11th (and 3rd) January 2012

I am a keyboard whore. There's Daddy's big  computer with its penchent for switching between Croatian and English, and its huge two screens where the mouse slips off the end of the world and travels half-way across the world. Then there was the Pie's Japanese keyboard, which not only has the keys all mixed up but will also turn everything into weird approximations of English into Chinese characters unless you keep a sharp eye on it. Now I'm on the Mogster's keyboard, which is not only in Croatian and has jumbled-up keys, but is physically split up in some frightening ergonomic way. NOT ONLY THAT but I reckoned I'd been clever remembering how to switch between languages (shift control) so I did... AND THE SODDING APOSTROPHE DISAPPEARED AGAIN. Now I've... AH! OK that's scary. I'd been looking madly at the keyboard to try and get the damn thing to appear, and then forgot about it and automatically touched where it 'ought' to be on an English computer, and there it was. Fingers know, brain doesn't. I wonder what else the principle works for.

Not sure what's happened to today. Lara's been squashing cats all day long. I do not exaggerate. Every time I see her she's either dragging one or the other one around in arms entirely inadequate to support their overfed bulk, or she's lying sprawled across one or several of them, exclaiming, 'He's the most huggable cat, EVER'. Currently she's gone out on a walk to the woods again. No tree-mulching today, just cat-squashing. Luckily they're unbelievably placid, but there is always the fear that eventually even they might become grumpy at such intense... attention.

Now, I've been combing through the pics and trying to remember what exactly what happened in Belgrade on the 3rd, but can't work it out because whatever it was, we didn't take pics during the day. I can tell you that in the evening, we went out to a restaurant and the kids had pizza and spaghetti and I had a delicious smoked trout salad (although they did rather overdo it on the red onions, but then it was my silly fault not to just ignore them and leave them on the side). Here they are before the meal came, playing some death-defying games with Party Animals.

Life's tough when you're so short that your pizza plate makes you look like a disgruntled John the Baptist after a visit too many to Salome.

I waited until the end of the meal to take pics of these two on the grounds that they weren't drunk enough to start with. The meal ended and they were still way off the mark on the alcohol scale, so I just told them to look drunk... not sure what the result was, looks slightly more like agony but hey, they tried.

After dinner we went out for an 'explore' in the nearby woods, with flashlights. Here are the kids, gearing up for action...

This was the time when a stray dog attached itself to us (almost literally) and went all the way home with us, through a pretty long walk. Belgrade is stuffed full of stray dogs, seems to be a terrible problem. Dreadful shame. That night's dog was a lovely border collie cross and would have been a wonderful pet. Sigh. All these idiot humans who don't know what they want and when they've got a great thing just throw it away.

... Boo!

10th January 2012 (Tuesday)

Hoeing, they say, is good for the upper arms. In that case I should have got a little bit of a work-out in the fields under the house yesterday, clearing out from under the fruit trees.

Skating was meant to be in the offing but at the last minute Lara said No, don’t want to go. In essence, wanted to stay at home, stroke the cats and bumble about the garden with Ted. So we complied. Hence the hoeing. She was busy helping and getting ‘points’ for each tree that was weeded round. Apparently great fun.

Here’s a Zagreb By Night pic. Took it on the way back from checking on the Charcoal Burners (below): Lara had been out in the garden with Ted AGAIN for over an hour while I went down to a local shop to pick up a pair of shoes. Absolutely entranced by the bonfire. Burning, staring, royally entertained. Soon there will be simply no rubbish left on the hillside at this rate.

In the afternoon I went off for an hour to do my own stuff, and came back to find a great Experiment going on in the kitchen. Looks a bit kinky, frankly, but I guess you can see it was a ‘blind tasting’. Items tasted included marmalade, quince jam, salami, cheese, apple, carrot, whipped cream and nutella. They made a chart and noted down what the reaction was from the two expertly blindfolded subjects, as well as whether they could guess what was being tasted. Lara guessed almost everything, and reactions were pretty much as one would expect from her likes and dislikes except for the whipped cream and nutella (‘love it’) and the marmalade (‘don’t like’).

