In recent times

A surge. An unaccountable quantity of raspberries piling on the pressure to be processed. Jam the likely destination. In recent times strawberries, mulberries, peas, early spuds, nettles, weeds, finally a deliverance of eggs from the new hens and finally a comeback of cherries after a few years in drought. All typically in our final time, a fond farewell to distract from all the packing.
Now word has spread,

an in-different shrug and gossip provides alternative reasons as to why we are going. Time will move on with or without us here in it's beautiful slowness, seasons coming and going the only changes noticeable. Simple and delicious with nature taking care. 
I can't wait to not have to tempt my life whilst crossing the zebra's in the town, and a chance not to have to worry how garbled my language ability is in Slovak. But it pales into insignificance compared with all the moments we've had here whether rough or smooth. We are two very altered individuals from the experience, only for the wiser. 
And now the people come for a day or more, many wishing to have our shoes on, but many not daring just yet. 

Simple life

So we will go. Likely this year, could be next but the holiday will end soon. The appetite to do again somewhere else is there, the simple life we will pursue.
For now each day must not be looked at as a countdown, and instead to be lived to the full. 
The lengthy Winter, the shortened Spring and the early warm weather with occasional downpours has created a potential for abundance in the garden and on the trees. The local wildlife is taking full advantage and only our ageing fridge can hope to drown out the chirpy chicks nesting above our front door. The occasional splatter of bird droppings below as evidence.
The hens are ecstatic with the unrivalled freedom from there enclosure that we now leave open everyday. An abundance of lush greenery and no large dog to upset them anymore. Harik dozes throughout, with only a snarl if they dare to approach his prized dried bread roll. 
Drying herbs from Jana's various field trips scatter table space, elder soaked preparing to be syrupised. And even now my snuffling nose can't fail to notice the whiff of acacia surrounding us. It's easy to do nothing and wait.

frozen again

Slip sliding into town with the non-grip tyres. The usual grimaces as the snow fluctuates and coat collars tuck round any remaining visible skin. A rawness for only the rough to endure to bring in the necessary provisions. 
Back home, just, calmness from the chill. A tranquility for all seasons but winter in particular. Frozen paths dug out from the snow direct you to your chores. No freedom of movement. A sense of frustration as this is all late and March is tomorrow when other work had been planned to take place. The hens are temporarily in the old henhouse, a warmer site but in the way of wood and cats. Only the outdoor toilet is a distance away from the front door now. The trip to the loo is now a journey in these conditions to it's far outpost. But a warm seat awaits if you wait for your wife to go first!     
   

Bedroom

 
A chance to shine in the eyes of our neighbours, six plus years before the deep plunge into man-made fibres for the bedroom floor. No more striding in with wellies, replaced with a tip-toe socked foot. A replacement stove tucks into a tiled off corner awaiting it's connection day as its floor-space dries.
Maybe a 10am beer and an afternoon hour of 10 homemade donuts isn't the healthiest of days. But the neighbourly rounds are essential for the local gossip and the broadcast of our carpet. An almost fanfare moment as usually the news is what we hear not what we tell.
A shiny, new wooden floor had been the plan. But warmth, budget and the necessity to complete eventually took precedence. 
Soon our sofa-bed in the kitchen will become nightly redundant once again as we hope to return to the made-over room. A relief for the strained back and a good night's rest away from the dripping kitchen tap that still bothers me.     
    

Hangover

January blues. Too many scoffed biscuits from a generous neighbour. Then an indulgence of meat force-fed at Grandma's birthday and leftovers there after which even Harik fusses. This christmas food hangover must end. It is noticeable the detrimental difference this takes on our bodies diet. So used to racing through the pumpkin surplus in the cellar before the evil teenage face-looking zits take over completely the hardened surfaces. Garden carrots are rhythmically compressed to juice now as part of the detox recovery. The over-sized homegrown beetroot too is no longer admired, just chomped down in whatever way makes us recuperate. 
And all this cannot be explained to a neighbour round these parts who's diet we had just skipped into for only this darkest period of the year. The norm of meat, and more meat, followed by hard drink and whitest of white sugar biscuits with coffee granules swimming in your cup to swash it down. Time to lie down and and let the perspiration dry, and thinking did I really see an advert on Slovak television at Jana's Gran's place for a medicine called "retard".

