All creatures great & small

June 3, 2010 in Nature | No comments

It’s that time of year when the land seems positively fizzing with wild life.  Every step causes something to scuttle or hop away from the footfall – lizards, crickets, tiny frogs… There’s a few of these legless lizards about, slithering through the grass:

And there’s a beautiful acid green lizard who has set up home in one of the stone walls near the building – I haven’t managed to digitally snap it yet but it must be a good half a metre long from the tip of it’s tail to the tip of its nose!

The greatest beast spotted so far this year (not counting the cows) was a fox.  As I walked down the steps from the shower block a couple of weeks ago, we surprised each other.  He was a real beauty – his rusty coat glowing in the sun…

But it’s the small creatures that are in abundance and causing us grief at the moment.  The mice seem to like the camp and as we evict them from one area, they spring up in another.  First it was the basement.  We cleared it, painted it and blocked up the gap at the bottom of the door.  Having lost a few brethren in the process (peanuts in shells are the best mouse-trap bait – it’s official!), we thought they might fold their tails up and patter off to pastures new.  Nope – then we discovered a family in the workshop:

We wouldn’t mind them using the place as a warm hide out if they didn’t cover everything with wee & poo – it’s smelly and beyond unhygenic… It’s a lot of work clearing up after the buggers.  We have driven them out of the workshop (more cute dead things sacrificed and running the generator daily in there has done the trick!) but they are still living in the rafter of the building at night.  We know this because one of the compost toilets is directly in line with the middle wooden beam of the roof and judging from the droppings on the floor of that loo, its probably Mouse Motorway when we retire to the tent!

The other, smaller creature that is bugging us is the caterpillar.  They come in all shapes and sizes and turn up EVERYWHERE – inside clothes & shoes; all over surfaces and walls and are constantly dropping from trees onto heads and down necks… its unnerving!

We reasoned that they would turn into beautiful creatures like these:

But we have just found out that the caterpillar which is most prolific is also really bad news for our oak trees:

This is a Gypsy Moth caterpillar which chomps away at oaks and defoliates them.  The info on the damage they have cause in North America is scary – see this link.  Now we know why our garden remains pretty much untouched despite the high volumes of caterpillars.  It also explains the strange noise that can be heard, especially on the top piece of land that is dominated by oaks: it’s millions of caterpillars munching!!!!  You want to know what’s ironic about this invasion????  Guess what preys on this caterpillar?  Yep!  Mice!!!!

There are plenty of these creepy crawlies about… No idea what they are but a local friend freaked when he saw it!

And thankfully, these beauties are showing their striking colours again:

We are absorbed by great creatures of a different kind as my dear buddy Kirst has arrived with her partner and I will be spending time with her over blogging, so expect a quiet week folks….

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May in Review

May 30, 2010 in Den, Fun Stuff, Making & Baking, Organic Gardening, Reduce Reuse Recycle | 3 comments

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:

  • Lettuce
  • Carrots
  • New potatoes
  • Young cabbage
  • Spring onion
  • Tikvice (big, thin-skinned, local courgettes)
  • Strawberries
  • Cherries

From the garden:

  • Lettuce – especially: Cut & Come Again, Radichio, Curly Endive and Cos
  • Radish
  • Rocket

In Nature’s garden:

Sowing & Planting

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

Have sown more:

  • radish
  • lettuce
  • beetroot
  • carrots
  • rocket

as I try to succession plant to keep these veg cropping.  I was gifted some local beans (broad bean stylie, known here as ‘Bob’ apparently!) so have planted these and some more melons & pumpkins and today have been given a load of different squash seeds will get planted tomorrow!

And some more herbs:

  • the first coriander plant is already going to seed so I have planted lots more
  • basil – because I’ll need LOTS to go with all the tomatoes that are romping away!

The marigolds from last year’s seed are doing fine – the germination rate is poor though.  The courgette plants are BIG, and healthy fruit is forming. The pumpkins are stretching out but the melons are not doing so well.  Peppers & chillies were looking vulnerable (planted them out too soon – note to self!) but seem to be coming round. Carrots are forming well now & the runner beans & peas are flowering beautifully…

I finally have 3 strong cauliflower plants to be planted out soon.  The cabbages are looking really healthy & sweetcorn is finally getting tall & strong:

Baking & Making

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

We bought a beautiful, big, fat, fish (unidentified – Steve’s best guess is a bream) from our fisherman friend and enjoyed half it’s fleshy meat steamed with garlic and lemongrass.  I boiled up the bones with leftover veg and the following day used this stock & the rest of the fish to make a deliciously rich fish stew.  Oh yum!  But stunk the house out!

All my creativity has gone into the campsite this month.  Probably the best example is the new, improved plastic bottle window – finished and shown here behind the breakfasting campers…

Reading

(Love sharing the books I’m into)

Finished Liz Gilbert’s ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and enjoyed every word.

