Early Saturday, Dateline Milna

By 10 p.m. we fled the Riva, I feel strangely agitated by travel,heat, a single glass of pivo, foreign sounds and movement.

Now, by 2:30 a.m., the drunken singing from the Riva, which had sounded suprisingly good from my house on the brizak, has been replaced by the wind and rain of a thunderstorm blowing over from Italy.

Our shutters groan at being shoved rudely back and forth by the wind. I rise and adjust our window to keep out the rain but still let in the cool air. The sky goes white. I count, "One thousand-one, One thousand-two, One
thousand-three, One thousand-four, One thousand-five, One thousand-six, One thousand-seven . . ."

I am looking down at our courtyard in the darkness. A flickering will-o-wisp brightly flees up our tiny street, passes without hesitation through our closed steel mesh gate, flickers round the corner of our storage shed, and vanishes into the stony field beyond.

The rain picks up and steadies itself, calming me.

07/09/09 Dateline Milna (or Euro: 09/07/09)

Late afternoon, 89 degrees F, 34 C, but pleasant in our house and a cool
breeze on the Riva (waterfront.)

Slept all day after arriving last night.

Composing this offline for a 'pirate' posting when the neighbors
wireless network comes on.

Big fire on Brac last year. We could see its blackened traces on the
drive from the ferry yesterday evening. It started of all places at
Milna and burned for two weeks almost to Supetar, 18 or so kilometers
away. Slavko says it was started by a crazy guy who I must have seen
before -- long stringy hair, missing two front teeth,etc. He was
evidently burning brush when the wind caught his fire and spread it.
(This was the same guy who burned down his neighbors storage building 10
years ago cuz he felt he was owed some money!)

There is some variation of this story every year. Two years ago it was
Solta, our small neighboring island: smoke darkened the sky above the
Mina Riva for a couple of days, lending a fantasic atmosphere to my
evening pivo (beer). There was also a small burn on Brac that year.
Three years ago, it was Hvar, if I remember rightly. Four years ago, it
was a careless cigarette-smoking Frenchwoman on Vidova Gora on Brac.
That one caused a lot of damage, burning through valleys and denuding
hills for many kilometers. The number of stone mounds and walls exposed
was staggering.

As you can see from photos, we have quite a little jungle growing on our
small patio. And this is AFTER Julia weeded. In the one photo, you can
see the fig, peach, and lavendar crowding the back way to our house.
(My escape route.) In the other photo, see part of the bumper crop of
peaches that we have this year.

By the way, Julia had this place sparkling! What a joy! The only thing
to dampen (!) it is the water damage to the back room and some other
walls. Gotta really look at that roof we had our Bosnian crew put on.

I am glad to say that after an absence of two years, Milna still looks
the same to me. Even the same old folk on the benches, steps, and
wandering the Riva; it looks like thee frantic development of the past
several years has stalled for a little while at least.

Some July 4th Flowers -- Our Garden

Julia Report from Milna

From the wedding last night... Jadranka was a bit surprised to see me – I greeted her and Niksa in the reception line. Lots of Klapa singing outside their house before and in front of the church after!

Nada, the lady that has a summer house behind us, said this is the nicest church on Brac – it must be!

No! No! When I'm RIDING My Horse!!! (Americans Never Get It Right)

Carrying Cement up our street in Milna.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Eason Sez: Oh My Gosh! Food is Great! Eating is Fun!!!

His very first solid food: yellow veggies . . .

Snapshots from Julia in Milna (Click to Enlarge)

The capers growing on our wall:














Our overgrown patio:
















Slavko and Nada on their steps:

Quiltythings

Lynne shares a website she discovered with wild and wonderful quilty art:

http://pamelart2.homestead.com/quiltythings.html

Julia Writes from Milna: Made It, but Sick!

I am sick! I began with this cold or whatever it is about four days ago – but now I have a fever and really do not feel good at all...but of course was desperate to check email.

I made it here just fine – wasn’t so bad after all – yeah I was tired, but there was a bus waiting at the airport going to the bus station, and there was plenty of time to get the midnight bus. It only took 20 minutes to get from the airport to the bus station (I thought it was longer). Then there was a ferry immediately and being so early in the morning there was NO traffic, etc (5:30 am). The only minor glitch is that I missed the bus waiting in Supertar and had to wait 1.5 hrs. No big deal.

Of course now I have lots of time to work and putter around here. The place always needs a good cleaning after being left all winter – vacuum the webs, etc. I have a ton of stuff to do – I’m writing this before I’ve checked out the internet. I haven’t seen anyone yet.

The outside is completely overgrown – even more so than last fall. The fig tree is doing great and the lavender is huge. But I’ll try to weed and plant your seeds.

I fell down and knocked my glasses off and so now they are crooked and loose – did that in Spain.

Love,

Julia

Ten Years

Kyra Reports on Eason

Eason is 12 weeks now! Holy cow time has flown! This last week was a huge week for Eason, he had his first real all-out laughing session while he was getting his bath! Eliot and I were both there to share in that amazing and beautiful magic moment! He has also become much more adept and proficient at putting things in his mouth and just started the
preliminaries to rolling onto his side.



And wouldn't you know, our prodigy son learned how to read at the tender age of three months, I suppose we wouldn't expect anything less! But seriously, the day I snapped the picture of him reading, we were laying on the bed, each time I finished a book and set it down he would start to fuss, and when I started a new book he would squeal in delight and kick his feet! He stared intently at the pages and had a running commentary! Then he held the books on his own and stared at the pictures with equal fascination. We read 7 books this way until it was time for nap!

We are having so much fun and I am somewhat dreading going back to work, but I know it will be an amazing time for Eliot and Eason to bond while I am away!

Julia in Pontevedra

I talked to Spencer and he asked for some photos – here are a few. One is the church from the former monastery where we’re staying, the Santiago photos are of the huge cathedral which is the end of a pilgrimage – some people walk a couple months to reach it – a tradition from centuries ago – we walked 10 kilometers or about six miles. The bagpipes and dancers came to entertain us at the beginning of the gathering – this area in NW Spain was originally Celtic – to my surprise.

The Waters of Lethe

Update

Julia made it to Pontevedra. She said driving across 600 kilometers of Spain was easy. Now she is staying in an old monestary for 40 euro's a night.

Julia's Travels

Julia's back in the air. She left Seattle at 11:30 today and now - just two minutes ago - left Newark for Madrid, Spain. Tomorrow, Friday, at 13:00 Central European Summer Time, she will rent a car in Madrid and then drive with two other ladies 600 kilometers to Pontevedra. Pontevedra is on the Atlantic Coast near northern Portugal.

The WAHurd Boys -

Click on image for larger view.

J.P. Woodcock on "The Me that is Simply Me

J.P. Woodcock here. I have looked inside myself this week and found, to my discomfort, that I am in exile from myself. How can this be you might ask? Well I am quite sure that modern psychology should have explanations for this estrangement from myself.

How long have you felt this way J.P.? Well . . . (read more)

Milna, Brac, Croatia - 2007

Just found this old cell phone photo of Me, Almir, and Ivo at our place in Milna!