ten points

And again, I post when I feel too tired to keep my eyes open. I'll do it differently tomorrow! -- I vow to myself and then tomorrow comes and it's not different at all. Nine years of blogging should have taught me better, but, well, here I am, fighting sleep for the thousandth time.

So highlights -- you'll get just highlights from the day. With or without a photo.

1. Waking up in the morning, looking up and commenting to Ed -- what is that on the ceiling?
He answers -- cobweb; now go to sleep. I ask -- are you sure? He checks. Not cobweb. Wet spot. We have, it seems, a leaky roof.

2. First breakfast with all the requisite foods purchased and ready. Not a small change: good bye Greek yogurt, hello Kefir.





3. It's more humid today and it feels like the mosquitoes have multiplied overnight. Two times over at least. Gardening becomes difficult. A neighbor sort of guy stops by and tells us about a magic formula that protects him (he claims) from these pests. Others on the internet confirm this: Use 1/4 c of Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo, with 1 c of lemon scented ammonia and a gallon of water and spary your surroundings!  This afternoon, we chased around acquiring lemon scented ammonia and baby shampoo and a sprayer. I'll let you know what I think of this "magic formula" tomorrow. (I'll take any other ideas from you as well. We HATE mosquitoes!)

4. The flowers are continuing to do well -- except for the pansy-filled flower pots. Pansies do not thrive in hot and humid conditions. The temptation to get rid of them is strong. In the alternative, we can suffer the awfulness now and wait until fall when they always do rebound. To keep or to chuck and move on. Too much in life is an all or nothing thing. The pansy pots are no exception.

5. Other flowers continue to move toward full bloom. Some of the day lilies are beginning their enchanting run (I have planted dozens of varieties and so this is just the beginning) and the lavender  this year is magnificent!





6. A point on recycling your favorites: I added a new vase to my collection. We were at the Barcelona airport and Ed had a fizzy water to drink. It came in a bottle that was both large and beautiful. I insisted that after he finished it, I take it home in my backpack. I'm sure many wondered why an empty bottle was sticking out of my pack, but hey, I just thought it was sublime.





In the same vein -- I have this little bottle that once housed the local olive oil from Sorede. It's a sweet little thing - perfect for types like me, who are so reluctant to pick too many flowers, even from an abundant yard.





I "filled" one more vase in the house today -- this one isn't a recycled anything. It's from a little potter's shop I came across in our days of kayaking on the Dordogne. It's wide mouth invites huge bunches of flowers. I can't get myself to pick huge bunches of flowers. With pebbles on the bottom to keep a few stems upright, I don't have to. 





7. I have been telling Ed that we need another table for the porch -- for days when we have people eating with us. Today he attached a makeshift table top to the grill and I varnished it for future use. Let the outdoor dining begin!






8. Another set of visits with Goldie, my girl's cat. She really is quite the golden eyed girl! (The cat, not my daughter.)














9.  My younger girl and her fiance are coming to Madison for the weekend.  Tell me there is a mother on this planet who would not be happy with such a visit!


10. Now is the time for all good souls (and maybe not so good souls as well) to go to sleep.

home

I sincerely hope you, those on this side of the ocean, had a delightful Fourth of July holiday. That it didn't rain too much, that you could do all you wanted to do outdoors, that life was good and you could exhale.


As I write, I can hardly stay awake. Ed has long given up and is snoring rhythmically beside me.

We had a very un-holiday supper of  broccoli and spinach soup and a salad, only because I wanted to pay homage to the last vegetable soup we had had in Slovenia. But I could not find their vegetables at our morket so I made this instead.


I was up incredibly early -- I wanted so much to see the yard after it had received no care for an entire month.






I sloshed through the tall, dew soaked grasses and looked around me.

Well now, most of the flowers have yet to bloom! The rains of June have created a mass of green out there, but the sun has yet to draw out most of the other colors.







In our new orchard, I think some deer have been coming in to nibble at the edges of the fruit trees. On the upside, the tomatoes recovered from the slap of cold weather in May and the corn has sprouted so that it looks like it may give us something down the road.

