Month: February 2018

It’s raining today

| Mairead

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(Not actually a casino…)

It’s raining today and has been since the middle of the night. We are near Bordeaux, in a supermarket car park. We drove for a couple of hours in foggy misty rain to get here and I went for a nap as soon as we had settled. It’s still raining now and because it’s a Sunday the supermarket has been closed since before lunch so not a lot happening around us. We do seem to be near an airport because I can hear low flying airplane noise. I’ll go out when it eases and take some photos of the empty car park and see if I can make it look interesting!

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(Ruby)

That’s the thing I like most about going somewhere I’ve never been before, noticing ordinary things…

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(The trolleys are green)

For instance here it’s the colour of the trolleys, I hadn’t really noticed that trolleys are different colours in different supermarkets. The trees, there are trees. And the absence of people. It would be unusual to find a supermarket car park in Ireland this deserted on a Sunday afternoon. When we moved to Greystones first the big supermarkets didn’t open on a Sunday at all, the car park was where learner drivers went to practice and the odd car boot sale was held.

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(A tree)

I back in and I’ve done my best with the photos! Just checked my weather app – it looks like it will be raining until nightfall. Then i noticed it’s exactly the same temperature here (11℃) as Greystones, Wicklow, Dublin, Cashel, Cloyne and Celbridge and it’s raining in all those places too except for Cashel. Breaking News: The weather is better in Cashel, Co. Tipperary than the south of France! Maybe I should do a weather report once a week comparing weather in those places in Ireland with wherever we are at the time. Could it be the best weather is always some place in Ireland? Could be…

From a rainy Casino supermarket car park, Mairead.

Once upon a time we had no water…

| Mairead

Lots of people ask me how Denis and I can live together, in such a small space, without killing each other. I’m not sure I have ever given an adequate answer, mainly because I don’t know. So I thought it might be interesting to notice on this trip what we do. Today I got some useful information… it’s a long story, bear with me.

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(Our back garden tonight)

As I was saying we planned to be taking the slow journey through France, as long as the weather was kind… and the weather was grand, but we hadn’t taken into account a particular side effect of weather – water pipe safety. Yesterday we travelled for about an hour from the ferry at Cherbourg and arrived in the town of Isigny sur Mer at dusk. We planned to fill up with water and stay for the night. While in Cork the previous Sunday we had filled our drinking water tank but we forgot that there’s a safety thingy in the van that protects against frozen pipes – by dumping all the drinking water! It only happens if the temperature inside the van goes below 8 degrees. Must have gone below 8 degrees while we were on the ferry because when we got off in Cherbourg the tank was empty. We might have left 100 litres of Cork water in the English channel… sorry.

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(Autumn)

Not really a problem, we would get drinking water at the aire in Isigny sur Mer. But we couldn’t! This is a bit of a sweeping statement but it might still be true: in winter the French turn off the drinking water taps at their aires. To be honest we’ve only tried two this morning but two out of two is enough for me to start making sweeping statements. Still, not a huge problem, we do have a couple of two litre bottles of water I bought in Lidl when the whole of Greystones was on a boil water notice. That will keep us going for a bit, but I think we need to reassess, regroup and let go of the original plan.

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(Spotted on our way to the supermarche)

When you decide on a plan and then set it in motion it takes on a life of its own. Every decision that follows fits neatly into the plan and before you know it there’s a machine trundling down the road to get water where none exists. The machine in this case is a camper van plus two humans. When the water at the second tap an hour south of the first tap was also turned off the two humans approached a crossroads (metaphorically). One of them was doing all they could to keep the machine moving with the original plan, i.e. on to a third tap, while the other human was doing all she could to throw out the original plan and come up with a new one.

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(Here we are)

It turns out we have very different patterns when it comes to finding a solution. Denis focusses on making the present plan work (tenacious). I focus on coming up with a new plan (creative). Even thought this is a metaphorical crossroads it felt exactly like we were pulling in opposite directions and it was very uncomfortable. Discomfort makes me grumpy and blamey (not a real word but I think you know what I mean…?) It wasn’t very peaceful. I’ll spare you the back and forth that went on until silence descended. Not peaceful silence. Then something changed. (Incidentally I would not have understood what changed had I not been writing about it. Thank you, writing, I love you!)

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(We found water!)

But first… Many years ago these two humans were not living peacefully together. They had a lot of hard stuff going on and they were pulling apart at every crossroads. And then they stopped, I actually don’t know why they stopped, probably a combination of things, other people inspiring them, books teaching them, courses educating them. I don’t know, but things changed and they found common ground. One night, I think they were sitting on the sofa watching the telly, they came to an agreement on something… they wanted peace. And they were willing to do hard stuff to have peace.

