Over the Mountains

We head over the North Cascades Pass one hour after it opens, cleared of
snow finally for the season. Gotta catch the lupin and arrowleaf
balsomroot in bloom!

Blake, Tate, Tim

Before heading home, Tim makes it to the Tate Gallery to see some Blake originals.

Tim writes:  Beneath the small painting (bottom) 
Blake wrote in easy to decipher script  
"everything is an attempt to be human"   

Unkie Calls Home

Tim  was out quite late, they had martinis at the Duke's, where James Bond drank them in the movies, Tim didn't but everyone else did, then they went to the Ritz in Mayfair but decided it was a bit too posh and settled on dinner at the Dorchester, waited on by 5 waiters, he had Chateaubriand. He got back to his room around 1 am, he is going to try to get up and go to the Tate tomorrow before he flies back. He is happily enjoying this trip which seems to be a bit of reward for all his hard work.

that is the latest.

Lynne

Photos (from top):

Old Oxford main street
Oxford University (Harry Potter?)
Fish n chips in pub at same location since 1484

Julia Is In Greece

I'm here in Greece. I was pooped after traveling all night so have been lazy today. Wanted to go into the nearby town (village on the sea), but didn't make it.

There's wi-fi in the room...! At least sometimes. And for sure in the lobby.

I am feeling much better now - Indonesia and Jakarta are something else. In fact I'm feeling pretty good. I may even go for a swim in the pool.

It's amazing how much this is like Croatia here - cement houses and buildings, lots of stone and concrete, the same plants, cicadas, heat  etc. I guess I said that. And it hot, but the room is air-conditioned - and it's on low so it's not too bad. Normally I don't like AC. There's a small market and fantastic bakery nearby and since I’m on the one-meal-a-day-plan, I can buy cheese and fruit, etc - and those fabulous tomatoes - to eat. (but stuff is expensive – and it seems the taxi ride I’ll need to the airport when I leave will be around $120 . . .

Slavko Sends Haiku

The green frog 

In your water meter 

The blob is dripping slow  

(Ed.: Photos are not my leaking water meter! but of the paleolithic cave of Kopacina, that Slavko and Nada recently visited, now secure behind iron bars as yet another archaeological excavation is underway.)

Slavko Captures the REAL ME!

Clever guy, Slavko.

Emails these photos that he took last week in Solin.

Can't argue with them.

Dateline Milna: Nick of Time

In the nick of time (JIT), with only days before I leave, Jozo shows up
before I leave to make some repairs to my roof. Roof repair was the
single big reason that I came here this year. Hopefully, for $200 USD
this will hold things until I add another floor to my place and then
replace the whole back roof.

Ivo looks on and gives his tentative approval.

Dateline Milna: So Much to Do . . .

. . . so little time . . .

so . . .

I slip out the back way,
behind my house,
up the stony walled path,
through an olive grove,
down an abandoned cistern slope,
past the village ballote ball courts,
and up beyond the old village of Podhume . . .

I follow a flock of sheep
deep in to the hills

I find a hunter's stand for wild boar, high in a dead pine . . .

the next day I am on the mainland, in Solin,
helping Slavko roof his new house,
helping to drink his homemade wine and
eat his roasted lamb,
watching ballote at Greben,
matching Jako, the master mason,
drink for drink,
("Zivio!")
sleeping with geckos
showering outside the next morning
as the sun came up
and the bura blew,
in water as cold as snow-melt
beneath ruins of a 7th century
church and mausoleum.

Now, to work,
finish the roof repair,
clean the house,
wash the sheets,
thank the neighbors,
take a breath . . .
then . . .
another
and . . .
another . . .

Almost Single Digits Now

Warm, sunny days. Shirt-sleeve weather. Occasional rain.

Milna is shutting down for the winter, however. The Models Bar,
Bobs'n'Babes, Gallerija Kate, Galicija (steak house), Gajeta restaurant,
Fontana, Fjaka, Pinta . . . it's getting hard to find a meal here!

