Lou's Van and Shell Island
During the winter, while I had been
away travelling and Lou had been safe up in her house in Chester,
strange happenings had been going on at her van in Forge.
Will had cut all the trees …. in
half!!
When Lou had arrived at Easter she had
been dismayed to see the devastation and the fact that all the
woodland mice had moved into her caravan had been the icing on the
cake!!
Tearful and unable to stay, she had
cleaned for three solid hours then bundled herself and Rowan back
into the car and headed home to Chester.
As the spring turned to summer I began
my usual grass cutting at the van. Will popped by to ask if I had
seen Lou at all. He was eager to show her what a wonderful job he had
done to the trees in answer to her request to have them cut down!
Confused I told him she had been rather
surprised to see them cut and was worried about the lack of privacy
and the open access to the river their removal had caused. Will
looked disappointed, so that evening I called Lou to find out what
had gone wrong.
ME: Hi Girly, did you at any point,
even in the loosest of wording mention anything about the trees to
Will last year?
LOU: Not that I can remember. I may
have mentioned something about sun light and the shadow they caused,
why?
ME: OK, that would explain things. He
has been waiting for you to come down so he can show you the fabulous
job he has done especially for you!!
What you said and what he heard
seem to have differed slightly but the result is basically the same. You now have more sun light and less shadow
…. plus no undergrowth,
enough chipping for a play area, no security between you and the
riverand enough random logs to last you the winter …...... if you
had a wood burner that is!!
LOU: !!!!?!!!! ******!
To soften the devastation around the
place I decided to have a clear up. The cleared woodland area was
huge, nearly as big as the field on the far side of the van.
Yes, all
privacy was gone, but things would grow back …... in time!
One of the first jobs was to stack all
the wood into manageable piles. With the wood out of the way a bit I
began to pull back years worth of ivy to uncover the old woodland
floor.
At one time a shepherds house had stood
on the grounds. It had fallen years previously but the outline could
still be found amongst the undergrowth. Huge boulders appeared as the
ivy was rolled back.
As each wall was unearthed I built
fairy homes amongst the ruins lining them with white stones collected
from the beach at Borth.
I brashed all the dead branches from
the trees and uncovered one that with a bit of work would make a
great tree house and sent Lou a video!
Peter and the children came over to see
what I was up to and to help me burn the brash cut from the lower
branches.
When the brash ran out I sent them along the river bank in
search of more storm abandoned wood to burn.
They came back with loads including an old christmas tree ....... just to keep the fun
happening!
Although the grounds were looking a bit
better mice still occasionally ran around the caravan so when Anupam
(Our amazing French volunteer/artist) asked if we knew of anywhere he
could stay while he hung out at the Workshop for the summer I called
Lou. The van was his for the summer she said, she still couldn't face
coming down and apart from that, she was about to move house!
The first week of the summer holidays
John and Sanne went to Iceland for a week, Anu arrived and moved into
Lou's van, the shop roared into battle mode for the summer plus Xin
(our latest volunteer) arrived!
One week later I was ready for a
break!!!!!
To be fair I had popped over to Cyprus
for a week in June to see Kris who had paid for me to complete my
Nitrox course plus stay at the Aldiana itself all inclusive …..
but that had been a whole month ago!!
I was definitely in need of another
break!
When John and Sanne arrived back in the shop things calmed down.
Aun was now in residence in Lou's van and Xin making himself at home..... so we organised a beach
party!!
Summer had arrived and life was looking good!!
**********************
Summer Holiday - August 5th – Party Time at Shell Island!!
Our usual trip to the Cider festival in
Ross on Wye was put on hold this year as it fell on a school weekend!
The logistics of getting there and back in time for school proved too
daunting for any of us ….... so we organised a Pirate Party at
Shell Island instead!!!
Peter loaded the Blue bus with food, kites and rugs plus the chimera.
David and Linda brought their grand daughter, a gazebo plus standing kitchen.
Lou brought tons of food and family and Kier and Chris brought Finn and one of the longest tents ever built!
The weather was grey and wet as I drove
out of Machynlleth. It was thick with fog as Lou drove out of Chester
but by the time we reached the Island the sun was glorious!!
Having arrived first I had managed to
find us an area big enough for our encampment and had started to
unload the basics as the rest of the crew parked up.
The FOUR tents were put up, the TWO
vans were set up as homes, the Blue bus and Lou's car were parked to
protect the area for Kier and Chris who were arriving the next day,
the kitchen was established and the cider was opened.
At the Cider Festival there is a theme
to each day (sort of …) so we had also themed our long weekend.
Thursday - Arrive, set up and drink.
Chef – Me, Pasta
Friday - Kite flying and drinking.
Chef Lou, Curry
Saturday - Pirate day = drinking all
day. Chef Keir, Picnic junk
Sunday - Recovery day with drinking of
the hair of the dog. Chef – Anyone standing
Monday - Anyone still standing could
drink anything left. Chef – Me and Lou, Left overs
Tuesday - Home!
To say we had a successful time is
probably an understatement
!!!!!!!!!!!!
We had an awesome time plus!!!
