Been here done this, Jen and Mark.

September has been a busy month at Bara’ for visitations from friends. A bit like the proverbial London bus they keep you waiting for ages and then three come at once. First to sample the autumnal joy of Kordun with us were my old(est) mate Jen and her partner Mark. Jen I have known since the days she lived in the Leicestershire countryside and I used to visit her and abuse her screen printing equipment with vigour.

Jen and Mark sit down t a welcoming cup of tea, which neither of them drink!

Jen brought me a new tote bag printed with Poison Girls style crow’s on. A top present. She also brought me a couple of books, The Skin Gods and The Alchemy of Murder to add to my pile of “to read”!!

We did a couple of walks around our woods visiting the little ruined castle hidden away nearby. We also checked out our other bit of woodland that required a rather daft walk through tall braken and brambles that I hacked at with a walking stick. Jen and Mark gamely followed!

Jen debates the wisdom of trying to squeeze through a rotten tree stump.
Jen walks round the old ramparts of the little fort in the woods.
Mark and Jen climb through our woods.

The weather has changed and the summer has gone taking with it the Croatian holiday makers. This meant we were alone on the sunny day we went for a dip at the local river Korana swimming spot or “beach” as it’s known here. The picture below is a panorama shot of one side of the beach. There is a bar on the otherside of the river next to the bridge but that had closed for the season last weekend. We were alone in the cool clear(ish) water. The little fish that like to come and nibble at your skin were very pleased to see us!

This is the spot on the river Korana closest to Barabrith where people swim most. Though th locals pretty much all cease to go in the water once September arrives!
Jen captured the moment I relived my youth and swung out in to the Korana river on a rope. Perfect!
Barilovic boasts a picturesque litttle castlecthats currently under renovation, a “beach” on the river Korana and a cave!

One day we took the dying van up the river to Barilovic where we inspected the inside of the castle that was unusually open because some guys were working on the renovation project. Imagine that in the UK, workers not batting an eyelid when you wonder past them into a historic monument that is officially closed!! Accross the river from the castle is a cave, a muddy cave but this is what the local tourist office says….”There is another very well-kept secret hidden at the Vražića cave near the Korana river, in the very heart of Barilović. Legend has it that a big white catfish lives in the middle of the cave! Is it just a legend or is there more to it? If you are brave enough to step into the darkness of the cave and go towards the hidden underground lake, you might get a chance to discover the secret for yourself” Needless to say neither Mark nor I saw the fish!

Jen stands safely at the entrance to the Barilovic cave as Mark and slip and stick in the muddy interior.

No visitors to Barabrith can escape the ‘de rigueur” trip to Pretrova Gora. Unfortunately the ‘peoples monument’ is currently being rented out by a German film company and so access is restricted to walking around the outside of the building. Which is not quite as impressive! Thankfully Jen and Mark have other interests and that includes birdlife! Pretrova Gora has a large birdwatching platform and a walk through its woods with a bunch of information signs about the birds that one might see there. This was a relief because they had remarked how quite our area was for birdsong.

There is a bird walk at the Pretrova Gora monument that has a bunch of signs nicely illustrated but allin Croatian.
Mark spotted how this generator at the Partisan Hospital complex was nicely reinforced with steel plates and bolts.
Jen wanders back down the tree loggers track that narrowly misses the old Partisan Printing house.

We did the Partisan hospital trip and stopped at the printing press where Jen found some typeset under the leaves that made a great little souvenir. But all of these experiences will be lost and forgotten as nothing in comparison with the excitement of taking Ena – our dog- for a walk around our valley.

This is the view from the house at the top of our valley, that made me a tad jealous.

Jen had been making a fuss of Ena, as visitors do and as Ena loves. So when Ena saw Mark and Jen heading off own our field towards the woods she followed them. I had said she might. Jen called me a little later to ask about taking Ena past the house at the top of the valley that has three big dogs. “no problem” I reassured her,  “just keep her close and they’ll leave her alone, and pick her up if that fails!” When our distant neighbour saw them arrive with Ena in tow he threw down his strimmer and ran to shepherd his dogs indoors with a very worried look on his face. All good, except as they passed the house the dogs got out and came for Ena with gusto. Jen carried Ena away in to the woods and most of the way home as the dogs continued to persue them. Who said country life is boring?

