Smothered in fish sauce

I haven’t died…but I have been suffering from Nam Pla asphyxia, which has curbed my enthusiasm for blogging. Yes, I know, how can you be suffocated by a cooking ingredient but that Thai fish sauce is dangerous stuff. Especially when it falls over in your motorhome fridge during a ferry crossing and someone hasn’t pressed the lid shut….I’m not kidding, for a week it was like living in an intensely cheesy but essentially rank Wotsit. And despite one’s best efforts to clean it up, it just hung around like a….well, like a bad smell really.

That aside, we did have a great time while we were away but we were also pleased to get home. Unusually for us, we didn’t have any major incidents, unless you count Miffy running off not once but twice from the van as A tried to get her back in after dinner. There she was, scampering around the campsite without a care in the world while I did my best fishwife impression (must be the Nam Pla again) shrieking at her to come back and not get herself squished under the wheels of a tag-axle caravan. She obliged me eventually…

Our BH weekend in Orkney was certainly the trip’s highlight and we took our behemoth down every road we could and some we definitely shouldn’t have. But if there’s a bistro with cakes at the end of a windy narrow track, then what’s a bit of scraped paint and bashed plastic matter? Oh and then there was that episode in Stromness where your head is telling you to turn around, your heart is telling you to turn round quickly and your mouth says ‘carry on, dear, it’ll be fine’. Have you ever been down Stromness High Street? You can walk down it and touch both sides of the street at the same time with your outstretched arms. Well, at least that’s what it felt like, with the walls closing in the further we penetrated. It was a genuine squeaky bum moment but at last we emerged into daylight and breathed a sigh of relief. Very similar in fact to the one we had let out when the marshall at the ferry office offered to reverse the motorhome onto the car deck for us. We don’t do reversing except onto a campsite pitch, ever since we crunched a car with our first van twenty minutes after taking possession. It was good to see how the dogs reacted to a complete stranger getting into the cab and making off with their motorized kennel while mum and dad stood on the quay looking on…not a sound. Useful huh?

That said, the dogs have been very well behaved of late and so we rewarded them with brand new house collars from www.kitschcollars.com as their old ones were looking a bit frayed and shabby. I’ll try and get some pics in due course. Of course, having been home for five days, we’re already looking forward to our time away on the boat in June. If all goes to plan, this should be one week of work cruise to get us to Red Bull; two weeks of holiday to get us to the Pennines; and then potentially another working week to take us to Castleford where A’s client has a northern office and we’re hoping to install some techie bits and pieces. At some point, we shall take up residence in Sowerby Bridge for the rest of the summer before wending our way to Stenson over the autumn.

It’s probably going to be a little quiet on the blogging front until we resume our adventures but I’ll drop back in from time to time. Oh, and all you diet watchers….the weight’s staying off, thankfully, and I think I’ve even lost a little more since hitting my target. It’s a race now between me and Susie as to who can have the smallest waist…

Too busy

When we came up to Scotland for our working week, I did hope that we'd be able to squeeze in a bit of leisure time too but things have been absolutely manic! This van is a hive of activity, the two little worker bees cranking out emails and copy and software in a show of unprecedented energy and focus while the five doggy drones just....well sleep really. Our days have all had the same structure - wake up - walk dogs - work - walk dogs - work - walk dogs - feed dogs - feed ourselves - go to bed. And nice as it's been to be in such a pictureskew spot, it has been a little fevered and relentless. It's not helped by dogs that insist on extending their walks by disappearing into the dunes or splashing about in rock pools, showing that selective deafness that my husband also appears to be catching. What part of 'do the washing up for once' doesn't he understand?

Anyway, such has been the pace of the week that we've awarded ourselves a long BH weekend and so tomorrow, we're making an unscheduled side trip to Orkney. Judging by the winds today, the crossing of the Pentland Firth - comfortingly one of the most treacherous stretches of water in the world - should be 'interesting', and I'm not overly keen on undertaking any cliff-walking without a carabina or three. We're planning a couple of nights of wild camping - wild being the operative word - before returning to the mainland on Sunday. In the meantime, we're going to try and squeeze a 7.5m motorhome into the local Tesco car park tonight - if you see us driving along with a trolley mangled beneath the wheels, do give us a shout won't you?

Just beachy

The fact that the highlight of this morning’s dog walk was Susie attempting a ‘wall of death’ run up a vertical sand dune will tell you that we successfully arrived at Dunnet Bay over the weekend. The lowlight was me chucking the pink Frisbee left-handed straight into sea and having to go for a bracing paddle to retrieve it. I later threw it right-handed and the wretched thing, unclaimed by any of our disobliging non-retriever greyhounds, rolled annoyingly into the surf. I couldn’t be arsed with the shoe/sock kerfuffle again so I just got everything wet. Let’s hope they’re dry by now as I’m about to go out.

The journey up, though long, was without incident, except for the small matter of a fridge pack of Diet Coke falling on my head. I’d told A that things shifted in transit and to be careful when opening lockers and what does he do? And with me sitting directly beneath? Of course, it was all my fault as I should have put the box elsewhere although there was no place else for it…never mind my sore head…We overnighted at Balbirnie CC site near Glenrothes which was surprisingly only half full, before making our way to the top of Scotland on Sunday. We were greeted by wind and rain but today it’s sunny if a little blustery, and it does make for a very pleasant backdrop to work.

We’re staying until the weekend when we head a little south east to the Grummore site, by which time the dogs will be completely exhausted if this morning’s antics are anything to go by. Like most greyhounds, ours love the beach, Susie in particular, but I know that what they really want is to get up into the dunes. This happened last year and I lost Susie and Arthur for a good half hour. When they eventually deigned to show up, Susie had to have a lie down and Arthur’s tongue was dragging on the ground… She’s had one failed go this morning but it’s only a matter of time. I ask you, is this any way for a pensioner to behave?

Just beachy

The fact that the highlight of this morning’s dog walk was Susie attempting a ‘wall of death’ run up a vertical sand dune will tell you that we successfully arrived at Dunnet Bay over the weekend. The lowlight was me chucking the pink Frisbee left-handed straight into sea and having to go for a bracing paddle to retrieve it. I later threw it right-handed and the wretched thing, unclaimed by any of our disobliging non-retriever greyhounds, rolled annoyingly into the surf. I couldn’t be arsed with the shoe/sock kerfuffle again so I just got everything wet. Let’s hope they’re dry by now as I’m about to go out.

The journey up, though long, was without incident, except for the small matter of a fridge pack of Diet Coke falling on my head. I’d told A that things shifted in transit and to be careful when opening lockers and what does he do? And with me sitting directly beneath? Of course, it was all my fault as I should have put the box elsewhere although there was no place else for it…never mind my sore head…We overnighted at Balbirnie CC site near Glenrothes which was surprisingly only half full, before making our way to the top of Scotland on Sunday. We were greeted by wind and rain but today it’s sunny if a little blustery, and it does make for a very pleasant backdrop to work.

We’re staying until the weekend when we head a little south east to the Grummore site, by which time the dogs will be completely exhausted if this morning’s antics are anything to go by. Like most greyhounds, ours love the beach, Susie in particular, but I know that what they really want is to get up into the dunes. This happened last year and I lost Susie and Arthur for a good half hour. When they eventually deigned to show up, Susie had to have a lie down and Arthur’s tongue was dragging on the ground… She’s had one failed go this morning but it’s only a matter of time. I ask you, is this any way for a pensioner to behave?