A touch of ill health, some pretty roses and a new car

The work in the garden was going pretty well when disaster struck. I started feeling really unwell, starting with a funny turn on Sunday evening.  I suddenly felt very giddy. It lasted a couple of hours, but then I managed to have quite a good long sleep in the night. Monday started reasonably, but again, I was very dizzy in the evening.  Finally Tuesday was tremendously worrying. I felt extremely dizzy all day, unable to walk straight and almost falling over when standing up. I knew that there was a serious weather front going over the country, but it didn't seem to get as far as our village. We had no storms, only very little rain, but did have a serious drop in temperature, about 15 degrees Celsius. I always have some trouble - arrythmia, sudden jump in blood pressure etc. - when fronts are going over, but I have never felt this dizzy before. I couldn't do anything about it, but we decided to return to town a day early and I will try to see the doctor on Friday. After Tuesday, things started slightly improving, but my blood pressure is still high and I am not yet back to absolutely normal, although the dizzyness is almost completely gone.  The most upsetting upshot of all this was the sorry fact that I had to cancel attending the Middle Distance Championships on Saturday and my visit to Milica and Filip in Sombor for Sunday. Shame, but considering that our family gathering in Hassocks is only 2 weeks away I have to concentrate on getting better for being able to travel.

Roy under the climbing rose's natural arch

In the meantime the garden is now almost perfect.  The mowing has been finished, I tidied up, weeded and pruned the roses, watered it every other night and almost finished the weeding. The roses are delightful, even though they are not as prolific this summer as usual, the geraniums are the most beautiful we have ever seen them and even the tomato and pepper plants, not to mention the peas are fantastic.  The strawberries are still producing fruit, the rhubarb is jungle like and we have even had a few raspberries. The Morello cherries, have started getting ripe and interestingly, this summer it is the new tree that is producing most of it.  Unfortunately, a lot of our produce will come to fruition while we are going to be away, but that is the price you pay for travelling in the summer. The gardener have not shown his face at all, so we will have to look around for someone else, although who I have no idea. Like the whole country, our small village is getting devoid of the brightest and ablest of its citizens.  They either leave for towns in the hope of work, or even leaving the country for the same reason. Sad, very sad!

A steel grey Duster

The main event of the week, however, has happened today - on our way into town we actually bought a new car. As I mentioned before, we decided to part with our sweet little Suzuki while she was still in good form and before costlier repairs were on the cards. We looked after her over the 7 years we had her and she had such low mileage that we managed to get a good trade-in figure for her. We had an idea of getting a car that one of our friends, Árpi, has and is very pleased with.  Dacia is an old communist car factory in Romania, but in all honesty, it is like Skoda being practically a VW, this one is mostly Renault. I always fancied having a 4x4 and with a Dacia Duster we can afford one. I researched the Duster on the net and found a very complimentary article written by no less than the new chief presenter of Top Gear, Chris Evans, so we went for it. The salesman was an absolutely lovely chap, laid back, not pushy, very knowledgeable and helpful. So the deal is done and delivery is expected on 20th of September. We went for steel grey, aluminium wheels and one of their fancy new 1.2 turbo boosted 92kW/125 horse power petrol engines. I have never driven a 4x4 in my life, so that'll be a new experience for me.

One of the two tone roses

A fully open lovely white rose

We are staying in town until Monday, then back to the village for about a week or so, before returning prior to departure to Hassocks.

A superb example of  a deep red rose

An unusual pink rose with untidy petals

Another two tone rose

My lovely blue rose

This one looks like Piccadilly used to, really stunning

This one is two tone as well, just not so obviously

An outdoorsie week

On Monday we made our way to Ber via a few stops, like Tesco, the Dacia showroom and the tractor dealer. The salesman in the Dacia showroom was quite knowledgeable, friendly and very, very helpful.  They are having very long delivery times, (probably late October/early November), so it was just as well that we decided to get the process going.  He anticipates a sum of approximately £3000 as trade-in value for the SX4 and the price with extras for the Duster should be around £12,500. We since had a look at the available colours (this seems its weakest feature, as the choice is very limited) and will probably go for the metallic black. That's an extra, so is the "country package", which includes the tow ball and extra tough lining in the boot and on the floor. I have phoned him since and we are seeing him next Friday to get the ball rolling.

