| After a wonderful welcome meal at the Simunovices on my first day, I was packed off to the mountains to earn my keep at 7am the next morning. Thrown in at the deep end language-wise, my companions were Milan, the Surbatovic's next door neighbour, Rade, a lad who often works for him, and Mimi, a visitor from Serbia whose accent made him difficult to understand even for Montenegrins. Still, when your daily tasks involve finding a particular tree and cutting into them to search for a very specific grain pattern, there's nothing a bit of imaginative charades won't clarify. |  |
| This was a rest spot. From the left, Milan, Mimi and Rade. On our way across we had stopped in at a shop to have sandwiches made for us. Only they weren't sandwiches, they were huge loaves of bread cut in two and stuffed with huge amounts of cheese, meat and pate. We needed them. |  |
| This was the view from just above the forests we were working in. The curly maple we sought would be used in Milan's workshop to make violin bases. Unfortunately, apart from one tree which Milan said might do for an electric guitar, we didn't find anything. |  |
| At the end of the first week we all went to a restaurant to celebrate Amy's graduation. She had been home-schooled, so she wasn't subjected to the usual parade through town with class-mates. Instead a few dozen of her close friends and family came to share a meal. And, naturally, they all wanted a photo with the beautiful young lady it was all about. This is Amy with her little sister, Mili. |  |
| Amy and her dad, the pastor, Stan. |  |
| Amy and her mum, Vicki. (This was before Amy realized the flowers were shedding pollen all over her.) |  |
| The main photographers were myself (here momentarily distracted from the main event) and Pete, pictured. Originally from England, Pete now lives and works in Nikšić teaching English at the university and is involved with the work of the church here too. |  |
| Amy and her friend Tamara. |  |
| Amy with her brothers; Christian on the left and Josiah on the right. |  |
| Amy with Milan and his son, Filip. |  |
| Amy and Martina. Martina lives on the coast, and shortly after this a few of us travelled down to see her there. We swam, sunbathed and ate mussels. |  |
| Amy with Gordana and Sonja. |  |
| Most people arrived fashionably late, but a few of us got there unfashionably early, and hence were able to have a group photo before we lost the light. |  |
| Me and Amy. Yes, the guy with the suit and no hat - that's me. My image consultant told me the hat wouldn't go with my otherwise smart outfit. Some have suggested this was because said consultant was afraid that the hat would draw attention off herself on her big night. This theory is backed up by the fact that she subsequently wore the hat for pretty much the whole of the rest of my visit. |  |
| Amy and Maša. You can't tell because they cancel each other out, but they're both wearing heels. |  |
| Me and Amy again, but in monochrome. Arty? Maybe, but I just did it to cover the fact that the focus was a bit iffy on these ones. |   |
| Inside the restaurant. |  |
| Maša and I. Surrounded by smiling people, flowers and piles of meat and cheese, I was a very happy chap. |  |
| Speaking of smiling people, here's the one that ended up seated next to me. Isn't she lovely? |  |
| Amy and Fil. With a Josiah in the background. |  |
| Apparently the hat goes well with dresses, anyway. |  |
| The evening wouldn't have been complete without the company of Emmeline, Amy's adopted kitten. |  |
| If you look closely you'll see that my champagne glass is completely empty. We took so many pictures before we managed to produce the slick sophisticated look you see before you now, and by the time we were done I'd inadvertently drained the whole glass. Oops. |  |
| As you may have gathered from the last few photos, we returned to the house for what I suppose you might call the afterparty, with bubbly and some amusing displays of childhood photographs. |  |
| This is a picture taken after the festivities were over. Can you spot the difference? |  |
| We made a number of trips to the top of Trebjesa, the nearest hill overlooking Nikšić. |  |
| Pete took Fil, Buba (Maša's sister), Amy and myself to look for Ledena Pećina, or Ice Cave, which at this point we still naively believed to be, as the guide book said, a mere 3 hour trek up the mountain. |  |
| Some time after this trek, Amy was reading to me from a Patrick McManus book which deals very humorously with many topics related to the outdoors life. If only I had discovered him earlier I would have recognized this innocent interest in local flora by Buba as a clever ploy to secure extra rest breaks. I'm not sure where the two pairs of glasses, neither of which are being looked through, come into the ruse, though. |  |
| We passed the owner of this (or a similar) shack on the mountains beside his flock, and I answered his stream of foreign words with a well-honed knowing smile and a hefty chunk of my own Montenegrin vocabulary (didn't take long). It afterwards was explained to me by those of the party familiar with the language (ie, everyone else), that he had actually been telling me jovially that he intended to beat me with a stick. This is something of a simplification of the situation, but it will do as a warning to foreign visitors. |  |
