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.
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!
Winter is here, but not quite enough to rename myself Jon Snow as yet. I escaped to Amsterdam for a week in November and spent much of the rest of the time cooped up inside trying to keep the place warm without creating an astronomical electricity bill. I am considering shifting my centre of operations to the kitchen where the big wood stove is but first it needed cleaning.
There is nothing quite as cute as realising that little Nancy is following behind me as I take a walk around the garden.Nancy when not following me or his brother Sid likes to hang about in my vicinity I guess for a sense of security, she is a very nervy cat. Here he is stretched across the doorway, so I have to notice her, basking in the winter sun, Regal like , if it weren’t for her oddly positioned rear legs!The willow tree is one of the ones doing best in the beginnings of my arboretum. So well in fact that I have dismantled the deer and rabbit fence that surrounded it in favour of some old mosquite net to protect the lower bark from rabbits. It’s a wonderfully twisty shape. I hope those yellow leaves are just a sign of winter and not some disease!This russet beauty is growing right under my washing line , I’m surprised I didn’t step on it! Definately not gonnna try eating it though!What do you suppose this is? Well it is the view one has from the back of the kitchen wood stove when the back is open looking through to the front with sunlight on the smoke stained glass. As seen whilst I was in the process of pretending to be a chimney sweep cleaning out the wood stoves and the chimneys.Who’s the cowboy in flares? Nope its not Jim Morrison at a rodeo; it’s moi with my chimney cleaning cable, too much hair and a weird angle affect that makes me look a lot slender than I am!What on earth is that/ I hear you exclaim! Well this is the view along the horizontal chimney shaft to the main vertical shaft which has my wire cleaner running up it, fascinating eh!There hasn’t been much snow as yet this year. A load did come down whilst I was in Amsterdam but this dusting of the cold white stuff was enough to disconcert poor Nancy whilst performing her not so discreet toilet!I capture pix of all the bugs I find at Barabrith inorder to send them n to my mate the “bug lady” this one looks really big in this photo but fear not she was not ‘that’ big! Quite a beauty though and wondering around in the cold without a hat or scarf too!And for those of you wondering where my Top Cat Sid has got to, well he spends a lot of his time in his barn. I guess there are lots of things living in there he can torture. When he’s in an “attention seeking” mode he’s difficult to refuse. I tried doing my chores with him acting like a heated neck warmer, it lasted 5 minutes before he got bored of the high view and left me for something new, the fickle feline that he is.
Not much happened at Barabrith in October but I did manange to do some gardening and got to see a couple of films at the local Kino Edison. Nothing cinematically earth shattering but I did quite enjoy One Battle After Another. I also binge watched the last three seasons of Westworld which was good but less so as it went on. Here are some images for your delectation.
My favourite kind of cinema, empty, so no one disturbs my enjoyment of the film!Nancy took to sitting on the shower room chair this month, probably cos there was a comfy pillow on it; what a yawn!Remember all those little saplings I planted last month? Well some critter came along and dug up a bunch of them – how mean is that?Sid displays incredible patience when he knows there’s something small, furry and alive behind the fridge; not for long!It’s been a long time dream to have another eucalyptus tree. The last one I planted in front of my tower block in Hackney, it grew to a good size. So I have high hopes for this little bush. If it makes it through the winter I’ll start pruning it so it grows upwards rather than sidewards.Sid n Nancy are close, if not alike, but this was a first for me. Nancy had been resting for some time nestled in the warmth of my lap whilst I read The Guardian online. Sid comes along surveys the scene and gives me a determined look. Up he jumps and flops down on top of his brother. Usually Nancy would either fight for her right to stay or just run off but this time she stayed cosily sandwiched between Sid and me till it was time for me to get on with more important things than being a cat cushion – heresy I know!Another long desired goal for the garden is to clear the bank going up to the veg patch (overgrown) of brambles and plant some more interesting things along it. Brambles are no good for compost or burning in the stove as they stay prickly for ever. So I decided to join the Maga crew for an afternoon and help global warming on its way. Now the big conundrum is what to plant on the bank?
Well my blogging schedule went out the window well and truly, didn’t it? I spend too much time in front of this damn machine and sadly the other things I do are more essential than this blog. But I will try and do better in future; promise. I’ve been on my own most of the summer but with notable visits from friends and guests and a short vacation in July to drive my Peruvian mates around the UK on a short tour. So below are some pictorial highlights. It is now the beginning of October! See you again on November 1st!