Currently reading a Wally Lamb book – haven’t read any of his since ‘She’s come undone’ and wondering where the book is going at the moment but enjoying it nonetheless:

‘Tis still the season for browsing books – there’s a whole stack piled up on tables: reference books of flowers, veg & herbs etc, etc.  No particular favourites to report this month…

What’s the vibe?

(This month’s gut reaction)

Struggling with this one this month – too busy doing, not feeling… I guess ‘happy but knackered’ about sums it up.  We’ve achieved a lot this month so feel pretty satisfied on that score.

Also, if we’re honest probably feeling a bit desperate – no firm bookings until end of August; little interest in the house rental and still so much to do on the marketing side that Steve & I struggle to agree on or make time for.  The volunteer that was supposed to show mid May never did and we haven’t heard a peep from Pedro for a while so maybe we won’t get his help in June either…  Roll on 1st July, when Mr Nik will be welcomed back into the Camp Full Monte fold again!

Listening to

(Trying to listen to some new tunes every month)

Not a lot but now we have a proper sound system on the campsite I’m looking forward to remedying this!

Fun Stuff

(‘Nuff said)

Some good laughs with our #1 posh camper, Danny:

Relaxing with friends after a successful & satisfying work day on the land…

The Irish were back in town for a week – yes, the inimitable Jimmy & Annie – and we enjoyed a fun, impromptu evening with them and some other mates, roaring with laughter.

And combining business with pleasure, our first ‘proper’ event the Full Moon Party…

Tim Time

(Bizarre & extraordinary happenings?  This is Montenegro)

This is my favourite story at the moment from Hayley, our friend at Black Mountain Holidays:

Inspectors turned up at an apartment in Kotor and found 2 tourists in residence with no tourist tax.  This is a 70 cents per day tax that holiday makers are supposed to pay and should be available from any travel agency.  In overly dramatic Monte-stylie, they were told they would be deported immediately if they didn’t purchase the tax.  They contacted Hayley for help after not being able to find anywhere locally that issued the tax.  Hayley got onto it and found to her amazement and disbelief that there was only one agency issuing the tax in Kotor and for the privilege they would charge the tourists 50 euros!!! This is crazy!  All other agencies issue the 70 cents tax, with little/ no commission – it’s just one of the things they are required to do and its not a money-making exercise!  Flabbergasted, she tried to find somewhere else the tourists could go.  The only place that was in the Kotor municipality (and therefore valid for issuing tourist tax for a Kotor based apartment) was in Risan, some 45 minutes drive away!!!  They have no car, were collected from the airport and will be taken back there but have no other means of getting around, never mind to Risan of all places!  Hayley threw a fit and as far as we know she & the tourists are holding firm against the ridiculous inspectors & agencies – if no-one can find them a place to buy the tax at the stated price – then tough!

One Green Thing

(One more step along my green journey)

Re-used old baby milk cans to make attractive containers for my dried goods in the campsite kitchen:

Weather Report

(Charting the weather for us and our garden)

May has been changeable.  We have had lots of rain; some terrific storms; cloudy, overcast but warm days and some scorching hot, gorgeous summer-like days.  Here’s hoping it settles down in June…

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Moondance

May 30, 2010 in Camping News, Fun Stuff | 4 comments

Months ago we’d put together a calendar of events and the first one was now looming up fast: The Full Moon Party, May 27th.  We’d just thought the party would be a fun thing to do and marketed the ‘idea’  not really knowing who, if anyone, would be interested or how exactly we would execute it.  But friends locally kept mentioning the party:  ‘really looking forward to it’; ‘it’s still on right?’  OK, time to get serious…

The ‘hard bit’ was pricing it.  The prep for the party was going to be a lot of work and we had to make some money but equally we wanted the event to be ‘good value’ so people would want to come again.  The toughest part was that we suspected that most of the party guests would be our friends so effectively we’d be charging our mates for a fun time at the campsite that they were used to having for free.  In the end we had to stop deliberating and get on with it – we came up with a pricing structure for the event & for camping the night and accepted that we might not get it right first time but it would be a start; a place to move forward from and a learning experience…

We really wanted the campsite to look as good as possible – painting the building was one huge step forward in creating a positive impression but there were a million other little things we wanted to do so.  That was the biggest challenge – getting everything done before the party.  It was probably our biggest mistake too – we focused so much on completing little jobs (which probably people wouldn’t have even noticed were unfinished!) that we left little/ no time for really marketing the event or being 100% ready for our guests as they arrived…

Hindsight’s cheap so & I’ve learnt not to agonise too long & hard over what could have been – the fact was: the event created an urgency that got stuff done.  We put the last glass bricks in the last toilet window; we mowed and strimmed:

Steve finally figured out a solution for the greywater system into the raised beds.  There are now lengths of hosepipe that run along the ground with connecters (with stop valves) so that the hose can be pulled off in sections and inserted into the pipes dug into  the raised beds.  It’s simple, cheap and effective – it deserves a post all to itself and pictures, which I will get around to one day soon…