| We stopped for lunch just before the rise which we confidently expected hid our longed-for ice cave. A couple of hours after this, we passed some people who had just come from the cave, and assured us it wouldn't take us more than an hour to reach it. I wouldn't describe our youthful party as slothful by any stretch of the imagination, but that 3 hour trek took us 5 and a half hours in the end. |  |
| Amy does a very good job modelling the new big sunglasses and hat look while we catch our breath. |  |
| The mountain in the background is named Glava, or Head due to its resemblance to a face. Not a very pretty face, I grant you, but it's a bit of rock - what do you expect? |  |
| Here it is at last - the entrance to Ledena Pećina. The snowy sloped entrance took some getting down, but compared to the 35 degrees temperature outside it was gloriously cold at the bottom. |  |
| Me and Amy, about to make our descent. We took a tip from Good King Wenceslas and shared footprints, treading thou in them boldly (and yes, the winter's rage did freeze our blood less co-oldly). |  |
| Resembling oddly-shaped tailor's dummies, these ice stalagmites were constantly growing by virtue of the icy water continually dripping from the roof of the cave. |  |
| The thinker. Only with chilly feet and a sunburnt neck. |  |
| The not-thinker. With chilly feet and an even chillier neck. |  |
| Amy was in her element (well, one of them - the human body is made up of 70% water) among these natural ice sculptures. |  |
| Despite her warm smile, Amy's new friend was determined to play it cool. And it was slightly rude of him to return my shirt in such a damp cold state. |  |
| Now this is art. Note how the inanimate chunk of frozen water is looking beyond the picture? We can't see what Stalag might be looking at (sorry). Perhaps the artist is telling us that columns of ice know something we don't... |  |
| I don't think this is what is usually meant by the expression 'giving someone the cold shoulder'. In case you were distracted by the beautiful young lady beside me (I know I was), that's a frozen waterfall in the background. |  |
| I couldn't say for sure, but I have a feeling we were either in a mosh pit or a pulpit. How often do you hear someone say that? |  |
| We were a little more chummy by this time, but he still wouldn't speak. It's hard to make small-talk in these kinds of situations - as an Englishman we tend to resort to the weather, but by virtue of the fact that he existed it was a fairly safe bet that it had been raining directly above him for as long as he could remember. |  |
| An ever-present hazard in these places - If you get too engrossed in looking at the floor with your head under a drip, you might find yourself cocooned in ice before you can say "what month is this?" |  |
| If you wait long enough, you get your shoes cleaned and your hair washed. |  |
| It's not everybody who would be able to detect signs of water from a bare rock face, but I have an eye for these things... |  |
| Most mornings were given over to work, and I was called upon to put together a bunch of makeshift lockers, shelf units and boxes. |  |
| Amy took me to visit her Serbian teacher, Anna, her husband, Ratko (Anna's, not Amy's), and their charming baby Darja. |  |
| I sometimes envy my hat's easy social skills. I may feel left behind, but I don't begrudge it going on ahead. |  |
| On the beach during our visit to Martina's. Anthony played 'Amy' for 16 points, but there were some present who felt it constituted a proper noun, and the game never really got off the ground. |  |
| Some of the more permanent shelves I built (note the upgraded attire for the occasion), these were built from painstakingly glued together off-cuts of maple, planed and cut to size and finally laquered. For this project I depended heavily on Christian's assistance and expertise with the various bits of workshop equipment. |  |
| As only one of two Britishers who attended this 4th July celebration at the house of a US official (the other was a pipe-smoking, shorts-wearing ambassador), I feel compelled to poke fun and mock our American cousins. Naturally I tried to keep this mockery to an acceptable volume during the festivities, but I couldn't help getting a snap of the welcoming decorations. |  |
| Actually, apart from the balloons, the festivities were decidedly good fun. Here's an action shot of Vicki playing Wiffle Ball (some variation on rounders, as far as I could tell). I include it mainly in order to surreptitiously slip into my description the fact that, immediately after taking this photo, I caught the very ball you see hurtling (well, wiffling) through the air towards you. |  |
| The festivities rounded off with a poker tournament. Luckily I had spent the previous evening being reminded of the rules by a previous poker champion (pictured below with a small lizard), so all that remained was to put the finishing touches to my outfit, designed to go with my hoped-for nickname of Two-pair Tony... |  |
