Inspiring words..."I love your blog."

I often hear that if you have a blog, you should update it regularly to keep your followers interested. Admittedly, I don't do mine often enough. Unfortunately life gets in the way...house to clean, family to feed, other commitments, blah blah blah. And sometimes, I don't feel that I have anything interesting to write about. However, recently I visited a friend and she commented about something she found recently on my blog, an entry I did a long time ago, and told me how much she loves my blog.

I went through the photos on my phone and found that I had taken photos of things that I had done, but hadn't yet written a post to go with them. The danger of leaving it so long is that I sometimes forget what it was I was going to write a post about. That is what happened with the cheese and chives scone picture here. I can't remember if these are dairy free or if there was anything special about this recipe, other than I used my home grown chives which I have in abundance.

On a personal note, my husband and I dragged the kids along to the Caravan and Camping Show in February. My son didn't want to go, but we gave him the job of using the site map to find the things we wanted to look at. He loves maps and numbers, so he was more than happy with that job. On our way around, there was a kids activity tent to keep the kids happy. From there you could collect another map showing where you could collect a special kids bag and some things to go in it. There was also a competition form to fill in, which I did.

Now, I think the last time I won something other than the odd small lotto win was about 15 years ago, so I got the surprise of my life to get a phone call telling me I had won the competition. I was beside myself with excitement when the lady told me what I had won; a 9 person tent, 4 camping chairs, 4 sleeping bags, 2 lanterns and a camping table. We already have two tents and a camper trailer, so when the weekend came I set up the tent with the idea of sleeping in it for one night and take some photos of it to list it for sale on the internet. My son, who was reluctant to go to the show, was very excited with the win. I reminded him that if we didn't go to the show (which was his desire) we wouldn't have won. The moral of the story being that sometimes doing something we don't want to do can bring it's own rewards.


Of course, I'm just happy to have won a chair that has a wine holder! What will they think of next?


Another stumbling block to updating my blog previously was internet usage. Often we would go over the 2GB of internet that our plan allowed, then it would slow to dial up speed, making uploading photos and updating my blog difficult and frustrating. A recent phone call to our telephone company saw an upgrade of our internet plan which then spurred an update of our home phone and mobile phone plans. It costs us a little more each month, but the advantages are that we have much more internet allowance on our home internet as well as being able to call family interstate at any time of the day which is handy considering the time difference for us (especially during daylight saving months, it can be as much as 2.5 hours). We can keep in touch with family and friends more often. The moral of this story...sometimes you have to spend money to save money.

And if you've been wondering what has been happening in my garden, well, not much. The temperatures over summer means that we didn't get much in the way of productive flowering for our tomatoes, pumpkins and rockmelons. The tomatoes and peas have died, unfortunately. We received just a few small rockmelons and while our pumpkins haven't been prolific in fruit, they are producing lovely large, tasty pumpkins when they do. I wish I had taken a photo of this 4kg pumpkin before I cut it. I have only used 3/4 of it so far and made delicious pumpkin soup and my famous pumpkin, spinach and olive lasagna.

Speaking of the lasagna that I made, I was using gluten free lasagna sheets. I have been trying to eat gluten free foods, but finding things like home made gluten free bread, cakes, etc are very bland and have a sandy texture. If you have any tasty gluten free recipes, please let me know about them either by putting a comment on this blog or by emailing me on paulinestips@gmail.com.

Cheap and Cheerful: Camping

Remember the days when staying in a caravan park was relatively inexpensive? For us, that was the BC days....before children. Now that our two children are over the age of 2, we often find we have to pay for them on top of the site fee at a caravan park. For example, on the Australia Day long weekend we stayed at the Riverton Caravan Park and were charged $28 per night for the site plus $10 extra for the two kids as the site fee only covers two people. Now, the caravan park is quite nice; it's small, has a nice playground and the facilities are clean, but it's not a flash caravan park by any means. I believe it is run by the local council and has a reception desk available during usual office hours. While we were there we took a drive to Saddleworth in the Clare Valley and found a nice little caravan park next to the town oval. We chatted to a bloke there who was on the committee for the caravan park and he said they charge $20 for a powered site and $10 for unpowered, regardless of how many people were staying there, you only pay for the site. The showers and toilets were basic and nothing flash, but he did mention that they had received some government funding and are planning to install ensuites which will make it a bit nicer. There is a playground and undercover bbq area with sink and hot/cold running water. The grassed area was lovely and shady and it was a short walk into town.

Armed with the knowledge that bookings weren't required, it was first in best dressed at this caravan park, for the Adelaide Cup long weekend just gone we headed off in our camper trailer to Saddleworth. When we arrived there, the powered sites adjoining the grassy area were already taken. There was one more powered site, but no grass and it was next to the septic outlet so was a bit "on the nose." So we set up camp under a shady tree and went unpowered for the night.

That was Friday night. On Saturday morning two of the caravans packed up and left, so we quickly moved camp over to the powered site, set up our camper trailer on the grass and were very pleased with the spot. Even more pleasing was the price. When the caretaker came down later, we paid $50 for three nights accommodation - $10 for one night unpowered and $40 for two nights with power. The kids were happy with the playground, even though it wasn't really suitable for our 2 year old, our 5 year old loved it. If you have ever used toilets in a small town you will know what I mean when I say the toilets and showers were clean enough but not spotless (small spiderwebs and the occassional insect sharing your shower with you). The grassed area was lovely, had shady trees and on two nights we cooked our dinner on the free and exceptionally clean bbq.

One thing I like about staying in these small town caravan parks adjoining ovals is that usually over the weekend there is some sport to watch. We got to watch the cricket matches played in Saddleworth over the weekend. I saw the most amazing thing - the batsman hit the ball high into the air. It would have been a sitter if the fieldsman could have got under it, instead he didn't get there in time. The ball fell to the ground, bounced, hit the wicket and knocked off the stumps! As the batsman walked off the ground my husband and I figured that technically he was bowled out. The fielding team couldn't believe their luck.

Saddleworth Caravan Park isn't widely advertised, they apparently like the fact that their little caravan park is quiet and not too popular. So if you want a trip down memory lane to the days when camping in a caravan park with or without kids was cheap, it's worth checking it out. If you don't live in South Australia, the next time you are driving through a small country town, check out it's local committee or council run caravan park. You may find it a lot cheaper and friendlier than larger caravan parks in larger towns. Saddleworth Caravan Park is also pet friendly (at the caretakers discretion).