Steve spent a day working on the music – first figuring out how to get all our 15,000+ pieces of music onto the laptop so we could operate everything just from the laptop; then testing that ordinary electrical wire would work as speaker cable (we needed metres of the stuff so this would save us a pretty penny); then setting up the amp & speakers and checking it all functioned and that the speakers didn’t buzz.  Then we took the entire kit up the campsite and set up the sound system there – speakers were positioned up in the roof on the platform with the hot water tank; speaker cable was fed down vent pipes into the basement where they connected up with the amp and the laptop…  It was a very special moment when we started the genny and flooded the night air with sounds…  Good, loud sounds at that!!

The only thing bugging us now regarding its incomplete status was the plastic bottle windows.  We had finished 2 of the 3 frames needed to fill in the south facing window completely – they had been painted white inside and a gorgeous blue outside (the same paint we used for our blue & white theme around the pool in our former life – remember those Watford pool party days people?!) and all the bottles de-labelled, handles removed, dusted and then wedged into the frames & stuck with silicon.  So – just the last one, the big middle window, to do.  I blame myself for ‘bullying’ Steve into focusing on getting this done because we finished it half an hour before our first guests arrived for the party!!!  But, hey it’s done; the damn bottles are out of the way (they are easier to manage in frame than cluttering up the basement!) and it looks FAB – a real talking point at the party…

We moved all the tables out onto the grass to have a flat, clear space, near to the music for dancing in the moonlight but hadn’t got around to levelling these up on the uneven ground when the Lanes and their guests arrived.  Thankfully Matt and Anton (the random American youth that Amy had befriended and brought along) were total stars and warmed to the tricky task of ridding the tables of their jaunty angle using bits of wood to prop the legs up; whilst Amy & Jen mucked in collecting wood for the fire.  When we should have been greeting our guests as they arrived, we were actually: stumping the last big trunk that would likely trip people up as they made their way to the fire site; running around checking tents and organising sleeping space for our campers; finding batteries for lights; and finally showering & changing.  Katie & Sam had made lanterns and brought greasproof paper to make simple tea light holders and they did a fab job, hanging lanterns in trees and positioning candles around the site to mark paths and steps and eating areas.  The building itself looked cool all lit up and we got to see our new plastic bottle windows from the outside with the light shining through them (if you look carefully you can see them here…)

We finally got into ‘host mode’ and organised drinks and got the bbq fired up.  I had the inspired idea of labelling each plastic cup so that everyone knew which was their cup for the night – it also had the added benefit of making it easy for people to remember names of people they’d not met before.  The ‘Full Moon Tea’ (get it???) that we had concocted from wine, vodka & juice was flowing nicely!

Despite the frenetic build-up and stress in the early stages of the evening, the party was a success.  Of the locals that turned up, 2 had never visited before and a further 3 had not visited since the shower block had been built and we had another 7 guests who were Camp Full Monte first-timers: 5 English folk, 1 American and a Canadian.  There were 31 of us in all, plus 2 babies and 3 dogs!  Little Oliver was 5 months old and Amber was our youngest raver & camper at only 9 weeks old.  Here she is the morning after, full of smiles

Steve had prepared a playlist for the evening but Paul the Beard turned up with his laptop and Tomo with his so we had 2 other great DJs for the night.

The Full Monte Feast (mounds of meat, salads and bean burgers for the veggies and 1 vegan) was quickly scoffed and then it was time to dance off the calories.

(Check out the plastic bottle window in the pic above!)

A splinter group developed once the fire was lit.  Tony & Jen got their guitars out and much strumming and singing ensued…

Weather-wise, the evening turned out ok.  The previous 2 days had been glorious sunshine with clear, crisp evenings – not a cloud in the sky and the site bathed in moonlight – and we suspected we might have peaked too soon on the good weather.  Thankfully the rain held off (a soggy party would have been a nightmare) but it was quite cloudy.  The moon made a stunning appearance early on before the clouds really gathered, rising up above the trees, big & orange but then spent a lot of the night draped in cloud.  The advantage of the cloud was that the evening was noticably warmer so all in all, it worked out…

At 12.58, when the moon was at its fullest, the howling began… We all just stood and howled into the night whilst the dogs went bonkers!  God only knows what the local villagers made of it all!

The last of the guests who weren’t camping drifted off around 3.00am.  The hardcore fireside crew stayed up til just before 6.00am and Katie & I were the last women standing at 6.30am.

I was up at 9.00am helping Steve clear up and preparing breakfast…

It was another dry, warm but cloudy day – perfect really as none of us could have coped with sweltering heat in our post-punch drunk state but it was comfortable enough eating breakfast outside…

The last of our guests left around 2pm and we beamed at each other – we’d survived; the genny had coped admirably (my worst nightmare was a power failure – no lights and no music!); people had a great time and we’d actually made some money!

