28-IX-2020.
(... 114 words...) We still have sand in the yard, from the works done upstairs in 2013, but that's full of cat shit and other biomass. We brought fresh sand from Klincaid last week. The guy where majstor Mile bought half a cubic of it loaded a whole cubic for free, so we were left with a heap in the yard. I brought it into the still room there (now mostly useless, I keep the spades etc in there now - the rake and the old spade were stolen already), just in case.
On 24th, end of rakija season, we cooked the last few batches. In the end, the year wasn't too bad. Most of the rakija was tutifruti, with lots of vineyard peach in it, and some grape, plum, plus an odd pear, apple. BTW, in serbian, the rakija is not cooked, it's roasted.
The cats. Now without the great matriarch, we have Johan, who is mostly absent, or absent most of the day on most of the days. Comes to eat. Then the Green jr, whom I haven't seen for a few weeks now. She still comes from time to time. I guess she's somewhere in the wider neightborhood. Then the Gray, who is now the matriarch and fills the duty of main cat. Two kittens from Green, almost fully grown now, fathered by Johan (yup, cats don't know how to spell incest), almost identical twins, Jimmy and Darko, and two small ones by Gray - one of them gray and fuzzy as a lamb. They're both short and stubby, not long-legged like the rest of the dynasty. So we're practically down to five, some meals six.
She used to add stuff to their granules - sometimes the cheapest pašteta, sometimes canned sardines, which she'd find in one very cheap small shop near the community center, or whatever leftovers there would be from our meals or things off the meat that we don't eat (which isn't much, there's precious little that we throw away).
Nina is setting up an aquarium in her room. Last week we went across town to buy it from a local pro, who knows just about everything on the matter, and actually manufactures them, has the proper pebbles etc. The little cabinet on which it will stand is from 1979, and it being particle board, we just couldn't trust it to hold 70kg of water and glass on the puny screws it has, but instead picked three planks from our stock, cut them to size, smoothed them (we still have the tools) and laid them on top of it, so the weight lies on the sides, not on the middle of the top surface. On top of it, 5cm of styrofoam, wrapped in cloth so it wouldn't crumble, specially as it is endangered by the twins' little fingers. Then the acquarium itself. Then the package with plants arrived. Then a tiny snail grew out of the plants, probably some eggs were left. Then a few more. The little ecosystem is growing.
On 28th Nina and I went to Lidl first, then somewhere near Domaćin to buy stuff for it. While we took them inside at Lidl (Sanda sitting in the cart, Linda hanging on the rear side of it), at this pet shop I stayed with the girls in the car. They didn't complain much.
In the evening, we went to Dragana's for the 28th drinking session aka frendz parti. Speaking of Domaćin, she got an oval full of stuff that they brought (and will pick the oval back tomorrow). No photos this time, because I checked the eos70 before bringing it along, and the battery was dead. It's probably that extra battery that I bought with it, and it obviously didn't come from the same source as the one inside it. The original makes 800 shots between recharges; this one started at around 600 four years ago, and now came down to 300, then 50, and then I saw it had a wee drop of liquid somewhere at the seam, ergo dead. Having a spare battery makes sense if you plan to shoot several hundred shots while away somewhere, and don't expect to have the time to recharge. Then it makes sense. Otherwise, keeping a charged battery in reserve doesn't make sense, because it will discharge by just sitting out the time it takes to use up the other one. When the one in use gets empty, the spare is also empty. So OK, I'll live with one battery from now on.
We did take some shots - she pulled out her old camera from ten or more years ago, briefly recharged its battery, and we managed to get something like three shots. I still haven't seen them, and so I don't know which rakija it was, perhaps one of tutifruti denomination.
We were at home by 3:00.
Mentions: Domaćin, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), eos70, frendz parti, Klincaid, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor Mile, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pašteta, rakija, Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), tutifruti, in serbian
3-X-2020 - 25-III-2026