The tractor dealer told us that the bit we wanted for the back of the tractor to shred and spread the cuttings, rather than collect them costs £175.  That is absolute highway robbery, we will not pay that on principle for a piece of moulded rigid plastic. Currently Roy is still persevereing with the collector and is trying to work out how to make one for a lot less than £175. After a fairly large Tesco shop we were home by early afternoon.

And then came the complete shock! The gardener had not been, not even once, Nelly was right. The grass was up to our knees and everything looked as if it had no water whatsoever. On closer inspection we saw that the first half of our holiday must have been wet at home, because the plants were not dead just very parched.  Quick watering was on the order of the day and it took me nearly three hours, I had to drown every plant in about 10 times more water than normal. While I was watering, Roy was mowing.  He got on the tractor and did those bits which he reckoned the tractor could cope with on the highest setting. The rest had to be done by the hand pushed mower and the strimmer.  Today is Saturday and he has just finished the whole garden.  It was a heroic effort on his part, much hindered by temperatures of 35+ Celsius every day this week.

On the plus side we spotted the strawberry patch which in spite of being practically invisible under a complete cover of weeds was laden with fruit.  At the most, we found only about 10 strawberries which were not edible due to either being too close to the ground or being overripe, the rest - all 2.5 kilos of it - was gloriously ripe and delicious in taste. Again, it was this morning that we finished eating them and, of course, since then some more got ripe and we will be harvesting them for a good while yet.

Thankfully both the tomatoes and peppers were still alive, but very much stunted for the lack of water. The crop on those is not going to be as good as last year, but I am sure we will have at least some off them.  The herb garden and the peas were absolutely fine, those obviously are either much more tolerant of lack of water or have tap roots deep down.

The biggest miracle was not the survival of all mentioned above or even that of the roses, but the geranium boxes.  Those are partially under the eves, so even when it rains they don't get much and they were still very much alive and blooming.  In fact, I must admit, these geranium plants are the best we have ever had. The only slight weirdness about them that the deep red ones are what the guy in the garden centre said were "half running". They are neither straight up nor totally dangling, they are somewhere in between, which is quite peculiar, but attractive all the same.

The roses are also not as nice as last year, but that is due not only to the drought poor darlings had to suffer lately, but because there has already been every pest and disease roses can have upon them so far and it is just the beginning of the summer. They so far had, green fly, black fly, black spot, mildew, various caterpillars chewing holes in them and the birds nipping their buds off. We are still having some lovely blooms on them, but not the proliferation as in the past.  Of all of them, only about 2 or 3 are having lots of blooms, the rest are more sparse and quite a few have nothing on them.

The herbs, on the other hand, are tremendously prolific. The tarragon nearly killed off the parsley and the dill, because it grew over them and as we weren't here to tie them up, they could not get light.  Thankfully, now that the tarragon has been tied up they are growing happily and I am having lots of things with dill, parsley and, of course, chives on them.  The three different types of oregano is now getting put into teas as well as into sauces and on meat. It is really lovely having a lot of fresh herbs for both culinary and medicinal purposes.

As the temperature had got tropical this week, we tended to hide indoors between 11am and 3 or 4pm. That gave Roy a chance to catch up with his family history buddies and me to catch up with my favourite television programs. Women have been in the forefront of both my favourites this week:  ANZAC Girls from Australia and No Offence from Paul Abbott of Shameless fame.  Both brilliant in their own way: good scripts and acting and all principals being some of the most talented women I have ever seen on television. Joanna Scanlan as the naughty DCI in No Office is a revelation.  The Aussie actresses, whom we don't know are also great and as the story is based on real people and real events, it was an excellent history lesson too. If I had to choose from them I liked both the character played and the actress who played Sister Olive Haynes - Anna McGahan. What a beauty and what talent!

