Month: August 2020

Fashionable Mask Wearing in Beautiful Brittany

We weren’t sure whether we would make it to France and, if we did, what we would find here. It turns out it is both normal and abnormal.

After landing in St Malo, we spent the first few days on the Côte de Granite Rose on Brittany’s north coast. Camping Tourony came highly recommended and was a great site to relax on. Good bread was available every morning and we could walk to a lovely beach in the evenings and practice tai chi among the large boulders. So far, so normal.

The area was busy with visitors and masks were required on le sentier des douaniers that follows the beautiful coast among the boulders and trees. This seemed reasonable given the number of people but wearing a mask while outside is a strange experience that takes something away from the joy of being in the great outdoors; no smelling the surf on the breeze or the scent of pine trees when you are behind a mask. Elsewhere walking and hiking have felt pretty much normal and provided relief from coronavirus. On this walk you couldn’t forget this was DC (during coronavirus).

Mask wearing in fashionable France is interesting to observe. On le sentier des douaniers about 80% of walkers complied. The masks varied from the colourful homemade to disposable, but plain re-usable masks were most common. We walked back through the streets as these were quieter and masks were not compulsory here and around the shops.

The French have different ways of carrying their mask when they are not wearing it. Some tuck it below their mouth so that it covers their chin, like a sort of beard mask. Some go lower and put the mask around their necks. Quite common is leaving the mask dangling off one ear when not required, this is a relaxed and jolly fashion statement. Others attach their mask to the straps on their bag or camera or wear it around their wrist. Losing my mask has become a new anxiety for me. I keep mine in my pocket and am constantly checking it is still there.

Our masks are always handy!

Île-Grande, further west, was quieter and consequently more relaxed for a day out walking. The island’s circuit is easy and there is plenty that is interesting along the way. We walked around pretty bays, to craggy points and by marinas packed with boats. We climbed to the centre of the island for the view from the rocky outcrop and found the burial cairn, covered in two huge slabs of rock. My favourite time was walking through the warm and shallow blue water along the edge of the beach back to the mainland, splashing gently and not a thought for a virus.

Of course, much is still normal. The wine is good and cheap and you’ll be pleased to hear that France is as welcoming as ever to motorhomers. There are plenty of vans and their owners on holiday in Brittany and they are making full use of the campsites and aires and enjoying this beautiful country. There are campers from Germany, the Netherlands and Italy but the vast majority we have seen are French. Of course in these DC days everything is seen differently and French supermarkets that used to be such fun to explore now feel crowded. Numbers are not restricted and social distancing seems to mean nothing in the rush to shop. We’re doing as big a shop as we can fit in or small van in one go!

We’re being cautious while enjoying France and not dwelling on our quarantine time when we return too much.

Before coronavirus, even uncertainties seemed more certain: Still trying to co-operate with the inevitable

10.28.2018 Morata and Chinchon (24)

I have a mixed relationship with uncertainty.  While it can be a marvellous travelling companion, bringing us unexpected pleasures such as finding a pretty village on a fantastic walk or stumbling across a fair when we only stopped in the town for coffee.  The uncertainty I experience when there is a problem or after something goes wrong is less enjoyable.  Problems with our campervan, such as our little Greek incident, send my anxiety levels sky high.  These days I am struggling to stop my brain from descending into a worried spiral as our plans to travel in our campervan are regularly disrupted overnight.

I have written before about the travelling plans we had made for the spring BC [before coronavirus] and how these were ditched during lock down.  As restrictions relaxed and then campsites re-opened DC [during coronavirus] I tentatively began to pencil in some trips away in our Blue Bus.  We decided to stay local and we enjoyed some wonderful active and safe holidays in the Lake District through July, knowing we could get home in an hour or so if we needed.

I understand that we are still in DC and that this virus has not gone away.  We continue to socially distance, we wash our hands thoroughly as often as possible and we wear our masks when we need to.  Looking forwards in June, I imagined that life in the UK would have settled into a management stage by now as we learned to live with the virus.  I thought this would lead to a bit more certainty and our future travel plans could be more concrete into the autumn.  Apparently not!  Although I had accepted that we would be unable to visit the wonderful country of Portugal this year, I had started to get hopeful that we would be able to travel around beautiful Spain in September and October, using the ferry booking we had made in those carefree January days.  My cautious optimism was dashed on the 25th July when it was announced that the Foreign Office no longer recommended travel to Spain.

