Today the temperature is too hot! According to accuweather the “real feel” temperature is 34 degrees celsius. Last night it stayed at 20 degrees all night. I took advantage of my new found freedom and had a hair cut last week which was nicely validated by a friend in Ljubjana telling me that “now I would be scared if I met you alone at night on the street” ! Moi!?
Selfie in Prague with a photo studio backdrop
Anyway here are the transformative hair pix so you won’t be too scared next time you see me!
Can’t believe I had a hair cut and then forgot to shave! Well I guess theres always tomorrow…Rather pink but that might be the result of the sudden light headedness and less grey too!
There are no photos of anything else because I’m staying inside next to my new best friend my fan! But maybe I’ll drag myself down to the local river later for a restorative cool swim.
In this summer weather I become a big fan of my little fan. It was on all last night pointing at my head!
Someone must have been having a laugh when these were installed, presumably to protect the corner stones of the entrance to the house in Ljubjana.
I spent the weekend in in Ljubjana, a brief holiday with the excuse of meeting old comrades from London who were in town for a discussion about their magazine. I managed to squeeze three or four vegan visitations into the three days despite almost everything being closed on Sunday and many vegan cafes closed also on Saturday! I also mangaed a trip to the Kinovodor cinema, a cool indie cinema that cost only 5 euros to get into. Later I joined comrades at the ROG squat there the womens choir Kombinatwere doing an “open rehearsal” in support of the Rog space that is under threat of eviction.
This gorgeous creamy quiche was eaten at Barbarella in the arcade alongside the market of central Ljubjana.
Saturday afternoon found me doing something I very very rarely do, watching football! This was a local anti fascist football turnament and there were fine vegan kebabs on sale and a very sweet organic pear juice so I was pretty happy despite the excess sunshine!
Two teams greet each other in comradely fashion before getting down to the earnest task of chasing a ball around in the hot sun, for fun!The heat did not deter the enthusiasm of all teams playing at five a side footie at the Anti-Fascist Football toiurnament in Ljubjana.
Back home this morning I discovered the kittens have conquered the climb up my eastern staircase. They were all suckling happily on mother Matchka until I opened the door when Matchka decide my room was too tempting and jumped up and left the little guzzllers looking rather miffed.
As I looked out of my window this morning I discovered the cats have taken over my eastern stairway.Matchka the sleepy feeder under feeding attack from her kittens.Matchka jumps up and leaves the hungry kittens momentarily dazed by her sudden exit.Matchkas kittens wondering where their breakfast has walked off to?
The weather has turned uncomfortably hot so I’m staying in my room with the doors and windows closed during the day and opening them at night to let the cool air in again.
The grapevine stretches up to the sun.
The kittens are wandering around all over the place and sleeping all over the place too. Funnily enough their cuteness has been overpowered by their “annoyingness” as far as their hosts Markos & Sunni are concerned and so new homes are urgently being sort for them.
Hiding in from the morning sun the kittens take a well earned nap after spening much of the night causing chaos!
My time inside has been delightfully spent wrapt up in the latest Shardlake adventure Tombland. Marta sent it to me for a rather belated birthday present. It tells a great dective tale swept up in the story of the Commonwealth rebellion led my the Kitt brothers in the time between Henry the 8th and Elizabeth 1st. It’s full of great enthusiasm for revolutionary notions that today we might take for granted like an end to serfdom and other more anarchic ones such as “working folk can organise themselves” which are yet to come!
I’m still procastinating about whether or not to turn this beauty of a barrel in to a post box or not!
Now I am about to plunge in to Fire and Blood J.R.R Martins latest tome. That will probaly keep me disinterested in anything else for the next week or so. Expect fewer blog postings!
The pomegranate and grapevine are loving the sunny weather and seem to be getting on together fine!
The Croatian weather in our area has become rather English, and yes I am being blamed!, with rain and sun and wind and storms all in one day! Here are some pix from the last time I headed out to do some weeding in the upper garden once the rain had stopped!
These poppies appeared whilst I was away and so I am now working around them with the creation of future veg beds and some wild flower areas in the upper garden. The cleared areas will be grassed and so easily kept under control, in theory!A couple of our new fruit trees and a row of veg in a line of mulch surrounded by new grass in the upper garden bathed in evening the sunlight.A couple of neat rows of potato plants or Krumpir as they say over here in the upper garden.We have poppies in the upper garden!
I’ve been away enjoying the delights of three capital cities that have a great range of vegan eateries, specifically Prague and London but Ljubjana was good too. See my Happy Cow page for the reviews but don’t be too quick as I haven’t had time to do the ones from last week yet!
One attacks her tail, one her nose and the third is rummaging around for a nipple! What fun mothering is….
Zagreb was being rained on heavily when I got back. It’s not “meant” to rain here heavily in May, more proof that little Greta is on a righteous but alas futile fight against the climate cataclysm. In the meantime we can enjoy the furry playfull innocence of the kittens.
This little thing is almost as big as her mother now!
Due to my foot keeping me in the Uk for longer than expected and then effectively out of action for weeks I missed the early spring season for arranging the upper garden veg patch as I wished. Now I’m following a different timetable that means I’m clearing the weeds and creating beds of compostable mulch that I hope will beready to plant next year. By then the grass should have grown around the randomly shaped beds and so be easy to keep for being over grown with the use of my trusty scythe! We’ll see if it works out! Below you can just about make out a bed or two and the soild cleared and planted with grass seed. There’s lots more to do but I’m waiting for some more rain so I can work when its cool and the weeds pull out easier.
The left side of this picture has the rows of veg already planted, the extreme right is the top of our neighbours wheat (in our field) the middle is uncleared weeds and the area I have cleared and sowed grass in dotted with our fruit trees and bushes and beds of leaves and weeds that will keep the ground clear and moist for next years planting…. maybe!
