A countryside afternoon

An afternoon out of town for the Brit family. Jess needed her annual jabs so we headed on out to the vet that we like to use, who is about 15 minutes drive out of town.

I like this vet. He is no nonsense and funny. The clinic is a wooden building, with a terraced area equipped with table, chairs and space for that all important coffee. Weather permitting consultations are conducted outside, over said coffee, or occasionally a small shot of some homemade plum brandy (sljivavica). Jess, used to the cooing of our soft English vet, finds the Bosnian one a bit rough and ready. He doesn't waste any time, uses muzzles and additional muscle if needed and gets on with it. A consultation never takes more than 5 minutes, with an extra 15 tagged on for coffee.

Jabs received, Pet Passport completed with appropriate stickers and stamps (we do have to get Jess back to England at some point so it is extremely important that everything is well documented) and coffee drunk, we were done.

Everyone was busy out in the countryside. There is a limited amount of time to get ready for winter, so the fields were a flurry of people finishing harvesting their produce, cutting up wood, finishing all the jobs that need to be done whilst the weather is holding. We wandered along to visit a friend, who was in the thick of the autumnal jobs.

The boys were thrilled. Axes for chopping wood! Small puppies to pick up and play with! Plants to be dug up! Pigs to be fed! Chickens to be chased! Apples to be harvested! We are talking true small boy heaven here. They got to work, they got dirty and they had a terrific time.

I had noticed that since we got back from holiday last week, there just haven't been as many people around as there were during the summer. But as most Bosnians who live outside of towns live on small holdings and many of the townie apartment dwellers also have country houses, I've realised that they are busy preparing for winter. The men are chopping wood to heat the houses through winter and making sure all those outside jobs have been completed, the women are bottling, pickling and preserving the mountains of fruit and vegetables that have been grown.

Perhaps most importantly though, everyone has been making sljivavica and handing it out to all and sundry. Hence the stacks of bottles at the vet, who boasts that people always give him their best bottles. We left the vet with a bottle of our own. Not being such a fan of the drink we'll use it for getting the ticks off the dog. Shhh, don't tell anyone. We might live in Bosnia, we might have Bosnian residency visas in our passports, but we'll never be true Bosnians.

A little on the chilly side

One of the great things about living in Tuzla during the winter is muncipal heating. They (the great they, don't know who they are but I love them) take the hot water from the cooling towers of one of the factories on the outskirts of town and pump it around the city. It works brilliantly, our heaters are always toasty warm and when the Russians turn off the gas pipeline to Europe as happened last January, it means that we don't lose our heating. Unlike Sarajevo, so that is one plus point for Tuzla then.

There is only a teeny tiny little problem. They (the great they, they are my friends, I love them, I hope they read my blog and take notice of what I am saying) don't turn on the heating until the middle of October. If it gets cold before then, you have to, well, tough it out.

Now, I'm not saying it is cold now - in fact it was a very pleasant 28C yesterday which is warmer than most of Britain for most of the summer. But, it is starting to get chillier. And temperatures in Bosnia often drop about 20C overnight. Today the estimated maximum is 20C. I don't know what the actual temperature is but it feels quite a bit colder than that as I've had to find jumpers, woolly socks and am drinking tea by the vat.

Two weeks to go until the heating gets turned on. Until then, here's to wearing scarves inside and hoping for the warmer autumnal weather to come back. Unless they are reading that is.

a bright, bright sunshiney day

Tuzla has been basking in some very unseasonal weather. This time of year is usually freezing cold and full of drizzly, ongoing rain and cloud. This Sunday however, saw us all in our t-shirts heading down to Slana Banja park. Here were the Tuzlans at play. There were people doing t'ai chi. Teenagers in lycra were sprinting up and down the trails throughout the park, their trainers standing with stopwatches and encouragement. Dancers were limbering up, stretching the legs before displaying snippets of their routines. The clay tennis courts were full of people who are really good at playing tennis (the regional excellence in tennis has certainly not passed Tuzla by). Many people were walking with their families, all making the most of the unseasonal sunshine higlighting the rich autumnal colours of the trees.

As we settled down on the terrace of a restaurant for a coffee with the boys playing happily in the sandpit provided for children, we reflected that this felt more like an American brunch moment than the middle of Bosnia.

Preparing for winter

One of the things about moving somewhere new is that you have a load of unexpected expenses that come up. Things that you never thought to ask about, or even crossed your mind that they would be on the horizon. Things that are so obvious to the people here that it never crosses their minds to tell you that such things exist. After all surely everyone has to replace all their tyres on their car in November to make sure they have the appropriate cold weather abilities?

We have just had to buy 4 new tyres in preparation for the snowy and icy roads that are about to hit us. In addition to this we have to buy snow chains and think about what we need to have in the car in case we get stuck in a nasty snow storm. Apart from being slightly alarming it is also quite expensive.

All seems a bit surreal as we bask in one of the warmest Octobers Tuzla has had for a while and the forecast for later this week is for a temperature of 28C.