Yesterday, we had to go to Skopje for some errands and appointments. With temperatures nearing 40°C, our main goal was to stay cool and avoid being outside. During the summer, Skopje is mostly deserted, with only a few tourists around, as most locals head to cooler seaside destinations. I cannot blame them at all.

Our first stop was the airport, where we dropped off our youngest daughter and her boyfriend, who were heading back to the Netherlands after a week of relaxation with us. Then, we made our way to the city, starting with the East Gate Shopping Mall. While the mall is modern and spacious, it has a lot of shops but not much merchandise. There are numerous— and I mean loads—of sports shops and jewellery stores with beautiful pieces. Despite its size, the mall is usually very quiet during the day, and it would take a huge crowd to make it feel busy.

First errand ticked off it was time for coffee and it just so happened there was a great looking bakery where we ordered coffee and treated ourself to a pistachio cronut. Delicious.

Following this we had to head into the hot, hot, hot city to collect some items from a shop not in a climate controlled shopping center, we parked our car and literally stepped out into the scorching sun and dived quickly into the shop. Once back at the car we noticed someone had double parked behind us, no worries said my husband I will just hit the claxon and wait for someone to come and move their car. Sure enough, within a couple of seconds a few people looked to see if it was their car in the way and within 30 seconds the owner of the car stepped cheerily out of another shop, waved happily and moved his car to double park behind someone else.

How simple life can be.

We had another appointment with someone who clearly decided it was too hot to show up. We suspect the heat might have melted his phone too, since it wasn’t working either. We decided to go and score and ice cream while we gave him the benefit of the doubt.

I don’t want to focus on the negatives, but sometimes we’re truly astonished by what we encounter. We found a small café selling ice cream, but unfortunately, the fresh ice cream was left in full sun. Despite the cooling efforts, it was literally melting as we stood there. We opted for an iced coffee instead, but when we went to sit down, every table was covered in crumbs, spilled drinks, and half-eaten plates of food that hadn’t been cleared away. Flies were swarming, as if it was a feast for them. We left quickly.

While I am in Skopje I like to go to the supermarket as there is more variation and more on offer than the local supermarkets here. Although I really can’t complain and I love the option of buying what is in season as I have said in other blogs, #Fresh produce but at this moment when I walked into the supermarket and saw they had whole fresh chicken for sale I felt like a small child at Christmas! Honestly I have not seen that here in the supermarket, and although the butcher that I go to in Kocani is wonderful I still have to adjust to the cut of meat and adapt my recipes accordingly.

Our last appointment had still not surfaced so we decided to have a bite to eat before heading back home. Lets just say you win some and you lose some and this was not going to be our lucky day!

We left Skopje, headed home and all Johan said was: I can’t wait for roast chicken tomorrow for dinner!