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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.

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June in Review

July 1, 2012 in Camping News, Campsite Improvements, Den, Environmentally Friendly, Fun Stuff, Making & Baking, Nature, Naturist, Organic Gardening, Team News, book review by fullmonte | 2 comments

Growing Green

All that rain from last month seems such a long time ago now.  It’s been a stonking hot June & necessitated the mental watering regime again already.  But the results are fab (mostly).  This month we’ve been picking:

  • Mixed lettuce (Cut & Come Again, Iceberg & Cos).  They’ve cropped so well compared to last year but I fear we are running out of time now – seems its already too hot for the seeds to germinate…

  • Rocket (Salad, local Rocket & wild)
  • Silverbeet
  • Sorrel
  • Fresh herbs: coriander, chives (garlic & ordinary), parsley (curled & flat-leaved), tarragon, sage, dill, fennel & basil (purple & Genovese)
  • Marrows (the one below is ready for stuffing & seeds are scooped out & saved…)

  • Courgettes – some beauties already, this one’s nearly a kilo in weight

  • Broad beans – against all odds…  Take that you nay-sayers!  Please note the adorable new shoes in the shot below courtesy of dear friend Ditsch.

  • Peas – probably the best crop we’ve ever had ironically, because this year I just shoved the last of the seeds in the soil to get them gone, irritated that they usually crop poorly…  Note the beautiful shiny new aluminium worktop surface!

  • Peppers – well just the one so far actually.  The plants are laden with fruit already and it looks set to be a good year for them although no sign of them reaching epic, Fiona-like proportions so I shall no doubt still have pepper envy at the end of the season.  Still, since we didn’t pick these green crisp beauties until much later last year & had a mere handful of them,  I am very happy with progress so far.

  • Chillies – loads of them!  And a perfect temperature.

  • Tomatoes!  Yes, finally are tomatoes are ripening.  We’ve only picked a small handful so far but we look forward to July being full of them.
  • And talking of sweet red things… Yes it’s strawberry time again.  Sadly the crop has been very poor & although the plants look happier in their new position, it doesn’t look like they are getting quite enough sun now!  Time for a soft fruit re-think.

The pumpkins are growing away well and tiny squashes are forming on the Butternut plant. This was shot a couple of weeks ago now – the fruit is already turning a gorgeous yellow…

And the aubergine plants are well ahead this season, with Stripey Eggplants forming already:

Disappointments so far: carrots & spinach.  Carrots should have gone in the ground in February like last year but me being in the UK in Feb set things back.  I had carefully sowed thinly so I could succession sow in all the rows but first the rain washed the seeds away and then the sun was suddenly too hot already.  I’m gutted because I had sown some Atomic Red and Purple Haze carrots this year & frankly it’s not looking good for them.  We’re going to try experimenting with shading one half of the carrot bed to see if it makes an appreciable difference.

Not sure why the spinach failed again – I think it just got too hot too fast & the plants bolted.  Poor germination may be due to old seeds.  I’m going to purchase some fresh seeds from here and try to get a crop going in September.

With regards to flowers – well, what a difference a month makes!

The streamside beds and the tyre wall are awash with colour – blues of the cornflowers, borage & lobelia; pinks of the petunias, snapdragons & cosmos; oranges of the marigolds & zinnia and red geraniums…

The Bo-Flo-Grove remains a massive disappointment – and more importantly a waste of water.  I am refusing to give up on the few remaining tobacco plants and the odd zinnia & marigold but it will not be a stunning display by any means.  Next year the area will be given over to shrubs & comfrey plants & will only be watered twice a week.  We’ll give some thought as to how to retain moisture up there – the ground is ridiculously well-drained & impossibly stony.

Baking & Making

The loquat tree at our house in Topla was laden with fruit this month.  Once picked I needed to process them fast so I found a chutney recipe that used most of the fruit and made a salsa with the rest.

The chutney has fast become a favourite – deliciously sweet & gingery with a spicy kick.

I finally started sprouting seeds this month too.  I’ve successfully sprouted alfafa & mung beans  – in a jar, nothing fancy, rinse them out twice a day – and today I started chick peas off too.

And I’ve been making ‘comfrey stew’!  I need to feed my peppers & tomatoes & squashes but only 100% organic will do, so I’ve harvested a load of comfrey leaves and shoved them in a bucket with some water:

No, it doesn’t smell as bad as it looks – it’s MUCH worse than that!  But in a couple of weeks it will be organic yumminess for our plants.