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It’s All White Now (well almost…)

May 30, 2010 in The Build | 1 comment

So – time to paint the building, we thought… Hmmm – it’s very high!!!!  And the steps beside it make it very tricky…  Ladders just weren’t going to cut it.  Nope – scaffolding was the thing.  But where to get it?  How to put it up?  And more importantly how much would it cost?

During the limewash frenzy of the working weekend, I had mentioned our dilemma to Therese. She thought she could help.  A follow up call a few days later secured us an amazing deal: she would get scaffolding to us, complete with the men to erect it for us, in return for a few hours strimming of the garden of one of her properties and a meet & greet for some rental customers.  Done!

The scaffolding arrived the next day and within a couple of hours it was up.  Time to get busy!


We had only expected the guys to erect scaffold on the outside but they helpfully put up a structure inside the kitchen so we could reach the gable end inside too.


We were able to use the hefty, metal scaffold boards on top of the compost loo walls to reach the other gable end inside:


It was incredibly sastifying, turning everything from grey to white but the scaffold was a real pain to navigate around – Steve’s head was a patchwork of bloody scabs where he kept hitting it on low poles!  We raced to slap on the 2 coats of lime wash needed everywhere so we could get the damn stuff down. But wasn’t it worth it…

And this shot shows one side of the building painted too – Steve (of the long legs and long arms) managed to do this using only a ladder…

And the ‘well, almost’?  Well, we still have the other gable end to paint and are hoping to use the scaffold boards on top of the compost chambers and a ladder on top of those. The other side of the building is yet to be done but it is the easiest to reach and will only require a ladder.  Wednesday the scaffold will probably be collected so if we have time before then we might paint the workshop too!

We have saved ourselves 100’s of euros by using limewash as our medium.  We bought 2 big bags of lime which cost us just over 5 euros and that will be enough to finish everything inside & out & probably to paint the workshop too!  What a bargain!!!

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Holy Cow

May 29, 2010 in Team News | 4 comments

Holy Cow!  And not in a “comic strip exclamation” way… no, no in a “revered by the Indians, sacred animals” kinda way… Really, honestly, there comes a point where you just have to give up and say: “Ok, guys – you beasts are amazing!”

So – there we were, painting the building  (thankfully, we’d just got down from the scaffolding because if we’d have been up it then: a) we might have fallen off as our jaw dropped to the floor and toppled us over and b) we might not have been able to rush to the defence of our garden in time…) when Steve just gaped and pointed.  I followed his gaze and saw 2 bovine characters munching away at the grass just inches in front of the raised beds!

What?  How?  Holy Cow?! (OK, that was in an exaggerated, comic strip stylie!!!).  They were not wearing bells so we hadn’t heard them coming and I swear we both glanced around for their parachute or the airship that had dropped them off…

Steve rushed off down the garden to confront the buggers and I followed, waving my arms protectively over my plants.  There was a moment when Steve realised that he was nearly eyeball to eyeball with 2 very big beasts and, well, they looked like they could really hurt an inexperienced English dude…  But he ‘manned up’ and in a deep, gruff voice starting shouting at them in Serbian and herding them off down to the lower terrace.  They reluctantly lumbered off with a sideways glance to the garden and the lush green goodies they’d just been cheated of, tripping over guy ropes as they went!  (No harm done Nik, honest!!!).

They found their way up beside the workshop and just as I was struggling to move the makeshift pallett barrier that we had in place, they simply stepped up the retaining wall of the compost chamber area.  This step up has got to be 3-4 feet high and is tough for even a long-legged chap like Steve to manage.  It posed no problem for these guys at all!  Gulp!

We shooed them out of the main gate and then, knees knocking, looked at each other in awe and wonder…

OK time to put on our Cow Detective gear again and figure out where the bugger’s had entered.  Virtual deerstalkers on and imaginary spyglass in hand we set off down to the lower terrace.  The really serious pallett fence, reinforced with barbed wire, etc, etc was… intact!  Phew!  So they didn’t get in there then…

Nope – trampled grass and a flattened hedge in one corner, behind Danny’s tent led us to the Cow Highway.  It was almost impassable for us – narrow paths, overgrown with spiky bushes and brambles, stony & uneven underfoot.  But it was littered with cow pats. The path had 2 clear cow routes – 1 branched off to the left down to the stream and the other led onto Jovo’s land immediately below ours.  This was BAD news because it meant that even if we blocked the entrance onto our land from Jovo’s, the cows could still wander along the stream and gain entry at some place further up.

