The passing storms, grey and massive, create wonderful light on the back road between Golubovci and Tuzi. The road passes through a wide plain (Polje) full of small farms then large fields, many of them flower-filled fallows, and vineyards. The air is humid and the day hot. Many farmers are working on tractors or behind rotovators and some mow the front lawn; women weed the crops; children play in gardens and older boys are on bikes on street corners.
Corn buntings jangle their keys from every field corner and crested larks sing their tuneful song. Bee-eaters call high overhead as they migrate northwards, well camouflaged amongst the swallows and martins. Magpies are everywhere; they flick their tails and case the joint, like old fashioned burglars.
A small house and well tended vegetable crops on the flat fields.
A wedding is at full throttle at midday in a smart barn where the sides lift up to let the air in. There are dozens of tables dressed in white but few occupied since most people are outside dancing together to fast flowing, traditional music. They look hot and happy. The cars in the car park are adorned with bright white cloth pennants tied to wing mirrors and also colourful bunches of flowers. Later, a long procession of cars hoots its way slowly down the road. I am not sure if this is a Muslim or Catholic wedding, since I pass churches and then mosques on the bumpy road and both in the town of Tuzi. Old tractors pulling trailers laden with hay bales and young farm workers riding high hold up the traffic but the mood is good natured. Other tractors rush up and down the fields turning the hay, perhaps hoping to get the grass baled and in the barn before the rain arrives.
Poppies fill the field corners.