Day 48. Keep calm and carry on

It's taken lots of cups of tea, soothing music and deep breathing to quieten my anxieties this evening. 

 After an early morning whizz round Dubrovnik old town which, like Zadar, had a map showing where shells had fallen during the war, I set off along the coast.  The cycling was ok, though a bit up and down, but for various reasons  I was lacking in positive energy this afternoon. It could have been the plethora of bad news from home or just general uncertainty about where I was going. 

I had completely forgotten about the Montenegran border until it just appeared as I walked up yet another hill. Actually that turned out to be Croatian border: the other was found half a mile of very scrubby road later where a classic border guard straight out of central  casting  appeared, fag in mouth, to inspect my passport. 'Ah, Norvich,' he read. 'In Premiere League for two seasons. Who is now trainer for Norvich?' 

Long pause. I pleaded ignorance, grabbed my passport and legged it into his country to search for a room.

God knows -again! - how I found it but, after a lot of walking around and playing with my phone, as the sky was getting dark with rainclouds and I getting annoyed with the world, I eventually went back to a place I'd looked at earlier and rang the other bell - at which an old geezer popped his head round the corner: 'Jony?'. Phew! 

Time for soothing tea on a rather nice balcony from where I can almost touch an orange tree and a grapefruit tree. Two feet to my right is a little bush of those small, edible oranges; above me are hanging lots of (unripe) passion fruits and there's plenty of olive trees in the area. It was only in the last 10k or so that I noticed definite signs of better soil and attempts to farm it: small vineyards, olive nets under the trees and even a couple of cows!

Clouds coming in. Looks like it might be raining for the trip to Bar tomorrow: keep calm and carry on Jony!