With camp established, our faces
glowing from a day of sun, I set about cooking our supper.
Everyone was very impressed and if fact
a few were quite amazed (I include myself in this category!) at the
fabulous meal I managed to produce from three tins of tomatoes, a
load of random vegetables and a bag of pasta having consumed 4
bottles of cider!
Dishes done we settled down to an
evening of stories around the chimera …. and of course a few more
drinks!
I have no idea what time we went to bed
but I awoke the next morning snug in Lady Sage with sunlight
streaming through the sky light.
Shell Island has never been noted for
its fine weather but fine weather we had and after a very late
breakfast we all headed to the beach to fly our kites!
A few hours later we were back in camp
ready for drinking round two!
Day two also ended in a bit of a blur.
Lou was in charge of cooking so all I
had to do was relax!
I seem to remember doing it extremely
well!!
Sunny Saturday was Pirate Day and it
started in style!!
Hair braiding was organised by
Hanna-May, who spent the entire morning braiding up hair in true
Pirate style.
Angharad's hair was woven into an
amazing snake
that worked its way from one side of
her head to the other,
while Peter went for the more
traditional braided look.
The Jolly Roger was hoisted
(it
actually went up the day we arrived so we could all find our way back
to camp!)
Peter flew a Pirate Kite high above the
camp site that once tied to the flag pole managed to fly all day
without assistance
– which was useful considering the state he and
I got into later that day!
I put on a little number I had been
saving for the day …..
David unrolled the Pirate Bunting plus
donned his Tricorn with added dreads!
We had cider for breakfast and rum for
lunch!!
The clouds rolled in but we didn't
care!
Malibo and Rum with the tiniest dash of
coke,we decided, was a fabulous mix but by 4pm I was ready for a lie
down.
I awoke again at 7 to find everyone in full flow.
Half an hour
later Peter went for a litle lie down ..... but he didn't wake up until morning!!
We sat around the fire, we talked and
we drank, I recited a story I had written about Peter the Portly
Pirate and Ippy the Perfectly Proportioned Hippy, we laughed and we
drank some more!
By Sunday we were all ready for a rest
day!
It had rained hard after we had gone to
bed Saturday night, softening the ground and semi collapsing the main
tent which Lou and I had had to rescue at about 4am.
The storm had also driven others from
the site in a hurry and the skips were overflowing with tangled tents
and chairs.
Never one to miss an opportunity I went skip raiding
finding three body boards for the kids to play with,
two tents, one of which instantly made a great
rest room for Peter to lie down in, the other was perfect to make into flags
(when I eventualy get
round to it!)
I also found two wind breaks and a chair.
But our greatest find of the whole
weekend happened as we walked back from the beach having taken the
children to the sea to test the body boards.
Not really knowing which
way to walk I had randomly asked the entourage, "Left or Right?" when I
came to a fork in the dunes.
Craig said Right led to the big hill,
Lou said Left looked interesting so we turned Left!
Just around the bend we noticed some
tent fabric with its poles collapsed in a dip. We went over to have a
look.
The tent looked like it had loads of fabric and some good poles
so we began to gather it up. There was even a sleeping pod attached
to one end.
With our latest acquisition under our arms we returned to
camp to lie it out to dry.
Once we had put it flat we realised
there was nothing actually damaged with the cover, so we put the
poles in. The tent was perfect!! OK it had no tent pegs but we had
plenty of spare ones.
We put the tent up in full sight of the camp site
and waited for someone to come and claim it.
No one had claimed the big tent so the kids moved in!
The weather was still warm and there
was still more bottles to be disposed of so the few who were left rose to the challenge!!
Monday lunchtime, as the clouds rolled
in, David and Linda left us and our encampment shrunk even more!
Although they did leave us their
kitchen in case it rained!!
By Mid afternoon the sun was back out,
we had packed away our amazing giant tent find and redesigned the
area.
We went for walks to the sea to paddle
in the waves,
we built grass bowers in the dunes,
we relaxed back at base camp
and allowed the children to occupy each
other.
That evening all the left over
vegetables and food was cooked up in Lady Sage by Lou and myself
while we polished off the last of the shorts.
By the time it was all
cooked Lou and I were no longer in fit state to carry everything to
the camp fire...................... so we turned Lady sage into a Takeaway van and
served everyone through the back door!!
Rowan was a star taking orders and
passing out the spoons.
The best line I heard all night was when Cian
brought his dirty dish back to the van. Rowan asked if he wanted any
more and when Cian said 'no' Rowan (aged 3) said “Can you take your
plate and go wash it then please!”
That boy is coming to work for me when
he is old enough, I just love his style!!!
Tuesday morning we packed away the last of our
Pirate Party and returned to the land of reality.
Our adventure had been a huge
success and it had been unanimously decided that we were all up for doing it again next year ........even though
the Cider Festival would be back in our calender!
So put it in your note books
( if anyone is interested) .....
Peter's
Pirates Public Paradise Party will be back in Shell Island in 2016 and is open to all,
just bring a hat,
a
tent (optional)
and some drink and we will see you there next year!!
Summer 2015 Part 4 coming soon x x x........
