a series of mid life crices

I am a bit out of sync now because we had no wifi but this is the story up to the ‘almost drowned in a dyke day’.

The campsite at Lucerne was on the lake and very near to the city, to get there we drove through the Swiss Alps as it started to snow.  It’s funny how exciting it is to see the snow on the mountains, first there’s a peak in the distance that looks white and you’re saying, that looks like snow, then there’s just a little dusting like icing sugar on the trees, roofs and fields then suddenly you’re in the clouds and there’s snow everywhere, it’s like you’re driving through a Christmas card.  We giggled like children all the way to Lucerne!  Unfortunately when we arrived and the campsite it was sleet and rain and 2 degrees.  We are sleeping in the tent on top of the van and so we thought it would be a bit chilly but luckily we have heating that works when we are plugged into the electricity, the only problem being not touching the sides when it’s raining.  That’s not an issue in the bell tent but when there’s only 4 feet to share it’s a bit hard.  We survived the night but the duvet was wet by the morning.  We turned the heating up high, stripped the bed and washed and dried the bedding and clothes and everything.   Then we took a leisurely stroll into the city.

Lucerne is beautiful, there was a marathon and there was loads going on,  marching bands, drummers, alpine horn bands, food stalls and all sorts.  The lake itself is crystal clear, we could have got a boat from the campsite but the walk was amazing, the city vibrant and full, absolutely full of chocolate and cake shops!

We left Lucerne to travel to Beaune in France because we have never been there!   We arrived in the afternoon, it was was pouring with sleet and freezing cold so we popped to the local supermarket because the shops were closed and bought something for supper.  There were no other people at the campsite and it took several goes to make the electricity work.   There were 2 toilet blocks within 30 metres of the van, one was outside and one inside with heating but unisex, I forgot to tell R that the other building was a heated block when he went for his shower so he had one outside and nearly froze.  It was still dark when we woke up and still pouring with rain so we didn’t move out of the van. In fact we were both a bit down and decided that we had had enough of being wet, cold and tired so we would forgo the rest of the journey and go home.   We stayed in all day went to bed and the next day it wasn’t raining so we went into the town for an explore.  There was a tiny artisanal market in the spare and we were tempted by the guy selling cheese that his grandfather made in the mountains, well we decided to buy some cheese, some olives and the most delicious spread made from cream, basil and garlic, the man handed us the bag and said that will be €75 please.  The colour drained from R’s face as he reluctantly handed over the money.  Oh well at least it’s Euro not pounds he said as I cheerfully pointed out that it’s still 70 quid!  We will bring one back for Christmas and eat the blue, which  had ashes not mould with bread and a chilled bottle of local wine.

A little picture of us, we are sitting in Vanley, the blinds are down and the cover is over the windscreen, the front seats are turned and the table is out, on said table is the cheese with ashes, French bread, superb olives, amazing cheese, a tapenade made of garlic and basil and  wine.  This is time we miss our Yorkshire Lass and her hypochondriac golfer.

We left Beaune for Riquewihr in the morning and after about an hour and half of travelling we were flashed by blue light on a motorcycle and told to pull onto the roundabout.  We were surrounded by three men in uniform, one leaning through the window asking for our papers.  We keep our documents in the back so R got out and the dog had a fit cos people were peering in and I couldn’t remember where we had come from, where we were going or why.  Eventually I remembered how to talk and explained, showed them the passports and the dog passport (the only time so far that we’ve been asked) while they inspected Vanley.  They didn’t explain why they’d stopped us but we have tinted windows and it’s not clear what kind of vehicle we have.  They had a good nose inside and one said to the other, I told you it was a camper, they were really friendly and decided Sunny looked like paddington bear.  We seem to be stopped because they were nosey!

We arrived in Riquewihr and the camper stop was closed but there was a lovely campsite nearby so we checked in there.

