I know it's only March and it wouldn't be unknown for a blizzard to sweep through the land but, with fingers crossed, I hereby declare that spring has sprung.

The temperatures are pushing the 20^oC mark on sunny days and the thoughts of young men (and poodles) are turning to things romantic. OK, mabe not so romantic in the case of dogs but you get my drift.

People are now walking in the forest, a veritable throng on Sundays, which has been wall-to-wall carpeted with little white flowers (snowdrops?) and bluebells. I guess (I bloody hope) it's time to put away the skis for another season. The river Drava, controlled by a series of dams, has been allowed to drop to it's lowest level in readiness for when the snow melts on the Alps. It's time to check out my flood insurance.

Continuing last month's theme about animals and having just lost our lovely cat to the local roads, Silvija found these two little scamps hiding in the bushes on the edge of the forest which lays immediately at the back of our garden. We can't keep taking in strays but at least we get the satisfaction from saving them from hunger, cold or predation. They are now in a rescue centre, my conscience pricked me into paying for their anti rabies / parva / distemper / mange injections etc. I hope someone will want them. As for the people who dumped them, words fail me.

Stop Press: Both have now been found homes.

Despite some serious sounding cutbacks made by the county council (Županija), this spring has seen some major work being done in the Dravska forest which backs onto out back yard. As part of the new sports complex works, a series of paved walkways and parking areas have been laid and the areas of erstwhile thick brush have been cleared. What has resulted is as good a managed woodland as you'll find anywhere. Don't look here for rare wildlife, it's more like park land with the occasional bar, nature trail and boat ramp. However, we do have plenty of common European eagle-owls, at 2ft tall and up to 10lbs in weight, everything else ducks for cover when they take to the thermals. So called "hunters" have shot everything else.

Staying in the forest, there is an area about one km away from us which has been 'settled' by Gypsies. There's no services, no planning permission, no nothing .... they just just built brick and concrete bunkers and live there.

Numbering probably less than 100, they don't mix with the Croatian population in any way but choose to make their living by collecting what most people would regard as rubbish. They speak Croatian but use it only for 'business' purposes, at home they have their own language. Now I'm as keen on ethnic diversity and inter-racial tolerance as anyone else .... OK, maybe that's not true but I do subscribe to the principles of live and let live. Now comes the inevitable "but".... but these folks do this kind of thing (see pic) everywhere you encounter them. They don't pay taxes, they drive without insurance or MOT, they get govenment help in all manner of programmes whilst contributing nothing to the community. I've been here four years and have been unable to find anything positive to say about them ..... which is sad is it not?

March saw Petar arrive at his 16th birthday. Along with gobs of hard currency and a new mountain bike come the additional expectations which are best described by the phrase "You're sixteen and not a kid any more". He did well here with his mum's insistence that he had a birthday cake replete with candles, that;s probably about as un-cool as it's possible to get.

The photo shows (L to R) Grandma Marika, Auntie Lola holding baby cousin Fran, brother Lovro (camera aware as usual), grandpa Dragec, cousins Dora and Jura and finally, Erdanslemaison herself. Uncle Miki was in Wisconsin looking at pigs .... as you do.

So here they are, Varaždin's worst Pub-Quiz team. Representing the Županija's 'first team' at the sixth Varaždin Ultimate Pub Quiz presented by Peter Hopwood and Libris d.o.o. and sponsored by MiniPrint. This group managed fewer points than any other of the competing groups... despite having six members when there should have been only five. From L to R they are Sasha, Drazen and Klaudija, Silvija, Mr & Mrs Stvar. For their sterling efforts and wooden-spoon performance they were awarded five pizzas and three bottles of wine - all on the house.

Luckily, the Županija's second team, of which I was a member, managed a few more points and stormed home in 2nd-from-last position - for which we received nothing at all. Had we been as stupid as the first team, those pizzas and bottles of wine would have been ours. This is curruption at it's worst!

Spring time brings with it a host of local sporting activities to celebrate the end of winter when sub-zero temps effectively stop anything much from going on. It's also a good time fors such things done before the heat of summer precludes people from exerting themselves.
One such season is the cross-country scene for runners and cyclists. All manner of races under all kinds of rules make space for the near-professional sports enthusiasts and for the less gifted or more senior among us. Taking photos sure tired me out but I feel better for it.

The current financial crisis has made it presence felt. This photo is of a defunct pig farm which is not a new failure but is a good example of what will soon be happening. There are numerous people with outstanding loans which they obtained a few years ago when interest rates were low. Now the rates are climbing and things are getting tough but, the big killer, is that all loans in Croatia are made in kuna but "tied" to the Euro or the Swiss Franc. The kuna is slipping against those currencies so the loans are actually growing in size even for those who are paying them off.

As some have predicted, the finance minister has now declared that Croatia is unable to pay the wages of it's civil and public servants and the pensions. It has threatened the public sector unions to reduce payments to these people unless they (the unions) agree to a nation-wide pay cut. This may well be negotiating posturing ... or it may not. I am aware of many loans, here in Varazdin, which have now achieved that peculiar 21st century status of "toxic asset". Money was lent to people who had no training or skills in running a small business and these loans are now providing Croatia's own mini credit crunch as the businesses are mostly long gone. It also means that Silva's buyer for the apartment is unable to get the required credit to buy it.

