Winter woes and warming.

I was not at home for the latter part of Decemeber. I gave in to family pressure and went home to see them all for Crassmas. But before that December brought these experiences:

There is not a lot of bright colour in the garden at the moment except for these beauties.

Sid is the most relaxed cat I have ever had the pleasure to meet, he just trusts me to be a safe space -and a warm pillow – whenever he requires! Often he relies on my arm to stop him sliding off my body.

Nancy is almost as happy in a box or a bin as she is half submerged under my bed sheets. Here she proudly perches in the paper recycling bin.

The barn with its old black oil surface and the newly painted wood shed doors, primed and painted wih water based paint.

The barn is a major enviromental/financial dilemma! It needs “repainting” but in truth it was never painted but had old engine oil spread over it, repeatedly! As you can imagine old motor oil is not terribly good for the environment, either as it seeps out of the wood or is blown away as dust. So I thought to paint it with a water based paint like the one I use on the wooden house. Trouble is for that paint to stick one needs to sand down the wood and then put a primer on first. I decided to test out the process on the doors to the wood shed. Sanding the old oily wood produced clouds of black dust that got in my nose and reminded me of the days of black snot when I was a bicycle messenger in Central London. Yes they look great now, but the primer and the paint costs a packet and the barn is at least 25 times the size of the wood shed doors! Plus the oil dust! I dunno, maybe Putin and Trump will blow us all to bits before the barn falls down but if you have any better ideas please email them.

My girls followng me for a walk in the winter sun.

Hidden away in a back street of Ogulin I found this sad looking spomenik. A monument to fallen fighters (against fascism) that is rather grubby but at least it still stands!

On my way back from an eye appointment at the hospital in Ogulin I decided to take a back route to see what I might find! And this old beauty came up! There has been considerable -but slow- restoration work done on it since I last drove past and I reckon this will be quite impressive once finished. Its name is The Old Town on the River Dobra which is a crap name for a castle but maybe it lost something in translation!

This apple tree is amazing for having late season apples still firmly attached but I figured it was time to get them down before the birds and frost ruined them. I finally made some apple compot but managed to burn it slightly in the pan !

It’s not often I find mugs worthy of adding to my collection in Croatia but this one I spotted on a stall at the Karlovac flea market intrigued me; and only cost a euro! It has the same design on the other side but a different slogan. “Eto Tako Sam” and “Maštam I Lijepomi Je” sent google translate into a tiz, it kept on producing different answers! After some consultation with friends it seems the best interpretations are; “I am as I am” and “I daydream and I feel good”! Coupled with the artwork I have decided that this is by far the best Croatian mug and slogan I have yet to come across!

See you next year!