Anna McGahan

Joanna Scanlan

We are now staying in the village for another week, then next weekend we are going into town with Roy staying put there and me going to the South for the Middle Distance Championship and a couple days' visit back to Sombor with Filip and Milica. Next post expected after that jaunt.

Maps and grandsons

As the last post was all about our holiday, I thought I would include here a few other things that happened during and since that are not holiday related.

First of all I have to include the orienteering maps, which got omitted from the report. I now have downloaded my the tracks from my satellite watch, plus we had the Nightchamps last night, so here they are:

 Montenegro Adriatic Open Day 1 Sv. Stefan:

Montenegro Adriatic Open Day 2 in Lovcen National Park:

 Montenegro Adriatic Open Day 3 in Lovcen National Park:

 Albanian Orienteering Days, Day 1 in Fishta:

Albanian Orienteering Days, Day 2 in Shkodra:

Hungarian Night Championship Héreg:

Then the news of the grandsons were a bit thin on the ground lately, so here are a few photos of Callum from our Skype conversation yesterday as well as a link to YouTube for an incredibel little video of Xander.  You mustn't forget he is only 20 months old, so my jokes on him being a little genius are not that terribly off the mark.  Or so thinks his very biased granmother!! :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXrHrk7-CH8

Pondering

Have I had any calls?

I love Mickey

Orange flavoured lolly

I love my telly!

I'm all right Jack!

The Balkan holiday 23rd May 2015 to 5th June 2015

This blog post is basically my Balkan holiday diary with interspersed pictures when appropriate.  Enjoy!!

A lovely little old house opposite Filip's home in Sombor

Saturday, 23rd May 2015
Left at 10.45 for Sombor. We had no idea how long it was going to take, so we told Filip late afternoon. We decided to take the 51, which starts at Boraros ter and ends up in Sombor with very few changes of directions. 220km took 4 hours with Roy's relaxed driving. Filip wasn't at home, but turned up quick after I rang him. We got to know Milice, his mum, who is a delightful lovely person. We got treated to a lovely dinner, had a really good night sleep and delicious breakfast. My only regret is that I never took my GPS to find Sombor's two geocaches. Never mind! Next time!!

Opposite the lunch spot we stopped at to eat our sandwiches

Sunday, 24th May 2015
We left about 9.45am after they fussed over our choice of route, worrying about us. Well, there was no hassle: Roy didn't get tired, he enjoyed it and we saw some interesting countryside. It didn't take long to find our crossing into Croatia and then into Bosnia Herzegovina. We had two little wobbles, but corrected quickly on both occasions. The first one was due to my inattention and I realised quickly that we missed our turn, while the second time we worried too soon and a couple of old geezers put us right. The plan was to make it to Tuzla, but we kept going happily all the way to Sarajevo at the end. 307km in 6 hours, including the lunch stop. Lunch was had out of the cool box by the side of the road, but we were planning a proper restaurant dinner. The trouble arrived in the form of a wet weather front. By the time we arrived in Sarajevo it chucked it down. We waited and it just got worse. Finally we gave up looking for a hotel and turned back the way we came. Soon after very luckily I spotted a hotel sign and this way we found the Hotel Park in Vogosca. It was lovely. The hotel must have been recently renovated, as it was immaculate inside. The outside still had the scaffolding up, but thankfully we were dressed by the time the workers arrived outside our window in the morning. It cost just under 50 euros, and dinner was good too.

The empty new motorway after Sarajevo

Monday, 25th May 2015
On Monday morning we had the hotel manager convince us to include Mostar on our trip to Trebinje, which we chose as close enough to the coast, but still up in the hills. This caused an increase of 40km in the distance to be covered, but not only showed us the remarkable Mostar, but the Neretva gorge as well. The latter was breath taking in its steep rock faces, lakes and ruined castles. Just as well, because the first 35km of the trip gave us an unpleasant surprise. When giving us travel instructions, the manager assured us that Bosnian motorways were free.. Imagine our surprise when we clapped eyes on the first toll booths. No list of charges either, not to mention our total lack of Bosnian currency. Mind you, when leaving the motorway at its current end we discovered, much to our relief 1) they took credit cards; 2) 35km cost the princely figure of 3.75 marks (about 1 pound 50 pence.)