Pressing the Grapes

Yesterday was a gift. Sunny and warm as Ivo, Spiro and I pressed wine
at Murvica, mid-way down the south side of the island near Bol. The
setting there is unreal: behind, blue skies, white cumulus and the
towering grey-blue walls of limestone and dolomite; before, the open
channel and Hvar; amid vineyards still heavy with fruit slanting down to
the sea, only the faint sounds of the waves on the beach below audible.
Rock, sky, sea everywhere.

Always the opening of the spigot on the fermentation tub is a wonder to
me. The dark red wine bursts gushing out, bucket after bucket, seeming
as miraculous as water from a stone in the desert. Then comes the mild
work of pressing the remaining pulp for the rest of the new wine.
(Mild 'cuz Spiro did all the hard stuff.)

Later, although it was the 2nd of October, I went for a swim. Amen.

Dateline Sutivan: The Truth at Last!??

Suspicions about gda. M's role in the missing grapes have been laid to
rest. Locals said the grapes had been picked by a local lawyer -- A.,
the same lawyer used by both Ivo and gda. M. This fueled a good deal of
speculation.

M. arrived in town Tuesday specifically to straighten this out and
promptly visited lawyer A. Apparently, a few weeks ago she took him to
see her property and he admired the harvest which looked to him as if it
was going to waste, so he asked if he could pick the grapes. Either M.
said "no" or, as another possibility that is not quite clear, she may
have given approval believing that he was asking if he could eat a few.
(The dangers of pidgin conversation.)

At any rate, the next day he showed up with two other men and cleaned
the place out, as was discovered by Pavle just a day later.

In the interests of good relationships, lawyer A. has agreed to pay
$1000 Euros to Spiro, Ivo's brother -in-law and the man who was to make
our white wine this year. In addition, to show there are no hard
feelings, lawyer A. will provide a lamb grill for the wine-maker.

The police declined comment on the incident.

Barring further disclosures, we now consider this mystery solved, as
much as it will ever be.

Ferry Dream: from 2006 that I Just Found

I guess I thought I was K., or something, but here it is:

Ferry Dream - 2006

He was to meet her on the ferry The ferry was going somewhere . . . It
doesn't matter now.

He had hoped to catch her boarding, on the quay , but the thick crowds,
automobile fumes, the bother and hurry had made that impossible. He was
certain, however, that she was on the ferry.

He waited at the small bar for an espresso and took it with him outside,
climbing the narrow steel stairs to the top deck. Here there were two or
three couples in the yellow seats in the sun sheltered from the strong
wind by steel bulkheads under years of high-gloss white paint.

One woman read. For a moment he thought it she. Then he was certain it
was not. Those were not her features, he thought, nor would she dress
like that, although he could not think what she might be wearing. He
could not see the title of the book.

He lit a Cubanito and then sat down in the open wind. A man with a small
goatee who looked like an art professor or painter, dressed in a worn
brown sportsjacket with cravat, sat down next to him and lit a cigarette.

The man said something in Serbian or Croatian. He did not
understand...ne razumijem...he was handed a torn scrap of paper with a
hand-written message but he could not tell what language it was in,
although it could have been addressed to him, it bore no signature. He
put it in his jacket pocket.

A few hundred meters away bobbed a small fishing boat with two bulky
figures in it. They pulled at a net which came in slowly, darkly, wetly.
Something glistened in the net. The boat twisted in the wind. The man at
the bow seemed to lose his balance for just a moment, putting his hand
out for the gunwale.

He looked at his watch. If he did not find her soon, he would have to
look for her as they docked. He went down to the smoking compartment.
The ferry was full of people occupying every seat. They talked together
of everyday matters in loud voices, urgent, persuasive. The smoke was
thick, blue and everywhere. A TV set was loud, blue and unintelligible
in the corner.

She was not here either, although for a moment once again he thought he
sensed her sybillance.

Then the ferry was docking. People leapt from their seats and crowded in
a great mass at the doors and stairs and at the auto gate as if a matter
of survival. He could see the passengers on the docks also massed for
its mooring.

What had she said she would be wearing? Perhaps that was what the note
had been about, or perhaps a rendevous point?

He held back and waited until he might be able to descend the stairs and
walk the end gate without being pressed.

Perhaps she might do the same.

