Member-only story
Finding Peace On a Building Site: A Day in Zadar, Croatia
Day to day life on the road
I knew the builders would wake me up, but I wasn’t expecting singing. Hammering or drilling, maybe, but instead I’m woken by gentle singing as the young men stand on a raised platform as they pour piped concrete. I open the window to hear more, and smile as they turn their heads, to show I’m not annoyed at being woken up on a Saturday.
I give the crane a little smile, too. I call it Craney McCraneface, after Boaty McBoatface, the top choice in a poll to name a British polar scientific research ship. Perhaps that silly naming convention is a British thing, although with me it goes back a long way, as I once named a cat Sooty McSoots.
I’ve never had a view quite like this before, and I have to question why it doesn’t bother me. This is Croatia, where hundreds of miles of rocky coastline borders turquoise seas. Is it that I’m enjoying the contrariness of it? The flip-side of Insta-tourism? I laugh at the image of an influencer walking in, awed by the just-renovated feel to this smart apartment, and then opening the blinds to that view…