Riquewihr is a real live version of a Disney town, it’s mediaeval in parts and so pretty we were snapping photos like Japanese tourists.  The streets were cobbles and everywhere you looked was so beautiful we could have spent days there.  We went into a Christmas shop and bought some totally unnecessary things and realised that we has spent more time than expected which meant we were late leaving to get to Luxembourg where we intended to stop the night.  The drive through the Black Forest was spectacular and the views amazing, definitely somewhere we want to come back to, the whole day was so lovely it made us decide we still want to continue and go to the Christmas markets in Germany.

We were heading to Holland to see my Auntie L.

 

Last night we were to spend our evening in Luxembourg on the way to Holland to see my aunt, however, when we arrived at the campsite we were 13 minutes too late to get in.  There was no changing of the rules for us so we had to continue on the road.  We got onto the motorway through Belgium and into Holland, by this time it was midnight and we couldn’t find anything so we gave up and stopped in a service centre.  We awoke to beautiful sunshine and R made the coffee, after a leisurely awakening R offered to take the dog for a morning walk while I  tidied and washed up.  I was humming quite happily when there was a knock on the door.  There stood R and Sunny, utterly soaking wet from head to toe, Sunny shivering and dripping and R with the water running off him and covered in pond weed.   They had jumped into a dyke, it was so covered in pond weed that R thought it was a path.  Imagine his horror when he couldn’t understand where the path had gone and why he was 5 feet lower than he should have been and up to his neck in freezing water.   Sunny was disgusted, he had tried to stop R from going down the bank but R, in his wisdom, dragged him and jumped onto what he believed to be terra firma only to disappear up to his neck in dirty, stinking, weed covered water.  Having clambered out the other side it was a mile walk back to Vanley, along the side of the motorway, trailing pond weed and dripping wet while Sunny looked at him with total loathing and vowed never to go for a walk with R again.

We have no water left for a shower, there are none at the services, and they both need a bath.

I have stomach cramps from laughing now.

What a twat!

We got up early and it was pouring with rain, I still wanted to walk up the Alm to see where Heidi lived but R decided that it was sensible to stay in Vanley to keep him warm.   We parked at the Heidi Hotel and donning his brand new Italian coat (the only clothing purchased in Italy) Sunny and I walked up to Heidihof.  It wasn’t far but the cows were very pretty and their bells were tinkling and being Switzerland there was a poo bin every 100 metres just in case.  We arrived at Heidi’s house and I purchased a ticket, the woman looked at me a little strangely when I asked for only one ticket but sold it to me anyway.  While I was in the ticket office I had tied Sunny in his fancy new red coat outside, when I returned he was surrounded by Chinese tourists taking his photograph, he was loving the attention, I dragged him away and tied him up outside Heidi’s house.

Inside it was as though my childhood imagination had come to life, the attention to detail was brilliant and Clara’s chair was sitting empty on the second floor.   I loved it.  I wandered up to the top of the mountain in the rain where there was a little wooden cabin, supposedly the Alm Uncles house but it was brand new and had a video with instructions on how to make raclette, I’m pretty sure Heidi only ate goats cheese but who am I to upset an industry.  When I got back to Vanley I decided to do an internet search about the village and found out that it had been converted especially for the Chinese and Korean tourists, perhaps I should have been more circumspect when deciding to take the dog.

We up sticks and drove to Lucerne.

We got an early start to my most exciting place, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang castle, I can’t explain how excited I was, not even slightly dented by the crappy head cold I woke up with.  The castle was only five minutes away from the campsite but when we got up there was a mist so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.  R doesn’t really understand my obsession with that film but he indulged me without complaint.  As we approached the cloud cleared and there it was, absolutely like a fairy story and only a half an hour route march vertically up the mountain!  There was scaffolding and hundreds of Chinese tourists (taking photos of Sunny) but I didn’t care, I was there and it was perfect I only wish my Dad had been with me.  I didn’t cry quite as much as when I met the actual car but I’m a bit more grown up now!

