Sunday, Sunday feels to good to me-so the song goes. Every other day of the week is fine-yeah. Every other day of the week is the same for all us at the moment and for many it’s probably beginning to take its toll, unfortunately.
As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in my chair under the shade of a tree with the sea only some 10 feet away from me. The waves are gently lapping the shore and there’s not a cloud in the sky and no noise other than the occasional bird tweeting. I have a bottle of water by my side and as the sun is over the yard arm, I’m now wishing it was a nice glass of white wine. However, this is not a Nikki beach bar and so there is no waiter to bring me one, so water will have to do. I know I’m lucky to have all this and my heart goes out to all of you who are in less fortunate circumstances.
Earlier, David and I did our volta four laps today. It’s all we can do whilst the 48 hour curfew is in operation. Yesterday we did four as well, passing our friendly landlords on the way, smiling and waving as we went. We really should do a bit more, but it can get a bit monotonous, and I don’t want David’s head to burn with the sun. He has just had his first Covid haircut, curtesy of Katherine and the dog shears. Katherine had warmed up her skills beforehand on hubbie James and a very willing recruit in Danny, who’s rhetoric to calm Katherines nerves was “ it’ll grow back quickly again” Unfortunately for David that’s not quite the case, but still he can wear a hat for a while and should he for some reason get arrested, he’ll look the part!
As we volta, we have noticed in the kindergarden residence some very shoddy washing hanging. I mean really if you’re going to hang out your washing you should have some form of order to it, perhaps colour co-ordinate, size control or even just his and hers. It was only on closer inspection I realised their problem -pegs! Or rather the lack of them, no wonder they have no system, having to just throw their smalls over the line and hope for the best. I mean who travels anywhere, let alone in a motorhome without pegs. Personally, I love them and have quite a collection now, David usually has to tear me away from the household aisle in any supermarket in case there’s a new variety, shape or colour I haven’t got. However, if any go missing, I shall know where to go now, trust me I’ll share most things but not my pegs.
Whilst sitting one night in the van, catching up on an hours TV to relax before bed, we decided to contemplate on our living in Buster and how it has worked for us. Given we have been stationery for a while now and we are lucky to have outside space, we have of course made a complete and utter mess of the van and that the outside space (excluding a very tidy washing display). The driving area of the van is at the moment a very valuable storage area, with our veg, water, beer and wine supplies taking occupancy there. Hats are hanging on the front light fittings and the guide books remain regrettably tidily in place on the overhead book store. We loved our previous van -Nikki a lot and our giving it back was worse than watching Kramer vs Kramer, but we have come also to love Buster as well and I think being stranded and stationery has enhanced that. We still never turn the front seats around, even when we have visitors, usually Katherine and James to watch any NT productions, we squeeze onto the two facing bench seats. The van in reality isn’t that much different internally, the main difference being the fact that the fixed bed in Buster is front facing, rather than side on as with Nikki. We weren’t to sure about this originally as we use to use the side of the bed that wasn’t in view for all sorts of things-like storing loo rolls and cornflakes, but we have managed to find other homes for them and it does mean that David can comfortably get out of bed and go to the loo, rather than climbing over the top of me in the night for those all too frequent senior loo moments. What we are not using so much is the space under the bed (the bed lifts up) mainly we think because the super-duper mattress must be heavier than the last super-duper mattress, and we both struggle not so much with the lifting of the bed but the keeping of the frame and bed up, whilst we dig and/or bury things under there. So that has been reserved for items that we don’t need to use all the time.
We still love the amount of storage in the van and especially two new cupboard areas. One under the fridge, one behind the mirror in the bedroom area (extremely useful for my full array of sleeping aids and vitamins). In the kitchen area, there is a wonderful doored space that runs from the edge of the drawer unit to the back of the van. It’s narrow but has shelves and takes most of my kitchen store ingredients. I can’t actually see what’s in there, so have to take it all out most of the time, but that’s no bad thing as I then always know what I have in there, and the Borrowers haven’t seemed to have found that cupboard yet. Another new useful feature in the kitchen area is the pull up/drop down, call it what you will, chopping prep shelf, but again for me it’s under-utilised as I tend to chop and prep to the left of the work surface and that’s to the right, but for many it would be great extra space and to be fair as we begin to BBQ more and more it has already come in useful for stacking meat, salads, drinks etc as it’s so close to the door. The bathroom, although currently underused due to the fact we have facilities on site is still a great comfortable area, and for those of you in doubt as to how confined it might be for any of its given uses, David fits in there easily and can still manage to read the whole Economist whilst having his toilet moment.
So we can at this moment in time quite happily say to Elddis- you ain’t getting it back and if you want it -come and get it. !!! Of course when the world returns to normal we won’t be so cocky, but for the moment at least Buster is ours.
So, what other exciting things have happened on Sundance camp this week. Food as always takes its priority and with two super cooks in our grouping it’s no wonder. The delayed Easter feast was an absolute treat and my Caselton inspired roasted peppers stuffed with tomatoes and anchovies held up to the slow roasted lamb and veg. Cakes (made mainly by Katherine ) have also become a regular feature and I have a cake hit parade- the current favourite is the spiced apple cake, followed by the orange polenta one. Buster and the posh gang came into their own again with the use of our gas oven to bake the exceptional focaccia that Anetta made, which is already on the repeat list. Fruit and veg here have no preservatives on them and so go off much quicker, so you do have to think a bit more inventively to make sure you have little or no waste, but that’s not such a bad thing, and again I’m sure many folks everywhere are having to call upon little used cookery skills these days.
Saturday, was spa and therapy afternoon for us girls and so we pampered ourselves with foot and hand treatments and then after an excruciating nose blackhead peel, we had a lovely face mask treatment generously provided by Lisa.
David has become a top pomegranate pruning expert and his chore this week after the pruning is to whitewash the bottom of the trees to prevent the heat and ants invading. He has also had intensive scythe training and our garden area is now becoming more Gardeners World than it was. With a bit more time- which I think we might have; he’ll get those strips on the lawn. However, that might be harder than he thinks with the millions of chickens and 11 dogs, plus Miss Tiggywinks.
Tomorrow, we won’t have to volta as curfew is over for the moment and we can go back to our 4k walks in the woods, but the rumour is that a four day curfew will be introduced this Thursday as Turkey has a big national holiday, so we might have to up the volta to ten laps and I’ll try and ignore the shabby washing hanging. Volta, as you might have guessed is a Turkish word meaning round turn, but in general as we were told by our landlords is most commonly used in connection with prison yard exercise, so given the curfew and David’s new haircut quite apt.
Uhm, with the sun overhead now, the gentle soothing sounds of the waves along with the help of the acquired white wine I might just have a snoozzzzzzzzzzzeeeee
Top Tips
Don’t leave the gas on when you have finished with the BBQ, extremely wasteful and dangerous
Camp fire marshmallows are best served sandwiched with chocolate biscuits
Pat Salkeld says
Love your Monday posts. What a great group your posh end group seem to be. David the doer, and your amazing cooking ladies. That polenta cake and focaccia look fab. Stay well all, this has to end sometime. Xx
P.s. John says the face mask is an improvement. Cheeky b.
Sylvia Evans says
Glad alls well, at least the sun is shining. Same here on IoW. But, Jon is running out of jobs before we can buy materials so that is definately not good!
How’s the running David?
You are my inspiration, just done week one of couch to 5k!!XX
Brendon says
Loving your recent COVID blogs Karen and David!! We’re trapped down-under in Australia and cannot see long haul flights to get us back to our MoHo in Cheshire anytime soon 🙁 In the meantime, we are vicarious with your weekly blogs. 🙂