Covering the strawberries with netting seems to have kept the animals away and though the crop isn't large, we could actually pick fruit for breakfast this morning.


Breakfast. Back on the porch. Oatmeal and the berries. The refrigerator is bare and so we eat lightly. So, let's focus on the berries and the painted jar of honey from Kobarid...






...and on Ed, who looks happy to be home.






After, Ed and I went to look in on the newest member of our family -- Goldie (she was a stray before she came to live with my daughter and her husband).


 



Two comments on Goldie: she loves to lie in the sun...






...and to groom herself. Enthusiastically, thoroughly.






Oh, and she has the most remarkable eyes.






And after all that, with an added trip to the grocery store, I set myself to weed. Hours upon hours of weeding. It had to be done in midday as the mosquitoes are indeed out and they are nasty in the shade or at the margins of a day.

Oh, and I harvested most of the rhubarb. As usual, it's out of control, threatening to swallow our path, our house, the entire state of Wisconsin (sorry for the dishevelled state -- this after a day of weeding):






So I'll post just another photo or two of flowers -- this is all that I can force out of myself tonight. For you, dear Ocean readers. Many of you had written such sweet comments while I was away; let me just now say thank you -- your words kept me connected to a familiar world and that's always so nice to have when you're moving around far from home.










Okay, my eyes are closing. I will fall asleep to the occasional firecracker that I hear outside.

Good night -- really a superbly good night  to everyone.

kindness of strangers

On Tuesday, we leave Slovenia. Such a simple statement, such a difficult set of steps to take! I'd fretted about it long before we even left for Europe: how to be on time for the train to Milan and how to then be on time for the Easy Jet flight back to Barcelona.

You say -- get up early! Oh, but I do! I've been leaving too little time for sleep in my effort to fit in every last bit of trip stuff. The thing is, I don't want to leave too early, because that would force our Slovenian hosts to rise early to fix us breakfast -- they do those kinds of good gestures. So I push back our departure to 7:15, with breakfast at 7 -- an hour earlier than their usual, but at least not at an indecent time.

Follow along with the tedious details of time and place here, on Ocean and you will understand how singularly incredible this day was. Otherwise, if travel details bore you, just look at the photos and call it a day!

Daybreak. The mountains pick up the color of the rising sun.





Up, showered, packed, with photos tediously loaded onto flickr for a post to be published later, in Barcelona.
Ready? I ask as we glance over the now empty room. Let's pack the car to give them a little more time with breakfast.
Have the car keys?
On the table.
Nope, not on the table.

Then where?

Maybe I put them in a pant pocket. Unpack suitcase. Not there. Damn.

Of course, they have to be somewhere, because the car is here. It's not like losing your house keys out on the beach and wondering if they can ever be recovered from under all those grains of sand. And Ed does find them -- I'd left them in the ignition -- a habit I have with the old clunker at home and I guess one I carried over to here. But the search set us back ten minutes.

Breakfast. Urska has made the coffee, put out the breads, jams, cheeses, yogurts.






We eat quickly, then look for her to say good bye.
And now she hands me a little packet. Embroidery from her grandmother.





They are lovely pieces! How much do I owe her? -- I ask.
No, I told you, she doesn't charge for her work. Nothing. A gift from her.

I'm so touched by this! How are these people so kind, so giving of themselves to strangers?
I thank her and promise a note to Taja when I get back home.

And we're off. 7:25. A tad off schedule, but hey, google says the drive from Kobarid (just down the hill!) to Monfalcone airport in Italy, where we'd picked up and now must return the Fiat pig, is only 72 minutes. (Italy itself is so very close -- just 10 kilometers from Kobarid.) Plenty of time to make the 9:05 bus from the airport to the train station -- for a 10:01 train to Milan. Cannot, cannot miss that one, or else we miss our flights home the next day.