I took a trip through Serbia and finally got to see this remarkble spomenik. Yes It not technically part of Barabrith but I am trying to work out some Spomenik tours and showing folk others besidea the ones close to home. These are close to the city of Niś in Serbia.This Spomenik sits atop a hill overlooking Veles not far from Skopje. The building represents a poppy flower bud breaking open, needless to say it’s seen better times but is still impressive. Check the Spomenik Database website for details. Known as the “Macedonian Guernica”.Nancy is the queen of boxes – in this case the grass box that came with my Lidl electric lawnmower. Sleep on you crazy cute cat.I couldn’t mention the Peruvians in my intro without following it up with a picture because this lot are CRAZY for taking photos. Always staged or posing. Here they are trying to straighten up one of the Avebury stones that is leaning a bit.Scarlet has visited a couple of times before. This time she was bit dismayed that I had failed to maintain the pathways.Yours truly on the top of the Petrova Gora monument captured twice by Scarlet using the panorama photo trick!Sid know’s he’s not meant to be in the wooden house bedrooms (in case of visitor’s having cat allergies) and yet here he is proving he can jump up through the open window if he has the mind to.This bush by the gazebo had so many gorgeous big purple flowers this year that it was a mecca for bees and other little flying creatures . But check out the big black beast wallowing in the pollen fest! That’s one creature you do not want to annoy!Phil returned and once again insisted on doing something helpful. Seeing as how I bought the wood to replace the metal stairs side panels about six months before it seemed a no brainer to ask if he’d like to tackle this task. And he did, thanx Phil!Spot the cat makes a welcome return to this blog.I wish I could get both Sid and Nancy to drink from the spring water tap in the garden all the time but only Sid will and only on occasion!The new woodwork on the metal stairs gave me the chance to add a little table for cups of tea and even a bowl of museli. Not a bad view whilst munching on the healthiest breakfast in the Balkans!My favourite German photographer – Jennifer – visited again but brought her son and mate with her this time. We did Petrova Gora and the Partisan hospital – of course – and this casual pic I rather like.For those of you who have visited Petrova Gora this will be readily recognisable, everyone else may be think WTF is that? Spot the tour guide looking through a skylight hole.The hornets and wasps make short work of much of my fruit. They often leave the skin behind, hanging like an empty promise waiting to be squished with surprise when someone tries to pick it.What do you reckon? Have they just copulated? Are they arguing about which direction is best for their next meal? Have they just fallen out discussing trans rights and gender critical feminism? Or perhaps they are fighting invisible foes and are standing back to back gladiator style? Any other daft suggestions, please keep them to yourselves.The hornets chose to nest in the apex above my bedroom door this summer. Not a problem during the day when they tend to keep to themselves but at night when the light comes on they swarm like morons to a Maga rally. Still I only got stung once this year by one that walked over my open toed shoe and stung me on my middle toe ; twas very painful for a few moments!The preying mantises are practically invisible on the lawn or amongst the long grass but as soon as they go climbing up my walls they stand out for the funny looking critters they are!The mosquito nets get an airing.Despite the furry fiends being fitted with bells they are still racking up an impressive kill rate. Here is an Edible Dormouse they left for me to find one morning, thankfully uneaten. Check out the length of his whiskers, I think Sid may have killed him in a fit of jealousy over them!The furry freaks make the most of any rare times I sit down in their company and invade my lap with a determined attitude of “now just you sit there whilst we have a nap and don’t even think about getting up for at least half an hour!”I dug up and replanted 16 little beech trees that were growing on paths in local woods. Hopefiully they will end up forming a line that follows the path down my hill. It’lll be interesting to see how many survive through to next spring.The hornets that were buzzing around my bedroom door for the last few months are now dropping like flies (?!). This one dropped onto my shirt and sat there looking at me as I walked around. When I finally relocated him onto the bench he just sat there staring at me. Autumn makes them dopey then they die!I’ve been tempted by this very ornamental plant for some time and couldn’t resisit splurging out 10e on this fine specimen of Pampas Grass (aka Uruguayan Pampas) at the flea market last week. I do hope it survives the winter and multiplies but we shall see. Nancy checked it out as soon as it was planted and gave it a pass.
And there you go up to date again! The pampas was planted 3 days ago. Thanks for reading.
I spent a bit of time away at the beginning of April, visiting my sister in Rome and catching up with an old mate in Bologna. But we did have some visitors right at the end of the month.
