Ambulance

Two shifty looking Croatian men were in the lobby entertaining us. One had a guitar, the other had an electric mandolin. They specialised in distorting the English language - mangling it in fact. But they didn't seem to care. They could play their instruments pretty well. The mandolin player kept looking towards the hotel entrance as if he was expecting a visit from the cops.

During "My Way" there was a kerfuffle at the reception desk. A middle aged German woman was panting and clearly distressed. It concerned her husband. The head receptionist asked the shifty guys to stop playing.

Soon an ambulance with blue lights arrived. The grey-faced German husband was strapped to a trolley and then transferred into the waiting ambulance. 

The blue lights flashed again and the emergency vehicle drove away. It is a long way from here to a hospital of any significance. At least two hours I would say.

With the German fellow gone, The  Shifty Band started up again and the song they chose to punish was "Let It Be" by The Beatles:-

When I find myself in times of trouble

Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom

Let it be
OR
Ven ah fend moresell in toms o travel
Mudda Mayway come timmy
Seekin worms oh Wisden
Lettuce bee

Perhaps the German casualty heard the song faintly as he was whisked away into the Croatian night.

One day the blue lights and the siren may come for me too  - and surely for you as well dear reader. But it wasn't our turn to go last night and hopefully not tonight either. Ambulances are like grim reapers on wheels. We have all got to go one day, one night, one time. Hail and Farewell. Leaving - not  to angelic music but to blue lights flashing in the night. Roy Orbison singing, "It's Over" comes to mind.

Monastery

This morning, after a hearty breakfast, we plodded up the side of the mountain that looms behind our hotel. We were not heading for the summit as I might have wished but to a sixteenth century monastery that looks out to Korčula across the Pelješac sea channel from a craggy stone ridge.

The monastery was originally Franciscan and in Croatian it is called Gospa od Anđela which means Our Lady of the Angel. 

View from the monastery to Korčula

There was a museum within - dedicated not to matters monastic and religious - but to Orebic's seafaring past. In glass cases there were many models of old sailing vessels and pictures on the walls of famous sea captains and more ships. Sadly, that heritage died out in the mid-twentieth century.

Captain Mato Zupa  of Orebic - born in 1855

We wandered amongst the graves in the attached churchyard. Great slabs of polished granite and imposing family vaults. Here and there carved anchors spoke of lives lived and sometimes lost upon the sea. The view down to Orebic and beyond was spectacular.

At twelve o'clock the monastery bells pealed frantically for ten minutes or more, echoing above the pine forest below. But by then we were on our way down, following a zigzagging stony path through the trees, enjoying the shade on what has been another hot Adriatic day.

In Yorkshire the word "nesh" suggests someone who won't take risks, preferring safety and comfort. Lady Pudding seems to be habitually drawn to that camp but after our hike to the monastery she ventured into the sea in spite of claiming it was "cold". In fact the September sea temperature here is very pleasant indeed and in the end she enjoyed her ten minute dip before lounging by the hotel swimming pool for most of the afternoon.

Another sea captain - Mato Kovacevic (1891 - 1975)

Korčula

Korčula seen from our room

We went to Korčula today. It is an island off the Croatian coast. In fact you can see it from our hotel room - across the Strait of Pelješac - the sea channel between us.

The main town on Korčula is called... wait for it... Korčula. Its most ancient parts crowd round the main church on a small peninsula that is redolent with history. According to legend, the island was founded by Trojan hero Antenor in the 12th century BC. During the Byzantine period. the town was an important staging post and its limestone alleyways still echo with the sounds of a rich, long and influential maritime heritage.

Unfortunately, I had not fully charged my camera battery so I did  not gather the number of images I might have done today. Still, I collected enough pictures to provide you with a flavour of our trip across the water. And especially for dog lovers I have included a photo of a black hound we spotted in a first floor window. He was desperate to get outside.

After four hours over there we jumped on the ferry back to Orebic and returned to our hotel from where I swam out to a distant orange buoy that I clung to before swimming back to the shore. Dinner this evening was again scrumptious and when wine and beer are effectively free, why stand on ceremony? Hic!

Korčula Town

The ferry back to Orebic with our hotel in the middle

Typical street in Korčula

Arrived

View from the "Bella Vista" restaurant where we stopped for coffee.