Reading

Douglas Kennedy’s ‘The Big Picture’ was an enjoyable read, if far-fetched & mostly unbelieveable.  It’s hard to talk about the book without giving too much away but suffice to say that the reader is asked to accept too many contradictions…  The man who purportedly loved his family so much he put up with outrageous behaviour from his wife to keep the peace, does stuff which estranged him from his family forever; the guy who was so meticulous about stuff makes a sloppy error that means everything comes undone…

It wasn’t the world’s best written book it didn’t have a gripping plot or characters that make a lasting impression but it kept me entertained for a few nights…

I am now reading Haruki Murakami’s ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ which was given to me by Marie & Jan the  German cyclists we befriended.  It’s for me to keep safe until they come to pick up their stuff again in the autumn but they insisted I read it in the meantime.

It’s a strange book & I’m not sure I’ve got into the rhythm of it yet.  More of that next month…

Work

June has been a game of two halves…

The month started with some busyness &, remarkably, some guests returning from last year!  It was great to see Roy again and we welcomed Jim back too, this time with his girlfriend Annie – our first Swedish guest.  Jon & Kirstie were a super couple from the UK who arrived at the beginning of June – and Steve was delighted to learn they had found us through Flickr (so all the effort he puts into updating his photo stream is finally vindicated – just got to get a guest or 2 via this blog now & all my efforts here will be worthwhile too!).  Then there was the wonderfully quirky German guy, Jorg, who fell for Daisy in a big way.

Kirsten was hiking in the nearby mountains & stayed for a few nights.  Shane (Australian) & Dave (Canadian) turned up around the same time and inspired by Kirsten did some hiking too – 1 night turned into 3 or 4.

Erick & Steve cracked on with getting stuff done whilst my time was pretty much taken up with watering the gardens (the compost tea tanks sure fills up quick with 10+ people on site!), cooking & cleaning.

I promised pics of the caravan – so here they are.  You can see the steps that Erick sawed up & dug in.  It actually looks a little different now.  The weather has been unsufferably hot the past few weeks so we have erected a sail over the front of the van, to create some shade for the early morning, and have velcroed mozzie nets over a few windows so we can keep the windows open all day & night.

And inside our cosy home…

The new fridge cupboard got finished:

And the kitchen got a re-vamp.  The shelf for the cups & glasses was moved into the new tea/ coffee making space – a dedicated ring is available for the kettle at all times without disturbing my cooking and all the drink making stuff is in one place.  A new shelf has been erected in its place and now all my herbs & spices are up out of the way, leaving the worksurface free from stuff & with maximum space available for food prep.  Erick & Steve beat aluminium sheeting into submission and covered the top of the kitchen cupboards to give me a shiny new surface that is easy to clean & durable.  Gone are the tiles that used to go manky when water got underneath them – goodbye potentially germ-harbouring material, hello hygiene!

Erick mowed the main campsite & did some strimming up on the top plot too, which was restored somewhat with the lads re-erecting the toilet & the shower.

Steve turned electrician again and completed our most exciting, money-saving project of the season yet – the 12v lighting system!  Having picked Sebastian’s brains whilst he was with us last month, Steve decided to put into play the solar panel & LED strip lights he’d purchsed from our mate John when back in the UK getting the caravan.  We’ve now got the solar panel charging a battery all day and then we use this battery at night to illuminate the building.  It’s fabulous and has considerably reduced our use of the  generator, which is saving us precious pennies.  We don’t even have to start the genny to charge laptops or mobile phones any more because these can be charged via the invertor connected to the battery for our solar powered fans.  We are generating way more power than we need to run the fans so the excess is being stored in a battery and being used via an inverter.  Genius!

Then there was nothing else for it but to make a start on the dreaded stone wall project.  Rocks were collected and assembled but it startd to really heat up and working with huge rocks became problematic other than for a few hours in the morning & at the end of the day, so the project stalled for a while.

Erick left and so did all the guests, just in time for us to host our big Family Camp Out for all our friends with kids.   25 adults, 18 kids, 12 tents, 1 camper van & some dogs made it a day to remember!  Despite all our (well, Steve’s) reservations it was a storming success – the kids had an absolute ball, the parents all got to chill with good food & alcohol with the kids asleep nearby and, importantly for us, folk got to experience camping Full Monte-style.  People were bowled over with their tents and comfy beds and frankly it was good for business!

It took us a day to dismantle all the tents and get the site back to normal but it was worth it – possibly even to be repeated at the end of the season!

Our next wwoofer, Tom, turned up just after the family madness (good timing dude!).  He was a laid back character from Oz but but by the time he got to us he’d pretty much had enough of travelling.  He was pretty jaded and also he didn’t get the experience that he wanted from us because it was only us 3 there – no other guests or volunteers – so he only stayed a few days but long enough to do a fantastic strimming job & to help Steve move the stone wall project on a bit further.

And so the second half of June has been dead quiet.  No guests, no volunteers, few enquiries & fewer bookings.  Instead of stressing (really, what can we do that we’re not already doing except chill & keep the faith?) we embraced the time & have had ourselves a lovely little holiday…

Oh, but we did manage to put up the second gazebo & finish sanding the table that Tom had all but done and restore it with some oil:

Yesterday we had a lovely Slovenian couple turn up unexpectedly.  They had been in Dubrovnik the day before & randomly met a Dutch guy who had stayed with us for a couple of nights 2 years ago.  He recommended that they visit us, so they did! What an incredible coincidence!

