Spring Has Sprung

It’s Mayday soon and spring has really sprung here at Les Vignes Basses. Despite an odd cold snap, the plants and trees are blooming and everything is turning a lush shade of green. We’ve been busy bees planting out seedlings as well as spring cleaning (and fixing) the caravan in preparation for summertime visitors 🙂

Dan has been busily mulching around our trees, which we planted last autumn to make sure that they aren’t out-competed by the ever-growing grass. Dan was a little overexcited about all the orchids that have popped up this year, including the elusive Vanilla Orchid. I think all flower walkers will understand…

As the mercury is (hopefully) rising, we are thinking about remedying issues that we had last year, such as completely melted butter, stinking cheese and most importantly warm wine and G&T’s! Gasp! So, we have created a sunken earth fridge by basically digging under the coldest bit of land we have, under the caravan, and sinking a sealed Ikea bin in said ole. It seems to do the job 🙂

Our solar empire is expanding in the form of another battery because at long last we have internet in the caravan (HURRAH!), which means we can now teach online in the comfort of our own….caravan. FaceTime and Skype are back in business! The extra storage capacity that the battery gives us, coupled with the extra solar panel, is brilliant for teaching and helps us to run our computers and router without worrying about a few cloudy days.

We are certain that everything will keep growing in ernest whilst we are away for the next five weeks in the Picos D’Europa and the Spanish Pyrenees working with Collett’s Mountain Holidays, we just hope that we can get into the jungle upon our return!