I like to think of myself as adaptable but this skill has been severely tried this year.  I find I dare not even write about what our plans are now, firstly because they change so often and secondly because putting it in black and white might jinx things.  What is certain is that we will not be packing until the day before our next trip [having to unpack without going away is too depressing] and if we do get away we won’t have any activities even pencilled in.  Perhaps I am being too pessimistic and cautious but in these ever uncertain times it is hard to dream that anything will have a positive outcome.

Does it help to keep up-to-date with the news, or is that just another source of anxiety?  Sorting the rumours from the truth is important but takes time and these days my own careful assessment of risk means nothing if the Government decides to show their resolve by stamping down on what I can do.

I don’t have a crystal ball, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but I do know that even the uncertainties seemed more certain in my BC world!  I could worry about illness or mechanical problems almost carelessly, confident that the risk of those things happening was small.  My over active imagination never conjured up anything like the constantly changing restrictions and rules we have been living with DC in the UK.

Uncertainty and certainty are both part of life and I know I can’t control everything but at the moment all I can really try and control are my thoughts.  I could disappear into a pool of my own despondency.  Instead I make myself sit with my  uncertainties and anxieties and write about them.  This does help.  I feel all the emotions and then send them on their way, leaving me to focus on staying in the present, co-operating with the inevitable and accepting that this new super-charged uncertainty is here to stay.

 

 

 

 

A poor substitute for a Cambodian takeaway with friends

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I was stupid to make plans really in these DC [during coronavirus] months [maybe years] but I did.  We have two old friends who live on the rural edge of Greater Manchester.  We have known one of them since school and met his partner in the mid-1980s; we go back a long way and have few secrets from them.  In those carefree BC [before coronavirus] days we would normally see them every six weeks or so for a wild night out in Manchester city centre and spend at least one holiday a year with them.  These are  not normal times and we have only seen them via a laptop screen since the end of January … it isn’t the same.

As restrictions eased, we arranged to meet up at their house for a takeaway.  We decided on their local Cambodian and had even spent ages going through the menu and ordered our meals.  The it was announced on Twitter that Greater Manchester was off limits!

The disappointment of not having an evening laughing with these friends is hard to put into words, a week later I am still choked up about it.  We had nothing planned for an evening meal at home as we thought we would be enjoying a delicious Cambodian meal, so a quick trip to the supermarket and a Zoom meeting booked with our friends we had a go at making the best of the spoilt evening.  Here’s what we ate:

Substitute Cambodian stir fry – for two

Spicy peanut sauce

  • I onion chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves peeled
  • 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 1 chilli pepper

I blitzed these with a little water in our mini food processor.

In a pan with a little vegetable oil I gently fried:

  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/4 teaspoon mixed spice

Then added the onion / tomato mixture and two tablespoons of peanut butter.  I added more water to make the sauce consistency I wanted and seasoned to our taste and kept this warm.  You can make this in advance.

Fried tofu

I unwrapped a 225 g pack of smoked tofu [any tofu will be fine] squeezed some of the liquid out of it and cut it into 1 cm cubes.  I coated these in flour mixed with salt and pepper and shallow fried them in vegetable oil until they were crisp on the outside and soft in the middle.

Stir fry vegetables

  • Green beans – we had some cooked ones left over
  • 1 pepper cut into thin strips
  • About 2/3 rds of a bag of beansprouts
  • 1/2 stick of celery cut into thin batons
  • Bag of Singapore style rice noodles [From Sainsburys these are already in a curry paste and red chilli dressing]

In a wok, I stir fried the pepper and celery quickly in a small amount of vegetable oil, adding the green beans, beansprouts and noodles at the end.

I mixed the tofu with the stir fried vegetables and served with the sauce poured over.  It tasted great but would have been so much better with good friends.

 

 

 

 

 

Campsites: Same pandemic, different ways of keeping campers safe

06.26.2018 Veurne Belgium (6)
These Belgian park benches were installed before social distancing was a thing

We were on the starting blocks on the 4th July, booked into the Caravan and Motorhome Club (CAMC) Site in Borrowdale with an arrival time of 10.00!  Since that heady first night back in our much-loved campervan we have slept happily at seven different campsites.  We made the decision to stay local in the north-west of England for the first month and luckily for us this includes the beautiful Lake District where we could catch up on some much-needed fell walking.

