Welcome to the grove blog, an archive of all the work we have done here.
For booking and further info, visit thegrovemontenegro.com.



Sunday 6 September 2015

The Grove becomes a seedling.

A year passed by in England for me and the bros. Some stuff happened. For example, I updated Adobe Flash Player alot, I popped to T*sco to buy some milk and some chocolate hobnobs, Coldplay released a hit single, probably, Kanye West said some controversial stuff, more than likely, we got a new horrid government in the UK, all of our bees died, winter came to the north and never left, my brother got diagnosed with impending fatherdom, our sister spawned a really cute male human, and I had some toast. 

       Through all of this the olive mill never really left my mind. I spoke about it to my brothers once or twice, though never in any great detail. As it was still unachievable. 

     In May I contacted Ivana at Montenegro Prospects and asked if there was anything new and exciting to look at. I also asked if the mill had moved in price. 

         Indeed it had. What was more, the Euro was weak. It was still out of reach, unless someone else got involved with my brothers and I. 

           I used to work with a man in Budapest. He was Australian. And still is. He was a fantastic human being. And still is. He was called Chris. But that changed recently to Tallulah. 

       In order to work with a unit as tightly knit as my brothers and I we needed someone we could trust completely, whose opinion we had total faith in and whose eyes could see things ours didn’t. Someone with a personality that fit with the mission at hand, could contribute things that we couldn't. Someone who was willing to drop their current life to become a key member of the project.

  I put a pitch together in an email, and sent it to Tallulah. 

This was his response

‘TOMAS!

This is all phenomenally exciting. 

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!’

 So Sam, Tallulah and I booked some plane tickets. Pat (the other brother) did not, because of the fatherdom thing. 

         We revisited the mill in July. And we had such a great time. Despite the fact the trip looked like a holiday, we did spend a lot of it doing businessy things. Meeting with lawyers, architects and having meetings amongst ourselves. Discussing the ins and outs of the project.


We landed in Dubrovnik 




Then got a bus to Kotor, where we met with Olga and Jasmina, the wünder lawyers and an architect. This was taken after a heavy consultation. Hence the beers. Or lack thereof.



After a night stay in Kotor, we popped on a bus to Budva, before heading to Bar. 

In Bar we stayed just around the corner from the mill in Konoba Kula. A nicer bunch of people you would be hard pressed to find (It's on the right of this pic)






So we dumped our stuff and headed to the mill, where we met Ivana, and another member of the real estate community  - 














The next day we went on a mega adventure through a 2km snake and bat ridden tunnel to a secret beach. There was a dead goat on it. 

 








When The Grove opens, we will offer tours through Bat Snake Tunnel to Dead Goat Beach. 




 We left Bar feeling positive, but we had made no final decision on whether we would go ahead with the project or not. But that is predictably all going to change in the next instalment of THE GROVE BLOG.



         


Sam, Tallulah and I just before we left.



Alright, his name is still Chris. He does nice photos. Amongst other things. The square ones on here are by him. And the black and white ones. Basically anything that looks good is probably by him. 


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