A trip to see our other elderly neighbour today to welcome in the new year and to see if he has some more wood to help us put back together our barn roof, tactile we must be. The bottle of wine and homemade parsnip cake certainly helps to lighten the proceedings. We persuade him to open his homemade wine instead of our bland supermarket purchase, not wishing to upset him of course. He uses only one room in the winter months in his cottage, a usual way in the countryside. In it there is the stove in the corner which cooks and heats, the bed covered over with a blanket in case of any arriving guests (us in this instance), a television as a form of company, and a table in the middle under the bare light bulb. A sparkle in our neighbour's eye as the conversation is solely directed with Jana, the topping up of the vino is only for my own source of interest it seems. At first I am understanding the conversation, I even break in with a few words of the lingo myself. Later though as the wine takes a little more affect my mind wanders, watching a deliberately poor tv program on the muted television to get you to buy a CD of some random trio who would normally be booked at Slovak wedding reception. Two clocks are ticking near me, this is nothing compared to the five bedside clocks in our other neighbour's kitchen. I wander in and out of what is being said, another glass filled, the television's sound is put back on for my (dis)pleasure. I know that I need to bring my camera next time to record some of what I see here, the simple retro dresser with a glass display of unused plates and glasses, the patterned plastic table cover which hides the antique table, and the few pictures taken from a black and white era hanging on the wall next to the washbasin with the old fashioned shaving brush in the soap dish (he had politely apologised when we first arrived that he hadn't shaved). Whilst I may not understand everything that is being said, I am starting to understand why things are being said just by the feelings and the visual clues around and that's important too.
I remember the first few years in Slovakia, I was often in another world as conversation carried on around me. Love your description of your neighbour's home.
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