So, it seems our luck is turning again.  The enquiries are starting to come in thick & fast again and we have a few already converted to bookings.  Jim & Annie return tomorrow for their 3rd visit of the year and things are looking up on the volunteer front with a stack of people wanting to join us in July, August & September.  Maybe those stone walls will get re-built after all…?

Play

We took advantage of having someone around & left Erick in charge of the campsite a couple of times.  We escaped to party on Zanjice beach with Fi & Dave & some classic car enthusiasts who’d been travelling across Europe in their various gorgeous old cars (one of which was their mate Colin – a lovely guy we’d met when he visted the campsite a couple of years ago with Dave).  They’d ‘hired’ a bunch of beautiful young things (most of them loonies too!) to help them kick up a storm at the end of their epic trip and a proper DJ.  The theme was Underwater Kingdom & it was a riot!

Before all the guests buggered off, it was great to sit around the dinner table in the evenings with a bunch of folk from all around the world all swapping stories of travels & life & enjoying good food together.  And despite this being ‘our job’ we really did have a lot of fun.

There was lots of game playing going on too.  Roy had got hooked on Tac Tic when he visited last summer so was keen to play again.  Jon & Roy teamed up against me & Kirstie and then there was another couple hooked!  I introduced Dave & Shane to Quattro which they loved and played for hours and a few nights with a bunch of us round the table, we played Dice.

The best thing about the quiet period we’ve just had is that it coincided with our local friends being around.  Blazo came back from his latest stint on the ships and came to visit with the Denovici crew.  We shared the night of the Summer Solstice with them and gorged ourselves on fish, beautifully cooked by Nikola.

Then they came back a few days later to celebrate Blazo’s birthday.  We had amazing food – stacks of meat & yet again Nikola on the BBQ – great Rakija, lots of laughs & even some music-making… Nikola & Sasa took turns on Steve’s battered guitar & out came bongos & shakers & lots of singing with gusto into the early hours.  A fabulous, fabulous night.

And Daisy had fun too:

As luck would have it, our mates Katie & Tim were also having a quiet week in their yacht chartering business so they invited us to come & sail the Monty B from Bijela to Sveti Marko and overnight with them.  We locked everything up, left Daisy in charge and escaped to the water for 24 wonderful hours.  We had our first swim in the Bay this year, off the back of their beautiful sailing ketch on 28th June – shockingly late in the season to get in the water but hey ho…

We ate delicious food together, drank chilled wine in the sunshine & made merry.  It was the perfect day – not too hot that it was uncomfortable to lay out in & the evening was cool enough for us to get a decent night’s sleep.  All in all a wonderful treat…

And here’s us proving that 13 years of marriage is a good thing… (Happy Anniversary to us a few days before this!)

Nature Watch

June couldn’t have been more different than May weather-wise.  Not a drop of rain and stonking hot temperatures that take some adjusting to even for us.  We are filling the water tank to the brim whilst we can but in a week or so the pool we take from will be dried up and we will be monitoring our water use obsessively again.

The air has been filled with butterflies – Swallowtails, Scarce Sawllowtails, Mourning Cloaks, various fritillaries and a few we’ve yet to identify, notably this little monster:

It may be pretty but these critters were EVERYWHERE a week or so ago – bordering on plague proportions, flying out of the compost toilets every time we lifted the lid, generally a nusiance.  Does anyone have any idea what this is and how we would control invasions from them??

Here’s another butterfly yet to be named, much more benign…

And now its the crickets that are driving us mad.  There are tons of them in the building and I wouldn’t mind them being around except for the fact that they poo everywhere!  Sinks & surfaces have to be cleaned everyday and it’s getting really tedious.  Plus we’ve found them inside the bread bag having a chew, so the gloves are off and we’re letting Daisy do her worst!  Chasing these weird creatures as they jump about insanely keeps her entertianed for hours although they do end up with rather less legs than they started with by the time she’s done with them…

The edible doormice are back & taunting us with their scampering about in the roof space.  But at least we don’t hear them squeaking at nights anymore – YET!

This has been Mulberry Month, with the many trees in the neighbourhood laden with fruit.  Daisy and I trample over them every day as we go for our evening walk, through the clouds of buzzing bees that feed on the nectar and resolve to figure out how to get into these trees to pick the fruit, some sunny day.

And this is a rather cool glow worm that we’re seeing a lot around the campsite…

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March in Review

April 1, 2012 in Camping News, Campsite Improvements, Den, Fun Stuff, Healthy Eating, Making & Baking, Nature, Organic Gardening, Team News by fullmonte | No comments

Growing Green

Lean pickings from the garden this month again:

  • Handfuls of purple sprouting broccoli
  • Rocket
  • Fresh hebs, including coriander, chives & basil for the first time this year!

