Where We're Going

Where We're Going

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Taste My Rust!

Breakfast the next morning was another splendid affair, this time served in the ornate Venetian Room. Unfortunately we were unable to see Edward, my Granny Kate's brother, as he had had to fly to London on short notice, and his flight back to Salzburg got in at the exact time our first train of the day left :( the first train of the day, to Linz, was a little late and packed full of Austrian football fans from Innsbruck on their way to Vienna for the match against Germany. Sat opposite us was a man with an Austrian football shirt, lederhosen, long red socks and traditional-looking fringed shoes. On his knee was a Tyrolean mountain hat, which we had been tempted to buy in Innsbruck, with a huge pheasant feather sticking out of it. On our second train we picnicked and I sang about sweetcorn and insects to pass the time. Our passports were not checked as we left Austria and entered Slovenia, like they haven't been for the last few borders we have crossed. Our final train, from Maribor to Ormož, was brightly grafittied on the outside and full of students. We nearly missed the station, as each one has only a small sign informing you of where you are. When we got off the train it was completely empty apart from the two other people who got off the train when we did. The station appeared to be closed, there were no timetables and no staff. We got a taxi to our village, Lačaves, and were met by the neighbour's son, Jerry. The house is perched on a hillside with vineyards all around it and behind it down the sloped garden. We spent our first few days there getting ourselves used to the area and took walks between the vines where we later saw a young deer. Outside the house are two large cherry trees, one of which is home to a family of blue tits, who we watched with interest the whole time we were there.

We stayed at the house in Slovenia for 2 weeks, but had no access to the internet so you'll have to have the whole lot in one go...

After dusting off the bikes we found in the spare room we headed out for a ride, our first being a mere 5km, the second trip being over 15km! We were very impressed since it's been about ten years since either of us cycled! During these bike rides I taught John the names of all the flowers, birds, insects and butterflies and we made friends with a small grasshopper who hopped onto John's belly and from there onto my head! In a bit of a role switch, I also had to mend his bike chain twice during our rides, silly John!

We tried all the local wines, the ones from the vineyard outside the house and some from the neighbour's vineyards too. We had been given bottles of the stuff by the neighbours and been told to help ourselves to the cellar in the house, woop!

After a few days we decided to take a long ride to the nearest big supermarket, nearly ten kilometres away, but foolishly didn't think to take our backpack and were given only shoddy bags which broke after a couple of kilometres. What a sight I must have looked with a packet of Jaffa Cakes poking out of each of my side pockets and a huge tin of peach slices down my vest top! Cycling around here (preferably sans peaches) is just perfect - whizzing past vineyards and patchwork fields on either side of the roads, the air perfumed with sweet figs and rosehips.

The first few days at the house were thundery but the second week was crazy hot, and eventually became too hot to go for bike rides during the day and we had to resort to watching Adriatic MTV (it was awesome!) and a local channel which showed people playing the accordion no matter what time of the day or night. During the thunderstorm that night we watched tacky-looking Latin American soaps and read. In the time we were there I got through 9 books, including 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime', 'Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress' and 'The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency' which had reviews on its front cover from, amongst others, my great aunt Shena and Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers, which was an odd combination to come across!

One of my favourite memories of the entire time we spent there was a warm, stormy evening (after the week of crazy sun when it was too hot to do anything except read) when we were entertained by the biggest and most beautiful storm either of us have ever seen. The lightning started just in the sky, volleying between the clouds, highlighting them in golds and pinks, then when it finally started raining it came down in silver streaks, lighting up the rain and making it look like glitter falling from the sky. The storm caused most of the TV channels to die so we stood on the balcony and watched the storm play out above us until the rain got too much and we retreated to watch it from the sofa. I have never seen a storm as pretty as that, the lightning wasn't like "normal" lightning, instead of heading down to the ground from the sky it moved between the clouds, zigzagging across the sky horizontally, in single streaks, in forked streaks and one time spread out like the veins of a leaf. The thunder rumbled for hours and the lightning struck pretty much constantly. After a number of hours it finally stopped and the silence was filled with the chirruping of a hundred grasshoppers.

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