| Don't tell her American friends, but this young lady won 8 bottles of wine at a previous tournament, held in the US embassy. Pictured here with a baby lizard, to the trained eye it's clear that she's already begun the psychological game even before the chips are down, practising her innocent face. |  |
| From this vantage point on the top of Trebjesa you can look out over the mountains and glimmering lights of Nikšić. Or you can turn your back on it and grin at the girl holding the camera. |  |
| On your left you see the beautiful wooden counter built by a local cabinet maker, and on your right you see Josiah. With a pot on his head. |  |
| Emmeline was never allowed on the table. Except, it seems, when she cleverly hid in a plant pot. |  |
| Late one night we were disturbed by the sound of running water, and raced up to the attic to discover a sizeable waterfall in one corner. It transpired that the builders who had been working on the chimney had removed a few tiles, and didn't replace them before the storm hit. A few minutes and an improvised drainage system later, we had successfully removed or absorbed most of the water, and the next day Christian and I clambered out onto the roof to replace the offending tiles. |  |
| Our house was the highest building for miles around. I didn't end up using any of the nails in my mouth or the hammer on my belt, but they all help to make one feel workmanlike. |  |
| From beside the chimney stack, you can see the platform the builders had been working on, and the yard below. |  |
| Where thy hammock is, there your heart will be also. Slung underneath the platform that Andy and I began the year before, I again slept in a hammock during my stay. This year I brought three with me, and left them behind. Particularly in comparison to a concrete floor, they were greatly appreciated by the team from Baltimore who came towards the end of my visit. |  |
| Emmy was really quite fond of this, and indeed many, empty receptacles. |  |
| Once containing some sort of sign, this empty frame now provides a window onto, well, the background. Which, augmented in this case by Amy and Zorka, tends to be Montenegro's answer to stone henge. |  |
| Not exactly dressed for the occasion, we took a break from the daily toil to learn some swing dancing. |  |
| Soon after the Baltimoreans arrived we took them for a tour of the town. |  |
| We stopped at the fountain to explain that the thing in the middle was obviously a swan. |  |
| The old joke of putting someone's shoes on the swan would have been funnier if a) I hadn't got completely soaked in the process and b) I hadn't given in and retrieved the shoes myself. |  |
| Americans will be Americans, howsoe'er far they roam. I wonder if the locals suspected they might be "not from round 'ere" (yes, in Montenegro they speak Yorkshire). |  |
| We couldn't show them the sights of Nikšić without a group photo beneath King Nikola's statue. That's him at the top, just out of shot. |  |
| I don't doubt there are more elegant ways of demonstrating the move known as 'the flagpole'. I've seen some myself, in fact. But considering this is me, I'm quite chuffed. |  |
| Unlike England's Stonehenge, this one not only allows tourists free entry, but encourages climbing. |  |
| Dan and I, posing dramatically against the hot July sun. |  |
| What could be more dramatic than dangling by your fingertips from an outcrop of rock? Except maybe having a 1000ft drop below you.... |  |
| Amy, surveying her kingdom. |  |
| The ground was stony and littered with broken glass, so naturally Amy required carrying. After all, she was wearing shoes, and I was barefoot. |  |
| Aside from its regular inhabitants, including goats, puppies and frogs, Amy and I often graced the banks of this delightful little stream with our respective presences, reading to one other from such romantic books as Jerome K Jerome's 'Three Men in a Boat'. |  |
| Rosie, one of the Baltimore team, sporting the latest in head adornment. My visit and the team's only overlapped by about a week, so I didn't really get to know most of them as well as I might have liked. For instance, just about all I can tell you about this young lady is that she's the daughter of a cobbler, and hence likes the smell of the lacquer we used on the shelves! |  |
| Now this girl I got to know slightly better. Don't be fooled by this picture - she's more independent than her slavish imitation of my flower choice makes her appear. |  |
| This young lady had a somewhat detrimental effect on the attention of listeners during the sermon. It's not that she makes a noise, but she looks at you in a way that dares you not to make silly faces at her. |  |
| Maša with Darja. |  |
| Mili, Amy's little sister, and Anđela, Maša's little sister, with Darja. |  |
| Amy with Darja. |  |
| Dan, me, Amy, Chris and Mili, socializing after church. If Mili looks somewhat lower than the rest of us, it's because she's hiding from someone (quite effectively, as it happened). |  |
| During the last few days of my visit Christian celebrated his 16th birthday. |  |
| In an epic struggle of wills, I finally caved and pressed the button on the camera before Dan collapsed from exhaustion. |  |