Jen made five of the biggest Cornish pasties I have ever seen and took three for their 18 hours journey on to Hamburg. The other two kept us going for the next few days.

The next day came Igor and Sanja.

Postal Unservice

One of the nicest things about moving here has been recieving letters and presents by the old school postal service. There has been a catch though and that is the apparent inability of the local post in our area to deliver any post bigger than a small envelope within two or  three weeks of its arrival in Croatia!

The first example of this phenomenon was a book and t-shirt sent to me by my comrades at Dog Section Press who posted a clearly addressed cool looking black packet to me from London. It took 29 days to be delivered to me!

I thought 29 days would be the exception!! Always the optomist!

Secondly to arrive super late was a book from Nick Blinko. His more artfully addressed envelope took 49 days to arrive at Barabrith from Hertfordshire!

Currently there is a birthday present sent from my friend Montserrat in Germany that has been in the postal system since July the 8th! That means that like both the other packets it could have been carried by a walker from its sendee to recipient quicker than the post delivered it. But this packet could have gone back and forth between Brabrith and Oldenberg six times by foot by now!! Oh well as the phrase goes “that’s Croatia” hopefully it wil arrive before my next birthday!

Back to Brown

It cooled a bit the last couple of days and so I was able to step out and do some work about the place. One task I’ve been meaning to tackle ever since I first stepped through our gateway is the de-barbing of the barbed wire that runs in a single strand around the top of the fence encircling our land. The quickest thing would be to rip it out and replace it but that would be wasteful and so I am slowly unravelling the twisted wire and then removing the spikes and before reattaching the double wire to the fence posts. Why didn’t I take  a photo of that ?

Selfies on a ladder whilst holding a paintbrush in your right hand are a skilled art form I hope you appreciate!

Painting the houses, the barn and other out buildings is gonna be a bit of a Fourth Road Bridge task I suspect ut thats no reason not to do it, life is a cycle after all. I’m currently working my way slowly around the wooden underhang of the roof that juts out giving us some welcome shade from the sun and so deserves a new lick of dark brown paint.

Painting the underhang or whatever its called outside my easterly door. Gotta do those bannisters too!

Today it finally rained. There was a brief storm with thunder and lightning hopefully my fresh paint was dry enough by the time it poured down. The plants will be most happy.

A cool grey sky with rain pouring down, lovely!

I have not been idle of late. When the sun is too hot for me I have been sorting out our food stores so that they are safe from moths and working on my new venture! New venture! I hear you ask incredulously, What now? Well its a long story that started either when I damaged my big toe three years ago or when I was in Newcastle as the guest of my old mate Sned back in Febuary this year, depending on the version you hear. The climax of both tales is the launch of ANARCHOPUZZLES a jigsaw project run by the aforementioned Sned and yours truly. We have produced two puzzles so far, with another in production and several more planned. I will tell you the whole tale another time but for now here is our newly created flyer for you to wonder at.

Our first flyer, for internet circulation and I hope real life paper printing too!

Dining Pool Table

My pool table – and yes you better get used to me going on about it for some time to come! – has taken the space of the dining table and so I needed to make it multifunctional. You can buy pool tables that are made as dual use and that was what I intended to do untilI saw my vintage beauty! So I got Stonky our neighbour to give me a lift into Karlovac yesterday, it was a memorable trip if only for the conversation that comprised of my improvised Polish !? (its sometimes similar to Croatian) and my limited acting skills and Stonky just repeating sentences at me until he was sure I must understand him “by now”!

Getting the 1cm thick strips proved to be the most difficult bit at the timber supplier and i ended up having to butcher some “cieling wood”.

I went back to Drvona the main wood supply place and managed to get what I wanted which meant I bought a 5 metre by 2 metre by 2.7 cm piece of wood that was cut into three 136 x 86 panels and I had some nice bits left over. The question I wrestled with was wether or not the panels would be strong enough to take weight in the middle without some support underneath. I decided to see how it goes! My other dilema involved how to circumvent the fancy snooker table style pocket holders that stand about 8 mm above the wooden edge of the table. I settled on a plan to rest the panels on 1cm strips that would fit snuggly between the pockets resting on only the wooden edge and so stopping the panels from moving. To my delight this design seems to work. Now all I need is for Sunni to come back and choose a waterproof table cloth with some “bad taste” pattern or picture on and the table will be a dining pool table!