The lovely and justifiably world famous Mostar bridge

We had lunch in Mostar and walked about on its famous bridge, taking dozens of pictures. We even saw a guy who jumped off the bridge into the Neretva, which he does regularly for 25 euros. Barmy, if you ask me! Once we left the Neretva, we drove through a weird landscape of scrub with wide valleys and plateaus. About 260km took us 4 hours 15 minutes to reach Trebinje and we found our accommodation (this time pre-booked) in no time. The apartment is superb: it has a large double bedded room, a kitchen and a bathroom with TV and free WiFi? We even went for a little walk in town and saw the Old Town which is quaint.

The bedroom in our Trebinje apartment

Tuesday, 26th May 2015
Today we went to Dubrovnik. But first, after breakfast we visited the orthodox catholic church on top of the mountain above our apartment. The views were goorgeous and for the first time in days the sub shone brightly. About 10am we got going towards Dubrovnik. It was only about 35km away, with a border crossing as well and the high elevation, sheer drops and hair pin bends, it took about an hour. The view of the Adriatic once we got over the final range of mountains was suitably breath taking.

The orthodox church in Trebinje

Dubrovnik is every bit as magical as its fame heralds. Even that it is still pre-season it was wall to wall tourists already. This and the sudden high heat made us  cut our visit to two hours. We didn't climb to the top of the city walls, which I'm sure will please Meaghan! ☺ On the way back we did some food shopping, then had lunch followed by a nice afternoon snooze.

Dubrovnik from above

After a rest we went out in search of dinner. Even in the Stari Grad most places were only bars with no food. Eventually found a restaurant with a reasonably sounding menu so we sat down. Mine (a caprese) was a bit of a con, but Roy's steak was out of this world. They never asked him how he wanted it, but as if by divine intervention it arrived extremely rare as he likes it. It looked like weighing at least 10 ounces and other than a 2mm layer of slightly brown layer on either side it looked deep red going 'moo'. He reports that it tasted jolly good and he consequently made short work of it. A hungry looking pussycat got the piece of toast from underneath the steak, which must have tasted good from meat juices, as he gobbled it up pretty quick.

Roy with his lovely piece of steak

Wednesday, 27th May 2015
In the morning after several false starts (like leaving all my paperwork and printed maps behind) we left our fantastic apartment in Trebinje. In fact, Bosnia turned out an extremely fine and pleasant surprise of a country. Nice people. Lovely countryside and first class accommodation. Would recommend anyone a holiday there!!

Ian just arriving at Dubrovnik Airport

We got to Dubrovnik Airport with only about 20 minutes to wayt, but Ruth and Ian's plane  arrived a bit late. Still, we didn't have to wait long. The trip to Cetinje in Montenegro was a bit fraught, mostly because of the heat and the long queue at the border.  Curse the idiots who thought that reintroducing a myriad of bloody borders in an otherwise  pretty homogenious country constitutes progress! The drive to our destination from sea level onto what from the bottom looked like a 90 degree straight up was also a bit scary, but we made it safely. Montenegro seems still living in a time warp. The hotel is Soviet era crap with funny doors, dark decor and stern staff, but finally the WiFi worked in the lobby, so I am happier now. A late lunch was very nice in a friendly little restaurant, but several nights of short sleeps have finally caught up with me, so I literally faded out for 4 hours at 6pm thus completely buggering up my sleep patterns.  Never mind, the orienteering starts tomorrow, that should knacker me sufficiently to shake me back into my normal routine.

Kotor inlet en route to Cetinje

Thursday, 28th May 2015
First day of orienteering. Drove down the hill with extreme good luck again at the road works. Got there with about an hour to spare. That gave us a chance to walk down to the beach to see the Finish. At the start the usual chaos reigned which resulted in me forgetting to clear my dibber. They never thought of arranging the start in a way that the Clear station could be visible. There were at least 50 people round it, hiding it perfectly. Also, the time displayed was actual time, so you had to start 3 minutes before your start time. In other words, the usual Southern ballsup, wich handicaps those who start in the first 10 to 15 minutes (like me!).