We had to leave the camp and this meant dealing with the cow problem – neither of us could bear the sick feeling in our stomach when we even considered leaving the site unprotected…  Unfortunately as we began our now 3rd attempt at cow proofing (3rd time lucky?) the heavens opened.  Even with our full motorcycle rainproof suits on (all that remains of our beloved biking days) we got soaked to the skin as we carried all the bits of metal we could find down to the streamside.  Steve did a sterling job slashing trees to lay a hedge and piling up logs and obstacles.  By now we were way beyond underestimating the sacred beasts and really went overboard with the cow barrier.

In the bucketing rain Steve walked along the stream and looked for routes up where they could step over the terrace walls (now we knew what heights they could climb!) and onto the land and attempted to block their entry at every point.

(If you’re wondering about the electric fence by now and thinking: ‘come on guys – sod the expense, just put the damn thing up!’ then we have to confess there’s a flaw in this plan… Electric fences need to be clear of undergrowth or else they’ll short out as boughs fall on them etc, so really we would have to erect the fence well inside out boundary, clear of all the stooping branches.  Sadly this would make it a hazard for our guests so we are resigned to using the fence on the palm fence boundary only to deter any human intruders).

There is a moral to this story: when 3 years ago the elderly villager pointed down to what seemed inpenetrable undergrowth and the stream and indicated that cows would come onto our land that way, we should have believed him!

Maybe now that we are giving the cows the respect they deserve, with a cow defence that’s truly worthy of them and have ceased all jokes about bbq-ing them, they’ll leave us alone…

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Progress report

May 20, 2010 in Camping News, The Build | No comments

Sorry if the last post was full of doom & gloom.  I’ve decided to cheer myself up by posting about all the stuff we have achieved.  This is a scheduled post as we are now back on the campsite…

I’d like to say this was an update on the BIG LIST but actually most of the things left on that list are staying there for the foreseeable future until we get a) good weather; b) a period of time with no events, no friends staying or other distractions and c) some more help (please let the promised volunteers actually turn up!).

We’ve decided to focus on the high impact stuff – doing the things that visually make a difference so that the place looks good, even if when you peer into the corners of the place they turn out not to be fully tiled etc.

So, here’s a little round up:

  • The glass bricks are mostly in – just the last window in the last loo to do.  We haven’t been able to tackle this up until now because the cables for the solar PV were threaded through the window.  Now that the solar cupboard has been made and the cables have been re-positioned through the wall we can get on and fill that last gap.  Here are some pictures of the windows:

  • We have hooks up for towels – by each shower and around the wash basins – and strings of battery operated lights adorn the wash basin area at night:

  • The basement is painted & has a lino floor down.  We took everything out, sorted & organised it and moved it back in.  We now have a wardrobe and chest of drawers for our clothes in the inner sanctum, which is also the storage area for tents & tiles.  The main room now has an office area with a desk we can work at; cushions for the chairs are neatly stacked & readily available; there’s a cleaning cupboard with all the mops & brooms; there are tables containing gardening stuff and an area for ‘illumination’ (candles, gas lamps & refills, solar lights etc).  I need to take more pictures but this is what it looked like with the walls painted and the floor down:

  • The solar fairy lights have been positioned around the site, lighting the steps and walkways.  The solar spot lights are up (bar 1, which will be installed any day now) so the entrances to the building are all well lit and 2 spot lights illuminate the kitchen area at night.  It’s a tricky ole job because they need to be positioned at night to ensure the angle and height of the spotlight is really lighting the important areas.  Here’s Steve up a ladder, drilling holes at night:

  • The solar equipment is all tidied away in a wall cupboard, which has been made strong enough to accommodate a second battery as we hope to be generating enough power in the sunny months to charge 2 batteries:

  • All the window ledges in the kitchen area have now been tiled, so we have a smooth surface to perch on and, more importantly, a neat frame for the plastic bottle windows to fit into.  This picture was taken on the rainy morning of the working weekend but shows the nice brown tiles of the window ledge:

  • And here’s the new design of the plastic bottle window and us making them (proper picture to follow when the entire window is complete and the rough wood frames have been painted!):

  • Most of the strimming, stumping & raking around the site has been done now, although this is a bit of an endless task and we have deliberately left some areas to let the new grass grow as long & as strong as possible.
  • The 45,000 litre water tank is pretty much full – just one more tank of fuel in our trusty pump and that should do it!
  • The wooden fence that will be planted with beans and provide additional screening for the lower camping terrace is finally up.  It looks great and its strung with solar fairy lights so its all lit up at night and provides a way-marker for the camping area.  Just got to get planting those beans!

This weeks tasks include:

  • painting all the grey cement still left inside the building
  • finishing the plastic bottle windows and getting them fixed into place
  • putting the last 4 glass bricks in
  • limewashing as much of the outside of the building as we can reach and as the weather allows
  • re-digging paths and using the piles of gravel and sand we have to create smooth, mud-free trails around the site

Watch this space to see how much we actually get done!