Looking out of my car window as I drive off to town Nancy gives me onefof her mournful “where are you going this time”?” looks. Or perhaps it was one of her ‘bring me back treats or be damned’ looks, it’s sometimes difficult to tell with Nance!I haven’t noticed these beauties before but they were one of the first flowers to appear this year. Amusingly called the Garden Star of Belthlehem elsewhere mine are known as the Garden Star of Barabrith but others know them also as Eleven Oclock Lady, Nap at Noon, Grass Lily and even Sleepydick!! Cute eh!After much slog with both strimmer and lawn mower the grass paths of Barabrith have returned!The leaning pear tree blossomed nicely this year.Wow! My wisteria is really going for it!Rachel had done her ankle in so Hop and I did the walk around the valley. Here Hop admires the view of Zlatko’s place in the spring sun.My guests this month were from good ‘ole Blighty. Hop, as he’s known, hosted me in Swindon back in 1989 when the forces of law and misery were trying to jail me on a stitch up. Oh yeah! But that story is for another day. 36 or so years later I get to return the favour to him and his partner. Here they are doing the Partisan hospital in the forest tour.Rachel and Hop play some pool whilst I lurk outside taking illicit photographs through my mucky windows!This beauty is the flower that the guy at the Karlovac fleamarket gave me as a freebie. Acording to my Picture This app its a Bearded Iris or Common Flag!! but whatever its called it’s a striking beauty!Can’t get enough of the wisteria hanging over the wisteria bench!
We spent most of March absent from Barabrith and so there would have been less amateur photography for you to put up with. Except I decided to update you on my burgeoning goblien collection currently on display in the small bedroom of the guest house! Oh yes lucky you!
The newest food outlet in Karlovac is proving popular with the locals. But it’s a sad death fest kebab joint with not a hinto of veggie progress, very Croatia.It’s that time of the year again. Strimming and mowing a-go-go! For the last fortnight I have cut grass somewhere or other on everyday it wasn’t too wet or raining to do so. I guess it’ll be like this for the next few months. Lets see how long the replacement Parkside (Lidl) mower lasts this year!Not stricly a Barabrith event but worth mentioning cos so little of this nature happens around here. The 8th of March Womens March in Zagreb was a joyous event with folks from all sorts of campaigns there and a rather good punky sound track. I bumped into a couple of folk I knew and then bunked off to watch a film at the cinema whilst the punky monkey (Sanja) went to a gig at Medika.A typical piece of gobin or goblien with beaten up old fancy plaster frame painted to look like gold! Goblien is the art of needlework, often following traditional patterns or pictures (you can by kits) from local cultures. They are popular in Croatia and I often stumble across them in the flea market. I sometimes put them up on ebay if you are interested in financing my collection!I like the way these things turn up in all sorts of different frames.This one shows a bit of detail and how much more cleaning I could do of some of the glass covers!I think Leonardo might be a bit miffed by this representation of his Lisa, she’s probably have a moan too.It’s a stunning collection, innit?As you can see goblieni come in all shapes and sizes and with a variety of subject matter and the only unifying theme I can find is best described as “tacky”! Thats why I like them I guess! (Two pictures in this picture are not gobbers but I keep forgetting to remove themfrom the Gobibition!Reflecting Catholic Croatia’s obsession with breeding the flea market goblieni often depict mothers with babies. Here are two examples and I will probably not get anymore!The perfect way to start a day. Breakfast (museli with yoghurt and cornflakes) a cuppa roibosh Earl Grey and the latest Rebus book. And nice temperate weather to sit outide in. Mist rising off the trees is fairly common in the morning.
Thats enough of that, April is already in full swing!
February was cold and dark with a bit of snow and a very sad low.
As sunset comes to an end our house lights shine out into the night.Our woods have loads of these little purple beauties in them, they are called Dutch Crocus according to my Picture This app!
One night on our way back from seeing a film in Karlovac we spotted something lying in the road between our house and our neighbours. Very sadly it was one of our neighbour’s cats, a frequent visitor to Sid and Nancy’s domain and one which they used to fight with but seemed to have got used to and tolerated its visits. Judging by its position and still warm body it had been run over very recently. Our dead end road has very very few vehicles on it at night. We are very sure the culprit is one of the new owners of the last house in the road, we haven’t actually met them yet, but they drive relatively fancy cars by our neighbourhood’s standards and one in particular passes by much faster than we, our neighbours or any of the other animals around here are used to.
What on earth am I up to now? February has a project!Our brave winter guests from Tokyo had threatened to send us something but I wasn’t expecting a whole box of treats! Mochi, sweet red bean paste, Vegan pot noodles Japanese style and friends for the furries.Nancy instantly took a liking to her Tokyo keyringSid and his new little friend hit it off right from the start!Sanja joined the project and opted to handpaint the USPORI text rather than cut a stencil for it.What did this do you think?And why would a tree have this twisted pattern?Sanja carefully removes the pussy cat stencil from the first sign.Nancy is currently spending about 40-50% of her life in this banana box with one of my jackets folded up under her.Et Voila! DIY Road Signage is alive and well, unlike the poor cat that inspired us. This is the critical sign, situated so all can see it as they come up the hill and round the corner just before Barabrith and about 25m before the spot we found the dead cat. Uspori is the Serbo-Croatian for ‘slow down’.The SLOW CATS sign from the dead end (wrong phrase Jon!) of our road. That’s our barn on the left ahead.Is it a mini snow circle? Is it the trail of a drunk slug that then disappeared? No prizes for the first to guess what it is besides a sense of self satisfaction and my admiration! Don’tcha just luv these games?Coming back home after a bit of snow I was glad to see the slow cats signs still visible.What more could a cat want, sunshine, a box and some strokes! Oh yeah and slow moving cars!