Yours truly finishing on the beach at Sv. Stefan

I made two more mistakes on the run: 1. Failing to spot a tunnel leading to my 7th control, thus ending up rock climbing by the seaside; 2. Getting confused by terrace walls around the 9th control which otherwise was dead easy. Overall 6 or 7 minutes' worth of mistakes still got me 2nd place behind my friend Ruth, who won, but only by 42 seconds. Must endeavour to make that up today, although I am not particularly looking forward to 3.4km with 100m of climb.
In our free moments we went walkabout in Cetinje, which was once the capital of Montenegro.  It is full of lovely old XIXth century buildings which were either government buildings or embassies. We followed the walk with a nice dinner in the hotel, followed by coffee and cakes in the bar.

Two ceremonial soldiers guarding an old building

Friday, 29th May 2015
Second day of orienteering. This time in Lovcen National Park at 1200 metres. Glorius Alpine scenery and 10 degrees Celsius as we got out of the car. Thankfully it warmed up later. This was a gruelling hard day but extremelly excellent orienteering. The map and the technical quality was superb. The only aspect that made it gruelling for me was the length and the climb. Still, my lack of fitness is my fault, although I feel that they erred slightly on the side of making it too hard. Like having only 300m difference in length between M55 and W65. And the M55 course was not too short! Never mind! Much rather this, than stupid, easy courses. I think I came 5th today, as some of the Russian women for whom the sprint race was obviously too complicated came into their own and bombed round. My newly made lovely Swedish friend found today very hard, but at least she finished. Ruth took 9 minutes longer than me, so I am ahead of her now.

The finish  at Lovcen National Park

Tomorrow we are back to the same place and the courses look shorter. Today ours was 3.4km and 100m climb, tomorrow is only 3km  with 60m climb. Roy moaned a bit about the steep mountain roads with lots of hairpin bends again today, but even he had to admit that the views, rocky summits, walleys and meadows were gorgeus.

Lizard posing on rock for photo

Saturday, 30th May 2015
Third and last day of the orienteering in Montenegro. It was brutal. At least 10 times as brutal than yesterday. At a minimum 80% of my course was on rock, which was like limestone pavement, but high up on the mountain, tilted at 45 degrees with the clints and grikes separated by metre deep crevices. One leg took me 28 minutes, but I wasn't alone with this. 2.6km with 50m of climb took me 89 minutes 55 seconds. I still enjoyed it, but just missed the medals in 4th place. Afterwards we had a meal in a posh hotel up on the mountain which Roy and I found OK, Ian and Ruth less so. On our way down we stopped again to take photos, but   instead of the scenery and lizards the subject was a lovely pony with a saddle/harness on.

He looked so lonely and sad. I hope he wasn't!

Currently we are spending our last night in Cetinje and tomorrow we are off to Albania. Let us hope we don't get stuck at the border and the roads are OK.

We are nearly in Albania now.

Sunday, 31st May 2015
Today we travelled to Shkodra, but before we left we visited the Montenegran History Museum in Cetinje. It was quite interesting in parts, but the recent times were not covered, which is not surpising. With a timeline of main events and a Who's Who, it will be quite a good museum one day.
It was just before 11am that we finally left for Albania. The route first took us to Podgorica, which - if I am not mistaken - means "under the mountain". It certainly was; on an enormous flat plateau which reminded us of a dried up lake bed. In the communist days the town was called Titograd and, unfortunately, it still looks like it in places. On the other hand, the countryside en route to it was spectacular: massive mountains, lots of rock, a big lake - all worth photographing. We filled up in Podgorica and travelled on to the border. Leaving Montenegro was quite easy, entering Albania took a bit longer. It got rather hot as we have descended quite a lot and sitting in a queue swallowing petrol fumes in the heat did not endear Albania to me. In fact, this fortnight is probably going to go down in the annals as the holiday of border crossings. What with the broken up Yugoslavia and now Albania, I will be happy to be back into the borderless EU asap. Finally we got to the head of the queue and entered our fifth country within 8 days. It was flat with impressive mountains on both sides. Some had snow in its gullies near the top even on the South side. It seemed no time at all and we arrived in Shkodra, our destination for the day. The hotel, for once, seems a real gem. Modern, 4 star comfort, extremely courteous service, good food and nice room. We had lunch, but had no intention to go to the training event due to my dodgy knee and the rest of them wanting to go for a walk in town. Ruth seems to really like how different this part of the world is from the one she knows. Like she was really fascinated by the horse and cart transport on the roads, which still seems quite common in Albania. Albania has both muslims and orthodox catholics in its population, so we have already seen both mosques and churches. In fact, the hotel is no more than 30 metres from a big mosque and the muezzin's call to prayer was quite loud at 10 to 5 this afternoon.