We set off from home at 3am this morning - bound for Manchester Airport. The flight left at 6.15 am.

Two and a half hours to Dubrovnik and then a further two and a half hours in a small transfer coach up the coast north to Orebic.

View from our hotel room

Soon after arriving we strolled into the little town. Later we were swimming both in the pool and the sea and then this evening we feasted in the buffet restaurant, making use of a holiday package deal that includes wine and beer with your evening meal. It would be very easy to be gluttonous like all-inclusive passengers on a cruise ship.

Anyway, so far so good here in Croatia where "hvala vam" means thank you. The temperature is pleasantly warm. It takes longer for summer to evaporate here on this balmy Adriatic shore.

It has been a long day. Lady Pudding is already between the sheets. Time for me to go there too. Night night...

Outside a restaurant in Orebic

Monument inside the main Catholic church in Orebic

Orebic

There's a chill in the air this morning. Last evening, in fading light, I was picking brambles at the bottom of our garden. By 8.30pm night had fallen. Not so long ago, the sun chose to set much later and darkness didn't arrive till ten thirty or so. We are on the doorstep of autumn.

Yesterday I clicked the relevant button on this laptop to pay for a week's holiday in Croatia. We will be leaving very early tomorrow morning. Our flight from Manchester to Dubrovnik is scheduled to depart at 6.15. Then we will have a two hour bus journey north to Orebic where our holiday hotel is located - on a peninsula that faces the island of Korkula.

Sadly, we will be leaving a glut of plums behind and our fridge is filled with food because we were not expecting our holiday departure to be so very imminent. That's the internet for you. It used to be that you needed to plan foreign holidays way in advance but now you can click today and go tomorrow. 

I think the weather in Orebic will be rather mixed. There'll be warm sunny days and maybe a couple of rainy ones too. But I have my secondhand copy of "Beloved" by Toni Morrison to wile away the hours.

The next time I blog, it will hopefully be from Orebic though a couple of Trip Advisor reviews have forewarned me that the WiFi in the Aminess Grand Azur Hotel is notoriously unreliable. We'll see.

Steve

American grey squirrels were first brought to The British Isles in the 1870's. It was thought that they would make an interesting addition to the wildlife found on some of our great country estates. What a dumb idea that was! These grey squirrels have now spread throughout the kingdom taking over territory that was once the preserve of our native red squirrels.

It is estimated that there are now around three million grey squirrels in the British Isles while the  population of our smaller, shyer red squirrel has shrunk to around 160,000. What were our forebears thinking about - meddling with Nature? They did similar dumb things in Australia, New Zealand and North America too.

Anyway, our suburban garden has been largely free of grey squirrels for the past thirty years. There have been  one or two intermittent sightings but the creatures have not been a bother. However, recently we seem to be seeing one particular grey squirrel quite frequently.

He is called Steve - Steve the Squirrel - and he is both daring and inquisitive. He darts about with his bushy tail following him and sometimes he can be seen stealing bird food from our feeding stations.

Yesterday I was making my meagre lunch with a mug of coffee when I spotted something moving on the wooden railing of our lower decking. It was Steve and his beady black eyes seemed to be looking my way.

Nonetheless, I slunk off to grab my camera and managed to snap several pictures of the little fellow before he skipped away. The photographs were taken through glass as I knew that if I opened our back door, Steve would be off like **** from a shovel. 

If I had a squirrel trap I would gladly capture Steve and then transport him to some distant location - out in the countryside or under the trees in our local park where he would no doubt make friends and frolic with some of the urban squirrels who live down there - Sammy, Simon, Sidney, Susan, Sigourney and Shirley. A more cruel blogger than I might happily skin Steve and turn him into a furry muff for wintertime.

Note

I warned you that there would be a few more wedding posts. This is the handmade note that Frances sent to me as I was donning my wedding outfit half an hour ahead of the service. Unfortunately - with the lost key and everything - I was in too much of a rush to open the note before jumping in the wedding car with her.

Leading Frances into the church and along the aisle was one of the proudest moments of my life. I had not anticipated the rush of raw emotion I felt at that moment and it was all I could do to stop myself from blubbering like a baby. As you can see from the note, my daughter knows me well.