Italian Lakes and Islands 2024

No, I’m not talking about you Andy.

I woke at 6.00am, but Jackie slept through until 8.00am, when we both got up. I don’t know what came all over me, but I erected the washing line, hung out the damp jackets, went to the shop for breakfast croissants, then did the washing up. Camping brings out the domestic goddess in me.

Jackie had decided we weren’t going to do anything today, but chill out. Apparently it wasn’t because she was still knackered from yesterday’s hike!

The weather was a mixed bag, mainly sunshine, but clouds came over every time I took my camera out. We took a gentle stroll around our fantastic campsite & discovered it was much bigger than we thought. It also had a lot of empty pitches, where you could camp without having any neighbours. We are however still more than happy with our pitch. We also discovered that there was a large dog walking/toilet at the end of the campsite and even a dog shower (Loup would have loved it).

After a couple of wines to steady her hand, Jackie set about cutting my hair with my electric clippers. I think she did a reasonable job. After my second shower of the day, we had lunch of salami, cheese and crisps with a couple of wines.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent sunbathing, reading my book and we were entertained by another Dutch couple who had just arrived. We first saw them as the husband was pushing his wife around in a wheelchair, like Lou and Andy from Little Britain. For half an hour she was ordering him to push her back and forwards and round and round as she assessed which pitch to take. We were praying they wouldn’t take the pitch immediately in our eyeline.

Of course they did. A short while later he reversed their caravan into the pitch we didn’t want them to take and hilariously the wife suddenly appeared running around like a spring chicken as she directed him back. After unhooking the caravan, the husband spent another 30 minutes plus, with his remote control manoeuvring their caravan to the exact position his wife, who was still standing, wanted it to be in. We had our tent erected in pretty much the same time. For the next 3 hours he erected his awning, filled the water tank and god knows what else. I never knew there was so much to do with a caravan.

We have vowed that we will swim in Lake Lugano before we leave. With the sun beating down, I ventured down to the lake to make an assessment, but Sod’s Law it clouded over the moment I reached the lake, which made the thought of swimming very unappealing.

At 5.25pm, after a 55 minute rain delay, England kicked off their T20 cricket match against Scotland, which I listened to on my iPad. I was happy as Larry until Jackie drew my attention to an email from a dentist who is due to make an assessment on repairing her wisdom tooth. Apparently it is complicated and they have listed the work just to make the assessment at over £700. Thieving bastards. This put a damper on our mood, as did the rain in Barbados after just 6.2 overs of cricket.

At 7.30pm, we ventured out of camp for the mile walk to the Millennium Bug, a restaurant recommended by our Dutch neighbours. We followed the walking route on Apple Maps, but unfortunately I turned right about 50 yards too prematurely. It started to rain and we ended up in a farm where we confronted by a bewildered farmer sheltering in his barn who started shouting at us. We couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but his exaggerated gestures told us that we needed to go back the way we had come. Luckily, Jackie never mentioned it again - that we had gone the wrong way in the rain.

The Millennium Bug was a traditional Italian restaurant in a woodland setting. I ordered the Gnocchi alla Chef and Jackie, the mixed grill, which turned out to be a meat fest with just a couple of roasted vegetables. I helped Jackie with her dinner, but still she couldn’t manage a whole pork chop. We shared a Tiramisu for dessert. It was very nice and we will be going back before we leave.

As we were just getting ready to leave when thunder and lightning crashed overhead and there was a torrential rain storm. We waited under a shelter for at least 25 minutes before making a dash for home.

Along the tarmac footpath, we discovered a strange phenomenon of more than 20 frogs hopping off the path as we approached. We found one particularly fat frog 🐸 that couldn’t be bothered to hop out of our way. Jackie gave it a kick, but it just slid along the path. I tried to film it on my phone, but made a total pig’s ear of it. In my defence, I was trying to keep my phone dry and every time Jackie kicked the frog she cast a shadow over it from the street light. It was too wet for a second take apparently!!

Further down the path another frog hopped onto my adventure sandal, which gave me the shock of my life. I volleyed it back into the grass.

When we arrived back at camp, we and the camp were both very soggy, but on a positive note the lights I had attached to the tent were working. We had 3 small wines under the neighbouring awning before bed.

Song of the Day - Alive and Kicking by Simple Minds.Okumaya devam et