New Direction

Without the ability to Camp I am going to write about another passion of mine Living ecologically sustainable.
I have dreamed about buying a piece of land and setting up a Yurt Camp-site to work in through the summer with the meals being provide from our own garden.Jan is a keen gardener so she is well impressed with this idea. Ideally we would have a house to restore when we were not busy.I wanted to build a straw bale building and a compost toilet. A earth oven to slow cook pizzas. I love the idea of making pizza with our own home made bases with home produced mozzarella cheese, topped with onions tomatoes mushrooms from our garden baked in a home-made oven,And let the kids make there own lovely.This was to be all started last year we had bought our place started buying the lawn strimmer and gardening gear but when we were due to move in we found that the house had been ransacked. We were gutted they took everything the kitchen units the lights the contents of the loft the insulating board they even sawed and took the staircase.To be honest the loss was not that great but the fact that it was done meant that we would not dare leave the place. So back to the drawing board Iam a believer in fate everything happens for a reason and maybe it is just as well because i am in not fit state at the moment to do up a farm.

No Camping this year yet ?

Well this did not last very long one brief couple of heated months in the south of France and my camping blog stalled.
There is to be limited camping this year if any at all!!
Twenty years at the Coal Face have taken their toll and for the last six months I have been crippled.That is arthritis for you Ankylosing Spondylitis to be exact the medicine that they gave me to stop the inflammation have knackered up my kidneys ! so I was taken off that until a new drug could be found. so the months of pain have been endured by me and my long suffering partner Jan.Thanks Jan I be it has been difficult for you too.
With new medication on the arrival promising me a pain free life(ill believe it when I see it.).
So Camping is off the menu until the medication is successful .We had a job offer with Happy camp a Italian company that recruited from a pub in Doncaster ? they promised no cleaning the customers had to clean for themselves absolute heaven.We could then charge for cleaning if it was not up to our standard. it looked like a cushy number but its now on hold ,the manager did say there may be a place for us for half a season if I am ok.

Dreams Broken

It has been a while since I wrote on here this will put that straight.We finished our work in the south of france to go up to the centre and sign for our house.When we arrived we discovered that the house had been broken into they had stolen everything the kitchen the wall lights the furniture the electric consumer unit and the even took the stair case B......s we were heart broken and as the plan was to work there in the summer and leave it locked up in the winter we felt that we could not dare leave it. So with great reluctance we pulled out of the sale.This is not normally allowed in France but we had added a clause to the contract (to protect us in case there was more roof damage) this clause said we would only accept the house in the same condition as we seen it.As this was not the case we pulled out and only lost the notary fees about 150 euros.The seller did offer to reduce the price but we could not risk that when we were away it would be ransacked again.

world cup

Good morning campers well its the British gran prix and the world cup final today I will be posting the pictures on here of the Dutch crowd they realy go to town on their costumes.Although i,ll be wearing orange i,ll be shouting for spain having lived there for the last 7 years.Weve got 6 leavers today two (back to backs )leaving and arriving and one normal clean so its up and at em which actually is quite easy to do as its that hot we cant stay in the tent much longer.

The Dream

Today we got outline planning permission to start up a campsite Fan bloody tastic. We have bought a doer upper farm house in central france and needed planning to add roof windows and extra doors etc and we wished for planning to build a YURT campsite along the lines of www.canvaschic.com/ where we went on a spying mission last year. sorry we went on a www.wwoof.org.uk/ woofing month last year. In case your wondering Woofing is a great way to get around cheap you join then apply to various woofers to work usually for a 4/5 hours per day in exchange for food and accomodation. your not gonna eat steak and have a jacuzzi but the food is nice and we stopped in loverly tents but the main plus was the walk down the george and swimming in the river amazing.The master plan is gto take a couple of years to do up the house and land and put on Yurts and grow our own produce and have people stay for holidays .another plus would be having the kids all summer cooking for the guests and running it the right way.So at the end of this hot (118 f today )camping courier season. we should be ready to get started.

Smelly

The Sh.t realy hit the fan today, we had a german couple with a blocked lou,the maintanance team tried with a large mechanical spring to rotate it out .To no avail then the big guns arrived.A truck with a man used to dealing with raw sewage, he wasnt pretty,with a set of teeth like a piano keyboard.well he blasted the wrong way and my darling jan was promoted to chief explosions cleaner upper a role in which she excelled,so last nights promised romantic walk by the sea was delayed for a hour of peace talks with our rather smelly german friends ,he kept telling me he doesnt realy follow football so i could like him.Today they retreated back to the fatherland despite our offer of other accomodation.so its his loss .It really is a lovely place here.Im on two days of enforced lay up, ive hurt my back so trying to avoid work which is hard for me as im not originally from yorkshire (where it developed into an art form).still very hot can hear the pool activites in the background ,The french sites have a rule that men wear tight fitting shorts not a good look for a man with a beer belly. as you can see>>

Well now down to the hard job of deciding whats for tea speak soon.

Itchy

Tropical storm forecast tonight Hurray!! its been 35 degrees or 92 in old money all this week.I love this heat living in spain this is just a winters day.
We are working as campsite couriers in the south of france , cote de azur,basically we clean the mobile homes and check people in and out.Have applied my anti moustiques(French spelling)they are wild tonight they seem to have been more vigourous since the recent flooding.We are a mature couple working from may untill september in the sun whilst our spanish place is rented out.The wages are not very good but im a keen saver(tight bugger)so we try and manage to live on one wage and save another.Dans just come round hes a student in his gap year earning some dosh.Time for our fist gin and tonic, lots of tonic semi frozen with a quarter of lime squeezed in, Heaven.