We had a HUGE chunk of leg of lamb for dinner, with all sorts of accompanying spinach and delicious veg. How on earth we managed I don’t know, but between the four adults and one child (albeit a child with a troll’s appetite) we seem to have polished most of it off – as well as a large apple crumble afterwards. Where does it go? In Lara’s case I strongly suspect that I’m going to be buying a whole lot of clothes for her in a month’s time, because this is the sort of eating she does just before a growth spurt. Breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, dessert, and a few bits inbetween… heavens help us. I’ve already had to let out her tacked-up trousers so the process is no doubt under way as we speak. As for where it all goes to in my case, it’s a mystery, pure and simple. I’ve been trying to do my yoga as often as possible, and am being ridiculed mercilessly for engaging in ‘stoutness exercises’: (unlike Pooh Bear) trying to get stout. Sniff. 

 

Still the 4th Jan and still more kiddie-pics

All Pie's pics, isn't she fantastic? Yes, as earlier posted, they went out on their scooters BUT after that I think this was the day when the Pie went out and got some (to use Bill and Ted's phrase) Most Excellent grilled meat from the local butcher's. My out and out favourite was the liver wrapped in bacon on skewers, done... to.... perfection.... Just excuse me as I wipe away the drool at the recollection. Then there was all sorts of inebriation and swapping of pixels (with the above result) and goodness knows what, and after that we were up again at  four in the morning because our train left at just gone five for Zagreb. In fact, here's Non on the train, eating a Belgrade-Danish pastry for breakfast. As you can see, it's still dark outside and she'd been sleeping on the train for an hour and a half by then, too. Still, it did mean that we got to Zagreb at midday, which left plenty of time to chill and go for walks and... imbibe later, for some :)

Just as an addendum, here's a shot of some still-ruinous bombed buildings, right in the middle of the city, too. Some bits of Belgrade are being rather nicely done up, but occasionally one does come upon these things, it's a bit startelling. So suddenly, in fact, one almost would think they'd been left there on purpose if it weren't for the obvious health-hazzard factor. Or perhaps it's not an issue in these parts of the world. Don't know.

4th January 2012

Now look here. I just got a complaint that I'd 'skipped over' our wonderful Belgrade trip. Just because I'm behind-hand and going backwards like the crab I am, doesn't mean I've skipped over anything.

Just to retaliate, I'm putting up one of the comedy Pie/Non consecutive pics. I think we must have swapped children somewhere along the line, not sure how.

Here's how to feed apple to captive children, up a ladder. OK perhaps they're not so captive. All these pics are from January 4th, by the way, in Belgrade. We had done our morning work, and then went out to a new park (sorry, can't remember the name) and well... parked.

OK, if anyone knows what these are... hang on I'm just being told they're called Buba Shvabe but what about in English? Hm, google awaits... Anyway what's so German about them... hmm

The Three Mooskateers

Church of Something McBiggimus

The kids invariably wanted to light candles...

More kids hanging out to dry

Speeding motorcycle, apparently

The Pie's pics are so much better than mine, I should have started with those

After we came back, they did some scootering up and down the street outside, and afterwards, playdoh in Leo and Nea's room

Watching Polar Express before bed

There are a whole heap of other pics which I'd like to put up, but Blogger's objecting and getting confused so click onto the next entry...

Zagreb Zoo on 7th January 2012

Actually I think the first pic is from the evening on the 6th but anyway, it's pretty. We spent three hours at Zagreb zoo (and later discovered we still hadn't seen eveything) so it was officially a Success. Here are a few pictures of Lara's favourites.

The Coatis and some monkeys...

Mr Grey Wolf

Malaysian Sun Bear ('the shortest bear in the world' remarks Lara knowledgably)

Provot's Squirrel (distribution, Java and Borneo)

Victorian Crowned Pigeon

Can't remember who this was but she liked it.... Hang on she's telling me it was a Red Crested Partridge, and she's probably right...

