September the 24th part 3. The pink panther,
potatoes and seven drunk Lithuanians…
Five months in from the moment I made the decision to begin
this mountain/caravan project with my friend.
Autumn is fast approaching, though sometimes hard to imagine
in the boiling sunshine. The cooler nights however are a welcome shift…
These last few days have been rather odd, just for a change…
By the way, did I mention I drive a pink car, commonly known
as the pink panther? A friend told me he had the ideal very cheap car for me
that for some reason no one seemed to want (ha!) and I scoured the street
wondering which old banger it could possibly be until I saw something rather
garish and kitsch out the corner of my eye. I looked at him with incredulity,
“You are having a laugh, right? It looks like a fucking Barbie car!” Well, long
story short, it was cheap, in very good condition and beggars can’t be choosers
as they say. With time I have grown increasingly attached to my funny little
car which always draws attention and smiles, particularly from little girls! I
decided that anything that raises a smile in these rather grim times is a good
thing and I have never liked normal cars anyway…
Yesterday however following a few days of illness, physically extremely debilitated and moments of anxiety that I was wasting precious caravan refurb time by being ill, had to remind myself about self -care and the importance of the journey not the destination, sorry I digress, anyway I crashed the pink panther!
As myself, two friends and my daughter’s American staffy
flew down the mountain back into civilization, my heavy head reminded me I was
still not 100 percent but was happy for a spontaneous trip to help out a friend
and buy some cheap groceries. I’m so used to the car I forget it’s pink and
often wonder why people are staring, as the dog stuck its head out the window,
enjoying the breeze, my friend ranted about Trump whilst waving his beer bottle
at passersby and I attempted to keep my scrambled thoughts on the road. Many
shops and stops later, in the supermarket underground carpark, my lack of
concentration reared its ugly head as I reversed out the space whilst chatting
about, who knows what, when a sickening crunch and bang shocked us all. I froze
at the wheel.
Put it this way, the pillar looked a lot better off than the front of my car which was hanging precariously. I refused to get out and inspect it properly. My stress levels, which were already sky high for many other personal reasons, were reaching boiling point. I breathed deeply and allowed my mates to take over, with the help of a bungy. “Will we make it back up the mountain?” I asked miserably. One meagre yellow bungy holding almost the entire front of the car together, a carload of shopping and four passengers. If people had stared before now, now we really were drawing attention! We made quite a sight as the pink car limped slowly up the mountain, at snail speed, dangerously close to disintegrating every time we crossed a speed bump! The dog and my friend hanging out the windows, one slightly more inebriated than the other.
Only the week before a similar scene played out with another inebriated friend post
party also hanging out the window waving his glass at everyone, shouting we
were all going to die come the apocalypse! God knows what the local villagers
thought every time the pink panther shot through, though this time it was
staggering…
Would I ever get the bloody caravan finished before yet
another disaster? Let alone global disaster!
As we passed by the lake, I was reminded of the day a few
months previously when a friend had visited and I had taken her there for a day
of tranquility, promising her very rarely would you see another being. Just my
luck, despite my promise of escaping humans, we encountered a van full of males
who turned out to be Lithuanian (again, very inebriated!) who became very
excitable when they spotted two ladies in bikinis, then a third (God help us,
she was topless with a Chihuahua called Wendy!) They had a tent and van,
fishing rods, pizzas, a lot of alcohol and had already been there for twenty-four
hours...
Long story short, they ended up challenging us to a tequila contest and only I stupidly accepted! Only two shots, I hasten to add but for some reason they decided my name was Foey...
From then on, my friend renamed me Foey, reminding me that the one time she came into the great wild to get away from people and civilization, we ended up with seven Lithuanian males, a topless lady and a Chihuahua called Wendy, though knowing me for over a decade she expected nothing less!
It was slightly tricky extricating ourselves from
their ‘party’ especially as they were hell bent on following us back up the
mountain and continuing the party in the village! Bloody hell, that could go
either way…
I was reminded of a classic situation decades ago when some
friends were partying loudly until the music abruptly stopped, and a loud
German, cable in hand, having unplugged the sound system, declared to the group, “The party was good Ya but now she
is over!” I repeated that same sentence and decided to make a hasty retreat…
Back to the present and the car valiantly made it up the
mountain, I was almost in tears thinking I could not afford something else to
go wrong. Twenty-four hours later, Si, my multi-talented amigo, armed with a
hammer and various tools had managed to beat the car into submission, making it
look almost normal (it probably wouldn’t pass the MOT but I still have a good
six months to worry about that) and he finally began putting the flooring in
the caravan! I was immensely relieved and grateful. Meanwhile I vented my
frustration, smashing already broken roof tiles with a hammer into the walled
garden earthen floor to create a path alongside the grow areas I had created to
plant my potatoes. I was excited again by the transformation from wild
overgrown snake infested area to a neat little garden full of promise.
Walled garden before...
Walled garden after...
I had been studying various gardening channels on the best
way to grow potatoes and sweet potatoes and was using (kind of) the lasagna
method with layers of soil, compost, paper, hay etc Today I planted my first
three potatoes and I have to say, it was a joyful experience (watch this space
in a few months!) For despite my frequent frustrations, I was reminded of how
far I/we have come in these months and what a transformation, in spite of many
hiccups, illnesses, accidents and personal difficulties along the way.
We were bringing life back to an area that had been long
abandoned.
0 Comments