It’s been a busy month in the nursery and garden.  Lobelia, Viola, Livingstone Daisy, Pansy, Snapdragon, Nasturtiums & first round of Marigolds have all been planted out, not to mention all the perennial flowers I’ve been lovingly cherishing.

I’ve no idea what the various plantlets will grown into (not a single Foxglove amongst them seemingly – which were the buggers that started my whimsy for English cottage garden-style perennials in the first place!) – so I’ve probably planted them out all wrong for height, colour & sun/ shade conditions, but hey ho.  Aster, Petunia, Cosmos & Stock have all been sown, germinated and potted on ready for planting out next month.  It’s been a labour of love raising enough flowers to fill the bo-flo-grove, the tyre wall and the stream-side beds with colour & scent.  I’m really excited about this year’s display.  I’ve turned into a real sissy, for flip’s sake!

I’ve got half a terrace full of vegetables-to-be: courgettes, marrow, pumpkin, aubergine, peppers, chillies, cucumber, tomatoes (3 different varieties) & runner beans are all growing away nicely.  Poor germination for second round of curcubits though (over-watering – mea culpa!) so I’ve put some more in pots and also shoved in some melon & butternut squash seeds.  I’ve been too hasty to plant out in previous years so I’m trying to curb my impatience and grow the veg on well, so that big, healthy, nourished specimens go in kicking & screaming.

For an impatient sod like me, March & April stretch me to the limit… waiting for green shoots to show; all that fiddly pricking out and potting on; preparing the soil and the growing medium with care.  Please let it be worth it!

I’m mollified a little by watching the wonders in the raised beds where onions, carrots, broad beans, peas, rocket, radish and assorted salad greens are sprouting.

Baking & Making

I found a great new spread to liven up my corn crispbreads (or ‘bits of cardboard’ as Steve calls them).  Zucchini Hummus is quick & simple.  I made it using the local-style pinky spotted beans, which may or may not be Pinto beans but worked anyway.  I would turn up the seasoning next time though, as I found it a tad bland.  The really nice thing about this spread is it’s taste in combo with my green tomato chutney.

Reading

Nothing!  Donna Mazza’a “The Albanian” has been sat by my bed for the whole month.  I’ve picked it up twice but only got as far as reading the cover and having a quick flick.  I don’t know what my mental block is with this book but I’m ditching it and picking a new one.

Work

We’ve been a man down for most of the month so we haven’t achieved as much as we’d hoped.  Steve got man flu at the beginning of the month and was properly poorly (well, you know how deadly man flu can be!) for a couple of weeks.  Just as he was recovering from that he missed the bottom step whilst letting Daisy in one morning when he was half-asleep.  He bruised his foot quite badly and had to rest it for a couple of days.  Then it was his birthday (more of that later…) so we had a day off to celebrate.  The following day we had arranged to collect some free stone from around the Bay but whilst moving the freezer up from the basement, Steve managed to slice his wrist open on the sharp metal plate at the back.  It was a nasty cut in an awkward position and probably deserved a couple of stitches but we taped it up with steri-strips, bandaged it and made him rest for 2 days and remarkably, it’s knitted together beautifully.  We wait to see what mischief he gets up to next month to get off work duties!

Despite all of this, we got a fair amount achieved in March.  All 6 beds have their irrigation systems in place now.  All the gardens have been dug over, weeded and manured.  There’s been plenty of seeds sown in the raised beds and a lot of flowers were planted at the end of the month.  This year I have been thorough and patient (she says, through gritted teeth).  It’s a mission just to mix up a good planting medium but I haven’t cut corners.  I’ve barrowed several loads of soil down from the top piece of land and carefully blended this with shop-bought potting mix, worm compost and rotted animal manure.

This all has to be well broken up and mixed together: removing stones & any bulky or unrotted bits from the compost; carefully crumbling the animal manure to disperse it evenly and breaking up any lumps of dried clay in the soil.  The end result has been satisfyingly friable, rich and pretty much neutral pH.  It will give all our plants a nourishing foundation, we hope.

The project to tidy & de-clutter the workshop, which was started in February:

… was finally finished in March. Rubbish has been cleared out, useless tut ditched, wood re-stacked, various DIY projects bits sorted into new containers,  tools re-hung and floor swept.  It’s a job well done and makes ingress and egress of people weilding things (especially bulky contraptions, like wheelbarrows) much easier.