We left having stuffed our faces with German sausage and drove towards Austria because now I was on a mission to see where Heidi lived in Switzerland.  The drive through that part of Bavaria to the Austrian Tyrol was like being in an advert for perfection, the houses were white with wood and painted shutters, they all had flowers in their window boxes, there were no weeds anywhere, every blade of grass was the same length, there was no litter, the cows were beautiful, the leaves had fallen off the trees in perfect little piles, the mountains were superb and the sun was glinting on the peaks.  After one hour of this utter perfection our eyes were hurting, it was, and I am embarrassed to admit this, boring. Every turn was stunning but exactly the same, I imagine it must be on pain of death that you have a messy cow or your chickens escape.

We arrived in Austria and it was deserted, we only crossed the very tip between Germany and Switzerland but nobody was there, it was eerie.  Apparently it was a bank holiday but it seemed that everyone had been confined to quarters and it was a relief to get to Switzerland which was open.  We stayed in Maienfeld which is the town in Heidi so that I could walk up the Alm and see where the whole thing was set.  The reception was closed when we arrived but a lovely rotund and shiny man welcomed us and said we should choose a spot and go back to reception at six o’clock which I did.  The Swiss people get points for being far friendlier than I expected, an actual gnome (bearded not banker) held the door open for me and then the fat man’s brother came over to say hello, I swear they were living tweedle dum and tweedle dee.

Showers were hot temperature dropping.

We stayed at a place called Peschiera on the south eastern tip of Lake Guarda in a campsite called Butterfly, it was spotlessly clean and cheerfully guarded by security men in classy Italian uniforms, the sun was shining and all the shops were closed except Lidl where we bought a vegetable dish with quinoa as we were intending to be healthy.  It was disgusting so we binged on cheese and bread.   We slept well and headed out the following morning to explore, Peschiera is beautiful, the town is pretty and because it was out of season there were hardly any people there.  It’s not the most beautiful town on Lake Garda but in the brilliant sunshine at 29 degrees it was a perfect was to recover from the ship.

We stopped for lunch, salad, at a little bistro on the lake where we spent a jolly time reminiscing about the boat and discussing R being propositioned by a prostitute while the dog and I were walking on the deck, his main concern at the time was that he may have hurt her feelings by turning her down, the alternative may, in the long run, have worried him a little more and I didn’t think she was that bothered.

We left this morning to travel to Germany because I want to visit the Neuschwanstein Castle, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is my first favourite film.  Travelling through breathtaking scenery as we crossed the dolomites, we were practically silent all the way here through vineyards and terraces of apple trees hemmed in by mountains that were slowly changing colour from green to yellow, orange and red.  There was a castle on every corner, each more spectacular than the last.  We stopped for lunch by an actual bubbling mountain stream, didn’t stay long because it was in the shade and a bit chilly.  We drove through a bit of Austria, which after Italy looked a bit tired and arrived at the German campsite after dark.  It is not an understatement to say that it has the most amazing toilets I’ve ever seen with a spa, sauna and heated toilets even a shower room for dogs, I think I’m going to enjoy Germany.

We got a cabin, it was the most claustrophobic experience of my life.  we smuggled the dog on board, as did all the other dog owners, saving ourselves 100 Euro and made our way to our allotted coffin which was internal and right in the middle of the ship.  There were two single beds, a toilet, shower and a wardrobe in a space about the size of Vanley.  It was midnight and I was quite tired so I went to bed with Sunny and R went to find a bar!

The ship was like a rabbit warren with tiny corridors, hundreds of doors, each space identical.  I have no sense of direction so knew I would get lost if I left our cabin, Sunny is no search and rescue dog so he would be useless.  There was no phone service on board and only one cabin key, we had, I thought, nineteen hours on board this monstrosity.   I spent the hour that R was away lying in bed imagining that I was on the Titanic trying to work out how long it would take to drown if the cabin filled with water, I took into account that the sea was quite warm therefore hypothermia would be quite unlikely and the map on the back of the door was incomprehensible.

R returned and immediately went to sleep.  I must have dropped off too because the next thing I knew it was 4.30 and R wasn’t in the room.  He had disappeared and the ship was quiet, the engines weren’t making much noise and it was rocking, a lot.  I’m not one to panic in the sea, but the walls were closing in.  I thought on my feet, I don’t want to drown in my PJ’s (they didn’t match) so I had a quick shower and got dressed, had he fallen overboard? Unlikely as there was no window, I sat there for about an hour and a half until he returned.

