20th of October to 15th of November, 2020.
I feed the animals in the morning, either with dry corn or with grains, to which I add hot water and turn in a kind of animal porridge? So I give to the pigs and the chickens. The pigs are insane! They come to you crazy for the food, and I have to keep my nerves calm otherwise you can get scared. They even bite the fence sometimes, pulling with their tusks, and almost opening the gate.
I am also responsible for cleaning both green houses. First remove all the vegetables. The eatable ones for us and the rest for the pigs. After that I remove all the weeds with my hands, then all the plants, woods and strings. The tomatoes are the most tricky ones because their plants are tide to the top of the green house, so they do not fall. And I have to untied one by one, so it takes some time.
Next step is cleaning the outside garden. Basically just the same job: just clean all the area, removing everything from the soil. That day, I also collect the raspberries which are out of season but look great! And there is quiet a lot! So me and A. make a raspberry pie. It is so good that I think I could eat all by myself in one sit. But again, the recipe is so simple that you can not imagine.
On the rainy, cold day, I would help A. with cleaning both houses. Nothing much, just vacuum and mop a little bit. But apart of that, there is no much inside job for days like that. And I feel bad about it. Actually in general, A. always say that I should take it easy, and do it everything on my time. Which is nice but I like to work my five hours clean so I can enjoy my free time with a clean conscience. And I tell her that. She seems to understand.
The birthday of A.’s little daughter is coming and I am more than glad on helping with the treasure hunt and the food. I would love also help with the decoration but A. just bought some balloons and signs and they are happy with that. We plan and execute the treasure hunt together, I only do the papers by myself (I dip them on tea to get a older look and I burn the edges). A. prepare two amazing cakes. Truly delicious! Both of them are full of different layers, with walnuts, chocolate and wiped cream, but one is a white cake with bananas (which A. turned into a colorful flower) and the other is a chocolate cake. She also prepare some salad and meat soup. D. prepare the barbecue, which smells really nice. These food would be served just for the adults, on the “after party”. The kids are having my sandwiches. I am in charge of preparing this mini and cute sandwiches, with animal or plant faces. They turned out alright, even that I was in a rush.
A few days before the party, A.’s mother, V., come to spend some days with us. She is very kind and hard worker, plus she is so elegant and a beautiful lady, not showing at all her real age.
After a long time of waiting and talking with a lady from Scotland, we finally get in an agreement about it. T. is actually very kind and help me a lot, making arrangements so I can come. I ask A., as a favor, to borrow her card so I can buy my tickets online. It is when a long nightmare starts. I try so hard and many times to find a cheap plane leaving from Belgrade. I do find but I am stupid enough to, on the day me and T. had settle our deal, I use a normal window of Google to buy the ticket, and not the incognito one, as I was using during my researches. So when I realize I am not sure if coming to England but doing my quarantine in Scotland is allowed, and because of that I decide not to buy the ticket that day, I know that next day the prices will be absurd. Batata! (Potato!) As we say in Brazil.
A lot of things change in the next few days thought: T. says she can no longer offer me a place for quarantine (as we had agreed before); A.’s card has no Master or Visa flag, so it is not acceptable in the website; D. is facing some trouble with his bank and the currency he has in his card. But nothing of this actually matter if I cannot find a flight which I can pay for it. I finally have the idea to look for a flight leaving from Tirana, Albania. And I get it! Of course the whole time the problem was not actually the flight, which is less than 30€, but the luggage. To add one single check-in luggage of 20 Kg, I would pay more than the price of the ticket. Can you believe that? The problem with D.’s card end up being a bless when I actually get a discount for the flight for buying in the following day. Actually if it was not for that discount, I would be pretty screwed because I would not have the money to buy bus tickets from the airport to London and from London to Leeds, to Fergus’ house, where I would finally do my quarantine.
Now I have to make so many plans. I have to have everything on hands, written down in case my computer fails, and of course print some of the stuff. I get all the directions from one spot to another, from Fergus’ house to the nearest Supermarket, I buy the bus tickets (in advance because it is cheaper), and after a lot o planning, I am ready to go.
The flight is for one week longer than I first planned to stay with A., leaving on the 19th of November from Tirana. She and the kids are actually going to Belgrade for holidays on the 11th, so it will be basically just me for a few days, with D. coming one day yes one not.
But I want to get to Tirana on the 17th, to have one extra day to print the documents, buying some food and things I need, besides I will not take the risk of hitchhiking direct to the airport and getting stuck, losing my flight. So I ask Claas if I can come over for those two nights and stay at the hostel again. He says there is no problem. I am leaving on the 15th from Seca Reca and with luck everything will be alright.
I still keep doing some work at the farm thought. I wish I could do it more, afterwards I am still staying here and eating their food, but there is not much to be done. So I clean both houses; I clean up a small path of the thorns; I cover part of the garden with cardboard and straw (but I cannot do much because we ran out of cardboard); I untied and organize in a selected way all the robe I took from the tomato plants, so they can easily work with them again once they start to plant the next vegetables; and I keep feeding the animals, of course.
In my last night though, I spend over one hour working in the darkness (not just after sunset but without any artificial lights) and cold, trying to fill the corn for the animal inside the garage. D. was harvesting them with a friend and we need to fit them inside the garage by hand, since with the truck / tractor it was not possible. I wanted to help but I confess it felt weird doing that on my last day (night) and under the circumstances. I know they ran out of time and they days were so short this time of the year too but…
Next morning D. kindly drove me to Kosjeric, saving me the time to hitchhike there. Before we left, he was also very kind on saying I could take whatever food I needed because I would need to eat on the road and at the airport. I knew that and I was very thankful. But even thought I made myself some sandwiches, apples and boiled eggs, I also could not take too much stuff because of the eternal enemy of a backpacker: the weight.