Lovely minarets, but please no muezzin at 4am!!

The first event tomorrow is about 35km from Shkodra up some mountain road, which I hope is as good as the organiser promised me. Afterwards we are going on to Lezhe down on the coast for an archeological and historical guided tour. Let's hope the weather holds and it is not too hot tomorrow.

Monday, 1st June 2015
First day of Albanian Orienteering Days in Fishta about 35km from Shkodra. We got going pretty early due to the organiser's vagueness about most things. As it happens, everything was absolutely fine: the roads were good, wide, flat and in places they looked brand new, which they probably were. The signing was brilliant until one crucial junction which had nothing. We went on until we got doubtful and stopped at a fork in the road. At that moment we saw a wild tortoise in the middle of the road. He (she) looked cute and rather large. When we got back to the unsigned junction there were a dozen orienteers and quite a few cars there so we parked up. It turned out that assembly was another couple of hundred yards further on in a restaurant's garden, so we moved. Why, oh why could she not sign it all the way there, one might ask! The mysteries of Inge Bosina's organisation.

Our friend the tortoise

The terrain was very scrappy, mostly open and with lots of climb, and with 30 degrees Celsius into the bargain, so we all suffered a bit (again!). I didn't take my cap, so ran most of my course with my t-shirt over my head and shoulders. Thankfully the Russians went home, but a very good Swede, Gunnel Mansson turned up, so victory was out of the question. In addition to this they created a W70 class with Ruth and another 2 ladies, BUT put all W65s in with W60s. So, for the first time this trip I was in a class of 12. Well, today I made no mistakes and while going really slowly I managed 2nd place only 8 minutes down on Gunnel Mansson.

Ruth and Ian in Shkodra castle

We opted out of the trip to Lezha and went round Shkodra castle/fort instead. Gorgeous views, interesting nooks and crannies in a place even Roy enjoyed. Dinner is planned in the hotel restaurant with a walkabout in town afterwards.

Tuesday, 2nd June 2015
Second day of Albania Orienteering Days and the final day of running on this trip. I woke to strong sunshine at 6am with a minimum of 30 degrees Celsius forecast. It definitely was very, very hot. Start was only 7 minutes delayed (as against 14 minutes the day before) and the course well planned. While only 5th today, I maintained my overall 2nd place. There were quite a few Hungarians on the podium and a lot of nice photos were taken. Even the rude sod who in the last minute jumped in front of all those patiently taking pictures in one orderly line got his comeuppance by Roy jumping in front of him. My trophy was a cute little fridge magnet with a scene from Shkodra on it. It'll look nice in my trophy cabinet!

The look towards the Finish from our hotel balcony

We had lunch in a new restaurant, which Roy found. It had a lovely shady and breezy garden with fountain, plants and a good atmosphere. For me all this was nothing compared to the food. I had a load of plump juicy king prawns in a lemon and wine sauce with rice and a green salad. Yum, yum!! Probably the best meal in Albania so far.

We said good bye to our many friends at the event, old and new. Some of them, like Ingemar and Inger, we'll be seeing soon at the Hungaria Kupa in August.

