Been here done this, Igor and Sanja.

Sanja I met at the FFUD festival in Slovakia last month, she promised to come and play pool which made me very happy. I didn’t expect her to actually do so and I really didn’t think she’d bring a guy with her, wh – with her – would then spend hours helping me sort out my books and cassette tapes!

The sun was out and so it seemd only right to take the city dwellers on a tour of our estate and let them get some fresh air. we tracked up through our woods and out on to the track that runs around the crest of the valley to the house at the top with the three big dogs and another smaller extra noisey one!

The dogs gave us a loud welcome but were less interested in us than they might have been if Ena had been with us. Their owner came out and invited us in for the inevitable rakia – the local “vodka” style drink that Croatians find any excuse to have  ashot or two no matter what time of the day it is.  igor and Sanja assured me it was “good” stuff! We had  alengthy chat much of it in English thanx to Slatko’s efforts. The most remarkale thing I learned was that he used to work building pool tables and may be able to help me re do my baise! Unfortunately he did not jump at the offer to come and play a game or two! Slatko has the best looking tractor I have seen in Croatia. He also has a house and property situated exactly as I wanted! We bid farewell and followed a new “nice” poath that Slatko had recommended but it seemed to lead downhill in the wrong direction so we returned to his house and miraculously managed to get past without the dogs noticing us!

Sanja shows supreme cool whilst being checked out by two of the big dogs from up the valley.
This is the only old tractor I’ve seen here in Croatia that is not red! And certainly the only one with such a cute exhaust pipe!
We tried following a “new” path recommended by our neighbour. It was a mistake and after twenty minutes we headed back and resumed the path we knew!

We finished off a warm day with a cooling swim in the Korana. Nobody else around so we had the rope swing to ourselves and the nibbling fish too! The best bit though was discovering Sanja didn’t want to get her hair wet and so of course I did my best to do so.

We went for a swim at the “beach” in the early evening. To my suprise we were joined by one other old guy!
Sanja kept her promise and we played a local version of pool called Cut-throat!

Cut throat is a “pool” game I think Andi introduced me to many years ago but I had forgotten it till Sanja suggested we play it. it works well when there are three players as the balls are divided into three groups by their amrican style numbers 1-5, 6-10 and 11-15. When you have pocketed a ball from a group the other players try to pocket your remaining balls. The player left with only their balls on the table wins! Simples!

Contrary to the actions portrayed in this picture Igor and Snaja were both super helpful in sorting out my Active Publishing stock and making an inventory of what I have in the attic.
These two really out did themselves with their work putting my tape collection in alphabetical order again.

Doing a proper re-sorting of my Active books attic space. The books had been put in basically as they arrived and where beginning to get a bit tricky to track down. But now thanx to Igor they are now all in alphabetical order and thanx to Sanja they have been counted and recorded.

Then as if that wasn’t enough geekiness they volunteered to sort out my tape collection!!!! It was an offer I was not gonna refuse! They duely split my several hundreds cassette tapes into each letter of the alphabet. The problem soon developed of what to do with the tapes that have two bands on?? It was decided that all those tapes should go with the compilation tapes and I would sort them out later… that of course is still waiting to happen!

Neither of these two had visited the Partisan hospital before so I gave them the full tour on a beautiful sunny but not hot day.
Sanja has a rather strong poser trait and I am happy to go along with that for the sake of a good photo. The stone plaque she adornes is a commemorative tribute from the Russian Federation to the memory of the Partisans who fought against fascism, I’m sure she meant no disrespect!
The Petrova Gora monument was still closed so we got a security guard to take a photo of us. Guess who forgot to wear his cool shades!

Igor and Sanja did try and make some sugar free pancakes but the less said about that the better (we think they used rice flour by mistake!). But even if they couldn’t cook I’d invite them back any day, afterall there’s my books and pamphlets sitting in boxes waiting to be categorised and put in order!