A week as a tourist

This week: A week as a tourist; Home maintenance; A letter to the Chief;

The heat continues!

Usually by the start of September, our summer heat has begun to mellow. But not this year…

Today as I write this, it is just a fraction under 35°C, however there is a pleasant breeze which makes the temperature bearable. But the sun is still strong and burns.

This summer the heat has been relentless and debilitating. As the days shorten it will cool and I know I am not alone in looking forward to the change.

There are seasonal changes taking place though. In the orchard this week I noticed that one of my plum trees which had lost most of its leaves has begun to grow new ones. But not only leaves, there is blossom too.

Climate breakdown is real and is affecting the natural world and we are seeing only a part of the changes. There will be a lot happening which is out of our sight.

I have lost another shrub this week. A Kerria japonica, Japanese Rose, has been looking unhappy. It has been in a sheltered spot and I have been giving it water.

However despite my TLC, this week the last green shoot has turned brown and died.

Dol is geographically just above 40° North latitude, which is considered the limit of the tropical regions, but being an island surrounded by the warm Adriatic Sea, we don’t get low winter temperatures.

Last winter I didn’t record a single minute of temperatures below 0°C. The eleven day average was around +10°C from mid December until mid January.

So we are not in the temperate zone either. There are some plants which just cannot tolerate the endless weeks of high temperatures and the lack of rainfall.

 

A week as a tourist

Friends from Abu Dhabi have been here since Tuesday, so I have spent much of the week doing “tourist” type things.

Getting up at 6 am to irrigate the orchards before the heat of the day means my normal breakfast is some muesli, fruit, occasionally Granola and then on to the next job.

It has been a nice change to go out and actually have a breakfast outside.

One morning we went to Konoba Belina in Milna.

This is a new venture by the family. For €13 per person, there is a breakfast buffet, but with personal touches. You can order eggs how you like them, enjoy pancakes, French toast, a hot croissant straight from the oven, washed down with your preferred breakfast beverage.

Plates of fresh fruit from their garden and orchard, figs, grapes, citrus and fresh local cheeses and meats compete for space on the sideboard.

The lunch and dinner menu makes a feature of home grown and locally sourced vegetables, fish and meats. Definitely a place deserving of regular visits.

Set overlooking the harbour, tables have wonderful views of the boats and the Adriatic.

There are not enough restaurants like this on the island.

Then it was on to Grad Hvar and a tour of the 16th century Spanish Fort, before returning via the old road along the Limestone Ridge of the island.

Another visit was to the 17th Century fortified house of Philosopher and Merchant Petra Hektorovića in Stari Grad. A perfect place to escape from the heat of the town.

I have to admit that most of the time I try and avoid the tourists. Just sometimes it does one good to see the place where you live through the eyes of a tourist.

Home maintenance

The new safety valve I ordered for my solar water tank arrived this week.

Even with ⅔ of the heating tubes covered, the water temperature inside the tank has been exceeding 95°C, causing the safety valve to lift.

When the valve lifts, water comes out and as it evaporates, it leaves behind calcium carbonate deposits.

Our water is very “hard”, with huge amounts of dissolved minerals.

Several times a year I have to remove the valve to descale it, but it reached the point this summer where I couldn’t descale it any more. The valve has been in place for eight years.

So as soon as the new valve arrived from the manufacturers, I was up on the roof to replace it.

I will leave the covers in place until the weather starts to cool to keep he internal water temperature below boiling point.

There are always a multitude of jobs to do around the home.

A letter to the Chief

I was sent a copy of a letter which had been to the Chief Constable this week. This has been doing the rounds of police HQ, while people tried to find the answer.

It was a request to help with genealogy, where someone was trying to trace a relative who had been in the Special Constabulary in 1933.

Now this is not one of my areas of expertise, so I have spent many indoor hours trying to find some answers.

Few police personnel records from 90 years ago exist. Even fewer from the voluntary force exist, so it has been an interesting week.

I think that with the help of others, I now have as complete an answer as I can get.

There are still a couple of loose ends I need to tie up, but I think I can draft up a suitable answer for the Chief’s Office to send in reply.

I now have a much greater understanding of the Special Constabulary and have drafted a short history of the organisation, to save others having to read Acts of Parliament from two hundred or more years ago…

So all in all, it has been a productive, if non-standard week. NCG