One day I will splash out on a new bit of green baize but in the meantime I will invest in a snooker ball set and an English style set of pool balls (red and yellow).
I’m glad I decided to do three panels. they are heavy enough, two would have been a strain to lift.
I was thinking of varnishing the wood with a stain to match the rest of the table, but it’ll be always covered by a table cloth so whats the point?

 

 

Swings and roundabouts, ups and downs…

This week has been a roller coaster for me. Last weekend I was transported it felt like almost back in time to a music festival in Slovakia, The FFUD Festival! Back in time because I used to go to many small festivals, do stalls and camp out but that seems like ages ago. Transported because I was picked up by an old Polish friend from the NNNW distribution that back in my “Marta days” I had many dealings with. It was great to hang out with Uszaty (Big Ears) – or Michal as his passport says- and get to know his partner and his 14 year old son who’s in to punk rock too! Many old memories were stirred. Part of the reason for going to the festival was that my old chums DOA from Vancouver were playing there. For the last 20 years or so they have pretty much always crashed at my place in London when passing through on tour so this was a different encounter for us and a good chance to catch up. Joey from DOA is a grandfather twice over and when he arrived on site I was happy to no longer feel like the oldest person there.

Uszaty and I endure severe heat for the cause of selling dodgy t-shirts to the punx!
The DOA boys get spoilt with booze and food at the FFUD festival.

I got a lift with a bunch of punks back to Vienna and stayed there doing one of my fave decadent things…. Vegan Tourism! It was amusing to me to be staying with a renowned vegan author and his vegan partner and find that they did not know of or hadn’t visited several vegan outlets in the city that I was keen to try out. It put a hole in my wallet but it was fun. Imagine how many Jon boxes were ticked by my ‘Tuesday morning cycle ride to an all vegan bakery’ !!! Veganista is a small chain of vegan ice cream parlours in Vienna offering fantastic flavours like Cherry Cherry Lady, Lavender, Basil, Cookies, Pineapple Crumble etc etc everyday new flavours and some were refined sugar free!  Marvellous!

Gerfried and I in Vienna with one of only seven horse rider statues in the world that only have two legs supporting the horse. Usually there is a bit of horses tail, a spear or lance touching the ground to add extra balance and stability to the design! Gerf knows these kind of things!
Tito lives with Gerf and Anna in Vienna, Gerf is a nervous little dog that is adored by Anna. He can be very cute.

Flix Bus brought me back to Zagreb and Croatia Bus thence on to Karlovac, there is little comparison tween the two! In Karlovac I met up with Vanja and we spent the subsequent 36 hours saying good bye in the best possible manor. She has finally realised that however good I am at building kitchen shelves and other domestic duties I am not the “right” one for her and its time she went looking for that being. It was a joy and relief after many weeks of not knowing what was going on to talk and spend time together and finally part on good loving terms. Still a bit of a downer though!

My VIP Vanja – sporting her new glasses – takes our last selfie together!

The kids left for the Island of Pasman and their annual summer holiday and I opted to stay here and chill out, hoping it will be cooler here than it is on the coast. I thought I had settled down to some serious P&Q and then today became a monumental day, a rite of passge, the fulfillment of a long held dream coming true.  Renata and Mira called to ask if I wanted them to hire a van and come and pick up the pool table that I put a deposit on several weeks ago but had as yet been unable to transport the 50 odd km back here. I said yes please! I cycled to Karlovac this morning, took the 7.50am train with my bike to the Zagreb station. There I had the joy of riding my own bike in Zagreb at last, but only for the 30 meters from the platform to the waiting van! Oh well next time.

Dining out in Barabrith.

My pool table is a vintage “English” style table that was bought by Maggie’s Croatian parents when she was little and they were living in Australia! They brought the table back with them and then moved 8 times around Croatia with it. Having lugged it in and out of a van today I know that this was no mean feat.  Maggie’s mother marshalled us and directed us and generally took charge of the removal operation in a formidable style that was quite awe inspiring. Back at Barabrith after a cautious drive, Mira, Renata and I failed to get the 200kg slate bed section through the front door, Damn that thing was difficult to lift! Luck was on our side though as Renata’s sister and family were at that moment driving through the area on their way home from the coast. A nineteen minute diversion brought them to Barabrith and enabled my table bed to be carried in to the lounge and on to its legs! A 40 year old dream realised, I have my own pool table at last, pool players welcome!

