Whenever I sit to write another post Joni Mitchell and her Circle game song just starts playing in my head. We have been here – some of the pictures below will look familiar to careful readers.
Above are the two first tomatoes of season 2015.
Now there are more. Unlike last year when they were blighted by rain and cold and hot crazy weather, they are doing fine so far. They look a bit unwieldy and weird sized but the crop is decent so far. There will be few jars of salsa and more than few salads. We are basically living off tomatoes at the moment.
While we are waiting for fennel to grow enough that is. They deserve picture of their own as they were planted here for the first time.
As if we didn’t have enough of our own vegetables and those given to us by our ever so lovely and kind neighbours, we have also found an organic (biodynamic even!?!) farm about two miles away. So how one would not buy few more (vegetables) and support the effort?
And our first vegetable “profit” above. We have a piece of land that was waiting for some hard working hands to start growing something on it. And those hands happened in a shape of our neighbour Tone (not to be confused by our “man that can do anything” builder Tone). Although new Tone can probably do quite a lot as well. Anyway, we got the above as a gift although I feel we should be gifting Tone for taking care and working the land that we would probably not start doing in many, many years if ever.
Changing the vegetables topic, we do still explore Istria. The above is a view from Cattunar winery – very nice view and the wine is not bad either 🙂
Another nice view is from our favourite Vela Vrata in Beram restaurant. So lucky we have them near us. Lovely food ie simple, homemadey, well executed. Menu that doesn’t have zillion items (I always think it can be even shorter, why o why owners insist that every single food stuff has to be on their menu?), pleasant staff, great view.
This is not from a magazine, I took this in Grožnjan the other evening where we listened to some jazz. There is a beautifully decorated cafe Kaya at the entrance to Gožnjan old town and I am thinking of stealing the idea of these lights for Pruga. As if I don’t have enough not finished projects for Pruga (and otherwise) already. Sigh.
We also visited TradInEtno festival in Pazin and this was taken on our way back from a very lovely, happy opening night concert – Pazin is not famous for its charms but of course it has charming parts as well. This is how we describe it to our guests: “the administrative centre of Istria and our closest town, has shops, a castle and a gorge with a zip line. The best time of the day is in the morning as then it is at its busiest with locals going about their errands. Ok for sipping first coffee of the day.” In buffet Bunker of course.
I had some people asking me about how we live here (ie those very few readers that have not been here as guests – paying or otherwise). Like, it is all about the apartments that we rent and that are beautiful. I was debating if it is a good idea to share or not, and today I thought I won’t have enough to write about and as always, as soon as I start, it seems like there are things to write about. Regardless, as I had the pictures already, here is a tiny glimpse of this “kinda b&b” headquarters.
Few weeks ago (after 4 years without it) Tone and I finally created a headboard for our bedroom. The before and after text above was just me playing with some app. I think it is pretty obvious that one is before and one after without the text, but I had to try.
As they (apparently) say “shoemaker’s children go barefood” – there is a similar saying in Croatian, that is how I found this – it is taking us longest to make our apartment nice. It is a small space (about 40m2) and it was build in the 90s, attached to pretty stone buildings where the rental apartments are. Still, bit by bit, we make it cuter every year. This year, the bedroom and bathroom doors where finally painted. Now they are still missing handles, but altogether the bedroom looks much neater.
There is no real wardrobe, just some cool Ikea shelving system behind huge curtain. About half of bedlinen showing. When running a b&b, unless differently organised (ie paying someone else to do it, we are not there yet), washing machine is on ALL the time. So is iron and ironing board.
I was making muffins the other evening for an early start of one guest family – light and colours looked lovely so I just took a quick shot of our tiny kitchen where everything is happening. I normally bake cakes in the morning. So I get up about two hours before I agree with guests what time will breakfast be and slowly get on with the cake and the rest.
To have it all ready on our table before start taking it outside to the guest breakfast area.
And our reading pursuits are currently limited to ever fascinating subject of Mjumju. Thanks Isabel and Samy.
Oh, and – the weather is wonderful this summer!
There is a new puppy in the neighbourhood (and occasionally on our terrace). Cute as a button. Bugging Miki to play with him to which Miki has found a way of escaping – he now hides under Vanja’s desk as soon as the kid comes by.
While Mjumju is safely watching from her watchtower.