The long-running sage of Varazdin's rubbish continues. This is a photo of about 20% of the rubbish piled up on this site, there's too much for me to get into one photo. There used to be a land-fill site in the neighbouring village of Kneginec but that deal came to an end and the various worthies have been unable to come to a new deal. No coincidence then that Varazdin chooses to pile it's rubbish right up against the border line with Kneginec. I guess they get to smell it anyway? There's still no deal between local county authorities about who will build a refuse munching facility nor where it will be located, I guess everyone is a NIMBY at heart.

One sunny Saturday saw us visiting Kiskunlachlaza, just south of Budapest, to taste Drag racing Hungarian style. For those of you in the know then the format is similar to those events at North Weald where an airport runway is rented for the day. A hoard of people show up at dawn to set up all the infrastructure, all day is spent racing then the same poor tired souls take it all down again at night.

← As usual, super-bike owners turned up in force and were running the 1/4 mile in nine seconds - no mean feat on an un-treated stretch of concerete. The cars were mostly street legal and ran between 10 and 15 seconds.

→ The timing system failed for a while so the starting marshall was pressed into service to start the races 'American graffiti' style until the techies sorted it out. All-in-all, an impressive showing.

← It's not every day you'll see a hot-rodded Trabant, I'm not sure it was such a good idea but beauty is in the eye of ........ I was hoping to see it run against the car generally accepted as the mega-dollar entry of the day, a seriously changed V10 Dodge Viper complete with nitrous oxide injection. Sadly, they never got it on together.

→ We were invited by "Jeff" and his 30-strong team of Hungarian and English speaking Romanians (now there's a story!) who drove over from Timisoara for the weekend to race thier Mitsubishi Evos. They invited us to their mass-goulash in an un-pronounceable restaurant, t'was a night to remember!

With a race event and a bit of 'him' business on the Saturday, then a meeting in Budapest for a bit of 'her' business on the Monday, that left Sunday for sight-seeing. I'd heard about Budapest from some old '56ers' I knew years ago and, like most people, I was fascinated during the time when the collapsing USSR allowed so many countries to re-establish their identities. Buda (west of the Danube) and Pest (east) were just how I'd imagined. Trams, architecture, cold, OTT monuments, crumbling palaces and the mighty Danube.
We stayed in Hotel Gellert, a now tired but once very grandiose edifice which proudly has a Richard M Nixon suite and an Andrew Lloyd-Webber room. A wonderful old place with walnut, marble and threadbare carpets everywhere. The once mighty Ferencvaros stadium looked tatty and in need of much money. Budapest is worth a visit if you like your history Hapsburg style.

We were in London for a few days and found the time to catch up with a few friends and family plus take in a bit of wind-swept tourism. Coffee on the S.S.Hispaniola was affordable as we'd given the London eye a miss and opted out of watching Leyton Orient beat Oldham. An evening at the '16-String Jack' pub in Theydon with Pep, Jeanette and co rounded off a good weekend. Due to gravity, my camera is very sick.

Bob Thorogood MBE

Occasionally, during life, you get to meet with some gifted people. If you write down a list of all the characteristics that people should have and then check everyone you know against that list, the chances are you'll end up with nobody who can meet more than about 75% of them. I've been lucky to have encountered a few who have consistently risen high above all others, Bob Thorogood is one of those.
He has the enviable capacity to recognise the 10% of life which really matters and to differentiate that from the 90% of bullshit which mostly surrrounds us. He has always astounded me by his ability to immediately find solutions whilst amassed groups of highly educated experts are still thrashing about in the undergrowth. He was my boss for about 14 years and was mostly responsible for my departure from the firm, the truth is I just didn't want to adjust to the world of waffle which was my lot after our career paths diverged.
My trip to London was mainly to take the opportunity to congratulate Bob on his 65th birthday and to wish him well in his new job. His abilities are recognised and his loss to retirement would be a criminal waste, he's not yet ready to go anyway.
Personally, his guidance, friendship (some of it could be called 'tough'), his loyalty and endless humour gave me 14 years of great personal satisfaction with my job. He also gave me a set of "self" skills and knowledge which continue to serve me well.

He already has a well earned MBE for services to the industry, he deserves a knighthood for his services to the people who work there.

In the best tradition of self-indulgence, these [puffs chest out] are my grandsons Theo and Edward. [/puffs chest out].
They don't have to have a bucket of water thrown at them in order to get a decent photo but they they have just emerged from the pool at Clare and Philip's house in Megeve. It is laready evident that Theo will become Prime Minister and Edward will be a captain of industry ... or a film star ... or a .......

The spat between Slovenia and Croatia continues with both sides explaining how their position is the only sensible option. SLO is still veto-ing Croatia's attempts to continue negotiations to join the EU and, after increasingly harsh rhetoric, it seems that Croatia is now pinning it's hopes on the Irish re-vote on the Lisbon treaty which may well remove the Slovenian right of veto. Much tongue sticking out would be indulged whichever way the Irish vote goes.

I am now a legal resident (temporary) by dint of a family visa I obtained through my partnership with Silvija. Murphy's law dictates however that it has now been ruled completely unnecessary because 3 days after my visa was granted, a new law was introduced to allow all EU citizens to live here if they own a property. Bloody typical!

The gas supply seems to have settled down for now, there is a run on wood/coal burning stoves in readiness for next winter.

April will see trips to Austria and then to Hong Kong if plans come to fruition.

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

[December 2008] - [January 2009] - [February 2009]