I lay awake for most of the night listening to rain battering the tiles on the roof - something which would've been wonderful had I been sleeping in a cottage in the rain forest somewhere. As it was, I spent at least three hours staring at the raindrops cascading down the window and inventing new curse words, before finally drifting off into a restless sleep which was interrupted quite unexpectedly at 8 o clock this morning by the sound of birds in the trees and ...

I awoke this morning at 6 o clock to the sound of exotic birds in the trees outside going bwark and cheep and nark-nark in that extraordinary way that birds do in national parks when there's nobody around to throw a shoe at them - it was one onomatopoeic forest out there this morning. I found it utterly delightful, in fact, after staying in built up areas for the last few weeks, to finally be able to open a window and look out on something other than a hundred th...

If you're planning on following in my footsteps and taking a bus from Trogir, Dubrovnik or Zagreb, I thoroughly recommend buying your ticket from the ticket office before boarding the bus, preferably a couple of hours in advance, as you can then enquire as to which platform to go to - something which quickly drills itself into your subconscious once you've got your head around the concept of bus platforms. Otherwise, you may well end up wandering around the bus s...