We Do Adventure

After being involved in youth work for more than fifteen years you've heard lots of reasons, and occasionally excuses, as to why people didn't show up when you were expecting them too. Today I heard one I'd never heard before. Rowan and I used to do a lot of youth work out of a school youth centre in a rural part of Sussex. Even there this never cropped up. Jajce is more rural still, as this picture indicates. It was produced by one of the young people who did make it to our first Novi Most session in Jajce. He was one of almost twenty who responded to the invitation and came to see what opportunities could open up with Novi Most now working in the town. It was a very positive couple of hours. We'll run a similar introduction session next weekend for those unable to be there today. Some of them were at a school event happening in town, which is familiar territory; others, however, had to go to a village and slaughter some pigs, which is definitely a new one for me! In ...

Cut and bruised we have returned from winter preparations at the apartment we'll be moving to sometime over the next month or so. I once learned to chop wood – and even got paid to do so – but that was more than two decades ago. Rowan had never wielded an ax in anger! Neither of us cut the wood pictured here. We bought it pre-chopped. However, as is the way here, it was all just dumped in the street outside the building and we had to stack it neatly in a dry place. The wood is destined for the hot place pictured to the right of the ageing Electrolux cooker. That's our new stove. It'll serve as the main source of heat for us this winter. The fancy looking contraption that looks like a boy racer's exhaust should, we're told help it to chuck out a bit more heat. While I might know how to chop a log or two I have to confess my fire-starting skills are distinctly less developed. Okay, so I'm suddenly remembering a spot of petrol-assisted bonfire starting and if ...