I was in Somerset entertaining the old man as my siblings and I secretly plotted to have him inprisoned in a local care home at the beginning of the month. Then I had a brief few days in the care of comrade Scarlet in Croydon! Boy! was that a shock to the country boy I have become! East Croydon at night reminded me of Hackney or Kings Cross 30 years ago! Minus the good bits, positively Dickensian but with neon.
Breaking the rules a bit with this one, but this was my first visual warning that it had been seriously snowing in Croatia whilst I’d been away. And yes that’s the plane I was on , cool pic eh!
So on the 8th I flew back into Zagreb and for the first time took the local buses in to the city rather than the airport bus. It took about an hour longer but saved me 5 euros, look after your cents and your euros will look after themselves! When I finally got to the car it was a brighter white than usual.
On arriving back in Zagreb to pick up my car I discovered it was well disguised (other than the number plate!). Took me 15 mins to get all the snow off the car, apparently its illegal to drive with snow on your car.On the 8th of Jan having driven back from Zagreb on roads that were fully clear of snow and ice I got to within a few hundred metres of my house and got stuck! Wheels spinning and a gradual slipping back down the hill, I got stuck blocking the road – as seen above – and so legged it up the hill to ask my neighbour – pictured above – to bring his trusty tractor to tow me up. It turned out his tractor wheels span on the road too and he too gave up and ended up parked down the hill – as seen above! It was only later with large metal chains on his whels that he made it up the hill but didn’t risk trying to tow me up too. We did push my car out of the way and left it there for the night.Having walked up the hill after the 12 hour journey from London the house looked like this! Cute but decidedly cold!Where the car ended up after three attempts to traverse the snow covered icy hill all failed. My new suitcase proved its value once again!My new neighbour – a walker (but not in the zombie sense) – heads up our hill just as I head back down to collect things from my stranded car.The big pear tree casts a shadow on the snowy roof.Nancy in “Nancy Heaven”, in a dirty wood box adjacent to a burning stove. I have no idea why she chooses the dustiest and dirtiest of boxes to sleep in but she does! But just look at that dozy look of pleasure on her face, almost caressing the side of the warm stove.No explanation needed.How do those poor trees survive?Is anything cuter? Sid n Nancy sleeping on the sofa next to the stove as they do most of the day nowadays!Jan the 29th was a lovely bright day and not too cold so I did some gardening. One of my goals is to level the pathway that goes along to the top of the slope by the edge of the imaginary vegetable patch. This involves digging out the lumps and bumps and filling in the ruts and then raking it level. Later I’ll put some grass seed on it. Once done the path will be easier to walk without twisting an ankle and a lot easier to mow!When I get out in the garden it’s not uncommon to find that my work is under monitoring and inspection by my superiors.This tap was leaking bad enough that I decided it was time for some plumbing action! Or perhaps I should say pretence? Anyway, turns out these taps are only a few euros to buy new and so armed with new supplies of plumbers tape and my big wrench I went to work. Needless to say the shop promised “it’ll just unscrew” did not happen. I dug out the surrounding wall so I could pull out the plumbers string – the old school Croatian version of plumbers tape and spray on some WD40. Still no luck. It became clear that the pipe to the tape is plastic and it was just twisting dangerously rather than releasing the tap. A broken pipe in a wall would be slightly outside my pretend plumber comfort zone so I bottled it. The irony was that when I turned the water back on I realised that if the old tap is very carefully turned a few degrees off the shut position it hardly drips at all! Fixed! What a plumber I am!Deer hoof tracks in the garden, close to the house. Seems like Sid is not such a good guard dog after all!My major cock up of the winter was forgetting to turn off the water to the wooden house. Sure enough when I finally checked it out there were long icicles hanging off the outside wall below the toilet sink, DOH! Looks like I’ll be pretending to be a plumber again!
That was January, it’s now the first week of Feburary and I am still based in the kitchen most of the time within the warmth of the stove. But I’m back to sleeping upstairs in my bed again now its no longer in the minus 13 temperature zone at night! Sid n Nancy miss sleeping with my on the sofa at night but its much better for my back to be on my divine mattress.