Wednesday, 3rd June 2015
Finally left the Colosseo around 9.35am. We chose the route by the sea which was slow, but spectacular. The only downside was the long wait at the border. Why is it that whichever queue we choose, it immediately stops moving and when it does move it is definitely the slowest around? After about 50 minutes we made our way into Montenegro (again). Thankfully  there was no other border post, as this time the neighbours (Albania and Montenegro) did the sensible thing and shared one building. Ruth, who definitely runs on coffee, was dying for her favourite beverage, but Roy was not very good spotting a caff until it was lunchtime and we stopped to eat about haf an hour before the ferry. It only took 10 minutes to cross the Kotor inlet at its narrowest point, but I still managed to take a lot of pictures. Roy didn't feel like driving all the way round the inlet, like a week ago, so the ferry at 4.50 Euros was the next best solution.

One of the many ferry boats

One potentially disastrous event occurred on the border when leaving Montenegro. Just behind the cubicle with the border official in it 3 beautiful brown cows were grazing. Then all of a sudden 2 of them started walking into Montenegro from Croatia. This was so funny, Ruth jumped out of the car and started taking pictures, so I joined her. The border guard was furious. Shouted at us to stop, which we did, and when we got to the window told us to park up once he dealt with our passports and return to the office to show that we deleted the photos. While this transpired another official came, talked to him, which we didn't hear and suddenly he gave our pasorts back, smiled and rold us to go. Was that guy his boss telling him to stop being an idiot? Probably!

Mrs. Cow by the border post

We made it to Dubrovnik by 4pm and even managed to take Ruth and Ian a long way into the town by car. We said our fond farewells and tried to find a way out of Dubrovnik. We had no idea where the road would lead, and finally found ourselves back on the coast road, but several kilometres back facing in the wrong directon. A nifty illegal left turn put us back on our route West. We were planning to journey on to the beginning of the A1 motorway somewhere in the vicinity of a town called Ploce. Sooner than expected and just before Ploce the turn towards the A1 reminded us that it was about time we started looking for a bed for the night. Ploce had a Raiffeisen ATM, but in the full sun, which made the screen invisible. So to the amusement of the locals we conducted the transaction under a large dark blue umbrella. There was some excitement when the ATM would not give back my card, but finally it coughed it up along with the money. All we had to do now was to find some accommodation. We did see a B&B as we turned off the main road, but there was nowhere to park there. This time we successfully navigated ourselves to the back of it with plenty of parking. So, after 302 kilometres and 8 hours driving we are now comfortably installed at the San Antonio apartments, Ploce for the princely figure of 300 kuna (about 30 quid) for the night. Tomorrow we plan to make it either to Zagreb (about 475km) or possibly all the way to  the Hungarian border (appr. 540km) on Croatia's excellent motorway network.

Amaryllis in the garden at the San Antonio apartments, Ploce

Thursday/Friday, 4th/5th June 2015
As it happened we actually made it all the way to Robert and Volker, our friends by the Balaton, which constituted more than 700km of driving.  Poor Roy, he looked a bit frayed at the edges after 10 and half hours, but made it.  He kept valiantly refusing my offers of driving and then spent all evening and half the night drinking and reminiscing with our friends into the late hours. The idea of going to them to stay the night came up when I realised that having got into Hungary we were not going to make it all the way to Budapest.  They were not exactly en route, but with an approximately 40km detour we could go and see them. It is nearly 3 years we have been to their place and I am glad we went.   Early June is an amazing time to see their lush garden and vineyard. We apparently just missed the irises, but it was still gorgeous to sit or walk around in it. Both of them are great gardeners and it shows the hundreds, ney thousands of hours they must put in every year. We had dinner in the nearby restaurant and left at 8.40am the following morning. We didn't buy a motorway pass, so we drove on ordinary roads and were at home by midday. I had something weirdly wrong with my tummy and guts, so food was a bit of a problem, but thankfully it eased by this morning, although I think I am still on only boiled potatoes for a while. The final tally of kilometres came to 2539, which was literally spot on my estimate of 2500km as the detour to Robert's was about 39km. Lovely holiday, if a bit too much driving! Must do it again!!!

Robert and Volker's lovely house with its lush garden