they remembered the years of their youth

While Carm set out to ruin a good walk (golf!), I settled in to enjoy a quiet day, or so I thought... As it turned out, by mid morning the din of lawnmowers cutting the acres of grass drowned out the birdsong.

But back to the beginning of my day. It started with me and the dogs going for a good, long walk - only an hour, and nothing like the walks that Merikay goes on, but still pleasant. The campground was almost deserted, Canada geese with their little goslings swam in the water, the sky was clear blue, there was not much wind and the roads were dry!

When we got back I did some clean-up around camp, had my coffee and breakfast - cue the lawnmowers...

When you try to avoid bread and other processed food products it can be difficult to find a quick,  satisfying breakfast. At home I've been having a bit of grilled tofu which is easy to bring on the camper. I make a big batch at a time, and just warm it up in the microwave as we need some. I take a block of tofu (which has been frozen and thawed to change the texture), cut it up into finger sized strips, marinate it for a day, and then grill it on my griddler. A bit time consuming, but then I have a few days worth. Usually I marinate it in some garlic chili sauce, soy sauce, and lemon juice, but this time I tried Frank's Red Hot, for a buffalo wing sort of taste. YUM.

Before we came here I experimented with the chickpea brownie that I've been making. I've already  tweaked it to include no sugar, only fruit to sweeten it, as well as adding 1/2 cup of oatmeal; this time I left out the cocoa and chocolate chips, instead adding cinnamon (2t) and raisons and also an extra 1/2 cup of oatmeal. Since the base is chickpeas they are a healthy, relatively low fat (only 1/2 c peanut butter), breakfast bar with some protein built in. And they even taste okay. They should freeze well also, making it easy to bring an extra batch camping.

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Well... it is now just after 1pm and the giant lawnmower is doing the sites around me, and of course my site as well. It is loud and stinky, and putting me in a bad mood... I've been listening to it since 10am... I want my money back for today! I guess it is the price to pay for having all this open, grassy space around us (still makes me cranky). I haven't yet mentioned that a backhoe is doing work just over the water from here. He's banging his bucket and generally making quite a racket as well. I had high hopes for a quiet day as I have been enormously tired for the last few weeks and was sure that a day of peace would fix me up...

By the time Carm got back with his friend John D., the birdsong was finally in the forefront, as the mowing and backhoeing had stopped. We all had a great time catching up - we hadn't seen John for over a decade as he has been travelling and living around the world. He had fascinating stories to share, next time I'll have to tempt him to stay longer.

“While they talked they remembered the years of their youth, and each thought of the other as he had been at another time.” ― John Edward Williams, Stoner