Idyllic Pond Photo of the Day

I took this yesterday on my way to Gostisce Dular for some takeaway food.  I was busy working on a grant proposal so I had no time to eat there.

This is a pond, called a ribnik in Slovene.  It’s stocked with fish – riba – and you can fish there if your heart’s set on it, but I’d rather go to the restaurant next to it and let them do the scaling and gutting.  It’s operated by the Dular family, who makes some of the best wine in this country.

Ribnik

Sometimes my photos aren’t so bad after all.  Maybe some of Brendan’s advice is finally sinking in.

Happy with a side of apple blossoms

I hardly ever write when I’m happy, because I’m one of those people who are motivated by crisis, but today I was really freaking happy, happy with sufficient intensity to inspire a post about being happy.

Three reasons to be happy today:

It is going to rain.  (It has been dry all last month and that’s not good for spring.  Also, I’m a strange person who enjoys stormy weather).

I was about to go to Krsko to shop, when the train in the other direction arrived and I impulsively hopped on it and went to Sevnica instead.  In Sevnica there is a kebab shop where you can get cheese on your kebab.  Cheesy kebabs are important to me.  I can’t get them in Krsko.  I can’t get them in Brezice.  I ordered it all in Slovene and the guy understood me.  We didn’t have to muddle through a fractured conversation in English/German/Slovene like we did last time.

I walked around in Sevnica and it was springtime and the trees were very pretty, though I forgot to bring my camera.  Photo below is from a few days ago.

New life

When I caught the train home from Sevnica, the lady conductor recognized me and said, in Slovene, that she was used to seeing me going back and forth from Krsko but now I am going from Sevnica (which is in the opposite direction from Krsko).  I understood her though I could not answer.

I get home and my landlady opens the door for me without too much obvious hatred.    Online I discover that a friend I once thought forever lost is following me again on Twitter.  And I have a bottle of champagne.   Cheap-ass champagne, to be sure, but still.

Now if only people would quit tweeting me silly links to the Daily Mail.

The first day of spring

In Slovene, it’s “pomladansko enakonočje“.  So now you know.

I wandered lonely as a cloud...

Evocative Railway Station Photo of the Day

Here is the Brezice railway station in the twilight.

Brezice railway station

 

A tree grows in Brezice

Tree in front of housing project in Brezice.  I am really busy this week, readers, so I must fob you off with my random photographs.

Housing projects in Brezice are not that bad

Sycamores in Brezice

I went to Brezice yesterday to buy a chair.  Unfortunately the chair I wanted was no longer on sale, so I bought another one which was a bit inferior in quality but was a garden chair so I could put it out on the balcony.

I also got to wander around Brezice in the hot sun and eat kebabs.  Brezice is much less depressing than Krsko, because it is a spa town and has a lot of pretty architecture.  None of which can be seen in the photo below:

Sycamores in Brezice

I’ve always loved sycamores.  Those dangly things (I am sure they have a name, I just don’t know what it is) seem to be left over from last year.  The building in back is a housing project, of which Brezice has many, but they’re also not as depressing as the ones in Krsko.  Brezice also has spectacular sunsets in summer, which we can’t see here because of hills in the way.  So spectacular I want to go there and paint them.  Only getting home would be a problem, because the last train home leaves before the sun is fully down.