Sitting in the sun, drinking ice cold lager from weighty glass tankards has the result of making me extremely weary, through no fault of my own I may add aside from the propensity to enjoy a cold beer to keep me hydrated and there fore alive in this scorchio resort, in point of fact also a waiter just swiped away my final few drags on my cigarette whom I will be forever indebted to as he lends me an extra 5 minutes of life. I could probably squeeze in an extra half in that case.

We travelled to the beautiful coastal harbour village of Mlini yesterday, where contemporary rectangular glassy fronted apartments cling to the rugged rocky cliffs, steps leading down to the turquoise waters of the Adriatic ( I think) The sea was cleaner here than in Obud, marginally, but warmer and having not got myself a subbed spent the day mainly uncomfortable on metal slatted restaurant chairs watching the sea gulls cannibalise (Literally) the bones of their distant chicken cousins when the diners left for further sunbathing. The harbour waters boiling with somersaulting jumping kids off the protective massive harbour walls, a barrier of millennia against the tides and the lapping Croatian seas.The cafes and water side restaurants humming like a Lord’s crowd except for the cheers and jeers of the football crowds, of which I am sometimes one, sadly now Leicester have dropped down a league the opportunity existing for foreign watching has lessened. We left, me hot and bored, salt sticky and damp. The taxi driver knowledgeable and happy to be playing Dire Straits, he cited the finest guitar solo to be in the “Sultans of Swing” the main part of the song apparently leading up to the last 8 seconds, the final crescendo. Now in his mind the greatest guitar player to have lived was Mark Knopfler, and he poo-pooed Hendrix and Page as good but different class, he cited ACDC, I spoke about Slash from GnR, whose skill and adeptness I can see but whose music I don’t enjoy particularly. So the Jury’s still out, and I’m right, Knopfler is not the greatest String-Smith of all time. So we left; a brief sojourn to Obud for paddle boarding.

Mrs T took a seat in a beachfront bar with her all consuming book, and me and the kids set off for a 1/2 hour paddle boarding into the inky blue stained seas leading up to sunset, a slash of golden diamond from horizon to beach. We three heroes took up 3 paddle boards; 2 sporty one not, one hopelessly under inflated, 3 useless paddles broken or unadjustable, so a fine way to set to sea. Mrs T lost us as we were taken round the corner out of the bay by the wind rather than Judgement or any sort of skill. The skills really stood out when the two kids chose to perform somersaults on their boards before unceremoniously being dumped into the ever increasingly choppy waters aided by evening trippers. My son made a real splash literally dropping his paddle and his dignity, and not seeing it sink rapidly to the sea bed, to rest in reeds more than 5 metres below. Unretrievable due to an ear injury sustained by Ranjit Singh “Expert Good Ear Cleaner” whilst innocently sunbathing on Anjuna Beach in Goa over 30 years ago, which prevents me from diving any further than 2 meters down, he chased me for days demanding 10 rupees for the inconvenience, the shit, i’d punch him in the mouth if I ever saw him again. But we lost a paddle my son didn’t have goggles and my daughter was wary of the beasts living in the reeds, so like so many other trinkets who find theirselves in a similarly watery grave. With that i’l. give to you a lucrative business opportunity: Underwater metal detectorists (is that a thing?) anyway I see myself as a latter-day Dragon from Dragons den with half baked ideas and no costings so knock yourselves out. 

Next problem was to sneak back to shore, A sandwiched between myself and M, paddling with hands stealthily hugging the bay’s edge under the fading light. Alighting the shore M took the paddles, shrouded by me strategically holding the paddle board to cover her as she dumped the paddles with the rest of the bad machines. Mission accomplished. Serves them right for providing shoddy tools.