STRANGE EVENTS AT ST OSWALDS THIS EVENING

 AllBefore we pick up with the Croatia journey let me recount the last couple of hours. I received a telephone call from my fellow church warden Keith who lives some distance away. A couple of German monks had rocked up at church and made their way to the vicarage asking if the could stay either at Jane's or in the church. They have little trailers they haul and appeared to be genuine-ish. They couldn't understand why it would be a problem to stay overnight in our building that still has no functional toilet, washing facilities and must be locked for insurance purposes. Jane has a family, we are only days after a bombing in Manchester and we have no details of their mission, they seemingly have been on the road for 5 years but for what end? Anyway both Keith and I agreed that we'd find them a B&B to stay in standing the cost and setting them up with a meal or at least fish and chips. We are collecting them from Middlewich in the morning and bringing them back to St Oswalds to collect the rest of their possessions What a strange Sunday evening just as we were about to have dinner..

Martin sent a message that he had managed to get on an Air Croatia flight to London this morning, I've no idea how he spent the night although we had comfy seats in the lounge and unlimited spirits and wine, I never saw any beer though. Some ice cream would have been nice I'm sure but perhaps not available at the tiny airport.

Anyway back to the trip, the day before our epic bus journey to Sarajevo we made an equally, well almost, journey by bus from Zagreb to Osijek where we had stayed at many years ago just after the war. Our hotel then was covered in bullet holes which surrounded the window to our room. The second city of Croatia it looked down at heel as far as the many people who seemed to have no work but the place had been greatly tidied up and the trams looked a lot better than the spasmodic workings back in the day. All the Pan Tourist buses are actually Arriva whether plain white or in livery, bus or coach.