We scored a load of freshly cut palm leaves thanks to a tip-off from our adorable French friend, Cecile.  We (but Steve mostly) re-palmed the bare patches on both sides of the fence, so privacy and aethestics are intact again:

We’ve started to make space for the caravan which Steve will be towing from the UK with a friend and his Landrover.  So far we’ve re-stacked all the bricks and made a bin store & the worm compost bin is ready to be moved to its new location next to all the other compost bins.  All the spare tiles have been neatly stacked on pallets behind the workshop out of harm’s way and eyeshot.

We have been given a load of free stone so the dream of creating a properly paved (& one day, covered) seating area moves a little closer to becoming reality.  The trusty van moved into work horse mode (after we finally succumbed and invested in a new tyre) and here’s the back of it loaded up:

The bad news is we need 6 more trips like this is the van…

This month we helped move Nik out.  He’s making a new home in a nice spot up the road in town, the place where our Montengrin adventure first began: our friend Mia’s property.  And then we re-claimed our home, moving furniture, tidying, cleaning, moving the house from it’s Winter to Spring configuration.

The news on the business-side of things is pretty good.  We have bookings, enquiries, deposits in the bank, our first proper group booking (30 botanists!) and plenty of volunteers.  The first volunteer to join us as a ‘Team Member’ (see this page for explanation) will be Amy from Dublin and then we have helpers joining us from Japan, Belgium, Germany, America and the UK.

Play

The month started fabulously with a girls night in Tivat.  I zoomed over to Katie’s in the Mazda MX-5 we have use of these days thanks to Jim, one of our guests last year (sadly not warm enough to put the top down at that stage, although we have done since!).  I drove us to Porto Montenegro’s Yacht Club, where the Boka’s first clothes swap was staged.  A bunch of girls (about 20 of us) turned up with clothes no longer wanted and got to “shop for free” for a whole new wardrobe.  I came away with bulging bags of clothes!  New (to me) skirts, trousers, tops, jumpers and a couple of beautiful and almost brand new dresses.  I even got a pair of pink shoes and a new handbag!!

We had all brought nibbles of some description & a bottle, so we twirled about dressing up and down amongst the dips, salads, snacks and cake, sipping our glasses of wine.  I drove Katie back to Muo where the 2 of us stayed up drinking & eating oranges (!!) until 4 am.

Early in March I watched Grace’s debut on stage, at the Herceg Novi theatre in Dvorana Park.

You can see she takes after her Daddy, head and shoulders high above anyone else in her class.  She recited a sweet poem about how special her Mum was and did it beautifully.  Once her 2 minutes of fame were over though, she rather lost interest as the line of other kids all had to say their bit and proceeded to pull up her skirt and adjust her tights.  Me, Amy & Matt were crying with laughter whilst Eloise & Miles looked on confused and bemused.  I’ve a feeling we’ll be seeing more of the little madam on stage so next time I’ll be putting a Camp Full Monte sticker on her underwear for some free advertising!

After the kids were done, young adults performed traditional Montenegrin dancing in full regalia:

And whilst we’re on the subject of dressing up…  Steve’s 52nd birthday was themed: “Skool Dayz”.  Something to do with the book “The Trouble with Jennings” published in the year of his birth.  There was dressing up, Blue Margheritas, some bopping about, loads of junk food (pizza and candy!) and plenty of laughs:

We’ve had a few meals out: a delicious vegetarian feast at Marie & Jan’s place, where the Russian salad was a delightful pinky mound of chopped beetroot, plums, garlic, egg & onion in mayo; and a yummy Indian feast prepared by Katie – 2 different veggie curries, a dahl and rice.

And we’ve had a lot of fun with Daisy.  Most days we walk her on the beach on the way home from a day’s slog at the campsite.  She chases sticks, birds, puppies, pine cones and cats, hareing up & down the sand with sheer delight.  She’s had her fair share of sunbathing this month too, stretched out inside the glass doors basking in the heat:

Nature Watch

It’s been a beautiful month to be in nature.  The bright, warm days have been showing off their best colours: that sky blue that is somehow bluer than the sky; the fresh lime green of new shoots & leaves; the shocking purply pinks of wild Honesty and Daisy … and all about the birds swoop & butterflies flit.  We spotted Southern Festoons, Peacocks and Camberwell Beauties on the campsite:

And we saw the first orchid of the season: an Early Spider Orchid.  Let’s hope there are still orchids for the Botanists to enjoy in May.

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February in Review

March 7, 2012 in Campsite Improvements, Den, Fun Stuff, Making & Baking, Nature, Organic Gardening, Team News, book review by fullmonte | No comments

Growing Green

Lean pickings from the garden this month:

  • Handfuls of purple sprouting broccoli
  • Rocket
  • Fresh hebs (sage, rosemary, parsley – curly & flat leafed)

The broccoli is finally getting going – and the trick is to pick out the main head that forms (this isn’t Calabrese remember, this is Purple Sprouting) and then pick regularly to get fresh, tender stalks, leaves and flower heads.  Watch in wonder as the water turns purple as it boils the veg and the broccoli itself turns green!