My life takes another step towards completion
Crazy guy gets super excited about a table with balls and a stick!

Our old dining table is now in the gazebo.

The gazebo dining now seats 10!

Woodpile

We ordered in 12 cubic meters of wood and it came in two loads on the back of a tipper truck. The pieces were too large for any of our stoves so we called in the wood cutter who came and sliced it all up in a remarkably short time n the blazing sun and I was grateful I do not have to chop it all up with an axe!

How come when I see an image like this I immediately think “that’d be a good jigsaw”!!

Now the big pile of handy size wooden logs needs stacking away in our wood shed. We delayed this for a few days after the rain storm soaked it but now its pretty dry and so I spent an hour or so this morning dripping with sweat as I threw and then stacked a load of wood. I probably should have seperated the different types of wood _especially the fresh bits of the plum tree we cut down but I liked the look of this image and so carried on…..

Looks like well have enough wood to survive the winter. Its 34 degrees today so thinking about heating during the winter feels a bit wierd!
We have quite a few sunflowers doing well in the er.. sun!
Sunni loves to pick these beautiful edible flowers and fill them with a sweet fruity mix. These ones were a real treat.

 

Concrete knees

The path to true happiness is shopping and buying power tools comes pretty high up the list (not quite as high as buying a pool table) but buying a bright orange concrete mixer is a rare treat indeed!

The first stages of the pathway to a new pathway.
The view from my room looking down at Marko and Stonky constructing the wooden frame for the cement to fill out.
The concrete should fill up this wooden frame.

This we did in order to finish off repairing the path that around the house DIY style. This we have been doing with the inevitable supervision from the Stonky The Supervisor (our neighbour).

We may have slightly over estimated the amount of sand wed need, but hey maybe we can start on a swimming pool!! But just look at that big shiny orange machine!
Our first concrete mix courtesy of Stonky Building Services. Please note the shiny new metal bucket that is part of our new fire fighting equipment.

We have got as far as the fine layer of concrete on top, next we need to make an adjustment to stop the two small spots where water pools, then we can paint it and repaint the rest of the pathway all red!  The concrete mixer was washed down and stored away in the barn for next time.

Matchka and daughter coming to help with smoothing out the concrete. “Daughter” is back temporarily as her family are on holiday. The two of them have been either sleeping or play fighting non stop… families eh!
We keep dousing the concrete with water so it doesn’t over heat too quickly. Next step will be cleaning, prepping and painting.

Today we had a “fire inspection” for the wooden house which we passed! The B&B business creeps slowly closer!

Catching up

I’ve been busy and rather down of late which is not a good combination for inspiring writing of a blog that anyone else might want to read! So a quick pictorial catch up on the latest news from Barabrith follows:

We have been chasing the goal of bureaucratic legitimacy as regards our future “renting out rooms” business. This resulted in being passed from one office to another, round and around paying forpieces of paper to be photocopied and signed over and over. We had an “unofficial” inspection from four members of the Karlovac Council tourist people! For that we tidied up all the rooms and crossed our fingers. The result was we were told we’d have to now get another inspection for the fire regulations… and so it goes on.
I finally got a chance to go and visit “Maggie” who’s mother was selling a “vintage” pool table. It looked kind of special in the Njuskalo (the Croatian Ebay) advert. Turns out the table has travelled with the family for 30 years or more and travelled from Australia to Croatia! It’s a beauty, an old school English table with curved pocket entrances and a solid slate bed. I checked one could sit comfortably underneath it, as this will unfortunately have to double as a dining table once safely covered. It will cost me nigh on £2 grand in total but one of my long term dreams is now in sight of realisation. I hope to pick the table up in a couple of weeks time.
After the “Tourist Office” inspection we were told we also need an electrical inspection. This was done quickly by an electrican we were recommended to but given we had to pay about £90 for it that may be not so suprising.
Our neighbours wheat crop that has been growing on our land was finally ready for harvesting and so this mechanical beast rolled through our yard and onto the field.
Stonky – our neighbour – drives his tractor up ready to collect the freshly cut wheat. Thankfully the combine did no damage to our trees or bushes this time.
The combine leads the parade back out of our gate with one of the neighbours annoying dogs leading up the rear.
The concrete pathway around the front of our house was severly messed up when we dug it up trying to locate the water leak. Now having bought, sand, cement and a bright orange conceete mixer and with the weather not wet it was time to fix it! This involved digging out the soil and rubble then stamping down and leveling off the rocks -hard core- before we build a frame and then cover it all with fresh homemade licquid concrete!
The one good thing about working on the path around this side of the house is that it is in shade almost all day long. Sadly I couldnt get the right digging angle without slipping in to the sun every now and then.
Whilst driving around the outermost suburbs of Zagreb in search of my pool table I discovered this monument. I thought it looked impressive despite being stuck out in the middle of nowhere! I brought Marko and Sunni back to see it a wek later. Turns out it was built to secifically commemorate the Roma victims of fascism which is a rarity according to Marko.

