We Do Adventure

After spending last weekend joking with friends from Mostar about catching up on Herzegovinan rain we have had some of our own this week. It has to be said that, in our experience at least, the rain in Jajce does not fall with the same intensity it does in Mostar. Nor is it so unrelenting. The flipside of this is the summer sun does not shine so long, or so unrelentingly, in Central Bosnia. If the mid-forties are your thing Mostar is undoubtedly the place to go. It's the kind of place where anything below 30C at 11pm on a summer evening starts to feel cool. If you prefer summer highs to hover around the mid-thirties then you'd probably appreciate Jajce's climate. But back to the rain. Yesterday Jajce was alternating between quick, heavy downpours and bright sunshine. As you've probably realised by now, this is good rainbow weather. And so it was, when I was walking home from work that I was treated to a small shower and a great view. I had hoped to get a better vid...

Back when Lord of the Rings was wowing audiences on the big screen I was more than once referred to as a Hobbit. It had nothing to do with hairy feet, of which I am thankfully not the possessor, proud or otherwise, but more to do with being short of stature and with a tendency to slightly generous proportions around the waist. Tolkien aficionados will know 'The Hobbit' is the widely used abbreviation for 'The Hobbit, or There and Back Again.' Today we drove there and back again through some of Bosnia and Herzegovina's fantastic countryside; mountains, rivers, valleys and forests that could easily be parts of Middle Earth. We were treated to sunshine and clear skies, heavy clouds and pouring rain and the most intense onslaught of thunder and lightening. The reason for our journey may have been relatively mundane but the weather provided everything required for an epic adventure! About halfway between here and there is a small, mountain side gas station and cafe ...

Thoughts of winter seem a long way away. For the past couple of weeks the daytime temperature has been comfortably above 30 and it’ll climb to a lot nearer 40 by the end of this week. However over some late-night pancakes tonight we were telling tales of mouldy walls and three jumpers (sweaters!) indoors to a couple of visitors. As much as I find myself acclimatising to the increasing heat we now have to wonder if that will make the inevitable winter cold so much the colder. Last year we only had a dismal British summer to reference against. This year we have a poor Bosnian one; it’s come late, with rain lasting into July. However it’d still be a grind-to-a-standstill heat wave in the UK. And last week Mostar had its hottest night for about a century, with the temperature barely falling below 30 all night. Once used to such warmth I can start to see how temperatures in the teens will feel chilly.