May 12

Happy May the 13th 14th weekend from Croatia! We are going to a farmer's market for the meat BBQ guy and will buy some green olive oil tomorrow, and then for my birthday cake go to visit an old straight Roman main street and medievally town called Porec. I wonder what that town name is in Italian? Something nicer sounding, I am sure. I'm sure the signs will tell us once we get there. Luckily a lot of the signs around here are also in Italian... mind you the grocery packages have 7 languages on, none of which I can even guess at. Luckily there's always someone around who speaks English and people are friendly about helping.

People here mostly drink white wine, which I guess goes with the sun. It's really good... I couldn't tell you what it's similar to, it tastes kind of flowery and green but not sweet. It comes in big plastic bottles.

We have landed with a really great group of people. Lots of projects on the go, donkeys to play with, big gardens and other fields, and volunteers from France, Spain, and Italy too. We have a whole house to ourselves most of the time as one of the directors has so many projects on the go that he is hardly ever here in his own house, though he owns lots of houses. He mostly sleeps at his parents' farm, I think. Anyway he is glad to have us here. His dad is a yoga teacher too and he might move us over there to help later. We will see.

Enjoying the town as the buildings are oooold, which I like. Some even go back to Roman times I think. What a real estate situation though! Most of the Italians who lived here moved away after 1945 when the world bosses suddenly decided this would be Yugoslavia instead of Italy. Must have been pretty terrible but luckily for me a lot of people here still speak Italian, as I wouldn't have any chance in Croatian. It's a horrible-sounding language mostly. But I love Italian.

Anyway, the town is full of centuries-old buildings you can buy for 10,000 euros and fix up. The sparky guys involved with our wwoofing group and other projects do things like buy them and fix them. Some of them have really beautiful bones, Venetian architecture and Italian balconies and stuff. There's also a wonderful woman named Ljuba who is 59 and thinks all the volunteers are a good replacement for her daughters who now live in Italy, and she works like crazy and gets everything done and doesn't expect much of us and is friendly and interesting (And has bought and fixed up multiple houses too -- good place to get rental income!)

I have good internet here too and am trying to stir up loads of $$ work, because we have been invited to my friend's wedding in India in November or December, so I'd better scare up the money to pay for it! I've been wanting to go to India for quite a while but now we finally have an excuse. Hopefully, Henry is going to come over to visit his family in England and have a nice long visit for a month or two with the cats while we go explore India. No better time than when you're going to get free accommodation. Praveen and I have been good friends for about 8 years at least now, since we worked together  on scientific papers. There's another woman, Jayashree, who I hope to visit with too. An Indian wedding! That should be quite the thing. A legend most Canadians don't get a chance to be part of.

I am going to renew my membership to the Romance Writers Association soon. The new book I finished in Sicily is really good, so better put the time into selling it properly. Meanwhile I'm writing its sequel too.

Cats are happy. Getting more sociable all the time.

And really, really looking forward to going back to France in August. Setting up our farms now. Looks like we'll get chestnuts and mushrooms and sheep near Lyon.