A wispy fog settles on the Soca Valley. The sun will burn it off, but not yet, not this early. I think about this quiet place of gentle mists and peachy sunrise hues, of Alpine flowers and grazing sheep and cattle, and about a grossly turbulent series of events that placed it in history books even as it would have liked to remain as quietly anonymous as the next Alpine village in Switzerland or elsewhere...



 

We stop for gas in Kobarid. We'd estimated that the car can go for 80 kilometers before the gauge shows a drop. So filling it up now, 70 kilometers from where we drop it off makes sense.

And then step on the gas pedal! I have packed my camera so that nothing will distract me. Focus on getting us out safely, quickly. The road is nearly empty in these foothills of the Alps. Easy stuff. I make good time.

But it's not a straight shot and even though we pay attention (well, mostly we do: Ed is in the backseat fixing the zipper of his 45 year old back pack (I kid you not) -- it broke, spilling everything. Not the first time that I have seen him working on aligning the teeth and getting it to stay put) -- so, even though we mostly pay attention to signs, we miss one turn off somewhere and we lose five or ten minutes getting on track again.

And then it's just a race to the finish. We approach the airport, five minutes before the bus is to leave for the train station. But what's this? Shit! The gas gauge has gone down! How could that be?? To fill, or not to fill... Let's do it! I pull up to an Agip station, Ed fills and throws some money on the counter and we're off again, glancing nervously at the clock. Two minutes until bus departure.
At the airport, you take the keys to the agent, I'll take our bags to the bus and stall it a bit!
Okay!

We pull up, quickly get out, take out the bags and witness the blue bus pulling out and leaving the airport.

Damn.

It's not a tragedy -- there is the Very Expensive Cab as a back up plan. But what a shame. Missed the bus by less than a minute. Slowly we empty the car and... but wait -- what's this? Another bus has pulled in. Could it be that we witnessed the departure of the wrong bus?

Run!

I run to the rental agent, Ed goes for the bus with our packs. I throw the keys on the agent's desk, run back -- the driver is sympathetic, but he has a schedule -- hurry, hurry, he tells me as I climb on and collapse in the seat.
Bravo --- this from Ed.

From the mountains of Slovenia, to the needed bus, without a second to spare. Remarkable.

And the genial driver does us another favor: he pulls over to a city bus in downtown Monfalcone (where we will catch the train) and shouts many rapid Italian words to the driver. Then to us -- get out now and go on that bus. He will take you directly to the station.
Kindness of strangers. Thank you. Thank you so very much.

And so we are at the station in plenty of time -- enough time to pick up a coffee at a cafe bar across the street. All in red.





A leisurely stroll and we're at the track, watching the train come in (as couple a few feet away says a poignant goodbye).





The train is lovely, there is a plug for the computer, I write my post. Good. All that I need now is to slap the words and photos together when I'm again online and click "publish." In Barcelona.

Now, this one and only morning train to Milan would have us in Milan with five hours to spare before our flight leaves for Barcelona. Even figuring in the hour for the bus ride to the distant airport, that's too much Milan time. Why not break up the journey and spend a couple of hours elsewhere, arriving in Milan later -- just in time to make our various connections?

All these decisions were made way back -- in Sorede, in fact. The tickets for the trains, roo, where purchased in France. So easy -- buy anything for anywhere, get on the train and go. So now, after three-fourths of our train journey, we get off at Descenzano -- the least city-like stop along the Trieste-Monfalcone-Milan line.

Descenzano. You wont remember it, but it is the town at the tip of my beloved (from March travels) Lake Garda. And so now here we are, on a sunny warm day -- in Descenzano. True, with two packs and a small wheeley, but who cares -- life has been brilliantly good to us on this day and it continues to be so.

We walk down from the train station to the waterfront. Descenzano's streets here are delightful, with plenty of color...











... and in case that doesn't satisfy you, there is also an incredibly vibrant market.



how big can a cheese be?
















how many tomatoes can you fit on your bike?



Ed suggests that we pick up some fruit and take it for a lunch by the water. And we do just that. Cherries and strawberries.