Today I just about finished painting the under hang wood and filled in three old bird nest holes. I promise to make some more bird boxes. I do.
There are a plethora of things that need doing around the house, in my den, in the gardenss and in the woods. I’ve been concentrating on sorting out my stuff in my room but the recent stormy weatehr reminded me that I really need to do some repainting on the exposed wood on the outside of the roof above my doors, especially on the west side. Trouble is it’s quite high! So far I’ve only been able to reach the bit near my stairs. Still that bit was the worse for wear and now its a shiny new brown.
The west facing wooden beams and under hang are badly worn, hopefully this layer of paint will help keep them strong a bit longer. Gotta do those stairs soon too!Hopefully you can make out how far my paint brush arm could reach! Gonna have to see how far me and the ladder can stretch from the ground upwards now!
Marko built his Black Garlic Magic Machine a couple of garlicy smelly months ago. The fruit of his labour gradually lost its odour as the caramelisation process progressed. Today we cracked open the bulbs and peeled all the cloves. Some were super soft, some were wet, some were firm and succulent and my favourite ones were hard and chewy like a sweet jerky pepperoni vegan meat! Sounds good, dunnit! Well don’t worry we’ll soon be launching a world wide marketing campaign and making a fortune out the this garlic gone black.
Black Garlic unwrapped!Four peeld black garlic cloves, one unpeeled and the rest of the bulb.Our Black garlic got sorted into; the “ready,” the “too tough for some”, the “brown ones we’e not sure what to do with” an dthe squishy ones that became instant black garlic spread on rice cakes!I think this waste garlic would make a good jigsaw picture.
Not really fussed what the humans at Barabrith are up to? Came back just to check up on Matchka and her kittens? Well they have started opening their eyes and Mathka leaves them alone for longer and longer so who knows how much longer this little pile of furry faces will stay together?
May Day is done properly over here. Everything is shut and our neighbours are dissapointed we didn’t light a bonfire last night! Which is funny for me, coming from a country in which the May Day traditional workers celebratory holiday was killed off by the Thatcher government, Oh well. We peasants were out in the fields engaged in healthy P.C. self exploitation of course! Marko and Sunni continued to plant the mass of seedlings that we bought at the outdoor market in Karlovac yesterday. I cut down a load of tree saplings (the wrong ones of course but hey I was trying) and turned them in to pea plant supports. I also did some bramble clearing in our lower field which is a bit of a painting the Forth Road Brigde style project until it got too hot and I retired to the shade.
Stripping saplings in the shade and sitting down 🙂Weeding and planting the peasants of Barbrith slave away the May Day holiday!We bought this barrel from the flea market as part of a deal on a fruit press. It leaked to start with but aftera bit of ring tightening it is now holding water to maye we’ll use it as a barrel. Otherwise it will become our post box!oh dear
Matchka the little mother cat came out to say hello, she is lot more keen on tickles and attention than she was pre motherhood. The she went back to being a milk bottle!
Matchka steps carefully through the grass to come and say hello., or maybe just to get some fresh air and a breaking from feeding!Kittens having breakfast, or maybe it was elevenses!Matchka gives me “the eye” as her blind brood suckle incessantly.
Both doors to my room need fixing, the eastern door is a crap dark plywood thing that I want to replace with a glass door or one that has some glass in it. The westerly door is warped and lets a draft and rain in when it is blown at an angle that allows it to get under the roof awning. But those are the downsides, on the upside they have rather good views when open.
A sunset begins to tint my view west out of my warped door!The Eastern door heads out towards the garage, lower vegetable garden and the future sauna!
But I know you’re not interested in my life anymore ever since I introduced Matchka and her kittens, thats all the feedback I get is about. So here goes…
I found Matchy wandering around outside this morning obviously hoping to catch a quick mouse breakfast. She quickly came back to her brood when she realised it was photograph time.Matchka the proud (or is that just exhaustion mixed with bewilderment?) mother this morning.Here is the garage, the as yet unused barbecue, the leaning pear tree and the future (?) sauna. The little building used to be a smoke house for making slaughtered sentient beings last longer maybe that’s appropriate for a sauna! Can you spot Matchka out on a quick hunt?
On the morning that our young punky visitor only just made it out of bed before midday Matchcka our pot bellied little cat took to the kids bed to have her kids. We expected her to find a spot in the barn, or under a sofa, somewhere safe and private. But Matchka once again proved to have a mind of her own and trod a different path. And yes she did go out with Marko and Ena for their morning walk half way down the field and back this morning as she does most mornings! This evening though she settled down in the folds of a thick warm red and black blanket and gave birth to four little black and white kittens.
Matchka prepares a spot in the middle of Marko and Sunnis bed to treat us to the “miracle of life”!! Exhibitionism of the worst kind I call it!
Marko and I gently slid the blanket from the centre of the bed to the side so Marko has some space to sleep tonight. Sunni is gonna be so jealous!
The thing from Eraserhead emerges from Matchkas fur.
I think it took about two hours of almost constant licking and heavy rapid breathing for all four to appear. Wierdly the first one to emerge burrowed its way straight into a fold of the blanket and has not been properly seen since! The others came out and immediately searched for Matchka’s nipples and then fed like their lives depended on it, which I guess they may!
Two little black and white pink at this stage) kittens squirm there way towards a teat treat.Matchka looks ready to sleep but was in fact snoring as greedy little kittens have their fill from her.Can you spot all four? Theres Scaredy Cat, Eraserhead, and then Feeder 1 and Feeder 2!!
After number four slid out Matchka looked totally knackered.
A seriously worn out Matchka wonders how to make sure she never has to go through this again!
