One of the most nicest thing about my garden right now is hearing the buzz from the bees as they dance around the salvia hotlips and lavender. It's such a beautiful sight and sound, and I finally understand how nice a job gardening is. That partly explains my absence from Hive in summer.

One of the places I had always planned to go during my recent Pula trip in Croatia was Brijuni Island. It's a cluster of 14 islands just 10 minutes away from the mainland by boat. Most of the islands are very small and have nothing on them. The largest island is called Viliki Brijuni and is 75% of the total islands area. I saw Brijuni Island on my flight into Pula, it was easily recognisable and the first sign of me arriving in Pula.

My shoe collection post has to start with my favourite shoes, or strictly speaking, boots. They are my Solovair boots, a lesser known but better quality brand than the more famous Dr Martens. I've posted about it before here if you're interested to read about the background of Solovair.

I've never tried Slovenia beers before. It's not like they're commonly available in our local supermarkets like the Belgian or Czechia beers. When we travel, we, or rather hubs always like to try out the local beer scene. Afterall, that's part of the travel experience. On our only evening in Ljubljana we ordered a couple of local Slovenian beers with our dinner.

Fun, difficult, competitiveThis is how I would describe my first clean planet challenge.Fun - it was part of our Hive Creator Days meetup at Graz. Cleaning up our planet with 20+ other people was always going to be a fun activity

A month has passed since my last garden journal update. And things are starting to move.The marigold and bak choi seeds I sowed last month are coming along nicely, I sowed lots of marigolds in the white polystyrene box, and kept that and the tray of bak choi seeds in my mini greenhouse.