I noticed each campsite has adopted a different way of making their site’s facilities safe for visitors.  Here’s a roundup:

No facilities, no problem!

Our Devon Tempest campervan can be self-sufficient, it has a toilet, sink and shower in its modest bathroom.  This means we can stay on sites with no facilities at all.  Borrowdale and Dockray Meadow in Lamplugh in West Cumbria are two sites in the CAMC stable that never have a facilities block.  Of course, you don’t have to use the facilities when they are there, but if we’ve paid for them it seems a waste not to!  At Borrowdale and Dockray Meadow we did find that with no system to negotiate to get into the toilets and showers, staying on both of these sites was a calm and relaxing experience.  They are both always peaceful sites and the walking options from Borrowdale in particular are hard to beat.  They are ideal places to stay for anyone cautious about being away in their ‘van as social distancing is easy when everyone is staying on their pitch.

We also had a couple of nights at a site that is part of the other club’s network, Ravenglass Camping and Caravanning Club Site.  This site normally has a facilities block but has chosen to keep it closed and only open the washing up sinks this season, however, it is charging it’s usual fees, making it much more expensive than the former two sites.  Nevertheless, this small site among the trees and on the edge of the pretty coastal village of Ravenglass is a lovely place to stay.

Using your common sense

Delamere Camping and Caravanning Club Site did have its facilities block open.  They asked campers to use common sense to ensure it never got too crowded and this informal way of managing people worked really well.  There were never more than three people in the toilets and showers and the wash-up area was always quiet, even though the site was full.  Hand sanitiser was available outside the toilets and showers too.  We like this site as you walk through the perimeter fence straight into the extensive network of walking and cycling paths that Delamere Forest offers.

CAMC Wristbands

The Caravan and Motorhome Club’s wristband system had reached me via Twitter before we got to Troutbeck Head CAMC Site.  Not surprisingly, there were lovers and haters on social media.  Wearing our colourful wristbands we felt like we were at the swimming pool and found it a bit of a nuisance to remember to take a wristband to the sanitary block.  Once there it seemed there were always more wristbands hanging up on the three hooks than there were people in the facilities as people forgot to take their wristband away.   I found the tension of wondering if someone else would pick up my particular wristband while I was showering somewhat incompatible with a relaxing holiday.

A simple approach is often best

Our first independent site was Sykeside at Brother’s Water near Ullswater.  This is a long-standing favourite site, surrounded by high fells.  Not surprising for a great campsite, they had taken a sensible approach to social distancing and had installed a board outside the male and female toilet doors with four occupied / vacant signs and a sliding mechanism.  There was no need to remember to take anything with you, you slid one row to occupied as you went in and slid it back to vacant when you came out.  There was sanitising gel available too and paper towels in the washrooms.  Sykeside got lots of ticks from me.

occupied images

Clocking off

Hillcroft Park near Pooley Bridge is a large campsite with a mixture of tents, motorhomes, caravans and static caravans.  Their sanitary facilities are modern and airy with good roomy hot showers that are kept sparkling clean.  They introduced a sort of clocking in system, giving campers a card with their pitch number on.  You were expected to put this card into one of the ten slots by the door.  As a well-behaved camper, I took my card the first few times I used the facilities and popped it in one of the slots.  It soon became clear that no one else was bothering with this system and so I gradually went native.  It turned out this wasn’t a problem, common sense prevailed and the facilities never felt too crowded.

What works best?

This is no exhaustive research study, although if anyone wants to give me a grant to visit a more comprehensive sample of the UK’s campsites I am your woman.

From the sites we have visited, it seems to me that the systems that worked best don’t involve anyone having to take anything with them to the sanitary blocks as these are generally forgotten or left behind.  The common sense approach at Delamere was the simplest way to manage numbers and it seems that campers have common sense in spades.  The occupied / vacant boards at Sykeside were another good option, giving nervous or cautious campers the information they needed to help them feel confident about entering the facilities.

Has anyone found a different system that works better?