Fennec Fox (one of my favourites, too)

and a Californian Sealion tossing an octopus. We stayed here for AGES watching them eat several tonnes of fish, throwing it all over the place, whooshing and diving.

Sunday 8th January 2012

I'm suffering from computer separation anxiety. Digital Destabilization Disorder, or DDD. (Ignore those who say it stands for Drunk, Disorderly and Dishevelled.) Here are some pics just from yesterday to get the ball rolling, but my little hard drive is groaning under the weight of unfulfilled pixels so there certainly OUGHT to be further back-installments.

It all started with Cats, and ended in Owls. Here's Non and 'Mr Love', as she's christened this hairy little gourd of fat and indolence. (He was generally referred to previously as something like 'not Mislav' because he looks like a previous cat called... Mislav. To her it sounded like Mr Love. Everyone thinks it's vastly appropriate.)

Eariler on, she was delighted to wake up and find ALL FIVE felines at breakfast outside. This rarely happens, hence the eyebrows.

Later, after our morning work (she's doing marvellously at long multiplication at the moment, and I've been able to download a new Magic Pony Carousel book for her onto my Kindle, which is going down a storm), we went out to Park Maksimir. The destination was the kiddie's playground but here's a 'view' shot. Lots of woods and a couple of ponds. Some grass. Quite a bit of mud, too, actually.

Always hang your children for a sufficient time in the open air to ensure maximum flavour.

This one's just the for Whale.

'Boo.' 

Unlike the last one, this was actually quite scary. Besides, who would have thought land snails would get so big.

In the evening we had the 'Owl Party'. Let me explain. Yesterday we had 'Cat Party'. (You'll have to wait to hear about that in another installement. The Owl Party was planned out into activities and games – my Lara. She wrote out a list, thusly:

Party Games for Owl Party

1.      Pin the tail on the cat. (Luckily, this was on a drawing, not in real life. Cat had a nice smiley face.)

2.      Catch the Mouse. (Lara was the mouse, Deda was the cat/owl. Lara appears, somehow, to have won, though I didn't actually witness this one.)

3.      Silent Flying. Flapping wings for about 3 minutes and (in Lara's case) running round and round in small circles. Baka and I participated while reclining on sofas. I was 'out' almost immediately on an inadvertent squawk. Baka held in there for a fair time but finally got desperate when she had to ask whether farting counted as a breach of policy. (Turns out it does.) So Lara won.

4.      Long Distance Flying. This involves getting a stuffed owl each (yes, there were enough to go around) and throwing them as far across the room as possible. Mine somehow managed to go round the corner, through the hall and into the kitchen, so I won that one.

5.      Eating Insects Competition. We got a 'catapillar' (a.k.a. jelly baby) each and had to eat it as quickly as possible... with the slightly dubious proviso that everyone promises not to choke. Luckily, both Baka and I had huge trouble getting through ours so Lara won by a mile.

6.      Hide-And-Seek. Although an Owl party, this was remarkably similar to the human version. I think I scared the begeebies out of Baka when she discovered me hiding behind the hanging clothes in the boiler room. Glad  wasn't waiting to be discovered for too long.

7.      Teach the Chick to Fly. Involves throwing a stuffed 'angry bird' toy into the air for as many time as one can without dropping it on the catch. Lara managed 41 throws. No-one else came even close, so to her great delight, she won again.

After this, there was a bit of a hiatus before dinner while she did some beading and general cat-stroking, and just before dinner there was a 'presentation' to the Overall Winner of the Owl Party. I printed out a certificate and Baka donated the Prize of a Pooh Bear toy (chosen in accordance of the top Lara happened to be wearing on the day.) Everyone was assembled and we did the announcement and presentation in the style of the Houses of Parliament on a particularly unruly day. My throat was quite hoarse afterwards, and I believe several spoons got bent from being bashed too hard on the table for the 'hear hears'. It all sent her quite wild with excitement.

The final revelation is that apple crumble is now 'in' with Lara. 'In' in every sense, from the portions she had both at lunch and at dinner. No cream of course, but still. Something other than biscuits, chocolate or jelly that she can have for dessert.