There are deep mists over Lake Garda, so that you cannot see the mountains that slope down to its shores -- only faint contours of them as they twist toward Gargnano and beyond.







And I have to say, it all feels a bit unreal -- I come to the lake in March, when no one walks in shorts and few flowers are blooming. It's entirely different now, in the thick of summer.





On the little square just off the waterfront, we find a cafe where we have part two of lunch: A shared dish of ice cream (three flavors: berry, coconut and melon -- you see a lot of good will toward the other in that combination) and an Aperol Spritz. Because.





A hike back to the train station, where we wait for the local to Milan and then  it's just boom, boom, boom: so straightforward! Get off in Milan, hop on the bus to the airport, wait in the tedious Easy Jet line (it's always just one line for all flights), board the plane, take off more or less on time (this is important: Easy Jet has notorious delays; we see on the screen that only half of tonight's flights take off within three hours of scheduled departures), land in Barcelona at 9:35 (on time!) and I breathe a sigh of relief. Not only will we make our connection tomorrow, but -- perhaps equally importantly, we will have time for a dinner, a beloved dinner in our beloved Barcelona.

And here it gets even more remarkable: we are on the fantastic, efficient and stopping quite close to our hotel airport bus and walking now through the rhapsodic light and love filled streets of the city...











...checking in at our preferred little hotel -- the Villa Emilia (where I snagged a cheap rate just on the one day this spring that they posted it!) in such good time! 10:30 and we throw our packs down in our room.

We're jubilant.

The day has been a miracle of, in the end, perfect connections. So many could have fouled the mood. None did. Risks taken, rewards reaped. You don't often get such a run of good dice rolling.

We head out for dinner. Not far -- it may not be late for Barcelona, but it is late for us and tomorrow we have a rather early start again.

We go to our nameless favorite. With the friendly proprietor and the sympathetic waiter from Honduras. I am sure there are 100 places in Barcelona (the capital of fantastic eating) that are as good, maybe better, but this place has been a reliable friend and it remains so today. Across the street, down the block and we're there. Ed and I drool over the menu, then share tapas and a seafood paella and Ed is so in the mood to roll with the flow that he even sips on the house Cava with me. Rare.



































It's close to midnight. Life has treated us well today. We go upstairs to our spiffy room. Almost ready for sleep. Almost. Just one thing left: slap those photos and text together and press "publish." (Meaning -- post on Ocean.)

And the Internet proceeds to shut down and not work.

Well now. We patiently try this, try that. Nothing.

I go downstairs and talk to the desk persons. I'm feeling a tad incredulous. Far in the mountains of Slovenia, in a hamlet where cows and sheep are led to pasture for the summer, I could post. Here, in high tech Barcelona I cannot.

Perhaps I should have let it go, but the irony was too great, my frustration too strong. I have the text, I have the photos -- all worked on during a day of tight movement. And now surrender? No.

In the end, the staff makes a few calls and the Internet hiccups it's way to some form of functional status so that in the haze of sleep and no sleep I am able to finally, at a hugely late, or early hour -- depending which part of the day you straddle, press "publish" and have it take.

There is a moral in there somewhere. More than one perhaps. Something along the lines of letting go, about not sweating the small stuff. But as I think back to the history of Ocean -- all the years when it was so hard to find any Internet service at all, when daily posting required the kindness of strangers and finding corners on the floor somewhere where a phone line would reach, I have to say -- spending "only" half the night trying to successfully "publish" an entry is really not a big story at all.


The next morning, this morning, in fact (I'm caught up!) the smooth sailing resumes. Leaving the hotel at 8:30, walking the Catalan walk one last time to catch the bus...
















...being at the airport in plenty of time for one last unhealthy breakfast...





 ...and for the flight to Atlanta.

I'm posting from Atlanta. And hoping that the Madison flight wont be too delayed. We'll be home soon. Home to Isis, to the mosquito population born in our absence, to the farmhouse. Home.