sure I’m missing something but I can’t figure out what it is?  Would love to hear your feedback…

What’s fresh?

(If I want to grow more of my own produce I need to document what produce I’m buying fresh & local so I can then work back and figure out when to plant.  Noting here what we pick fresh from our garden  – including weight if I can remember to record it – will help me plan better for planting plans, managing gluts and to note if different varieties yield for longer)

From the store: ….

  • Carrots
  • Rotkvica (big radishes!)
  • Raštan (spring greens)
  • Kale
  • Parsnips
  • Spuds – a certain, white variety?
  • White cabbage

From the garden: …

  • Rocket – I dug up the plants from the raised beds in December and put them in a pot – is just over & starting to seed…
  • Parsley
  • Chives

Sowing & Planting

(So I can build a record of what I need to prepare for next in the garden.  I would like to get more strategic about mulching & fertilizing – organically of course – ahead of time so my plants have the best start in life)

Onion sets – reds & whites.  We were SO chuffed to buy HALF A KILO of onion sets for 80 cents!  It would have cost 5 times that in the UK!  Have planted one bed up already and the edges of the flower garden.

Flowers!  I have been preparing my new flower bed in the ‘orchard’ area…

And yesterday I sowed loads of seeds.  More on this and pictures of my planting plan in another post soon…

Baking & Making

(A chance to reflect on the culinary success & failures of the month.  I create things all the time & forget to share my crafty moments)

Veg samosas for the wedding party were a hit – must confess I used the pre-bought filo pastry tho’.

‘Maskenbal’ is the highlight of the Mimosa/ Boka Festival so not surprisingly we were making masks.  We teamed up with the Watson-Lanes to get crafty for Gracie…  The mask below was sent back from school because the teacher wanted only homemade masks – yes, they actually thought it had been shop bought!

Luckily this was the reserve:

Notice how the grown ups are all wearing the masks – not Grace!  WHO’S the kid here???

And I made a tail for the wedding party:


Reading

(Love sharing the books I’m into)

You can tell it’s been raining – look at all the books I’ve read!  Thanks to Fiona, I’ve had some riveting bedside reading…

I finished Rohinton Mistry’s ‘A Fine Balance’ or did it finish me…?  What a powerful book…  So was quite grateful for something completely different in the form of the first book in The Millenuim Trilogy by Steig Larsson.  Compulsive reading!

Good but not quite as compelling somehow – the second book in the series:

And enjoyed the quirky writing style of Marcus Zusak – He handled the heavy subject matter gently but not lightly…

Now I am half way through Michelle de Kretser’s strange little book:

It flows as smoothly as a cup of lump porridge but her writing is beautiful at times:

“To the raw ache of solitude he applied his usual balm of work”

What’s the vibe?

(Being a kinesthetic individual, I’m big on feelings & instinctively sum up time & space with a gut reaction)

Soggy.  Chilly.  Bunged up.

Also feeling old… My knees, especially the right one is extremely painful &  get considerably worse in wet weather so I’m sounding like a proper Montenegrin: “Oh the rain!  “Oh my aching bones”

Listening to

(With over 15,000 pieces of music on our computer, I’m making space to listen to some new tunes every month)

The Eels and a load of great DJ mixes from Katie

Fun Stuff

(‘Nuff said)

OMG – SO much fun stuff this month…

  • Herceg Novi Wine Festival – where I got even more drunk than last year, if that’s possible!
  • Playing Tac-Tic with some of my favourite boys:

  • Hanging out with some cool kids:

  • Seeing an AMAZING performance by the youth of Herceg Novi: ‘Cinderalla Rockefella’ – a musical/ pantomime of the classic fairytale.  The set, the costumes, the voices, the humour – odlicno…
  • Matt & Amy’s wedding
  • Katie & Tim and Matt & Amy’s wedding party

  • Laura & Cecile’s baby shower

Tim Time

(Tim – like the dialogue from ‘Blood Diamonds’ when Tia is described as the global catch all for expressing the madness & magic of Africa – stands for This is Montenegro & when anything bizarre & extraordinary happens or we are foxed by the latest bureacratic nonsense, we shrug & say “Tim”)

Mmm – I’m not sure about Montenegrin electrics, are you?  The snows not melting but the Garden Centre sign is!


One Green Thing

(1 new eco achievement a month will take me slowly, steadily, gently forward on my green journey)

I finally ran out of glass cleaner so I washed out the plastic spray bottle from the previous bought product and set about making my own.  I used a recipe from this book:

and then improvised… adding pieces of fresh lemon rind to the half water, half white vinegar mix.  It definitely works but smell of vinegar is still too strong so will add more essential oils…

Weather Report

(We keep having these bizarre conversations about the weather: “I’m sure it didn’t rain this much last Feb” etc.  the truth is we can’t remember and it would be good for us and our gardening schedule to chart the weather)

Mostly, this month it’s been raining…  It’s so soggy & foggy here right now.  Here & on the campsite we seem to be in the clouds most of the time.  It rains, then drizzles, then rains, then REALLY POURS DOWN, then rains again.  Occasionally there’s wind and the odd storm too.  Dry, sunny days this month: err, count ‘em on one hand.

The campsite is mostly under a few inches of water.  No drainage ditch we could dig could cope with this much rain.  The raised beds & baths are all full of water.

And in Topla… well things are NOT topla at all, they are damp & chilly & mouldy.  EVERY window has water coming in around it and many walls have mouldy patches.

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