He’d woken at 4, noticed the change in the movement of the ship decided it was going down so went scope out an escape route, he made it to the deck and decided to work out how to get to the lifeboats, got near the edge, thought he might fall and came back to save me!   We managed to sleep again for about an hour but couldn’t stay in the cabin any longer so went up on deck, there was a swimming pool and bar, casino and dining room and god knows what else but to us it was entirely hideous, the deck smelled of exhaust fumes, not a nice place to sit at all.  Luckily it was only 17 hours and with  much relief we returned to Vanley and ate the sausage rolls our friends had given us in Corfu, ambrosia compared to the utter crap on offer on board.

We had arrived in Italy tired and grumpy.

We drove on roads worse than Corfu to find the first, second and third camperstops we had chosen were closed.  It was getting late so we decided to get on the motorway towards Bologna and stay in a service station because that’s where we saw the most camper vans.  We tried three, no vans but the fourth one had loads of lorries and good lighting so we gave up and stayed the night, we had hoped to find other campers but no luck.  An eventful night, someone was casing our van at 4 am and the truckers were very noisy but we survived.  We got coffee and left early.  R decided to leave the motorway so we pulled into the next services to change the sat nav, it was full of campers, everywhere, we should have kept going.

The drive was beautiful, we stopped and had a look at a walled village, passed the most amazing houses and farms and decided that the Emilia-Romagna region is the most beautiful so far.  We arrived at Lake Garda, the sun is shining the site is spotless and the scenery is spectacular.

We have had a blissful couple of weeks, the sun has been shining, the beaches fab, the food delicious and the company lovely, so we booked a ferry and we are leaving today.  R wants to go to a Christmas market in Germany and in spite of the fact that we came prepared for a Corfu winter we are heading for the Alps before we have to buy snow tyres.

We will miss this  island and the little place we stayed, it didn’t have a cooker in the kitchen, the bath was exactly the right size for Sunny and the mattresses were made of bricks but we had some fun there.  For example when the geese escaped and I bravely coaxed them back into their enclosure with bread and encouragement only to have George the farmer patiently explain that they were birds and as such they could fly, they were looking for their dinner because he was late.  As soon as they realised I could give them bread they didn’t leave me alone and geese are very loud.  Or the time R used the tap in the bath to help himself out and pulled it off the wall causing the mains water to cascade all over the bathroom and into and out of the walls.  Try finding a plumber in Greece at 10 on a Sunday morning.  We will miss being woken by the donkey, the cockerels and the shooting every morning.

Driving to the port today the weather changed, the rain came and with it the thunder and lightning, autumn was beginning to change the island from green to red and the trees, already burdened by olives and oranges were weighed down by the water until their branches almost reached the ground.  The nets are out under the olive trees, unusually early apparently owing to the change in the climate, with the pink cyclamen pushing their heads up through the black of the nets and as we reached Corfu town sun emerged, the whole place was washed clean and at its most beautiful.

We filled up with petrol at our favourite petrol station, (the little lady from poltergeist is the attendant when the man that fancies my mother is not there) and while we were waiting people were arriving next door for a party.   A particularly rotund woman in a totally inappropriate long purple dress and impossibly high heels almost lost her shoes down the grate in front of us and for a few minutes we held our breath waiting for her to fall over, much to the amusement of the poltergeist lady and her friend.

We are now in Igoumenista waiting for a ferry with that sinking feeling that you  get when you were assured that you have purchased a cabin and there is no such notation on your ticket.  It will be a long 19 hours sitting on deck with a dog if we haven’t and someone at the ferry shop in Corfu will be in trouble…

I still love Corfu and all it’s associated madness.