| Drew, the leader of the Baltimore team, taking a well-earned break. We had spent a large chunk of the morning digging a trench in front of the house (that's the shallow, barely visible line that you probably can't see). We each learnt a few things - Drew discovered that a pitch-fork and a pick-axe are two different things, and I discovered that energetically hacking at rocks and dust rapidly fills ones shoes with pebbles and dirt. |  |
| Dan out of shot, Stan beside him, Liesl, George and then Luke (Dan's brother) on the ladder, we were passing bundles of roofing tiles up into the loft space above the workshop where a proper roof was being isntalled. |  |
| The workshop roof. |  |
| These California girls seem to have an insatiable appetite for creepy-crawlies. |  |
| Luke found this rather chubby lizard, and thoughtfully brought it back to the picnic spot in his hat. Where it was promptly mistaken for a pickle and eaten. I made that last bit up. |  |
| Amy and Maša. I think they may have been observing a somewhat unorthodox race between Dan and Stan. This race, which you have been spared photographic evidence of, involved the lads lying on their bellies and attempting to propel themselves down the hill at an alarming rate. |  |
| Picnic consisted of meat and cheese sandwiches, lots of 'chipsy's, and a variety of fizzy drinks. We also contrived to introduce some of the Baltimoreans to Take Five, that wondrous poker variant invented by yours truly during my first visit. |  |
| This picnic and jollity was in my honour - at least, my leaving was the excuse for it - and it took place at Vućek, a nearby mountain. We spent some time foraging for wile strawberries, and then I discovered this delightful tree, with an equally (if not more so) delightful Amy at its base. |  |
| There's only one safe way to descend from trees, and that's headfirst. |  |
| Anđela put together a modest bouquet of flowers for her mother. |  |
| Someone had the bright idea of freezing the water bottles before we left. Granted, the water was deliciously cool when you finally got some, but it melted at a rate of 10ml/minute. |  |
| The watermelon was an equally good idea. At least, it would have been if we'd remembered to eat it. Still, what can't be eaten can always be carved into a face and carried on one's shoulder, as they say. |  |
| Poor Anđela managed to twist her ankle on the way down, so my services as person-courier were called for once again. |  |
| Kate (Drew's wife), Chris, Maša, Amy and me. This was a celebratory meal given by Rada (Maša's mum) when she graduated. Also my last night, we sat out under the cherry trees whose fruit we had so dilligently plucked the previous week and tasted the cherry liqueur thereof. |  |
| I believe it was Drew's idea, and armwrestling Dan wasn't something I had exactly been looking forward to. I never expected to win, and as a result I may have gone a bit overboard with the trash-talk. Which made it look all the more cruel when I beat him. England 1, America 0. I reserve the right to withold the score of the subsequent match between myself and Chris. |  |
| On the last night we returned from the Simunovices to find news of a puppy across the road. Mustering my month's language resources I tentatively had a stab at Montenegro's equivalent of "lemme see", "da vidim", and before you could say "Ooh! It's a ickle puppy! Innit sweet?" I was being introduced to a small dog who, by his droopy-eyed expression, should have been in bed hours ago. |  |
| Simply adorable. And with a cute little puppy, too. |  |
| The Baltimorean lads took up residence in or below hammocks slung above the mezzanine floor below which I still lived. Once the population of the attic increased by half a dozen or so it became quite the place to be. Quiet reading in the hammock began to be replaced by all-hours ping pong. One morning I tumbled out of my hammock to find a couple of them playing table tennis for first use of the shower. I was in and out before they finished the game. |  |
| In the afternoons we got some Round The Table going. This was made more interesting by the precariously stacked wood and boxes artfully placed nearby. |  |
| Whoever wasn't playing at the time frequently observed from either the mezzanine above or the hammock. Emmy was particularly fond of the hammock. |  |
| The house boasts a number of instruments, from the standard piano and guitar to the obscure hammer dulcimer, and playing together made for a very pleasant diversion. |  |
| Hailing from America and England respectively, Amy and I both had books which we thought the other really ought to hear, and while I read Robert Benchley in a no doubt amusingly English accent she read James Herriot in a delightfully non-Yorkshire voice. And when our own nations ran out we turned to Italy's Don Camillo and England's Hawk and the Dove (yes, I know I'm from England, but that was one of hers that I'd never heard of). |  |
| The
last night before my 9 o'clock flight went faster than I remember
nights going before. Despite not going to bed. In fact,
shortly after 6am we took a walk along the railway and caught the
sunrise. I have a feeling Montenegro will be seeing a lot more of me in years to come. But for now, vidimo se! |
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