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Cow Proof

May 18, 2010 in Den, The Build | 1 comment

It was a lovely sunny day and I was tending the garden when I heard a cow bell that sounded too close for comfort…  Dressed in just a baggy t-shirt and knickers I wandered down to the lower terrace where the sound was coming from.  As I approached the opening to the land below our land, across which we had erected a 3-stringed barbed wire fence, I was confronted with the sight of a large cow being driven by Jovo.  Jovo owns the land beyond our boundary and is the strange character from whom we bought part of our plot.

As my mind whirred to try & find the right words in local language to say “Er, please don’t let your cow come any closer…” I was rendered speechless as I watched the great beast push its way through the barbed wire barrier, snapping one of the strands in the process!  Once on the land it headed fast towards where it knew green things lurked in earthy beds… Jovo pushed his way through after his cow and ran after it as I came to my senses and shouted “Moja bašta!” (My garden!).  He managed to steer the cow back but it lumbered off out of control and ended up wandering around the other side of the workshop.  In the end he moved pallets and bricks to let the creature through and he drove it through the main gate which I opened for him and then locked behind them, wishing I knew the Serbian for “Get orf my land!”.

At the time I was hopping mad as I thought Jovo had been deliberately herding his cow through our land.  I’m still not entirely sure but have since looked up the word ‘Nazad’ that I heard Jovo shout at the cow and it means ‘back’ not ‘forward’ as I first thought!  So maybe he was trying to control his cow but failing or maybe he caught sight of me and decided to act as if the invasion wasn’t deliberate…  Who knows, but what we do know is:

  • the barbed wire fence that we thought was so impenetrable… wasn’t at all
  • this is definitely a route the cow had taken before – it was a creature on a mission & seemed to know exactly where it was going
  • cows can navigate seemingly impossibly difficult terrain – the cow hoof marks are in the carpet laid out beside the workshop.  This area was strewn with twisted bits of metal and is very difficult to traverse, a narrow strip of land with a sheer drop beside it… and it posed no problem at all for the bovine bugger!

Despite the distress (and the embarrassment of realising the whole time I’d been prancing around like a madwoman barely clothed!) I was actually so glad I was there to see with my own eyes what a cow can do and for Jovo to see how displeased I was.

So now we had proof of the cow, time to make the campsite cow-proof…

We spent the best part of a day erecting a pallet fence all the way along the edges of the campsite where we now know  the weak spots are.  The pallets have been nailed together with lumps of wood and barbed wire wound all the way through the structure.  We have piled up brambles and spiky bushes all the way and will continue to do so, hoping in time that the vegetation will grow up and provide even more of a barrier.

It remains to be seen if a sufficiently motivated cow could still force its way through this hardcore barrier….  We have done the best with the materials we have available right now.  Stage 2 is to get the electric fence up but that’s a big job and requires us to buy a load of wood to make hefty posts so we’ll be moving onto that as soon as we have the time & money.

This is a scheduled post as we are back on the campsite – probably bbq-ing beef!

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Weathering the storms

May 16, 2010 in Camping News, Den | 1 comment

We are feeling a little buffeted…

The actual storms have been pretty hardcore and its hard to sleep at night with the rain pummelling the thin material between you and the great outdoors and the wind tugging at poles and ropes.  But so far (and I hope I’m not tempting fate when I say this…) we’ve remained dry & cosy in our new ‘home’.

Our Weather Oracle tipped us off about some mental weather & strong southerlies and sure enough in the early hours of yesterday morning, the storm arrived.  Despite preparing the night before & battening down the metaphorical hatches, we found that things inside the shower block were still getting wet (“Oh, it’s a southerly wind – that means it’ll be blowing right through that gaping doorway and onto the tile cement! Doh!”).  We raced around locking even more stuff in the basement (thank god for that big, dry, clean space – what the hell would we do without it now!) and that’s when I noticed that one of the fence panels was about to blow away.  The wind had rocked the fence so badly it had snapped the metal bands holding it to the post!  In the driving rain we effected a temporary bodge with more wire and bits of metal post.

Then it was a dash down to the camping terraces to check the tents.  Matt & Amy’s tent had to re-pegged with more heavy duty pegs and most of the tents needed the guy ropes tightening.  By this time we were soaked to the skin & getting disheartened.  The walls & balustrades hadn’t yet had their second coat of heavy duty outdoor paint and the first coat was washing off.  The path to the shower block that Tim had dug and filled with gravel & sand was washing away as mud and rivers of waters ran onto it… One step forward, two steps back.  There was nothing we could do until the storm passed so it was time to de-camp and head for the shelter of our house in town.

Back at the house things weren’t much better.  Our landlord has helpfully installed 2 huge water tanks to provide us with water when the main supply fails and a sprinkler system to keep his garden irrigated so we don’t have to worry about it during the dry months when we are on the campsite.  However the plumbers have done a terrible job and our basement is now filling up with water so Steve had to dash about fixing the problems.  Last night the power went off and was still off this morning.  We have had a stressful morning watching the storm and worrying about the campsite and not even being able to do anything useful here.  Thankfully the electricity came back on in time to watch the Monaco Grand Prix and the storm has abated, for now…  Ironic isn’t it that at the campsite we have power when we want it and a dry basement!

