A small, abandoned cottage - in need of much TLC - sits behind our main house. It belonged to one of our neighbours and when he offered to sell it to us, we decided to go for it. The little house, which we think was possibly connected to our house many, many years...
After over a year of lockdown and travel restrictions, we've finally been double jabbed and now that we can access the EU vaccination certificate, the prospect of travel is on the horizon. Not immediately, but the prospect is there. In the meantime however, we're...
We've realised that there is little point in trying to predict the weather in April in Istria. This our fourth April here and previously, we've had fierce Bura winds coming down from Slovenia. Torrential rain. Soaring temperatures. And this year, just to be different,...
As well as family and friends coming out to visit us in Istria, we now have the opportunity to meet up with people who come to Croatia on holiday. We still find this very exciting as we get the best of both worlds – entertaining and travelling. Good friends from...
This rather lovely rustic, wooden A-frame ladder, hinged at the top and held together at the bottom with thick rope, hasn't really been utilised in our house as well as it could have been. It's usually covered in throws, which as the weather warms up, are discarded...
It really only seems a couple of weeks ago that it was Christmas, and yet here we are, having just had Easter weekend. Sometimes we feel that we don't seem to do much with our time, but with a quarter of the year already gone and the fruits of our labours beginning to...
The Adriatic Hotel is located right on the picturesque harbour of Rovinj, a Venetian town on the south western coast of the Istrian peninsula. It is in the pedestrianised old town, full of pastel coloured Venetian buildings fringing the sea. Cobbled streets, full of...
So, the exterior renovation of our house, continues apace. We've largely completed the interior renovation - but we never say never - and so our attention has been turned to the garden area around the main house and the little abandoned house to the rear. We've been...
We knew we had to tackle this part of the garden, because it was overgrown, messy, full of stones and rubble from previous renovation works and the trees were literally being strangled by vines and brambles.The little stone wall was falling down in places, and in...
I finally feel we're coming to the end of a very long winter. Although we've still got to see February out - and this is month when for the past four years, we've had snowfall in Istria - there are signs of spring. The bulbs we planted around the base of a big tree...