A cottage in one of the wildest and most beautiful areas of Europe during a long, freezing cold Winter. Life here is both a daily challenge and a great source of joy. I’m often asked why I live where I do, and in this short video I try to explain my reasoning. Traditional rural life […]

It’s again been a couple of months since I updated my blog, and quite a bit has happened. One reason I haven’t been posting often is that I’ve been focusing on making videos for my YouTube channel Carpathian Adventure. I’ve been procrastinating for a long time, and the adpocalypse (plus the major censoring) had me […]

This week Slovakia celebrated its independence from Communism. As it was a bank holiday, many traveled to the capital to protest the government’s lock down policies. Our little family instead made the 2-hour trip to Pieniny National Park, by the River Dunajec, to visit my wife’s father’s family home. We usually do this for All […]

Well, it’s been a strange couple of weeks. The week leading up to Hallowe’en, the Slovak government decided to lock down the country again and restrict travel. Out here this was a major thing because it coincided with one of the biggest religious festivals – Dušičky – All Saints’ Day. In Slavic countries, this is […]

I don’t know where the last 5 months went, since the start of the pandemic and quarantine, but the time has flown by. This Summer we had 3 continuous months of hard unrelenting rain which caused huge mould problems in the house. We occasionally had a warm couple of days, around 30 C, but nothing […]

Well, the weather sucks. We get the occasional bout of warm weather with pure blue sky followed by days of torrential rain (and I mean hardcore rain), hurricane winds and sub-zero night time temperatures. And we’re supposed to be in late Spring/early Summer. Two days after planting the tomatoes the temperature plummeted, and it looks […]

As soon as the world went like this: we packed up and bugged out to the village house. While we were planning to move there over Easter for the holidays, we decided to move early. This was both a plus and a minus as, while the house allows us more space and there’s less people […]

On January 31st, the opening to my latest art exhibition was held at Podduklianske gallery, Svidnik, Slovakia. The main focus was again on my art on animal skins. It was quite well attended, including by my father and step-mother as they came over for that and also my wife’s 50th birthday party. Because of her […]

Our lives out here are completely affected by the seasons and the various events and changes which happen within them, far more so than if we lived in an urban environment. Autumn brings with it the crazy rush to get wood in and prepared for winter, both day and night Red Deer stags cry out […]

This year started with multiple open casket funerals (with a few more interspersed throughout the year) – thankfully none of club members – but on the whole it was one of partying and travelling around the country to visit the numerous events hosted by other clubs. We also managed to improve our relations with the […]