We Do Adventure

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 ...

Rowan came back from two hours of teaching on a rubbish dump this afternoon. She was cold. This is hardly surprising. Although we're still yet to see serious rain, or the fabled wind we've been promised, temperatures have dropped noticably over the last couple of days. Two hours outside and you're going to feel it. Even indoors you can feel the change. Our apartment doesn't have central heating, which is normal for Mostar. We have an air-conditioning unit that will blow hot air and a couple of small heaters. These do warm things up but this heat quickly disappears when you switch the heaters off. So it seems important to be wrapped up against the cold. This presents a challenge for Rowan. She has never 'believed' in coats! It has taken some measure of arm-twisting on every occassion she's come close to buying sensible outer-ware. Today's incident can be excused to some degree; due to the dirty nature of working on rubbish dump she'd been told not to ...