I stroll down to the little supermarket to buy a bottle of water and three bannanas. These are my rations for later as I decide to go for an off road ride today up into the hills. I mount my bike and set off through the hills. It isnt long before two dogs decide they want to start chasing me. I get worried as they get very close and I dont want their heads to get caught in my back wheel as it would damage it. I turn back and check my map. There are little villages dotted up in the other hill's so I decided to go and ride through them. After an hour of riding I noticed a swelling of clouds heading in a North West direction which is the direction of Divin. So I raced back. Within twenty minutes of parking my bike up in the back garden the rain came. It was so excited it just could not wait until tonight.
Helena has a large, covered back porch which overlooks her garden. I sat there in my favourite wicker chair. I decided to turn my hand back to whittling wood which I quite enjoy as I brought a couple of whittling knives with me. Hours passed by until I realised how terrible I was at it and put it to one side. I sit back and relax. I have never been one to get bored easily, and even more so I hate to say the phrase "im bored". I have always found it annoying being out with a group of people and when the atmosphere softens someone say's their bored. Can't they just be? Relax the mind, the body will follow and just enjoy the nothingness. Maybe those that are bored quickly have a short attention span or are not able to entertain themselves with their own thoughts... perhaps this is because they have nothing interesting to think about!
I sit for an hour or so in my wicker chair watching the rain. Im content. I think of that quote I read long ago
Your true traveller find's boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty. His excessive freedom. He accept's his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically but almost with pleasure
Aldous Huxley
I take satisfaction in this and at the same time I have at the back of my mind a feeling that something will come along. Just relax and wait for it.
Sure enough ten minutes later, the next door neighbour Luda pop's her head over the fence. Luda live's next door to Helena and she has been very kindly cooking me breakfast and feeding me randomly for the last three morning's. Luda is standing there in the pouring rain with two umbrella's. She points at me then at herself. She motions with her finger's a walking movement and then say's the word "cafe". My point exactly!
I slip on my flip flops, roll up my jeans and off we plod down the hill to the village in the pouring rain.
I must be able to speak maybe four or five words of Slovakia ńot including swear words and can not speak any english at all. However we have fun and laugh alot walking to the village. We learn eachother's age's, name's, that she has a son Michael who has worked in London for the last five years and his age, that she is a nurse and works in a hospital in neighbouring Lucenec, how I know Jan, Helena and my relationship with Rusty and so on. Despite language barrier's, a lot can be said with hand expressions, nodding and drawing pictures with your fingers!
It turn's out that her husband Stephan and her actually own the cafe that she has brought me to. Im quickly seated and made a large coffee and given cake. They wont let me pay for anything either. I finish my coffee and cake and spend some time discussing football with Stephan which of course I know nothing about and again he doesn't speak English so he can't tell. After me and Luda walk back over to the supermarket so she can do a little shopping. I carry it all back to her house for her where she invites me in and we go through her photo albums. She gives me a massive chunk of watermelon as a parting gift.
A few hour's later, the rain has stopped, the sun is shinning, im still sitting in my wicker chair, but this time im spitting watermelon seed's into the grass. I am content. The art of taking it easy...
That evening I decide to take a stroll back to the village, I go to my pizza restaurant and after to the supermarket to get supplies plus I want to see the supermarket women as I have been spending a bit of time in there. The women working in there remind me of school dinner ladies and that's how I refer to them. Everytime I go in I ask them random and simple questions, sometime's even question's that I know the answer to, just to make conversation. After 3 day's it has paid off. I am now one of them, I am now a dinner lady. I walk in and it's all "Allo's!!!" as it is late and there are no customer's we all gather round a till and chat, I have no idea what about as we dont understand eachother at all but again the hands and laughter does all of the talking. One of the dinner ladies grabs a packet of crisps from the shelf and we crack them open and pass them around... when a customer comes in, the secret crisps get hidden and we all go quiet like school kids... until they leave and then all of a sudden the place erupts in laughter. Actually I think I'll go see how their doing....
