Leaving Ljubljana

“The city exists and it has a simple secret: it knows only departures, not returns.”

Italo Calvino

I don’t remember going to sleep.

This is how I woke up.

Shell – Are you awake.

Grant – Not really. I guess so.

Shell – Well, I’m not. So, go back to sleep.

Grant – OK

It’s another cloudless day. It’s cold; I need a jumper to make Shell her birthday coffee. We left the balcony door open all night, and I have that temporary head cold you get when you camp.

We head to Grožnjan today, but it is too early for breakfast, so we lie in bed and read.

The broker calls at breakfast to discuss some finances with Shell. She has him explain to me, slowly, so I understand.

Another fine breakfast, and we do not rush. We chat and read and drink coffee.

We take the back roads and wind through the mountains. What could have taken us one hour takes three. I like taking things slow. Dubai and work have a constant hum of stress and rushing. It creates an underlying anxiety.

“What worries you, masters you”

John Locke

We climb the rise to the walled village of Grožnjan, which is closed to cars. It is a short walk to our villa.

The villa is beautiful and in the heart of the ancient town. Set over two levels, the bottom has a stunning kitchen that is equipped like a restaurant, including a dishwasher. It opens onto a dining table and a lounge. There is a small laundry and a bathroom.

Upstairs is a single bedroom as large as the space downstairs. A huge king bed and a clawfoot bath with lounges, a library and a collection of vinyl to play. There is a bathroom… and this place is perfect.

We drop our gear off and head to the truffle shop to get what I need for tonight’s dinner.

Shell decides to take a nap and warns me that I am not to start drinking until she is rested.

I sit in the lounge room and read. I wonder if Hemingway ever visited Grožnjan.

We drink some beer. The only reason we drink beer and not wine is because we have beer snacks. The truffle shop had truffle flavoured chips. How could we not buy a few cans of beer.

We drink our beer and read. Shell has a Banksy book that she started reading during our last visit. I knew Bankst from his grafitti. I had no idea just how much of an anarchist he was. His writing is as valuable as his art. Anti-government to his core.

“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It’s people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.”

Banksy

The beer runs out, and so do the chips. We open a bottle of local white – Malvasia. I start to think about dinner as thunder rolls in the distance. In a villa in Grožnjan, drinking a local Istrian wine – in Croatia reading Hemingway. I am worried I might wake up.

“If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you’ll spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing thing you don’t like doing, which is stupid.”

Alan Watts

Dinner is the pasta dish we love from Roċka Konoba.

We open a bottle of red and eat dinner, watch the sunset from the village wall.

Head home, play some records, and go to bed.

Happy birthday, Rachelle. You are my universe.

“She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs. ‘Time’ for her isn’t something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.”

Roman Payne