We Do Adventure

On Saturday Jajce's Lavovi (Lions) bit back at the BiH Floorball League tournament in Tuzla. At least they did in the first game they played. The last time the Lavovi played Gladijator from Prijedor the game was a 4-4 draw. This time we won by a surprisingly comfortable 6-2 margin. Anyone who read our post about the first tournament will probably have noticed the kit change since then. Out go the 70s-style short-shorts of the hand-me-down outfits and in comes a freshly purchased strip with the team badge on the front and “Floorball Club Lavovi Jajce” in big text on the back between the shoulder blades. Sadly new kit and the feel-good factor of getting a first tournament win wasn't enough to guarantee a result in our second game of the day. I never played enough competitive sport in the UK to speak authoritatively on cultural differences but I was surprised that on a day when the lowest scoring game featured six goals our team's faces clearly showed they thoug...

This is Lavovi Jajce (Jajce Lions) all smiles before our first game in the new BiH Floorball League. That's me second from the left. Saturday was the first of four tournament days we'll compete in this year. Hopefully we'll do better at the competing bit next time. We lost a closely fought first match 3:2, with the winning goal coming in the dying seconds. However, for reasons I won't go into here, we for ourselves 2:0 down in about as many minutes at the start of the second game. Our opponents in this game go by the name Gromovi, which translates as Thunder. There's no thunder without lightning, and although they say this never strikes twice we were on the end of a brutal 12:2 thrashing. In the words of Yazz : the only way is up!

The other day the M40 cropped up in a conversation with a friend. We discovered we have differing views on this sweeping stretch of motorway that connects London and Birmingham. I used to look forward to it as a relatively congestion-free chance to actually drive after grinding around the M25. She was too aware of the accident statistics people playing this kind of catch-up caused to ever enjoy using it. At 89 miles long, or 143.2 kilometres, the M40 alone provides almost exactly double the amount of motorway capacity that the entire country of Bosnia and Herzegovina has. It is a country with only two sections of motorway: around 40 kilometres between the mid-Bosnian towan of Kakanj and Sarajevo, and around 30 kilometres heading north from Banja Luka to Gradiska, on the border with Croatia. I have driven both sections end-to-end several times. The good news is more is on its way. BiH's Federation government has just signed an agreement worth 115 million euros with a...

Let's pile on the the cliches; we are talking football after all. That game of two halves. The one where things always seem to be up there and probably at the end of the day! It's been described as a game that is't a matter of life and death, it's more important than that. Maybe it is, probably it isn't. Nevertheless, these days, many a manager mangles words like a would be philosopher while the stars of the pitch are schooled to deliver non-committal, controversy-free press conference performances a politician would be proud of. Taking their cue, this post will touch a little on the political and philosophical, which I hope makes up for the lack of anything more important. Tonight I played a little game. I typed 'Bosnia news' into Google, determined that I would blog about the first link it served up under its 'News for Bosnia news' heading. That was this link from ESPN Soccernet. I was the story I expected. Although I've been aware of th...

I should probably be writing more here but getting and at 4am and still getting up at the normal time this morning have got the better of me. We were there last night. It was a good game, obviously the wrong result from our point of view, but as English people we've hasd some experience of losing to Portugal after having a player sent off! I'll leave the video to show the ups and downs of the day. WARNING: The fans behind us swore throughout the match. I won't claim to have understood the half of what they said. To those of you who will understand, I apologise that some of their comments will undoubtedly have ended up being audible in this video.

I have three chances to drive in Bosnia Herzegovina. The first was to bump start Novi Most's old Toyota combi. The second: bump starting the combi again! The third, however, was the chance to drive through snowy mountains in a Toyota that didn't seem to have any mechanical faults. I've never struggled to adjust to driving on the 'other side', whether it's been in a left- or right-hand drive vehicle. But we've seen Mostar 's tiny streets and its twisting mountain roads. If we're to have a car when we move it'll be left-hand drive. Rowan wants it's to be small and I don't blame her. She's not yet had the chance to drive on the right so that's a new experience that's awaiting her. We're currently driving a new Mini Clubman , which is nice although not perhaps as iconic as the yellow Mini One we had before it! Every other car in BiH seems to be a VW Golf. You can see the complete history of the model in a matter of minutes on ...