Today it is hard to imagine that the peaceful valley of Sutjeska, at the eastern rim of Hercegovina, was once the setting for one of the bloodiest battles of the second world war. Josep Broz Tito, then the charismatic leader of just a few, hopelessly outnumbered brigades of partisans, but who eventually would prevail …
Category Archives: Travel
Street art (and dirty clothes) in Mostar
After a week on the road, it was time to get some of my limited supply of clothes washed. As it turned out, there was no laundry near Lučki Most and a half an hour walk, covering the length of the city was required to get to a laundry that was open on a …
Bread and Rosewater
Once again I was back in Mostar, once again I was lucky to stay at Brajlovic’s white house with its beautiful garden near Lucki Most and once again I was torn between two mistresses…. Let me explain. “Brajla” is the undisputed champion of breakfast in Bosnia. In his garden right in the centre of the …
The Bridge over the Drina
It is not so common that a building, even more so a bridge, is the main protagonist of a novel. Before embarking on a second trip to Bosnia, I thought it a good idea to familiarise myself with the writing from this part of the world and what better way then to start with …
Salt is the sea that could not return to the sky
The left kidney looked huge… In fact it measured just over three times the length of the second lumbar vertebra and my mind was made up : this dog had a problem….. Pete Mantis, the embodiment of the Greek enjoyment of life, a character that might just have jumped out of a Nikos Kazantzakis …
Continue reading “Salt is the sea that could not return to the sky”
Pet Insurance
I had noticed it for a couple of days, but had tried to ignore it. When passing her bed, there was a sour odour in the part of the entrance hall, where she was sleeping. That her food was left untouched wasn’t anything unusual – she had always been a reluctant eater, but now …
Too late to ski, too soon to run….
It had been a quiet day at the clinic – just a couple of spays and no consults this morning. A recent publication on Anthrax in beast and man, which I had read to while away the time, had been less than stimulating – just a nasty bugger of a disease you would hope …
Hamburg
The conversation with Ebeling wasn’t planned, nor was the encounter with the Baroque interior inside a Lutheran church or finding a set of concert halls inside a Tsunami….but in Hamburg these things just seem to happen…. I met Ebeling outside Carl Feddersen’s Sea Shop, enjoying the rest of his cigarette. “Just go in, I …
Two remarkable men
Over the last few weeks, I have made the acquaintance of two remarkable men. Unfortunately both are no longer with us, but they left a deep impact on me. Let me tell you more about them….. It was just before Christmas and as I was not signed up for a shift at the …
Emergencies
At the end of a year, filled with travelling, with meeting so many inspiring new people, with working once again in new places and with new teams, something I couldn’t have imagined when setting out on this journey five years ago, it was time for me to return to the UK and to open …
The Blue Vet Diary 