Dubrovnik

It's been about three weeks since we went to Dubrovnik and finally, thanks to being stuck at home with a bad head cold, I've found some time to do a brief Dubrovnik post.

Dubrovnik has a fascinating and long history but its more recent history is rather sad, as during the break up of Yugoslavia it suffered some horrific bombing and, as well as suffering  human casualties, a number of its old buildings were destroyed.  I understand that significant parts of the old city are fact new and were painstakingly rebuilt in the old style after the war.

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A photo inside the historic city and including a few random tourists

The historic city is surrounded by hills and as I walked through it I could get a small sense of just how terrifying it would have been to be trapped in the city as bombs were being thrown by the Yugoslav People's Army from up high.

A photo taken standing at the harbour, inside the historic city, looking up the hill

It is hard to picture all of this happening now, as the city is a major tourist destination during the summer months, full of western tourists making the most of the sun and sea.  Most of the tourists seem to be day-trippers from  enormous cruise ships, touring the Dalmatian coast, meaning that the town is full during the day but clears out significantly at night.  A lot of the cruise ship tourists were of the heavier or older, sedentary types, so we also learned that the best way to avoid them was to head somewhere that involved a steep climb uphill.  It was pretty easy to find such places in Dubrovnik.

The city walls on top of the cliffs

The walk on top of the old city walls was one such place that most of these tourists did not tread and it also afforded an incredible view of the ocean and city.

On top of the city walls

the view from the city walls

We stayed just out of town at the Dubrovnik Palace which was a terrific choice.  It had its own beach and pool and we made good use of both. 

Me at the beach

We also caught up with a couple of friends in Dubrovnik one evening and the four of us attempted to find a bar to have a drink.  We discovered that night life is not one of the reasons one goes to Dubrovnik, as we struggled to find any bar that didn't play remixes of the Venga Boys (as if the originals weren't bad enough).

It was worth going out of an evening, however, just to marvel at some of the incredible outfits on display by other tourists.  Some people had clearly decided that less is more and were wearing as little as one can  wear without being arrested for public indecency. 

I don't think Dubrovnik is the sort of place you go for culinary delights.  That said, we did have some great meals at some fish restaurants on the harbour where the chefs did not strive for originality or greatness but simply barbecued some terrifically fresh produce.

The view from the restaurant on the harbour.  It was impossible to take a photo without capturing other tourists!

The harbour area was also full of some very cute stray cats.  I think they must survive on eating the fish the fisherman throw away and leftovers that tourists at the restaurants feed to them.

We only had four days in Dubrovnik but I wish we had longer.  It's definitely given me a taste for the Dalmatian coast and I'm eager to get back there soon.

The fruits of Holloway

Holloway gets a pretty bad rap.  Admittedly, its charms are not always immediately apparent; the main shopping area is named the "Nags Head" and its restaurants are largely comprised of eating establishments like the High Class Fish Bar (I can only think the name is intended to be ironic).

Its parks also do nothing to endear a casual visitor the area.

Indeed, my friend R could almost be forgiven for proclaiming (when I told him we'd bought a flat in the area) "Holloway - but that area's minging!".  What R did not realise is that Holloway does have is charms, they just take a little while to discover. 

The primary attraction of Holloway is its proximity to much nicer areas, areas in which we could never afford to live.  But Holloway itself is not without its charms, one of which has to be the large Waitrose (complete with Ostrich eggs, for when ordinary x-large chicken's eggs won't do).  But  even aside from the Waitrose, in recent days we've discovered that Holloway is a veritable paradise of fresh produce.

Summer is truly upon us, and over the course of the weekend we discovered that within 300 metres of our flat grows a cherry tree, fig tree, blackberry bush, mulberry tree and that our own front verge even boasts its own plum tree. 

The weekend was therefore spent collecting the fruits of Holloway. Thankfully our neighbours didn't bat an eyelid when they saw us scaling the fences to reach the overhanging branches laden with fruit.  They didn't even look twice when we were wandering the streets splattered in red blood-like berry juice and with the juice running from our hands. 

I suppose that, considering the sorts of things one sees in Holloway, we didn't look out of place.  In fact, the only person who did speak to us did so to tell us about a really good mulberry tree groaning with fruit just around the corner. 

This is a portion of our haul (we ate the cherries too quickly to include them in the photo).

And here are a couple of the delicious meals we've had thanks to our local Holloway produce and chef G.

Low-fat mixed berry and plum crumble

Grilled fig, pecorino & rocket salad with a balsamic dressing

Holloway: minging?  I don't think so. 

The early mid-life crisis

I think I am in the midst of that ubiquitous middle-class affliction: the too-young-to-have-it-but-I'm-having-it-anyway mid-life crisis.  Thankfully, my version of the crisis doesn't involve sports cars.  And being a very happily married young female, it also doesn't involve comb overs or having it off with a secretary. What it does involve is a mild concern that maybe, just maybe, there's more to life than working with a chronic farter in a job I don't particularly like.