Jaffa

The sludgy mess of our road now the snow begins to melt. Sliding the top layer of the road's gravel surface into the neighbouring field down the bottom. The resulting craters will no doubt dis-please our retired ex road-worker neighbour with his recently acquired low-suspension 1990's Honda Civic. 
Now that the twice a day bus to town has been cut to just once in the afternoon, his decision to delve into the petrol market has probably been justified for his sake. One more car for Harik to bark at as it trudges slowly past every Friday. And unfortunately it is only Harik. Sadly to us and him his companion/tormenter/side-kick/manipulated buddy Jaffa has been found a new place on a sheep farm. To us, either an impulse decision to help us leave for brexit-land or a knee-jerk, un-necessary reaction which may not have been needed if the politics fall down. It has left a sense of loneliness to our place. The patchy white landscape is failing to lift the spirit despite the beautiful mists that like to fall and catch the end of the day's sun. The anxiety, broken light switches and only a half-heated house (we are still waiting for a new stove in the bedroom after I knocked out the last smoke- releasing one back in October...) is certainly not we have discovered for the romantic or the daring to live every year.  

Clocks

As our train pulls into a peripheral Bratislava station a couple of Sunday's ago a huddle of riot police await an incoming train on another platform. Presumably for an incoming entourage of football related hooligans (British 1980's throwback style...). But unbeknown to them the train arrives at a different platform. Keystone cops comes to mind as the huddle quickly cross the lines to welcome all but a few surprised disembarking passengers with no association to any team.
Glum faces in my carriage staring into blank telephone screens probably missed this magical moment of entertainment. No audience for this prime viewing. 
Maybe I'm more absorbed with my whereabouts than any technology. The clocks can stand still if you want, like at old man Foytik's home, who sadly passed away a few months back. Snow comes and snow goes, the visual effect is there to be enjoyed. Try it.  

Nov29th

The arrival of Winter. The wood neatly stacked and sheltered, the ground is going to sleep. Our burning 'tv set' shaped stove to keep us entertained in the long evenings and distract from the outside world.
First flurries falling from the sky, earlier this year but we are prepared. The hens are all confused, the snow-hidden earth fills them with trepidation to step down towards their morning feed. There is no-hiding their dislike for this time of year. Neither our fridge which painfully hums louder, not helped by the odd mouse visitor taking refuge in the warmth behind. It's interest is in the sackfuls of walnuts still being splintered from time to time. The sweetened smell of apple jam on the stove an extra incentive to investigate.
Short days with daylight at a premium. More time to think and less to do. Escapism in too longer thoughts though is very counter productive.   
It's time to clear-out now, too much has been hung onto for future projects that will never happen. Passed down belongings and collected nonsense needs dusting down and shifting. The spider's cobs only give a fake vintage value. We don't need this baggage anymore, our next chapter is drawing closer.     

Leaving

With daylight at a premium, time to battle the elements to capture every fallen leaf for our precious garden mulch. Indoors, every fly that has cheekily squeezed through cracks into the cottage during their extended lifetime of October's late warm flush are now slowing to be a captor of our many resident spider population. Even the sudden reappearance of ladybirds are rotting to crumbs and brushed to the hen feeding pot. More mudding of cracks, more white-washing of walls as if we have only just moved in. But the place was beginning to look tired, and the therapeutic brushstrokes are a pleasant enough distraction from the sleet and downpours. 
And currently a bake-off between neighbours is giving us a satisfying reason to visit either. Apples were aplenty, and so now some lush and succulent slices of treats that need to be sampled. I know my pleasantries in the language and they know my sweet tooth.  

Poo dilemma

A pile of horse poo sits steaming near our front gate. It's been there a while with mushrooms accelerating in number on it's heap after all the moisture and barmy late Autumn sun. In fact it has grown to extend with two further smaller peaks which we are fearing over time will only increase too. The only way to save the scorched earth below the brown mess is a rapid transfer to the hungry garden plots. But the wheelbarrows are stuffed with an abundance of apples with no space left in the bulging cellar of fruit, potato and pumpkins. And until we consume more roasted/souped/curried vegetable and crumbled/steamed/juiced deserts the poo will stay still.

Sept 18th

On a whim I write, several weeks of excuses to not to do so, but now finally it is all quiet once again. The moody skylines return, one big turn in temperature still to come to shock all the green leaves which are nervously hanging on. The mushroom traffic in their reliable old Skoda's have been returning but fields around haven't provided the feast which was available last year. Instead the crocuses have sprouted if not trampled on by deer or Jaffa's paws. Jozef's old Combine Harvester still sits happily nestled on the tree-line of the meadow, abandoned after a second cut last month. A trust with us to keep an eye on it we presume, but we don't know for how long. And now time is only dictated by the daylight and the hens and not by who is arriving. That time is slowly running shorter, especially as the distracting neighbourly gossip rants pick up back to the pre-summer levels. Plenty to say or at least for me to listen to. 
The 3 w's of wood, warmth and winter and then some hopeful, incredible breakthrough in my language skills. I don't tire of this just yet, even with those slog months to come. 

