Hello from Slovenia! I’ve been out here with Eppu for almost 3 weeks now. She’s working quite hard, and I’m just relaxing and exploring the area. The old town area of Ljubljana is really pleasant – fancy architecture, willow-lined river, cobbled streets and cafés everywhere – and our flat is in a quiet district right just on the edge. The centre is 10 minutes walk in one direction and wooded hills and open farmland 10 minutes cycle in the other.

We’ve been out into the country a couple of times: last weekend one of Eppu’s colleagues kindly invited us to climb a local hill with her and four of her lively children, and yesterday I chauffeured Eppu and another colleague to a conference handily located in an ancient thermal spa. I went wandering in the woods while Eppu fought for Older People’s rights. Up in the hills I found the old wartime headquarters of the Slovenian Communist Party when they were partisans fighting the Italian and then German occupation. It just looks like a bunch of huts in rocky hollows in the woods, but they managed to keep it hidden for years. The makeshift hospital deep in the next wooded valley was isolated all winter, in case a stray footprint in the snow gave away the secret location.