That said, career dissatisfaction is nothing new for me.  My employment history to date has hardly been a successful one. 

When I was very young I wanted to be an actress.  I achieved some minor success, appearing in a number of TV commercials and voicing a number of radio commercials.  Perhaps the high-point of that career came when I played "young girl" in a Red Rooster TV commercial when I was ten years old.  When my mother (an actress who, disturbingly, was only ten years older than me) asked if I wanted Red Rooster for dinner, my job was to say in an enthusiastic voice: "yes please!"  But that success was never repeated.  Once I hit my early teens, the offers dried up and I realised  that talent scouts were not looking for a short, pimply girl with braces to become the next Pretty Woman.

After my acting career sank, I decided it was time to get a real job.   I accepted a job on  occasional Thursday nights and weekends during the football season, selling the Football Record (football programme) at the Subiaco Football Oval.  It was a commission job - for each $1 football record we sold we got 10 cents, or something like that.   On the days I was assigned to work I found myself donning a fluorescent yellow suit and standing outside the stadium, regardless of whether it was raining, hailing or the sun was shining, screaming at the top of my lungs "records, get your records.  Football records".  Eventually I got sick of counting my desultory earnings while trying to squeeze the water out of my clothes.  I also got sick of having to pretend to laugh at customers 'jokes.  These jokes  showed a startling lack of originality (the most popular was "football record - but how do I play that on my CD player?".   I lasted only one season before deciding I had had enough.

My next foray into the working world was working at a sales assistant at a clothing store.  That position actually lasted for a remarkably long time (given how useless I was) and  until I finished school when the shop happened to shut down.  

During university I tried my hand at waitressing and working in a bakery before finally graduating and becoming a lawyer. 

Becoming a lawyer should have been my happy ending to the work crises.  But it hasn't been.  There have certainly been high-points in my short career (such as working for a Judge).  But equally there have been a lot of low points, including very late nights, boring document review sand inhaling air that has already taken a turn through someone's anal passage.

I know that I'm in a privileged position to be able to ponder options.  And I know that there are many people out there with far more serious problems than my own.  But that doesn't stop me wondering,  and even agonizing, as I ask myself: what now??

It has been a while

I have been a bad blogger of late.  My excuse?  Far too much fun in and out of London. 

I've been missing the beaches of Perth and desperate to get some water-side action in.  This desperation saw me convince a group of friends to picnic by, and swim in, the Hampstead swimming ponds.  These are ponds that are set aside for swimming in the Heath.  Admittedly, the fact they are swimming ponds does not mean they are devoid of your average park pond features.   As you swim, you are more than likely to have a duck swim past your head and some slime press against your leg.  And on getting out of the water I did have to wipe the mud and silt off my skin.  But it was worth it to  have that fabulous feeling of immersing myself in cold water outside on a hot day.

Next up was Love Box, a music festival in Victoria Park.  A group of us bought tickets to the Saturday session on 17 July.  We began the day with a very large breakfast before joining the masses at the park.  Once again I got the opportunity (last had at Primavera) to hoot and howl to Wild Beats and to dance myself silly.  An unexpected highlight of the day was seeing Jay Electronica.  He was a last minute addition to Love Box and, perhaps because of this,  there was a very small group of people watching him.  He obviously decided that it was time to get the crowd a bit more fired up, so jumped from the stage mid-set and into the crowd, politely asking disinterested people standing around to get involved and "put their hands up".  He also decided to hand the mic around, and let everyone who wanted to have a go.  It made for a pretty unusual but hilarious spectacle.  The only downside to the day was a complete absence of mobile reception in the park, meaning that after wandering off for drinks or loo breaks a lot of time was then spent trying to find one another without the benefit of modern means of communication.  

It has also been a month of sleb spotting (this time only minor slebs - Mark Warren and Abbey Titmus) at XO in Belsize Park.  And a month of theatre (the Prince of Homberg at the Donmar).  I have also developed a passion for running.  This will no doubt surprise anyone who knew me back in high school, when I did my very best to avoid Phys Ed classes.  In fact, I was so successful in coming up with excuses as to why I couldn't participate, that eventually they took my name off the Phys Ed roll and didn't expect me to turn up to class any more.   How things change!

We have also been travelling, spending a long weekend in Dubrovnik.  But I'll leave that to another blog post.   

On top of that, we've had some house guests for the last week.  These were rather unusual house guests, in that we were sad to see them go. 

Finally, it would not be life without a minor disaster. The disaster this month involved a broken fridge, some smelly spoiled food and discovering that the previous owners did not leave space for the cord for a new fridge to be fed down to the power point.  Thankfully we discovered that it's relatively easy to create new holes in old walls.

I have been a bad blogger lately but I'm going to resume my regular blogging now, even if I don't have much to say (and even if no one reads this blog). I'm promising myself to check in at least once a week, so I'll see you soon.