Those Slovenian wild cats

So, over here at the sports desk, what do we think about America winning the soccer world cup? Well, come on, who on earth really needs that to happen? Slovenia eventually winning it? Hm, better. Although my pick would be North Korea, the ultimate outsiders in this tournament, good enough to go toe-to-toe with Brazil and actually look like they had a chance. Who had they been training against, robots? The mind boggles.

Anyway.

As I have said before in so many words on this blog, I have a deep sentimental attachment to Slovenia, with its 18km of coastline, its tiny medieval capital and its even tinier coastal towns – like Piran.

“A postcard perfect town by the Adriatic sea. Think small but perfectly formed medieval, renaissance era town with terracotta roofs and whitewashed stone walls, surrounded by cypress tree covered hills and facing out onto a cobalt blue sea; a place of picturesque serenity…

It was in Istria; up from Venice on the fringes of Northern Italy and coastal Slovenia that the creative muses sang their loudest yet for this travelling pen-slinger. Late afternoon on a perfect, late summer’s day as Kiki and I pulled into the Piran with the (original) Italian Job soundtrack playing loudly in the rental car. It was on the second day eating lunch at one of the promenade oceanfront cafes with Kiki that I noticed one of them: A tough little tomcat who was moving swiftly underfoot from table to table, catching all the scraps of food – and there are many more than you might think; falling from plates and forks in the mess made by humanity at table. Kiki and I saw it all happening in slow motion for a long still moment and then our eyes did a slow pan across to another table where we both saw a second cat, occupied in the same trade, and equally as unhindered by interference as the first. Cat number two – whom I was already calling Felicia, was a sleek black cat that just had to have come from Italy. Cat number one, who was wild and a bit feral, must ergo be a Slovenian cat named Dragan.”

And so on it goes. A complete change of pace next, with another excerpt from my very much more adult-orientated fiction, Krakow Nights.