Summer food

Nosy mushroom pickers gobbling up every woodland growth edible to man and deer. Heat and storms traditionally bring the flock from the town and nearby to forage and then digest. But there is still our place to pass, to almost stop and stare. Like zoo animals we stare back too. We have considered opening up an english tearoom so that they can stop and stare a bit longer. But then we never have been the entrepreneur type to wish to do such a thing. 
Lots of plum droppings this year as the trees decide to yield fruit in excessive quantity. Envious eyes already from one neighbour with his distilling alcohol kit. Drunken wasps binge on the fallen if they are not picked up of the ground soon enough. Much to the annoyance to Jaffa as he tries to snap at every available buzz, their erratic flying is even more un-predictable.
Down another bird in the henhouse. One of the battered ones succumbs to an illness which we are none wise to. The others are fit and well despite the heat. An excess of treats from leftovers as the summer guests fill our compost bin. 

Celebrity

I was still getting over the shock of seeing two familiar faces in the Coop supermarket preparing to meet 30+ eager autograph-hunting school kids. Adverts of them are splattered around the store all the time promoting all things good about processed meat and cheese of folk-land Slovakia.
On this occasion it looked like it was promoting orange helium filled balloons from what I could understand. One of them with an uncanny resemblance to Jean-Paul Gaultier in pictures. But in the flesh was just an unfortunate actor preparing to be stormed by an army of 6-10 year olds on a sleepy hot Thursday afternoon. Something new for the muttering grandma's to whisper as they have their change scrutinised at the tills.
We are not the delirious type to worry about who we might see. And a week later a well known Slovak tv presenter came to stay. Not that we would have known having never owned a television from all our time here. But a picture and article in the gossip rags left behind by Jana's mum gave us the evidence and not a word must be said about her mystery man who had made the booking and was her partner in tow that night.
In the end we are all the same, like garlic bulbs.   

Scything

A couple of weeks back the cobwebs were dusted off the trusted scythe. The relentless growth of the grass had made the mower redundant. Not since that first summer when all we had mechanically was a Flymo had I attempted to cut the two acres with just a blade and an aching left shoulder. Not for the faint-hearted but a necessary back up to cutting if I didn't want another ruined and scrapheap-bound grass cutter. 
I'm certainly no expert at this folly. My method would be scorned or laughed at by the old folk round here. I tear the grass instead of slice through poor technique or use of a blunted blade or a combination of both. Maybe I'm showing off to myself in belief that I can do it having never done so or needed to. Or is it a rebellion from my father's perfectly manicured lawns from childhood. I have produced though an adequate carpet of grass cuttings/hay for insulation of the thirsty vegetable garden. 
With the sun beating down this week, seedlings have gone from teenagers to young adults. And the worries of Jaffa's trampling paws on our well worked soils become less of a threat.
It's hot and still now, jokes about tipi erections as they go up ready for a steady flow of passing-by folk through these parts. 
We argue when is the best time to visit, now has a strong case with the abundance of herbs and wild flowers uncut in the surrounding meadows and hundreds of deafening birdsongs.
Though within a few weeks everything will change. The noise from combines and tractors as they come strolling in to flatten the fields. No place for the slicing or tearing scythe by then.   

management apology

It is with deep regret that we have to report a mis-management of kilo proportion. The unfortunate demise of one of our hens has been put down to a combination of neglect and broken down safety requirements. 
The culprit has been severely dealt with (no 'walkies' for a few days) but the management feel they were most in the wrong and will in future follow new procedures to prevent any further incident like this happening again. Of course we are humbly sorry and although our freezer is a little bit fuller we do not want both the ordeal and aftermath to be repeated. 
We do respect the trauma that this may have caused to the remaining brood in the henhouse and the mis-trust which obviously has developed between ourselves and them. This we hope will heal over time with more feed and treats available, as well as a new locking system on the enclosure's gate (still to be approved but likely to involve a nail, a couple of bits of wood, a screw and a washer). Hasten to add that any additional funding required will be taken out of the management's own pocket of change.
New training methods have started with the perpetrator which are already having a rehabilitating affect. This will continue throughout the summer under extra surveillance with new commands and additional granules in pockets for good behaviour.
It has been a very unsavoury episode which the management now understands was totally un-acceptable and caused a great deal of stress all round. With hindsight the extended lower fencing was not a good idea.