It has gone back to being too hot for me to be outside so I’ve been packing new Active books into boxes ready for shipping to London. I fixed a large fan that we found in a rubbish pile so now I can lie in my hammock and feel a serious breeze blowing through the string.

 

 

Its all going swimmingly!

Its been rather hot of late, any of unfortunate enough to have talked with me on the dog n bone will be familiar with my moaning about the sun and how I’ve been hiding inside snuggled up to my little fan. Not so last weekend when we were visited by a Zagrebian friend -Sunch- who had never been to the Petra Gora monument before and so off we went.  Our secondary mission was to record the positions and condition of the local Partisan, anti fascist war memorials.

Our nearest partisan monument is rather overgrown at the moment!
We bumped into this monument when I noticed it as we went round a corner! With its flaming top and engraced pictures its a real beauty. We will be creating a list of these monuments to visit when ita.
A close up of the anti-fascist monument at Podgorje Gvozd

We stopped off at a couple we “found” on the way and failed to find the one we went looking for which alledgedly is a stone round table and bench in the woods not far from here, but where exactly! We will return either with our elderly neighbour who has been there in the past or wait till winter when the undergrowth has receeded. We adventurously drove up to Petra Gora monument by a small road we hadn’t done before that gradually crumbled into a track before our eyes. Sunch, our guest, was suitably impressed by the crazy architecture and the 360 view from its top over the surrounding forests.

The view from the top of Petra Gora on a blue sky day! A day for wearing a hat!

We heading down the main road towards the hunting lodge that does fruit filled pancakes with icecream (not vegan) that the unconscientous say are very good. The road down twists and turns through the woods with plenty of streams running alongside . As we descended the road began to be more and more covered with debris and stones, that became logs and rocks before eventually the road had crumbled and caved in. After some discussion, I drove across the damage and then slowly down the rest of the destroyed road. The storm we had two weeks ago was obviously a lot worse there than it was for us!

This is road has been like this for at least two weeks!

A change of plan saw us leaving the Partisan hospital and printers for Sunch’s next visit and instead we headed for Barilović castle which is next to the river Kupa! Turned out the Castle is closed whilst it is being renovated or maybe waiting for the next civil war to destroy it completely! Either way the castle is only 10 minutes drive from the “beach” on the Kupa at Donji Velemerić , our local swiming spot! I’d had enough of the heat and driving around in it and decided I’d swim from the castle down river and meet the others at the beach. after an hour of swimming in at times rather too shallow for comfort water I began to wonder how much further it could be! I saw a gazillion dragon flies up close, a couple of suprised riverside barbecuers in the middle of nowhere, a load of small brown fish that seemed to be attacking me! and a stupid heron that kept seeing me and flying on ahead of me for 50 metres again and again! But most startling was the signs of recent flooding with trees, logs and debris lodged high up on the bank and in trees along the way some so high twas hard to believe they hadn’t been put there by some prankster!

Leaving in the shadow of the bridge by Barilović Castle with the hope of a swift swim, going with the current -there wasn’t much of one, down to the next bridge. After 4.5 km inc four weirs, lots of psycho fish. masses of reeds, and unexpectedly shallow patches I made it, wonderfully refreshed, cooled and knackered! Thats me in the middle with the rather too independent looking legs!

We had more visitors today in the form of council inspectors come to check the facilities we willbe offering to paying guests! More on that soon, but suffice to say we are nearing the end of a long bureacratic road and so Barabrith B&B will soon be advertised on Happy Cow.