My birth mother arrived two days ago and as we have been doing absolutely nothing except laying on a beach I have had very little to say, surprisingly.  The sun has been shining and the sea is the most beautiful selection of blues you ever did see.  We have been travelling the length and breadth of the island in order to sample the best and worst beaches it has to offer, I have my board in Vanley but the default setting at the moment is mill pond so no luck there and I don’t have a paddle board.  Yesterday was spent very productively having hot dogs and onions in the South at a beach overlooking Paxos.

We went to Glyfada beach today where we were sitting quietly and peacefully with our well behaved and gentle dog.   R had noticed, over the previous few visits that there was a particularly odd woman wandering up and down the beach.

Today, wearing a pink bikini top, red bikini bottoms and a pink swimming cap she began marching up and down the beach behind us.  Sunny having had enough of this ridiculous behaviour, ran over and started barking wildly at her, clearly thinking she was mad.  She started screaming and jumping up and down waving her arms around like a spider on a hot plate, he took a step backwards eying her uncertainly, we called him back and for once, he obeyed immediately where he stood guarding us and growling at her.

Well, I can understand that it must be a little bit scary to be barked at by a dog, even a small one, but she launched into us, screaming at us, how dare we have such an aggressive dog on the beach? Didn’t we know she had a heart condition?  How could we have such a dangerous dog?  She can’t have shocks like that and so on.  She was Eastern European and very very expressive.

She was the only person he barked at that day, she was 50 metres away when he ran off to bark at her.

She was totally incensed, she stormed into the sea where she stood in her swimming cap, water up to her knees, bent over, put her hands in the water and  pretended to swim.    She stropped off back to her house and returned half an hour later without her hat and in a different swimming costume, proceeded to shout at herself all the way down the beach, before once again standing in the sea up to her knees and pretending to swim.

My dog is a superb judge of character.

We finished the day with a celebratory ice cream at the waffle of death shop and a hair cut for mother.

 

We were shocked out of our somnolence at 3am by the most spectacular storm, the air had been heavy and headachy all day with high humidity and general grumpiness, we were hot and restless when we went to bed and the first clap of thunder was the loudest sound I have ever heard, it shook the house, I thought it was another earthquake.

The night was black and very heavy and sheet lightning was lighting up the sky to day brightness.  This went on for hours, R went to stand outside and watch but eventually he came back to bed and we managed to get a bit of sleep.  We love thunderstorms and watching one over the sea is amazing so when we woke up we gathered up Sunny, who had slept through the whole thing and got into Vanley.  It started to rain enormous raindrops, they appeared as a torrent pouring from the sky like a waterfall, the wipers couldn’t keep up, what with the pot holes, general lack of road and zero visibility, it was lucky we were the only ones stupid enough to be out in it.

We zig zagged across the island following the storm, although it was early morning it was half light, almost dusk the clouds were heavy, fat and a strange yellow grey.  It was like a firework display, we felt safe and comfortable in the van driving up into the mountains, at one point the sky cleared and the clouds were funnelled between two peaks like steam from a kettle, we were above as this happened and I hopped out of the van to take a photo, while I was out a flash of lightning made me jump and I nearly fell over the cliff running through the puddles and ducking just in case, this was when I remembered that the roof was made of plastic and if we got struck it would go straight through, not so feisty now.

At about 2 in the afternoon the rain stopped and we were at one of our favourite beaches, the sun had come out and the sea was perfect for surfing, I had left my body board at home so was suitably peeved.  I took Sunny across the top of the beach and found the remains of the taverna where R and I had spent every day of our holiday 32 years ago, the rain had washed the sand off.

Within an hour of the rain stopping the whole island was bone dry as though it had never happened.

Slowly but surely we are being seduced by this quiet and beautiful  island, the more we see and the more people we meet we are reminded of why we came here in the first place.  Daily life is a series of choices, where shall we rest and relax today? There is not much to do but talk, walk, eat, swim and look at fabulous views.

We have done a few practical things, I spent the morning cleaning the ancient washing machine, I took it to pieces and put it back together again and it still works, my grandad would be proud of me! R spent two days finishing his accounts.

We are being lulled into a stupor and we are defenceless.