I guess, if you live near a road, no matter how lightly used, and you've got a cat ......... it's inevitable.

'Stalin', more usually known as 'puss-puss' displayed the usual feline inability to understand how doors work nor how to avoid any kind of road vehicle. When he didn't appear on the night of 20th then it was always going to be odds-on that his absence was not going to be from choice. So it proved on the following morning when I found him by the roadside.

For what it's worth, he was given a full military burial complete with a 21 pebble salute. Strangely, to me anyway, Silva and the boys are very much matter-of-fact about it whereas me, old wizened git that I am, got all dewy-eyed about it. I think I like me more, aren't you supposed to get upset when your one-year-old cat gets run over and killed?

← This is the restaurant in our biggest hotel "Turist". Dražen and his wrinkly mates always wanted to play in a band but careers etc. have always prevented it. What to do? Form a band, rehearse a big enough repertoir and rent the biggest auditorium in town to play in. Then invite everyone you know and - hey presto - instant rock stardom for a night. It was a good night too and the guys played well.

Bumped into Dunja and Evald (the people who introduced me to Croatia) who were at the adjacent table. Nice to see they are looking well. →

Introducing: A couple of Brit ex-pats who have slowly built this charming place in a village near Zagreb. They spent "too long" living in a caravan whilst they took a complete ruin and made this delightful detached house from stone and timber. At the same time, they built a business which they still have today. Just like the rest of us, they are currently furiously paddling up-stream against the tide of beaurocracy to renew the necessary visas to do business and reside full time in Croatia.
Hard work and, as G W Bush put it..., stickatitability is required in large doses.

In theory.... if you follow the example used with horses and birds of prey .... then covering the eyes of an animal when the vet is about to do something despicable and highly disagreeable should result in peace and calm. Nope! It didn't work. All we achieved was a volume increase of the ear splitting scream this small dog is able to emit. We also achieved a collection of dog hairs in my wooly hat.

← Erdanslemaison says that Persil are cheating by preventing you from getting the last few drops out because the plastic top gets in the way. "Add up all those drops and they're making millions" she says. I now have the responsibility of removing the offending cap thereby preventing the unacceptable face of capitalism.

This cockney sparrow is getting used to country life. These are nuts from our two big walnut trees. Prodigeous use of the wooden mallett extracts the edible bits to provide winter feed for the wild birds. Oooaaar! →

We were invited to celebrate Valentine's day at the newest addition to the ever-growing number of hotels in Varaždin. The city has quite a comprehensive plan to attract tourists to this area which it has dubbed "Historic and cultural", which it does merit. Hotel Varaždin (not exactly the most inventive of names) saw us dining with the elite of local society led by the Hainš family and some of their business friends. All very nace!
The pic is of Silva and Etika Hainš in the hotel's basement restaurant.

I am increasingly aware, from talking to people who own and operate small businesses, that order books are getting quite thin and the business community are starting to look around to see who will drop first. I know it will come but I do detect a sense of denial here about the likely impending financial doom. It is now impossible to get a bank loan in Kuna, at least, not without the strings attached which means you'll pay more as it inevitably sinks in value against the Euro/Dollar or Swiss Franc. It feels a bit like 'Nero fiddling' at the moment. We shall see soon enough I fear.

At the invitation of Clare (daughter) and Philip, we spent a few days with them at their beautiful mountain retreat in the French Alps located above the ski resort town of Megeve. After a long and arduous re-modelling project, the house is now looking back to it's georgous best. Our visit co-incided with a huge snow fall which left about a metre of the stuff on the roof and required some serious snow-plough work to allow us out of the house. The trip takes about 11 hours by road from Varazdin of which 8 are either alongside or in/over the Alps. A stunning drive and it was really great to spend some time with the off-spring and grandkids.

The pic on the right (it should be there if I've written my HTML code OK) shows Clare with eldest son Edward - and Philip with Theo. For the umpteenth time, their driveway is fast becoming buried.

The weather was quite good except for one day when, in all honesty, our legs were about ski'd out anyway. We took that opportunity to visit Chamonix. For the odd hardy soul who may be interested, I've added a slideshow (it's only a little one!) which you can see by clicking here.

Lovro has taken up Savate Boxing. To my un-trained eye it looks like kick-boxing... but it isn't (?). We went along to the old sports hall (we've got a huge sparkling new one but nobody can afford to use it) to see his troupe put on an exhibition of gently kicking and punching the crap out of each other. Initially, I was a bit surprised at the two-quid entrance fee but I didn't know we were also going to see a couple of professional boxing bouts, followed by some national league Savate 'fights' and then, as a finale, a European championship women's 60kg Savate contest between a local lass and the current champion - who just happens to be a Serb! Only then did I realise why the place was packed to the rafters with a somewhat lively crowd. The Serb girl clearly won - based entirely on my judging experience in that she clobbered the local girl much more than she got thumped herself. The half-expected booing, bottle throwing and rioting never occurred and everyone went home - to get drunk presumably.

← Sister-in-law Lola had a 'landmark' birthday..... but I'm not allowed to say how old she is and, in truth, keeping secrets is my forte. The majority of the local family gathered at the Ernoic's lovely house and ate far too much. It's traditional and mandatory to do so.

This is Micki and Lola with daughter Dora, all of whom appear to be witnessing a religeous apparition going on somewhere up and left, whilst Đura (pronounced Joora) much prefers the attention of the camera. He's like that. →

Slovenia claims that bits of it's land and sea access are currently within the borders of Croatia. It claims that it has always been a matter of dispute between the two countries but they didn't make a fuss about it because they wanted nothing to get in the way of their accession to the EU. Even Croatia agreed to keep it quiet so as not to throw a spanner in the works. Now however, Croatia wants to join and Slovenia has chosen this time to veto Croatia's accession unless they get their bits of land and sea access. Embarrassing isn't it?

The law for aliens was changed effective January 1st 2008. In brief, it meant that just owning a house was no longer just reason to be able to reside in the country for more than 6 months (previously you could stay permanently). I've had to change my visa but most people have no choice and have had to leave the country. The government said that this was not the purpose of the new law and that this had been an un-wanted side-effect. Having promised to amend the law we now await the amended version. We're still waiting. In the meantime, nearly everyone affected has had to leave their homes here.

Some government buildings and some factories lost their gas supply during the recent spat over the Russian gas supplies. It wasn't a disaster but next winter may be different. People are buying domestic wood burning furnaces and there's no longer any dead wood laying around in the local forest.

Seka has sold her house in Cakovec and has completely renewed the flat (where I lived) in Varazdin. It's very posh now, here's hoping she'll be happy there.

Silva is 90% sure she's sold her flat in Varazdin. What to do with the money is the next likely problem. Nobody keeps large sums of money in Kuna neither is the trust in the banks (nearly all foreign owned) very high. Anyone know a good hedge fund?

Peter Uranić, banjo and dobro player extraordinaire, has re-surfaced after his recent marriage and is starting to put together a bluegrass set in preparation for some gigs during the forth-coming summer. He arrived with ten songs on DVD and said .. "learn them". Atta boy!

Miro is doing well in the newly opened print shop in Varazdin. He has the machines and the stock and the customers are starting to come in. Maybe this isn't the best time to expand a business but we are ever hopeful.
I'll also be spending considerable time this summer charging around Croatia, Bosnia and Hungary going to this season's Drag Races. The organisation has been done so now we'll see if there's potential for some commercial development. I'm quite excited about the whole thing.

Until next month then...... Pozdrav!

[December 2008] - [January 2009]