Riding the waves of ups and downs is exhausting.  We were elated that we had several potential bookings for our house over the summer – some useful income to buy us another month or 2 out here, we hoped.  But now the interest has dwindled and we only have the place rented for one week in July.  The wider political & economic storminess (made up word?) isn’t helping either.  We always seem to pick the wrong time to change pounds into euros as we try to second guess the effect of the markets on the bail out of Greece, the UK election etc, etc…

We are surviving but getting a little sea-sick of it all.  The weather is set to remain stormy for the next few days which puts us behind schedule and we are racing to complete important tasks now before we host a naming ceremony for Matt & Amy’s daughter, Eloise next weekend and hold our first paid event this season – the Full Moon Party in just under 2 weeks time.

Bookings are still way too thin on the ground so the future looks uncertain.  It’s good news that we are getting interest and people are finding us on the web but most calls/ emails are from travellers with camper vans or caravans which we can’t accommodate.

We remain optimistic – what else can we do?  If you’re stuck on a boat in the midst of a raging sea, you have to keep believing the winds will change and the bad times will pass or else you’ll give up and drown for sure…

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With a little help from our friends…

May 16, 2010 in Camping News, Team News | No comments

Last weekend we invited friends to come & help us tackle some of the many, mounting tasks at the campsite and despite the weather looking like this on Saturday morning:

some brave souls pitched in to help.  Amy & Danny stayed over with us Friday night so were already mucking in (or should that be ‘in muck’ as they were up to their eyeballs in dust & spiders webs clearing out the basement) when reinforcements arrived around lunchtime.

The weather cleared up and it turned into a glorious afternoon, so thankfully we were able to tackle some outdoor jobs too.  Here’s the run down of who did what:

  • Amy & Danny emptied, swept and hoovered the basement and got a coat of limewash in the inner basement

  • Therese took over from where they left off to limewash the outer room of the basement

  • Zuzana painted walls and balustrades

  • Fiona planted 2 walnut trees that Steve had grown from seed, then helped Tim lug barrows of sand down to the second terrace (where a rough sand & gravel path was emerging from the mud!) and finally helped Zuz finish the painting

  • Matt & Jo got the small water tank on the top plot functioning again; got the water tank going and started to fill our huge water tank with fresh spring water and made a strong, nice-looking cupboard for all our solar PV equipment

  • Katie picked up stones on the first camping terrace – sounds boring but an essential job and carefully chosen not to stress her poorly wrist

  • Sam (Katie’s mate who cycled to Monte – yeah, Wow!) strimmed the first camping terrace and helped pick stones & dig up roots

  • Tim stumped & raked the on the camping terrace, mattocking the hell out of nasty tree & shrub roots

Steve & I ran around supervising, getting tools & materials & keeping people fed.  Thankfully the evening stayed dry for the bbq and we all got sozzled around the fire, comparing aching muscles.

It was a special day – we achieved great things through great people and in a great way.

We felt so humbled by the dear friends who gave up their precious weekends to come & graft with us.   And some of these folk are not likely suspects for a working weekend…

Danny is  also known as ‘Danny Upgrade’ as she is lucky enough to be able to afford the nicer things in life.  How would she really feel about ‘roughing’ it on a campsite?  Well, of course she didn’t ‘rough it’ because she only knows how to do things in style, so yes, she had her mansion tent & her enormous blow up bed.  But she wore the head torch with pride and had no qualms about looking daft:

And far from blanching at the compost loos, she adores them & raves to everyone about how fab they are.  This sophisticated chick who only wears Clarins, Tiffany & Karen Millen kept marvelling at the fact that there’s “No smell!” and even had a good look down the chamber with her head torch!

She has a ‘proper’ job & turned up on Friday night, weary & jaded.  She had the best night’s sleep she’s had for weeks on Friday night and enjoyed herself so much she stayed until Monday morning and drove to work early straight from the campsite!  It was a delight, watching her unwind and relax – in all kinds of ways… She not only survived, but positively flourished, without her posh glasses, her hairdryer and most of her clothes.  We are considering putting signs up saying: ‘Camp Full Monte – sponsered by Danny Parish Consultancy’ as she has donated so much to the site: crates of wine; her tent & blow up bed that will stay up all season & be available for rent; bedding; cutlery; table & chairs… Her generosity is touching and yet she says we give so much to her by providing a place she feels safe, comfortable & relaxed in… a compliment indeed.

