Wednesday 12 August 2020

My Mind is Blank


Today my mind is blank and I really didn't know what I wanted to post about.  So I looked at my photo file and picked out the most recent to put on here.  

Hopefully, I thought ... this will start me off rambling in my usual fashion  😄

Top photo the riverbank last night.  

The water is still high after the night long thunderstorm of Monday night, we had sheet lightening and rolling thunder directly overhead for hours and torrential rains that beat down on the Van roof like a hundred or more tapdancing clog-wearing garden gnomes.  

The heat of the last few days has meant that Suky's doggy walks have been very early and very late and it has totally thrown any minor routine I had in place ... I've not even been wearing my watch. 


The little entertainment area of the caravan park.  

This is a small park but we do have an outdoor heated swimming and paddling pool (it's just beyond the cream colour Mini and the gazebo like structure).  There are strict social distancing rules in operation at the moment, but it is now open again.  

The building to the front of the red car is the clubhouse.  It has three bars, the main entertainment room that hosts bingo on a Friday and Saturday night and usually when we are not under Covid-19 rules there is entertainment on these nights. The actual bar itself is partly double sided and at the other side there is a much smaller seating area with a widescreen television.  T this is where sports lovers congregate to sup their pints and watch whatever big match, tournament or game is being shown on the Sky Sports channel.  Next to this is a room with a pool table, and a few other gaming machines used mostly by children while their parents are in one bar or another.

Finally, upstairs there is the Riverview Bar, an adults only area with a full sized snooker table and darts board at one end and comfy seating with yes, river views at the other.  This bar holds an Open Mic session once a month usually with people coming from the neighbouring towns with their guitars, keyboards and voices to entertain each other.


Back in front of my Van I have offered my just read Country Living magazine to anyone passing by that would like it.  

It seems so wrong to throw away or even just recycle a magazine that cost me so much.  Does anyone else occasionally fall for the glorious covers of this type of magazine and just have to buy it?  It was a good read ... but wow how much more stuff I could have bought at the car boot sale with £4.99

I try my best not to be tempted ... but sometimes you just are aren't you!!


Mint growing in the bread bin at the front of the decking steps.

It's recovered well after the scorching and dryness it withstood when we were in Lockdown at home in Wales and the Van and it's garden had to fend for itself.


My cool reading area for later.  

There's a smidge of a breeze here today which is very welcome after the still, stifling heat of yesterday.


The indoor plants having a day out in the cool of the shade stood the nicely soaked little tin-bath.  

I cut the grass first thing this morning with the little push mower.  I was too hot to struggle out with the electric one or to do any sort of exercise workout ... so this was a good alternative.


This mornings washing under the shade of the umbrella, but the intense heat of the day is still drying everything nicely.

You know my mind is still blank, it must be the heat but the photos gave me something to waffle on about.  Normal service will be resumed ... probably, possibly, hopefully, eventually!!


Sue xx



27 comments:

  1. I agree that this weather has blanked my mind out too - how do folk who live in th4 Tropics cope I wonder.

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    1. I really couldn't live anywhere that was hot all the time, in fact I've even decided that I will never go on holiday to hot countries again, I just don't find that sort of holiday enjoyable. One of the reasons we moved from living down South, apart from the cost of housing of course, was the heat in Summer ... over 30 degrees is far too much for me.

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  2. We've had no let up in Essex and I'm melting. It was 27 degrees at 7am. I had to pop in to Tesco and 3 times the lady told me the price and I replied I can't hear properly with this mask on. Expecting her to laugh she said you are not the first to say that!! You have to laugh!

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    1. It's ridiculous isn't it ... roll on proper Autumn and coolness. The mask thing is like me when I wore glasses, I couldn't answer the phone unless I had them on, they weren't even for reading!!

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  3. It is 14:10 here as I write this. The shade temperature is 33.3C. Had a walk in shady woods but was soaking so once back and had to change, ugh!

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    1. That's just it isn't it, you find somewhere cool and then within minutes of leaving there you are a drippy hot mess again. It's more the humidity that is the problem in this country, a dry heat is so much more bearable.

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  4. Your little van park sounds like a hub bub of society. :)

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    1. It can be, especially at weekends and when there are a lot of holiday makers in the rented vans. Most are being good at the social distancing thing, but there have been a few telling offs and a few emails sent out by the camp reminding people of the new rules.

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  5. Hi Sue, regarding the magazines, have you heard of Readly? https://gb.readly.com/ It's an online collection of magazines from around the world. There are zillions of them to read including all the popular UK weekly mags plus monthly mags including Country Living, Landscape, Platinum, Prima, Essentials and lots more special interest mags for gardening, cooking, knitting etc. You can get the first month free then it's £7.99 after that, I've been with them for 3 years.

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    1. I have heard of it yes, but it's like the difference between books and a Kindle, I like the physical aspect of both books and magazines and being able to put them down for a while and pick them up on the same page. I work enough on the computer with my job without having anymore screen time. Also I am trying not to take out subscriptions, the only one I have at the moment is Amazon Prime and that is a first for me.