    

Sleeping vegetable seeds

The local supermarket's stock of vegetable and flower seeds are back in, as traditional as chocolate at Easter. Familiarity as normal in our sleepy town. 
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. 

Errr, marrow is off today.

As the last marrow and pumpkin begins to resemble a fruitcake look with all it's yellow, red and black mouldy spots, it is time to clear the cellar's content.
Nearly 30 of these have carried us through the darker months and now a slightly tiring reluctance to take the last few for processing. 
Chopping the tops and bottoms, the mush begins to ooze. But after slicing the hard skin (and some of my own), there are edible glimpses of the former vegetable. 
Compost loves this stuff, the bad stuff that is. Already rotting, your fingers poke through it like butter. Some of the better looking gung goes to the hens to finish off, the rest for the heap to gobble. 
The seeds have their own destiny. Separated as a collective, and buried into any useful space in the garden. The fittest will hopefully survive and reproduce and surprise us where we planted them. 
And then what's left from, is a meal or two if you are lucky. A few fat chunks, chopped and roasted with olive oil and herbs. It certainly isn't pretty to do this with leftovers of last Autumn's harvest, but at this time of year between eating and growing, a few cents are saved.

Television

Our television has arrived. Why have we not thought of having one before? 
Once lit, an endless glow of entertainment for all those empty evenings. What's more, it gives off something that we have not been too familiar with in recent months, warmth.
Who cares if it is ugly with the looks from a previous bad haircut generation, it works! 
No longer the embarrassment of having to ask any visitors that they can keep their coat on inside. And we are wearing at least one less jumper each now, what elation!
Now we can see where our handy work from the October slog in the forest ends. A silent pleasure watching the burning wood behind the screen. It even has a fancy lever for airflow, and magically the flame disappears or sparks back to life. No need to switch channels, or fighting over any remote. And it can be left on all day, slowly dispersing a soft heat which this place has not experienced before. A wonderful feeling to come back to from the bitter winds or rain of outdoors this week. 

In fact, it could be better than television. 

A cup of sugar

A cup of sugar with a hint of coffee and hot water from the vending machine at Brno bus station. A half way stop for my travel to the gorgeous Prague, a sixteen hour round trip over two days for a one hour work meeting. Observing every spec of detail on the giant billboards that farmers have allowed in their fields as we approached each city peripheral. Anything to take my mind off how long this journey takes. 
But the horribly, dirty car fumed melting snow next to the motorway is a sign that the bottom depth of winter has left us. 
Once home, the sun shines and the garden shed construction re-starts. The final selection of crumbly lathes and rusty nails left here to make up this crafty bodge job. By the summer it will hopefully look as if it has always been here, lived in and intentionally rustic.
Our ice rink style road has now given in to pigs wallow, but that doesn't stop the arrival of our new heating stove. A bit late to take affect for this season but a welcome sight for the next cold spell. In fact the large ugly 1980's tv style screen it has will be a pleasure to watch as the wood burns happily. 
This winter has been tough and emotional with the cold. We only have three rooms for solitude. We can't complain when neighbours have less, but the twisted change of politics has given extra unnecessary anxiety even if it can feel thousands of miles away. We will soldier on and enjoy each task, each progressive step we take and carry on with plan A until we cannot. We know we are still lucky to have had this experience.

COLDER world

And there you have it, even the man who sells wood burning stoves thinks it has been a bit colder. Although he is trying to sell us a stove, so you would expect him to say so really. The high of having his expertise available to fit the 'chosen one' in our kitchen before winter melts down, to the consequent phone call and free-fall after the announcement of a four week delay.
Winter is done by then. 
Waiting is nothing new to us though. I began counting down the colder days back in November, before winter was winter. It is actually quite a depressing trait to do when you start repeating the day's date or the day of the week. Suddenly a week until it is February becomes 6 days, which sounds longer! Or you group a few days together until it is Friday when our neighbour Jano is wandering past the window to catch the bus for his weekly shop. Then switching languages and repeating days into Slovak, even the sound of the words creates a psychologically longer week. Thankfully there is no leap year this time.
The abundance of fruit and pumpkins in the cellar remains, despite being slowly digested or processed. Progress is snail pace until the farcical Spring arrives.