Mitigating the missing bits.

Was I saying something?   Were there questions?

The reason for going to all those places basically comes down to roots.   You see,  one of our visitors is Travelling Companion’s older brother.   It so happens that he was born in Austria.  I know!  Isn’t that crazy?   But no,  he’s not an Austrian citizen,  although I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.  He was quite young when the family emigrated to Canada in the fall of ‘51.   Travelling Companion was only a twinkle in her father’s eye at the time,  and she and the rest of the siblings were born in Canada.    Any more info than that will get me in trouble with the blogging police.   Trust me.

So naturally,  even though his birth and baptism was in Spittal an der drau in Austria,  the first order of business was a trip into Slovenia.  It’s a nice country.  I highly recommend it. 

My Slovenian is pretty weak,  and even I don’t feel like a complete foreigner there.   Mind you,  there have been times when I’ve been able to communicate in German with folks whose English is as weak as my Slovenian,  so I suppose there’s always that aspect.   See,  they were once part of the “Austro-Hungarian Empire”, in addition to which, the notion of learning German in school is still something that is part of most school curricula to this day.   There are a couple German speaking countries right next door after all.

 

 

As far as the trip was concerned,  there were a couple agendas at play.  Besides birth places to visit, such as Žužemberk,  where we lit a little candle thingy at one of the grave sites,  thus:

 

there was also a request to see the sea,  and the faint hope of finding a couple material stores so that Travelling Companion could add to her ever growing arsenal of fabric that she’s been collecting when the opportunity presents itself. 

 

You’ll notice there,  some material in these nifty storage containers that are available from IKEA?   Well, more storage was required,  so going to IKEA was on my agenda yesterday,  which was part of the reason why I couldn’t seem to come up with enough spare time to post anything.   That’s my story anyway.

 

 

It turns out that the fabric shop in Ljubljana had moved or was not to be found,  but we did find a place just outside of Bled that turned out to be a hidden gem. 

From a Canadian or North American point of view,  we found the location of this place to be a bit unusual.  If you go to their website, here,  you can see just how much fabric they have available. 

It was a good thing that the cousin in Sava had written down the address for us,  and even then,  it almost seemed like we were driving off into the countryside somewhere.   I do know I’ve encountered places like this in Ontario,  where you drive and drive thinking,  “This can’t be right”,  and then you come to some huge outlet that only the locals seem to know about.    In my case that would be some place that sells lumber or tools. 

No fabric for me.

By the way (and this took me a while to find again, as my memory had gone dim) the Wellbeck Sawmill comes to mind,  which is a not very short drive from our place in Burlington, Ontario.  I thought it cute that,  on their home page it even states,  “worth the short drive to…Wellbeck Sawmill”.   Right,  it was no short drive.  But MAN,  they had everything,  and now I’m glad that I found their website.  The last time I was there was back in the dark pre-internet days.   Good times.

 

 

If you didn’t happen to elect to go to the fabric store website,  that’s all fine and dandy,  as I did take at least a couple photos.

It seems that the concept of “zoning” isn’t really that big an issue in Slovenia,  since this place looked to be a house/property/whatever that had then been transformed into a retail outlet.   If you’re brave,  and willing to click on this link to a Google map,  you can get the idea that this place is in a tiny village,  not very close to any place where there would be traffic or “walk-in” business.   You either know about this place,  or you don’t.   That’s all there is to it.

 

There was lots of fabric to choose from.  Some of it really high quality stuff. 

Eventually though I meandered outside,  where I was more intrigued by the local surroundings.  

Bt the way,  that would be T.C.’s older brother off there having a look around.

 

See,  a nicely stickered pile of lumber is what gets my heart racing.  The whole fabric shop thing?  Meh.

There was the distinctive sound of a thickness planer to be heard from a place next door as well.  Also something that gets my head turning.

No pictures of the Dude milling some lumber though.  He was busy and I wasn’t about to bother the guy.  I’m never overly keen on someone wandering up my driveway and bugging me when I’m doing the same,  so why would I then be an annoyance to anyone else?  Just common woodworker courtesy as far as I’m concerned.

 

I was more intrigued with the cut outs on the side of the house next door that appeared to be “upside down”,  since I’m used to seeing hearts as cut-outs,  but the other way around.  I wasn’t sure what was going on there.

Teardrops perhaps?

We’ll never know.

The odd thing I suppose is,  I’ve by now become so used to seeing the Slovenian/Austrian style of houses,  that it’s only when I see something like this that I look on it as “unusual”.    It’s curious what we can get used to.

All in all I think I put an additional 1500 kilometres on the car by the time T.C. and I got back to Wienerland on Tuesday night.   We dropped off our two guests in Spittal an der Drau,  but that snippet will have to wait for another day. 

I need some lunch.

 

Keep those sticks on the ice.

 

Thanks for stopping in.

 

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