The death-board ticking off the last few casualties of last winter, regularly checked by the locals for their gossip.
Our local army shop depot (doesn't every town have one?!) has finally aquired new stock including two jeeps! Much chin-scratching as to what we could do with one.
The new cafe is a disappointment. A sterile interior with a futile attempt to be modern. We of course the only custom this Wednesday morning and only because of my insistence to go somewhere warm rather than waiting at the bus stop. A perfect opportunity to exploit the Slovak market in cafe culture but fallen like a lump. Small talk from Jana only re-iterates the "glorious past" from the owner, and now the doom and gloom and blame. Whilst the unfinished toilets remain so, the interior's light fitting stays as a hanging wire. The empty cake and ice cream containers another reminder of that "glorious past".
The standard 80's radio station blaring, a circulating cycle of dross that used to be ironic when we arrived and nostalgic but now is annoying on every bus trip or shop visit.
The guy still pissing by the fence and the widowed grandma brigade remain dressed in their fashionable blacks.
The steroid-pumped son of the paint and cosmetic shop owners has still not dared to find his destination beyond his father's business. Gloomy passers-by breaking conversations to stare intently as I wave and drive.
This part of the country has a 'Slexit' feel, a time-warp and a break from what it should want to be. The lack of inspiration is a visual disappointment.
I do hope in the future if we are here or not that it isn't just the calendar that has moved on.
I need home again and the end of our reclusiveness from guests. Roll on May (not Theresa) and welcome our Worldly friends back.