However, this is what happened to a lot of the plants… munched by vermin?  Ideas, tips & advice at getting the best from broccoli all welcomed at this point…

It was an exciting month in the nursery.  Lobelia, Viola, Livingstone Daisy, Pansy, Snapdragon & Nasturtiums are all romping away and Sunflowers are sizeable and keen to get planted out.  Only the Impatiens didn’t take – not warm enough for the seeds yet I suspect, so I may try again in March now that the sun is showing it’s strength more often.

The tobacco seeds germinated!  Having resigned myself to not being able to force Steve to end his unhealthy relationship with tobacco, I am now simply focused on saving us money.  If I grow enough plants to feed Steve’s addition for a year I’ll save the household €1,000 – a not insignificant sum in our frugal world. I have found the most wonderful Hub about growing tobacco, authored by a guy who doesn’t even smoke the stuff but plants it amongst his cabbages to deter the cabbage butterfly.  If you’ve got some time to kill you can lose it reading his hub and the 3 year’s worth of comments…

Other successes on the germination front:  oleander & the perennial flower mix!  The tedious bit is now the pricking out & potting on but it is worth investing in these beauties as they are for the long haul, not just for a summer.

I have 9 strong little pepper plantlets.  Basil (Purple & Genovese), Chives & Coriander are all growing away – a few more weeks and I’ll be picking my favourite herbs fresh from their pots.

And fresh seeds in pots at the end of the month: tomatoes, comfrey, more peppers & mint.

Baking & Making

Here’s my new favourite thing to eat for breakfast: Polenta & banana fritters!!!

An abundance of polenta (it’s one of those things that I always make too much of – the instructions are for the whole packet and I always realise too late that this is overkill…) usually gets made into savoury burgers for lunch the next day.  This time I decided to try something different & mashed half a banana into the (now solid) polenta until it was well mixed & soggy enough to form into a couple of fritters.  I lightly coated them with gluten-free flour & fried them in a little oil for 5 minutes each side until golden brown.  A drizzle of Golden Syrup completes the taste sensation…

Reading

Sarah Winman’s intriguingly titled “When God was a Rabbit” had me all excited before I even opened it to begin.  The cover is a real draw, especially when dotted about with reviews containing such bold & appealing words as ‘captivating’ and ‘beguiling’.  (I couldn’t help it though, I fell into every stereotypical trap and couldn’t contain a smirk at Good Housekeeping’s ‘Mesmerizing’, idly wondering what the benchmark of mesmerization (made-up word alert??!) actually IS for Good Housekeeping readers… And now of course I will be inundated by readers be-swearing the virtues of said magazine and will have to admit that, since they are also reading this blog, they do have good taste after all).

It IS a gem of a book and – I rarely, if ever, say this – one I may read again.  My passage through this book was interrupted.  By a journey to the UK.  I lost the flow of the book and had to flick back & forth to pick up relationships and key events, which spoiled the enjoyment somehow.  This is a book to be given one’s full attention.  Read it carefully and savour every word.  There’s an awful lot in it.  I loved the fact that big things happened with small words and vice versa; the undertones, the barely dared to be mentioned stuff – this is all important and yes… beguiling.

The characters in this book are rich and delightful, yet the key ones, Elly & Joe, seemed slightly incomplete.  After shaking off the sense of dissatisfaction, I found that the lack of ’shading in’ was actually a wonderful gift… it left real room for interpretation and somehow the unfinished edges made the characters more real (who is fully rounded and totally boxed off anyway, right???).  The range of this book is astonishing – in how far it takes the reader to extremes (chuckling great gurgles of laughter fade to grief and back again); in the variety of characters formed and cherished here  (all ages & persuasions) and in it’s homage to love in all its forms.  This is Ms Winman’s talent, amongst other things.

Sarah Winman achieves some extraordinary things with this book.  I can’t say more without giving stuff away but if you read it, I hope you share my love of Arthur and chuckle at his involvement with a coconut.

This is a beautiful first novel.  I hear she has written a second and I will surely be hunting it down.

Work

Having dug over the beds, it was time to get cracking on re-laying the pipes for the irrigation system.  Remarkably these pipes (in the ground for 2 years by now) were pretty unscathed.  Just the odd one split by over-enthusiastic forking last Spring.  I expected them to be clogged up with roots and soil but on the whole, no!

Steve did a really good job at burying the pipes deep and securing them on a bed of gravel, then covered with sand.  Rain stopped work half way through the month so there are still 3 beds to go before this task is complete.

There will be no camping without a fully functioning waster water system so there’s much to be done in the next 2 months to get our system ready for the (please God!) deluge of guests and their watery needs!