      Thanks for the heads-up and the link though this will be really useful for a lot of readers. :-)

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  6. You can go online with your library to read lots of magazines for free including Country Living I believe.

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    1. I love doing this. I worked out that in a month the magazines I had read free online would have cost me £60 to buy, which I would not have been able to do. And no paper waste either!

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    2. Yes, I had forgotten about that, I signed up through the Welsh libraries years ago and have never used it.

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  7. The river view is beautiful and relaxing to see. I like to share magazines when I do get them too. The prices are so high that it seems wrong to not pass them on. Sending love to sweet Suky!

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    1. I have found it nice to just go and sit by the river in the relative cool of the evening, and Suky has needed the calm, she does not cope well with this humidity.

      People assume it is just a breathing thing because she is a Pug, but her Mum and all her siblings were vet checked and have good breathing for flat-faced dogs, with Suky it is more the humidity that makes her sick. She's a greedy little thing and will insist on trying to eat as much as usual, whereas Mavis holds herself back and barely eats when it's hot.

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  8. Another lovely post Sue with photos, great to read about the amenities you have on site:) Like the UK it's very hot and humid in our summer which I could cope with when I was a younger lass, now that I'm a grumpy old women it's a different story and I melt:( I know a lot of folk don't like air cons but for me they are a life saver hee hee:) xx

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    1. I hate air cons BUT they really are necessary at the moment, every time I get in the car I turn it into a mobile fridge. Getting out is always a shock to the system ;-)

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  9. What a lovely place!
    It's been so hot here in Essex. No rain either, poor plants.
    xx

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    1. It is nice, and small enough not to be commercial. There are an average of 270 static vans on site, 10 of which are owned by the caravan park and let out to holiday makers. They also have 6 flats that are let out. All the other Vans are owner occupied or used by the families of the owners.

      We have had torrential rain every night, so our plants are doing well, and it takes the Astroturf two days to d ry out after each downpour. There's something very strange about wet Astroturf and bare feet!!

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  10. We're in winter here, so every fine day is greeted with appreciation. Your garden and the whole site looks so attractive I envy you. You're living the Good Life!

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    1. It is a good life, I have to agree. Is it wrong that you being in Winter sounds quite appealing :-)

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  11. There's nothing quite like the pleasure of opening a crisp copy of Country Living magazine and I bet someone will love finding your freebie - I do miss the paper copy BUT I am very lucky that my local library has digital books AND magazines online, so I can download CL and all the rest free and read on my tablet - I wonder if your library has this? it's such a huge money saver - I haven't bought a magazine for years... take a look on your library website (our Ebooks/mags are provided by RB Digital) or ring them as you could be missing out - I don't know if all libraries do this but worth checking out. My routine is out the window too with this heat, I have been going swimming at the gym most days just to cool off :)

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    1. Yes, I did sign up for this not long after we moved to Wales and joined the library in the town near us, but I've never used it!!

      I don't swim, but if it weren't for the social distancing rules and the new set up at the pool, I might have been tempted to chuck myself in. I have however been in the river up to my ankles, and last night I sat watching television with my feet in a bowl of cold water ... which was actually very warm water after a while :-)

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  12. I didn't realise that your campsite had entertainment and bars on site, that must be good having options to go out in "normal" times.
    I love the mint in a bread bin, my sage grows in a vintage flour tin.
    How generous to leave that magazine out for someone else, I bet they'll be thrilled. I used to have subscriptions to Wanderlust & Living Etc back in the days of paid employment - not sure if either are still in publication now. The only ones I've bought in recent times are when I've been featured in them (which makes me sound like a celebrity which I'm so obviously not!) xxx

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    1. If we do go out it is usually just on the Saturday night, to show our faces and have a sneaky game of bingo. We do like to be seen to be supporting the club, although we prefer it when it's quieter ... outside of school holidays.

      I used to buy Living Etc regularly and only got rid of all my back copies a couple of years ago. And yes we do have a small stack of magazines that either I or we have been featured in ... I can't bring myself to part with them. I'm not a celeb either :-)

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  13. Sadly the only entertainment at the moment is the bingo and unless Alan is here I tend not to go. The drinks are quite expensive in the club, which is to be expected as they do need to make a decent profit to pay for the singers usually (no singers this year though). The bingo is self financing as the money from the ticket sales is given out in prize money, usually £10 for a line and around £100 for a full house.

    I am so easily tempted it's something I need to curb, of course 'not shopping' during lockdown has been great for this, but I find that when I DO go to the shops, about once a fortnight ... I am more easily swayed to random purchases.

    Yes I have a few herbs here, some succumbed to the heatwave in March when I wasn't here to look after them, but the Lemon Balm, Rosemary, Mint and Thyme all survived and are now starting to look much better, well the Lemon Balm was ... until Alan stepped on it!!

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  14. Love your ramblings whatever they are about Sue.

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