The stone houses on the riva shone white and blinding in the sun. A
green cafe umbrella emblazoned with the name of a domestic beer tottered
then blew over in the wind.

He reached into his pocket for her note, but could not find it.

Dateline Brac: Season Change

The Yugo is blowing - that hot, dry wind from Africa that - locals claim
- drives people insane. And yet it rains. Two days and two nights so
far. Still I manage a Solstice swim, near Murvica, picking grapes. The
water was cold and clarifying. We went a day early to pick our grapes,
rightly afraid of the rain that might ruin them. Now neighbors huddle
under an almond tree, under umbrellas, forlornly watching the rain on
their fruit. We bottle up last year's wine to make room for the new. I
drink some on the stone terrace watching clouds cover Hvar across the
channel, the white crashing breakers last to disappear. Later I drive
the 4x4 home over rain-channeled muddy roads dropping sheerly to the
sea, while Ivo sits in the back, enjoying his smokes.

Dateline Sutivan: M. "Knows Nothing"

More on our developing story:

Gda. M. has responded to email query about her knowledge of the missing
grapes with a blanket denial. However, she indicated that she will come
to Milna from Poland for 3 days next week to straighten things out.

Interestingly, the locals in Sutivan claim they saw who took the grapes:
a lawyer from Supetar. Ivo scratched his head at this news, since the
lawyer identified is a good friend of his. At the same time, however,
he also serves as a lawyer for gda. M.

This may all be cleared up when gda. M. arrives Monday?

Meanwhile, it appears that we will get about 250 liters of red wine and
maybe 50 liters of rakija from the grapes on Ivo's land near Bol.
Without gda. M.'s grapes, we will make no white wine this year.

Brac: Amidst Wine-making, A Cautionary Tale

It was summer in Dalmatia, and hotter than hell, when Henry went nuts.
I don't know if the crazy-making Yugo's were blowing, or if they blew
only in his mind.

Henry had always been a shadowy, non-descript character to me. I had
met him two or three times, always in the dark and always in the company
of his Polish lady-friend, M. I don't know his nationality, but he
spoke English like it was his own language. He was of medium-build.
Maybe his hair was thinning or almost gone. I have only the dimmest
impression of him beyond that, looming in the dark, almost silent,
almost invisible.

Anyway, it seems that Henry had purchased a stony plot of ground inland
on the island near the ancient Illyrian/Roman village of Skrip. There
he had put a small trailer and made it a a holiday home. He had cut
down the weeds and cleaned up the place and, as he proudly proclaimed,
the neighbors had grown to accept him when they saw him working his own
land.

Sometimes, there is a difference between reality and the dream, however,
and coming here in mid-summer, stuck in a small trailer, unprotected,
beneath a brutal sun, blinding light reflecting off the white stone,
proved trying. In addition, the neighbors, having accepted him, were
good people. Every time they saw him, they cried 'Hey, Henry, come and
have a drink with us.' Pivo, vino, rakija . . . it was all one to
Henry, who happily sampled, tippled, and guzzled his way along.

How to imagine what was boiling in his brain?

One day, the neighbors found him half-dressed, lurching about his land,
thrashing his arms, and raving in drunken shouts beneath the sun. They
could not calm him down and - to protect him from himself - ended up
tying his hands and feet and taking him to the hospital. He was
transferred to the mainland. When M. came to visit, he did not
recognize her. His brother had him flown back home to more temperate
climate and rather less booze. Or maybe the people there were just not
as friendly.

The latest word is that Henry has recovered, but we have not seen him
again this year. His trailer sits empty and, with the autumn rains,
weeds are beginning to reappear among his stones.

The neighbor who gave me this news, paused, then - being a good person -
asked anxiously: 'Jos vino, John?'

Dateline Sutivan: Developments in Scandal

Official word from gda. M. is that she knows NOTHING about the theft of
the grapes. We will pursue this matter. Something is not meshing.
Back to the police. Is it lawyers? neighbors? We will dog it.

Meanwhile, on Friday, (tomorrow) Ivo, Pavle and me go to Bol (actually,
Murvica) to pick what is left of the red grapes there before the
forecasted rain on Saturday (subota). We will run it through Spiro's
mangle on Saturday and get the fermentation process working. Something
must be saved of this year's crop.

