Hello and welcome to this edition of our Blog, from Čardačani, in the north of Bosnia and Herzegovina, written by an immigrant (me), as I am neither a tourist or a citizen here.
Thank you so much to Penny and Dai for their super support to the Blog 👍😀❤️
The Break
After the first break in posting here since we started, we are back.
As a Brit I thought that such a pause during the mourning period for the late Queen Elizabeth II was the right and proper thing to do.
Life marches on, and so does the blog 😀
The Here and Now
Looking out of the window today, there’s blue skies with fluffy white clouds. The sun is shining, it’s warm when out of the slight breeze, and the leaves on the trees are gradually turning browner. A lot I have to say have already fallen.
The grass has grown feverishly and is back to the lush green it was before the extreme heat earlier in the year burned it.
The plums have been taken off the trees and are now rotting down in huge plastic vats at our neighbours. The apples as well. Hopefully we will be back to the 200 plus litres of domestic brandy when we come to distilling.
The crop from the 3 Walnut trees have also been harvested ⬇️
We still need to collect the grapes. They are sweet and tasty on the vine, but Tamara’s mother had counselled to wait a little longer. We’re also not sure if we will make wine, juice or jam yet. We’ll let you know soon don’t worry.
Although we have warmish weather, inside the house and my office it is noticeably chilly so we have the first heating of this Autumn from a small electric heater in the office and the wood burner in the house.
Soon we will have what I think is that nostalgic smell of wood being burnt for heating, so typical here in rural villages.
Telegram?
We have launched a Telegram channel for the blog.
The Aromas
The Repeating of History?
Back in mid 2019, I discovered the history of German colonies back in the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, here in today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina. I found this story fascinating. You can read that post here ⬇️
Now it seems Germans and Austrians are returning to “find a better life than that they have in their home countries”.
How this plays out, I really have no idea, but it seems certain sections of Northern European countries are looking for somewhere to live that is slightly more to what their aspirations are. A good example is the amount of immigrants moving to Portugal.
The Images
It’s somewhat difficult to publish albums of images for you here on substack, so here are the two places where I am posting our images. To be honest, they are better viewing experiences as there are no ads and you get high quality.
If you would like to download any images just drop me a message. Of course they’ll be FREE for download.
The Socials
I have recently experimented with yet another session of social media detoxification,. Previous efforts, I have failed with.
As I get older I really do think that there are other things to do, rather than spending what time remains, tumbling down the social media rabbit hole.
For example, I have started to try and improve my extremely amateuristic photography skills.
Spoiler Alert. You might see more of my attempts here in future posts.
The results in just over a week are showing results. I think the issue I had with FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out) has gone.
I have posted both on Instagram and Facebook about my farewell from Social Media.
My focus point from here on for my stories etc from my life here in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is here on this blog.
And Finally
If you’ve become a recent subscriber to our blog through “Our Portugal Journey” from Carol and Paul, thank you (and welcome)!
If you haven’t already subscribed to their blog, I hope you’ll consider doing so.
I highly highly recommend it 😀
Don’t forget that to read back editions of the newsletter, listen to previous podcasts (we have quite an archive now), or catch other content, all this is available on the web interface, just like a regular blog.
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Tamara and I appreciate your faithful readership, your comments, and your generosity!
THANKS SO MUCH ❤️
Hahaha, 🤣🤣🤣 sorry!
Body shop is coming!!!! You have to try mango body butter! It is genius! :)