Therese is another lady you don’t expect to see with a paint brush in hand. The fact that she turned up with a hangover was even more admirable.  And heck, did she graft!  She pretty much single-handedly moved furniture and limewashed the outer basement room and didn’t stop until it was done.  It was hard to keep the surprise from our faces  – she simply said: “I promised I’d help, so here I am”.  It really meant a lot to us and that was why she did it…

Zuzana had never camped in her life before, so an eco-camp with unconventional loos, no mains power and plenty of wildlife might have put her off.  Her & Jo have stressful jobs so giving up their precious time off for us must have been a wrench.  But they made the effort and made valuable contributions, in their quiet, unassuming ways.  Zuzana reports to have enjoyed ‘losing herself’ in painting – mindless, solitary, peaceful – a world away from her busy, people-stuffed week.  She foraged for wood in the evening, not put off by tales of scorpions and relaxed with a book in the sun on Sunday morning.

Amy & Matt remain loyal friends & fervervent supporters of Camp Full Monte as a business.  Despite their 2 kids and a crazily busy life, they booked a babysitter for the weekend and came to help.  When the dust and limewash in the basement got too much for Ames, she scrubbed manky roll mats in the sun until they were fresh smelling and super clean.  Matt, as ever, was a total star.  He knows his way around Steve’s tools and our site like it’s his own and just “gets shit done”…

Fi should have been there with Dave.  (Dave was driving a Cadillac from the UK to Monte with 2 of his old buddies & didn’t turn up until around 11pm! But to be fair they turned up laden with goodies and provided us with excellent entertainment…). She seemed to work even harder to make up for her absent husband and all this on top of an exhausting & stressful week.  As ever Fiona was positive, encouraging and just a lovely, supportive influence.

Katie & Tim always provide a great boost because they are so in love with the campsite.  Despite being busy making ends meet with their sailing yacht charter business and working as hard as we are they turnedup, with their friend Sam with them, whose youth and experience of  woodland conservation was a real bonus.  Between the 3 of them they transformed the first camping terrace. Their obvious delight and amazement at how the place looked reminded us what a beautiful place we have and how far we’ve come.

Observing people working together, encouraging each other, praising the work done and applauding the progress made was incredible.  We felt so proud to be part of the community of folk who came together round the fire that night.

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Growing a new career

May 6, 2010 in Den, Organic Gardening | 2 comments

These days I consider myself a gardener.  It amuses me, as it was not too many moons ago that I mocked Steve for his obsession with Alan Titchmarsh and Gardener’s World…

The transition from reluctant helper in the garden to green-fingered goddess (wry smile!) has been a gradual process born out of a life change that offered us with more growing space than we ever thought possible.  I’m not a likely suspect for a gardener.  I’m not known for my patience (an understatement, another wry smile!) and whilst I can be very detail conscious when I have to be, my default setting is, ‘relaxed’ bordering on slapdash.

These days, however, I will spend hours patiently, diligently sowing seeds, potting on, watering, thinning out.  I could literally while away an entire day mooching around our beloved raised beds, pulling weeds and watching the green things grow.  When returning to the house after days away at the land, I dash upstairs to the nursery that our top terrace has become, to view the progress of my ‘babies’ and tend to their needs.

And don’t even get me started on my flower beds… I have invested so much in digging, weeding, sowing, planting, erecting trellis, watering, feeding.  I’m so earnest about it, it’s funny!  My vision for a garden full of colour and scent is often in my mind as I drop off to sleep.  My disappointment if nothing flourishes, or the flowers get eaten will be palpable.

The lovely thing about gardening is that it reminds me about life… the cycles of birth & death; the rhythm of nature as she reproduces herself; the hopes & joys & disappointments of new growth and old age are so present.  We garden organically – so no pesticides or artificial stimulants.  I am so intent on protecting my plants from ‘nasties’ and if they can flourish on natural food and water and sun, then so can we!  It’s survival of the fittest around here and long may we live without chemicals!

Some seeds are so robust – I have chucked things in pots with little hope that they will flourish and against all odds they have sprouted and grown.  My 3 beautiful tamarind plants are a case in point.  The picture below show the first one and the 2 other seeds about to open – they’re growing up fast and today they made it into their own big pots.

And here’s this amazing plant at night, with its leaves all closed up:

Other plants that all the books tell you are easy to germinate and rampant growers sometimes just don’t make it… That’s life!

Nature mirrors our struggles with relationships too.  Some things that compliment each other in the end result, grow well together: tomatoes are helped by basil, oregano & parsley – all of which taste delicious together.  Yet dill, which so enhances carrots (especially with a generous knob of butter!) is not a good companion plant for that root veg.

I bear the physical changes of my new career: my back used to complain about the hours spent sat at a desk, in endless meetings or dealing with interminable emails; these days it has become strong from carrying heavy bags of compost, digging & raking – my muscles still ache after a hard day’s graft but long gone are the expensive chiropractic sessions that kept me from being immobile with pain.  And now when I rue the state of my hands (rough, soil-ingrained monstrosities!) I chuckle at the thought of what went before. I choose callouses over painted nails now, any day of the week!

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