Daily Routine

Most of the chores for the day are now a well established routine, divided up equally between myself and Jenny. Anything that involves bending, coordination or subtlety is assigned to Jenny, and anything that involves weight, repetitive banging or eating is given to me. Our morning usually starts with my watch alarm going off at 8am, and a groggy roof tent conversation about what lies ahead of us for the next 24 hours. Jenny will always open the superb windows in the tent to see what the weather has in store for us, and then we will try and unengage from the roof tent, and make our way down the bonnet and to ground level. Tea and breakfast will follow shortly, with the breakfast usually being one of eggs (poached, scrambled or boiled), porridge, toast or cereal.

If we are off to a new destination, Jenny will pack up the tent and me the awning and table and chairs. We also have to fit in showering at some point, brushing our teeth and also a large quantity of unknown faffing. All in all it takes us a minimum of two hours, from getting up, before we can leave. If we are in a hurry we do sometimes pack up the night before, but it is still at least an hour before we are off. This generally means we don't leave a campsite until 11 in the morning. If we are staying put, it still takes us nearly two hours before we are ready for the day ahead. On the road we take approximate two hour shifts at the wheel of Dino, and we both enjoy the driving, although Jenny is the expert at city centre driving, whilst I love the long shifts that are occasionally needed to get us to our destination. As yet we have not broken our rule of no night driving, but we are sure a time will come ....

A lot of our time is taken up with the unglamorous chores such as shopping, hand washing, jobs on Dino and cooking. and yet we are both more than happy to do these jobs as I think we both realise that we could not have this incredible freedom without it. Another of our important jobs is writing up this blog, and also keeping in contact with our loved ones back home, via email, and this always takes plenty of time, especially given my typing skills. But saying that I am currently writing this blog lying in a hammock in 35 degree heat on the beach outside Istanbul!

In the evening the main job is to cook a meal, and one of us usually declares that they will cook a certain dish. Now, most of you might think that cooking the meal is the hard part, but really it is the glamorous, slave master role. The secondary role involves being ordered to peel and chop the vegetables, and carry out other preparations, whilst the cook then takes all the glory by presenting the dish. In our world the cook is glamour job!

Once we have eaten we are usually joined or invited to join some fellow campers for a drink and the majority of the rest of our evening is taken up consuming strange alcoholic drinks from around the world, communicating in pigeon English or mime, and exchanging stories with all the crazy travellers and locals. One thing that has impressed us is the hospitality we have been shown in all countries, and I think that it will change us for good. The English, blessed as we are in many ways, have a lot to learn about hospitality and that certainly includes me and Jenny.

If we do have spare hour or two we either read (I am on my 3rd book!) or play board games. Although I am naturally a better board game playing, the score isn't reflecting this. I think that Jenny either has some loaded dice or is spiking my drink!For those of you who are interested the scores are this. (Jenny first) Chess 1:0, Draughts 1:0, Backgammon 1:0 Scrabble 1:1

Following shortly after this blog, will be Jenny's impression of our ten great days in Romania. We are currently holed up on the beach 70 kms outside Istanbul, hoping to pick up our Turkmenistan visa tomorrow.Once we have that we will be off to explore the rest of this amazing country.

Hope this blog finds all our friends, family and subscribers well, we are happy and at peace with the world.

Laters dudes!

Ollie and Jenny

ps Of course we are having lots of fun around all of this, which you should be able to see on our photos in our GALLERY

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