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(Our first bbq on the road (thank you for teaching us, Moira!) and the orange/metal thing in the park is a game called disc golf – google it)

The thing that changed today was that as soon as we realised we weren’t at peace, we separately (and silently) stopped thinking we were right and the other person was wrong. Then we began to search together (awkwardly) for workable solutions to the problem. Then we drove to a place we knew had water… duh.

We are able to live together, in such a small space, without killing each other because we want peace, Mairead.

Crossing the Threshold

| Mairead

The ferry crossing from Rosslare in Ireland to Cherbourg in France takes about 17 hours. We sailed at 8.25pm yesterday and I was in bed by 9pm! I had a plan.

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(That’s the sun…)

At the weekend I had noticed my weather forecasting app on the phone predicted windy weather for our sea crossing. On Monday I bought drugs (sea sickness ones) and then promptly went into denial about the weather, while hourly checking my app… On Wednesday my friend rang, the one who is a true believer in the secret of manifesting. If you don’t know about manifesting you’ll have to google it because it’s a long story. Suffice to say if you really want something to happen then first start imagining it is happening really clearly and feeling it really intensely. You might think this is naturally what people do when they want something but you’d be surprised how many people imagine really clearly and feel really intensely what they don’t want!

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(I love the lines and angles)

I for instance was imagining gale force winds and feeling intensely sea sick green! And, I was standing on dry land… But here was my friend imagining calm seas and feeling intensely joyful to be starting a new journey… my new journey! I was oddly resistant to letting go of my gale force winds but she sounded like she was enjoying my journey waaay more than I was so it would be rude not to join her. What harm could it do, I had the drugs. And maybe I could have 24 hours of calm seas before I got on the boat! So each time I started imagining gale force winds I stopped myself and began imagining calm seas.

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(Beautiful weathering…)

As we drove to Rosslare yesterday the wind buffeted the van but I had been stopping myself from imagining what I didn’t want for a good while by then and I wasn’t tempted to stop. When we arrived in Rosslare the wind had died down and when the time came to take the drugs (2 hours before sailing) I decided not to take them. I also didn’t eat anything and I didn’t drink the traditional glass of red wine. I listened as the captain told us it might be a little bumpy but he would be using the stabilisers (wonderful invention) and then I went to bed to the sound of car alarms going off in the car deck (top tip:disengage your car alarm when travelling by ferry).

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(That’s a calm sea…)

I woke a few times during the night and it was bumpy, but not too bumpy and I was uncomfortable, but not too uncomfortable. I started remembering how wonderful it is to stand on dry land! And I remembered how I had been making myself sea sick on dry land! Oh dry land I will never treat you so badly, I will appreciate you and whisper kind thoughts to you as I walk on you! The thing is, dry land isn’t affected by how I think… I am! I need to be whispering kind thoughts to myself! And when I imagine, I need to imagine something I’d love!

In the meantime I am enjoying the calm seas. Yes, the sea is calm! Not bumpy, not uncomfortable, Mairead.

Trip to Portugal 2018

| Mairead

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(Car park near Rosslare)

Tonight we are leaving Ireland for three months. There is one week in March when we have to be in Lisbon but other than that we don’t know where we’re going or when we’ll arrive. What we do know is we are driving via France and northern Spain (although not the exact route) to beautiful Portugal. We will be travelling more slowly than in the past, weather permitting. Previously, we drove like the clappers until we got to Portugal and then slowed right down, but we have come to realise that every bit of the journey (from our front door to the southmost tip of western Europe) is part of the experience and there’s no need to rush any of it. Of course, if the temperature is below zero in France we might feel even amazing French coffee and croissants can’t justify driving slowly through the cold. Although to be honest the van isn’t ever cold. It’s a small space and doesn’t take much energy to make it toasty.

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(I love bunting!)

We travelled to Cork and Cashel last weekend and got a gas cylinder that we can fill up as we travel, the bottle connections we use in Ireland don’t work in the other countries of Europe. We use the gas for cooking and heating so we don’t want to run out. It was also an opportunity to take the camper out on a test run to see what we’d forgotten… It’s really easy to forget what we need when we are in our house. It’s also hard to pack for warmer weather when there’s snow on the ground. In the past I’ve ended up with too many fleeces and too few t-shirts.

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(Happy as a pig in… a messy van)

This will be our third year travelling away from winter in Ireland. We read the same news as you. We stay in contact with our family and friends via mobile phones and computers. We cook dinner (well, Denis does, I wash up!) We watch YouTube videos instead of television. We shop in supermarkets, including Aldi and Lidl! It’s very like living at home except for the view. Some days we wake up in a car park and some days we wake up in a forest. Some days the birds are singing outside, some days waves are crashing, some days there’s rain falling on our roof which always makes us smile. Because the one constant of this way of living is that nothing is the same as it is at home. Surely this rain isn’t the same as the stuff we complain about all the time in Ireland…?

But it is and the thing that makes all the difference is your point of view, Mairead.