In complete contrast to working outside in the gardens in the sun, I took off to the UK mid February to dance the Corporate dance again and meet myself anew as a Learning & Development Consultant.  It was a tough assignment (untested material; ’seat-of-the-pants’ re-developments in response to participants’ needs and trainers’ limitations; and a very demanding group of learners…) but I was working with some awesome talent.

The woman who can barely drag her bones out of bed before 8.30am (that would be me then…) and slobs about in torn & worn clothes that a body can cook, garden & walk a dog in comfortably (yup, still me…) was suddenly bouncing out of bed at 6.00am, donning ironed clothes no less (seriously, I don’t normally iron anything!) and looking smart & composed all day (“massive poise” was in fact what my colleague described me as having).  And they were long days, with frantic re-working of the programme going on in the evenings over dinner back at the hotel until 9-10pm.  I’m very proud of what we achieved and relieved at how fast I was able to get back into work mode and how effective I was in the end.  I rocked up feeling slightly insecure about my level of involvement and left feeling I’d made a real difference.

And what of the real work back in Monte – that of marketing our business effectively & running a campsite that people will flock to in their droves…?!  Well, whilst I was in the UK earning cash to keep us afloat until the summer, Steve was getting busy raising our profile.  And these days with his fancy new (well new to him anyway…) phone, he tweets too.  (You can follow us on Twitter: @CampFullMonte).  The good news is that we have a couple of bookings already – deposits taken, tents booked, job done.  The really good news is that people that visited us last year are coming back this year, so the Full Monte Experience must be giving people what they want. However, we needs lots more people, more of the time this year and whilst we know that most of customers book only a few weeks or days in advance and some simply turn up, it would be nice to be sitting on a comforting number of pre-bookings before our season starts…

Volunteers made a huge difference last year, not only in terms of helping get jobs done but also in building community with us.  We’ve revamped the volunteer page of our website, trying to attract long-term, committed talent to join our core team as well as casual helpers and folk who want to work on specific projects for short periods of time.  We’ve got a few interesting potentials lined up to join us as Team Members for July, August & September so now we’re just looking for volunteers in May & June.  If you’re reading this & thinking you’d like to do something different (whilst working on your tan!) contact us…

Play

There was not a lot of time for socialising in the UK but I packed a lot into the little time I did have.  The Vine-Pettitt’s were my lovely hosts the night of my arrival.  The coach didn’t get me to Essex until after 10pm and since there are small children in the house I didn’t expect much more than a cuppa and a quick chat.  However, my brilliant (but unconscious) timing put me there in half term week so no getting up at the crack for school etc.  I arrived to find Mick & Nik chilling with daughter No# 2, Kate, who is still as funny as ever except now she is a fully formed young lady and has pink hair (I still remember her as the angelic flower girl at our wedding so this takes some adjusting to).  Mick had taken the following day off work so he wouldn’t have to get up early either and we set about celebrating with 2 bottles of wine.  These are good people and solid mates, firmly rooted in my past but travelling with me (albeit mostly virtually) into my future.  Too many years had been & gone since we’d swapped stories & shared giggles and it was important to reconnect with them again.  And then there was Hugo & Lily – the smaller members of the mob.  Hugo didn’t really know me at all and Lil barely remembered me so it was great to have time with them in the morning, despite not being able to convert any of them to the Marmite & Jam Combo as the perfect start to the day.

I had a lovely day with my parents, swapping stories, meeting the chickens, eating nice food and doing the ordinary stuff like taking the dog for a walk and watching a favourite quiz programme of their’s before leaving to begin my journey North.

In Coventry I met with Kezzer after 4 long years.  I drank cider in a couple of pubs until I was tipsy and we got a kebab on the way home – chilli sauce heaven.

Onto Liverpool where I met my new best friend, the adorable Molly Sue Searle:

It was great to hug Jess again and spend the day hanging out but sadness continues to reign in the extended family, with Sue’s sister dying of cancer, so inevitably it took the edge of our happiness.  Nick is the doting Daddy and it was wonderful seeing the love he has for both his girls.  Gone are the raving days for now though – the young Mum and working Dad need their sleep so after a delicious moussaka and a nice bottle of wine we all crashed out early.

The next day I had to make my way back to Bucks via the M40.  I’d heard that a bunch of mates were meeting in Oxford for a friend’s birthday so I took a little detour to the Park & Ride on the outskirts of Oxford, hopped on a bus into town and surprised the birthday boy Vince, and his missus Ditsch.  It was a quick drink and a catch up but lovely to see everyone and get actual rather than virtual hugs!