Did I mention that the rakija (brandy) from last year is especially
smooth and pleasing?

Yum.

Dateline Sutivan: Scandal Rocks Island

Developing Story:

Just days before the harvest of the white grapes of Sutivan, catastrophe
has struck. Pavle X., who was tending the grapes, says," I am in
shock. I don't understand how this could happen."

For some time now, Pavle has been cultivating the vines of gda. M., a
resident of Poland, preparing for a harvest and wine-making just as last
year. Imagine his surprise when he arrived yesterday morning to find
that sometime in the last day or so, someone had picked all the grapes.
His son-in-law, Ivo P., immediately called the police in Supetar and in
Split, who were non-committal. "Show us proof that you have a right to
those grapes," they told the flabbergasted Ivo.

Spiro X., also involved in the harvest and wine-making, said he was out
a lot of money since he had purchased a new grape mangle especially for
this crop.

This is a disaster for local winemaking, meaning that there will be no
white wine production this year, and that the amount of red wine
produced will be cut in half. The volume of rakija produced will also
suffer greatly.

Ivo is in communications with gda. M., advising her of the theft and
asking that she send documentation of Ivo and Pavle's rights.

Meanwhile, rumors swirl as to the identity of the thieves - with
suggestions of legal complicity - and one question looms largest of
all: just how much does Gda. M. know?

Milna Update: Memory on Equinox

Working on my little garden wall, I find more evidence of Lucica:
"Bonacic Luccio 1957"

Dateline Milna: Autumnal Equinox 2010 and Trivia

Perfect balance of light and dark, life and death. And a full moon. I
have purchased a memory candle and will light it tonight after writing
down the names of all family members who are gone. (I am also supposed
to go for a swim today - a small ritual - but maybe that won't happen. . .)

Lovely weather, 64 in the morning, 79 in the afternoon, blue sky.

Took soil for my newly enlarged garden from an Englishwoman's plot of
land behind my house. Six wheelbarrows so far. That may be all. The
neighbors back there watched me pretty closely. I hear she's due to
show up in Milna in a few days and I'll have to confess. Still waiting
for 8 bags of potting soil from the hardware store to mix in before I
replant anything.

Some photos attached. Several of Slavko putting stone facing on his
house in Milna, just down a couple of streets from us; one of Stipe, our
local recycling engineer who was joking with Slavko about me taking his
picture, so I took one of him too; and one of a 'singing sea captain'
Julia and I saw in Trogir. Sometimes I can see myself and sometimes
Charles in him. . .

Dateline Milna: Stone Mason, 9/15/10

Julia's leaving has really thrown me a curve. When she was here, I was
content to play my uke, read sci fi, paint now and then, hike now and
then. Now that she's gone, damn if I don't feel like I have to do
something . . . like work, I mean . . . so I have started working on
raising my little flower bed wall 9" or so. The reasons are arcane, but
the stones are not. And as soon as I started I remembered putting down
the tile floor last year . . . my working methods, I mean . . .'hmmmm, I
should probably study this a while . . . a little pivo might help . . .
I don't think I have enough stones (hahaha) . . . maybe I do . . . oh,
well, the hardware store is out of cement right now so I probably
shouldn't start with the little that I have . . . and the sun is hitting
right on that spot I was going to work . . . I should probably have a
little pivo and wait . . . its kinda hot . . . ow.my back hurts . . .
should I really do this?' etc. etc. It took me three days (four,
really) to get started, and even though cement is still in short supply
I am slowly raising the wall . . . now I have Ivo's father, Pavle,
coming over to offer me support . . . which means that when I begin to
slow down he urges me on . . . shows me how I should be doing it . . .
or if I'm really dragging, he brings me a glass of that rakija (brandy)
that we made last year . . . that always gets me going again for a
sprint, at least . . .I figure that any competent villager could do the
job in two days, I will probably take about 10 or more or more . . . it
was easier when Julia was here clicking away on her keyboard and I was
reading Thucydides and playing Springsteen's "Thunder Road" on my
ukelele. . .