This blog post is dedicated to the white and grey cat from across the road.
January was as expected cold, Sanja retreated to the cat house (!) which with its big stove, doule glazing and small size is by for the warmest room in our house. The cats unanimously approve of this situation.
There were however a few bright sunny days when the sun warmed up the walls and Nancy could be seen sitting in the sun or even stretching out and rolling around as if summer was here! We managed a couple of walks in the woods. One of which ended in my risking life and limb to save Sid.
And I finally completed a long held ambition for the kitchen!
Sid and SanjaAfter much delay, approx 4 years!, one of my long time plans finally began to be put into action this month with the cutting up of the shelving rescued from Sanji’s flat in Belgrade. Re-use and recycle!uh oh,time to get the snow shovel out and hope my back doesn’t give in!Nancy is a box fetishist and proud of it!The vine was pruned and all the brambles and creeepers that were entangled in it destroyed, much to Sid’s approval.Yes, at last the second set of mug shelves in our kitchen/pool room was under construction!Some people use filters to enhance their photographs but if you catch the sun and the sky at the right time , there is no need.Whenever the snow comes down and its a misty night I look towards our gate and the lampost battling againt the dark and I think Gateorcist! Does anyone else see it?Sid is prone to allegations of being a bit on the over curvy side, well on his way to being a fat cat some might say! But here he gracefully reveals how his form is purrfectly matched to sleep on a round table.Not often one sees a double rainbow!How about that?!! Not justa double rainbow but a full arch too! Spot the hole in the ground on the left where I started digging for the pot of gold before noticing that the damn thing had moved again!!Construction complete, just the paint and the filling to do!This tree, the Black Locust or False Acacia!, knows how to protect itself from deer etc. Not only is it covered in these vicious spikes it is also highly toxic to eat!On one of our walks da catz followed us as far as the woods and then left us to continue. We did a circular tour of the valley but instead of following the road we followed the stream, good fun for a short walk which in other seasons would be much more difficult due to the undergrowth. However on return we discovered that Sid had run up a tree for some stupid reason and was obviously stuck. His front paws on one side of a v shape split of branches and his back legs on the other. Guess which overweight and unfit old man had to climb the tree and lift the STOOPID creature on to his shoulders and then climb back down again? Yep you guessed it, Moi! The look in Sids eyes though when I arrived at his perch and he stopped wowling and started purring made it all worth while!One banana box of mugs cleared, only four more to go!Spotted a few fungi on various bits of rotting would on one of our rambles but this lot were particularly photogenic.The boys have begun to hunt together, which is bad news for their potential victims! We like the idea that if the stick together when confronted by other cats or possibly aggressive creatures but thats probably a bit optomistic of us given Nancy’s tendency to run at the slightest scare!One morning last week I was up at 7.30 and out cutting brambles away from some young trees they were smothering. I then burnt the brambles and marvelled on how much one can do early in the morning with no-one to interrupt you!Nancy and Sid pretending in typical cat fashion that they have nothing to do with each other but sharing, the parasol bench, their new favourite lookout spot for hunting field mice all the same!!My new mug shelves are complete and full, sadly there is another box of mugs yet to open, it’s been 6 years now! The adjacent bookshelves are yet to be filled. I guess the only thing to do is to build some more mugs shelves in the last empty corner of the room! Hopefully a bit quicker than it took me to do these ones!
As yet I have limited our social media to the veggie bubble of Happy Cow and Vegevisits. Primarily because I detest most of the major online platform like Facebook and their respctive owners. I did recently open a Bluesky page for Barabrith which might be your best bet for furry feline fotos in the future!
However Vegevisits surprised me with a serious plug in their latest monthly newsletter and maybe we’ll now become soooo busy we won’t need to do anymore online advertising, with or without the cats! If you’ve not heard of Vegevisits I suggest you check them out. Their mission statement is to … ” make traveling easier for vegans and vegetarians, and connect like-minded people from around the world.” That’s pretty damn cool wouldn’t you say?
The top half of the Vegevisits mailout image.and the rest!
