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Nothing makes Sunni smile more that coming back with a bag full of foraged food from the woods around the house (except maybe when Ena does her crazy curly jumping tricks in excitement at Sunni’s return from somewhere!)

Anyway tis mushroom season. We have loads of inedible ones growing in our grass. Luckily Sunni knows which ones in the forest are edible and so collected two loads like this lot in the last week! Parasol mushrooms I believe they are called. We just fried thump and then did a few in batter. Apparently its not good to reheat them once cooked so we had cold mushrooms on toast for breakfast the next day too. Life can be good, sometimes.

Isn’t this what the internet was invented for….

This last comment is a lie! Kitty was actually momentarily transfixed by my computer screen. Please note the exquisite positioning of tail, this one is a poseur!

 

To work on the wood house appealed to me from the first moment I saw it. I can understand and even contemplate building things from wood. The concrete and metal structure that makes up the main house is rather alien to me. Last September Vanja and I made an abortive attempt to paint the worn patches but rain soon stopped that. I have made it my mission to protect the wood house before this years winter strikes. I have been lucky with the late warm weather, today was blue skies and sun, in mid November!! but we all know… winter is coming!

Anyway below are some images from this last week of my mission’s progress. I am now working on the outer wall that is under the “balcony” roof and so potentially I can continue even in the rain but its much quicker and more enjoyable to do such work bathed in the warmth of the sun.

I remember being told by a very annoying disciplinarian teacher at my secondary school that he understood my desire to go out and “paint the town red” but I needed to understand that only by joining the system would I ever be able to change it. “Bollox” my teenage mind screamed in reply and “bollox” I still say to such liberal minded rubbish. But 40 odd years on I haven’t changed much of myself or the system! but I am finally painting my place red …… and black!

Don’t worry comrades I have written to the appropriate authorities in the Barcelona CNT and the remains of the UK Anarchist Federation asking for official permission to use these iconic revolutionary  colours and am hopeful of approval.

Today my efforts were curtailed by the unexpected onset of light rain which is good news for our plants but not so good for outdoor painting. Before that though one of our six neighbours tooted his car horn and gave me a thumbs up on passing so it would seem the paint job is popular with the locals. Needless to say bright red window shutters are not the norm around here. This is good news for my future plan to add black leopard spots to the peach paint work of the main house. Here’s hoping the sun returns tomorrow.

Today also marked the end of the my struggle to get all the latest books and pamphlets finished and ready to print. I will have to learn Indesign as well as Croatian if I am to be entirely independent and engage in stress free publishing! Still luckily most of the folk I am dealing with at the printers are pretty good with English. This print run includes the first poetry book Active has published and an ABC of Anarchy aimed at kids!! I must be going soft!

That damn dog called Nina likes to bark. She did so until about 3am last night when I finally fell asleep. If anything is gonna test my vegan resolution over here in Croatia it’s her! Anyway there was still dew dampening my walk across from the wooden house to the kitchen in the main house this morning but the sun was already warming the fresh paint from yesterday and its looked nice and black! So today I cracked open the red paint and started the more complicated task of painting the windows, their shutters and a couple of doors. Marko and Sunni had visitors and they went off on another chestnut hunt leaving me with the peace and quite of my iPod’s headphones.  The sun was out and I was soon shirtless . I am determined to help my body produce enough vitamin D before I have my foot operation!

Today we witnessed a bright orange crescent moon, I don’t have right photographic equipment to record such things so you’ll have to trust me on that one. And also a Preying Mantis devouring a wasp! This I was able to catch on my iPad. October my still feel like summer weather wise but the seasonal change of bugs has kicked in. Hooray for no more mosquitos, hardly any hornets or horseflies but loads of ladybirds today were landing on my fresh paint and one yellow ladybird transformed itself into a red one with its kamikaze landing in my paint pot!

It’s October and finally the weather is just right for working outside. So on with my 70’s German porn gear (see photo) and out with the brushes. The wooden house – guest quarters- is in dire need of a lick of paint and of course as with all good lickings its all about the preparation! So I scraped, sanded, dusted and even vacuumed the outer walls whilst the sun beat down and then proceeded to paint it black (what else!). Actually tomorrow I will start doing the windows , shutters and doors in red, but there are three more walls to paint black. If the weather holds out I’ll be doing this all week.

At long last this tentative first version of the Barabrith website is up and running. Thanks to Stjepan for much help with it.

Now I have much uploading of photos and telling of stories from the past year since we bought this place.

Unfortunately this project is in competition for my time and energy with repainting the wooden house, planting trees and bushes in the ex-corn field, laying the floor in my attic bedroom, decorating and finishing my room (at the moment the builders are still installing the ceiling, walls, plumbing and electrics), building tree houses, digging vegetable gardens, publishing more anarchic books and maybe getting my oft dreamed of pool table. … so it may not always be as up to date as one would wish.

Please note I detest Facebook and the rest of social media so this will be the only source of information on Barabrith and my life here in Croatia that you will get from me.

thanx for reading

jon active