Rondeau in June (2 of 4)

 

 

Tuesday

Yes, it was a cold night, for June anyway. As is usual, I woke up at 5am, tossed and turned a little and decided that I wasn’t going back to sleep without some form of assistance. So, I grabbed by earbuds and fired up my audio book. I was dozing for a while, then the book finished so I selected a podcast to listen to and almost immediately went to sleep. I woke up at ten past eight with the podcast still playing, which surprised me. Each episode of the podcast was only sixteen minutes long, and I’d been asleep for an hour and a half, so that was quite a few episodes I’d slept through. Still, I’m not complaining because falling asleep to a podcast is preferable to lying awake and staring at the ceiling.

When you’re camping, there’s rarely a schedule to follow, so I was fashionably late when I slouched over to the Comfort Station for a shower. The shower water wasn’t as warm as I’d have liked, and even after hiding my flipflops around the corner, the splash back from the crazily designed stall had still soaked them (yes, I know I say this every time). It occurred to me that perhaps I should hang the flipflops onto the coat hooks in there to get them up and out of the way, but that would be far too sensible an idea after so many years using these showers. I think my timing was a bit off today, too, as the nice young woman who cleans the comfort station was outside waiting for me to finish. I say nice, she gave me a nice smile and wished me a good morning, but she could have been fuming that I’d held her up. Who knows? These are things that go through my mind when I’m not occupied with more pressing matters.

We skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch, which was swiftly followed by rest, relaxation and a quick nap, such is the whirl of activity that we enjoy when we’re camping. Actually, it was all in a good cause because Emma and Charlie came to visit later in the afternoon, which was a couple of hours of excitable chaos. After some supper, we walked over to the park’s store and had ice cream, which was all the more enjoyable for the fabulous afternoon weather, which was clear blue skies, bright sunshine, but not too scarily hot. I did have a bit of a run in with a Barn Swallow when I stood too close to its nest. It decided to swoop at my head a few times, and close enough for me to feel the whoosh of wind as it went past. Those birds do fly close to people anyway, but this one kept going at me until I went and stood under the store’s awning. That’ll teach me not to be so nosy. Still, a close up of a barn swallow coming at my head is a memory I shall cherish.

It's turtle season here at Rondeau, and we weren’t disappointed when we saw one scuttling across our camp site, heading for the lake I assumed. They come onto the land from the water to lay their eggs, and as there are plenty of turtles in Rondeau Pond, they’re fairly easy to spot making their way to or from their egg laying sites. One of our camping neighbours called Charlie over to have a look at one on their site, and even though it was probably the same one that we had seen earlier, Charlie was dutifully enthused.

Crazy is as crazy does, so when everyone was ready, we all piled into our respective cars and headed back to Chatham because, well, doesn’t everyone go home halfway through a trip? Emma and Charlie had to go back so they could go to bed, of course, but DW and I had to do some plant watering, given the lack of rain and the number of new plants we’d put in the garden over the past few days. It’s amazing how quickly they dry out, so we doused them with water from the rain barrels, and gave the new trees some sustenance as well, as they are particularly vulnerable to drying out. Before heading back to Rondeau, I made the obligatory stop at the Liquor Store for some Liffey Water, and it wasn’t long before we were back in our little Rondeau bolt hole to resume our rest and relaxation. The evening wasn’t quite so cold as the previous one, but we wimped out didn’t stay in the Pleasure Dome for too long, preferring to stay a little warmer in our aluminium cell. One of the big advantages of an Airstream over other travel trailers is the big windows. We can sit inside with the widows open and it’s almost like being outside. All the windows are screened, too, so you’re safe from the ever-present and pestilential biting bugs. See, glamping at its finest.

The weather was looking set to be calm overnight, so I left the trailer’s awning deployed and fell into bed after another strenuous day (!). There were no plans for Wednesday, thank goodness, so I was looking forward to another non-busy day.