Back at the farm that evening, me & John some quality time together whilst Anita & the kids watched a film next door.  John cooked fish which was delicious and then we gorged ourselves on cheese and other goodies.  We giggled, tried to do The Times cryptic crossword and generally just hung out. He’s a very poorly soul right now, on a strict diet and lots of drugs to try to control his severe IBD, so it felt really important to be there for him – listening, sharing…

My final play day in the UK was a real treat and very unexpected.  Anita decided she needed a day away from work, the farm & everyone on it so spontaneously decided on Friday night that us girls should go to London the following day. We spent the evening googling like crazy: to figure out what time train we should take; what we should see/ do and where we should eat.  Saturday was a glorious day – bright & sunny, to match our mood!  We let the train take the strain into London and headed to Pimlico tube for our first stop: Tate Britain.  Oh how I LOVE the Tate.  Anita had never been and it was a joy to introduce it to her.  The Clore Gallery was a wonder, as ever.  And there was a fantastic exhibition of Modern British Art, with some really stunning pieces.  The Picasso Exhibition was a pay-to-enter and we were on a tight budget and a full itinerary so we gave it a miss.  I can’t describe how precious those few hours were in the beautiful space that is the Tate.  It was wonderful, uplifting and incredibly impressive.  I always feel slightly disorientated after a while , there is SO much to absorb and the change of pace and texture and form that gets one stepping in close to see fine detail and then stepping right back for the visual effect of large scale pieces makes me quite giddy.  It’s all part of the experience though and I leave feeling like I am about to pop.

Stepping out into London’t best Spring sun, I felt like I’d been holding my breath.  I inhaled deeply and took in the beauty around me as we walked along the embankment.   We walked past the Houses of Parliament to Westminster Abbey where we did the full tour (our one extravagance, £16, but it was Anita’s hearts desire and frankly she deserved it).  It was full of tourists, all wandering around (like us) with headsets listening to the audio commentary of which King, Queen or VIP is buried where.  It is basically a big and elaborate mausoleum, with endless tombs and shrines to Royalty and the like. It is an impressive building but I spent the whole time wishing all the other people would bugger off and leave me in peace.  The best part of the visit was right at the end, when Anita and I sat in The Cloisters listening to the choir warm up next door.  I lit a candle for Sue and for Den and hoped the sisters would find peace with each other soon…

Thanks to a tip off from Anita’s brother, Reuben, we headed over to the South Bank for lunch.  The food stalls behind the Royal Festival hall are a riot of colour and assaulting aromas.  After a couple of circuits we decided to try the Malaysian food stall – a hot vegetable curry with rice for under a fiver.  Result!

We wanted to go to David Shrigley’s ‘Brain Activity’ exhibition in the Hayward Gallery next door but even if we wanted to pay a tenner to get in, we still had to wait over an hour before we’d be admitted because the queues were so long!  So we walked to the Tate Modern instead and wish we hadn’t bothered.  The Yayoi Kusama exhibition didn’t really appeal (and was not free!) and the only exhibition we did see of Surrealist Art was very disappointing, and I’m a big fan of Surrealism.  By this time Anita could barely talk because her feet were hurting so bad so we abandoned culture in favour of shopping and headed for the nearest place (Barbican Shopping Centre) to buy Anita some pumps.  Shoe crisis over, we hopped on the tube, hopped off at Oxford Circus and window-shopped and people-watched our way to Covent Garden. It was Saturday late afternoon on a sunny day in London and there was a big 6 Nations Rugby match on too, so everywhere was packed.  Nonetheless we found a decent pub (one of the cheapest in London as it turns out – my frugal radar is so finely tuned these days!!!) where we flopped in a comfy leather armchair amongst the throng of theatre-goers et al and enjoyed our cold draught half pints whilst we waited for Reuben to contact us about meeting up for a meal.

As luck would have it Reuben works just round the corner from the best Indonesian restauarant in London, so that’s where we met up.  It is the most inauspicious-looking joint, not grubby exactly but slightly soiled round the edges and looks very much like a canteen.  Still, the queue out the door was a good sign.  We managed to get a table quite quickly since there was only 3 of us and quickly settled for a variety of dishes to share: a fried mackerel dish with wasabi soy sauce dip; a spicy pork dish and a slightly less spicy beef dish; noodles and rice.  The food came quickly, was freshly cooked, piping hot, big portions and all totally delicious for just over £11 per head, in the heart of London’s West End!  Thank you Reuben!

Despite being stuffed to our gills, we managed to squeeze another drink in with Reuben at a favourite cocktail bar of his round the corner, before heading back to Marylebone to catch the train home.  It was a fabulous, fabulous day.

Nature Watch

This month I’ve seen a male Black Redstart and a Song Thrush.  And when Steve & I were walking Daisy along the beach, we spotted a Black Kingfisher.

On my dog walks, I’ve been enjoying watching Spring take hold – the wild narcissi are nearly over and the violets are out now, with their perfectly purply petals and delicate but intoxicating scent.

The mountains behind us have been white with snow for weeks now, even as we are bathed in sun.  But this dramatic backdrop is changing now as the snow is all but melted and the days and nights have started to really warm up.  Thankfully this month has been soggy at times so the ground got a good soaking too.

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