People raise their eyebrows when they hear that I will be living in Motovun all year round. They are even more surprised when it transpires that I do not have a car and that I do not know how to drive. They are stunned when I tell them that I do not intend to get a motorcycle or even a bike. How much more bewildered they will be when they hear all this five years from now. Ten years on they will not believe their own ears. Twenty years on I, too, will become incredulous of my walking ways.

Addendum (May 14, 2016)

Whenever I go to the grocery store on Gradiziol, I walk the wrong way, as it were. I walk down Borgo from my house, next I walk up the access road used by cars all the way to the cemetery, and then up Gradiziol until I reach the store. I stuff everything I buy into my knapsack, and I walk up Gradiziol to the lower square, and then down Borgo to my house. The walk around Motovun takes me about twenty minutes. As I was passing by one of the souvenir stores on Gradiziol today, I exchanged a few words with Dina Pilat, who now works in the store. “Hey,” she said, “they should put you in all the guides of this tourist town as ‘The Walker’.” Both of us laughed, but I do like Dina’s idea. By the way, we know each other ever since my move from Reading, for she used to work in the bank on the lower square, which was closed quite a few years ago. It has always been a joy talking with her.