what happened to the white stuff?

Alan will be surprised when he's back on Thursday - all that snow managed to mostly disappear, only a few bits and pieces left. Johanna nicely cleared the paths - but it is all muddy now...
She's having all her exams from tomorrow at her university in Vienna, and she said they were getting rid off 70% of the 700 first year students. Who, by the way, can study free in Austria. Until they're kicked out...
She also promised to return to look after our place with her friend while we would be away
for the Olympics in London. We have two lots of tickets, one for table tennis, one for women's football.

We had a couple of days of balmy spring (+15+) weather, we'll back to normal +5C-ish for now.
As for Criz's comment - well, luckily I spent those days of big minuses inside - the silver lining of that sciatica. But Alan was amazed - we've never had such cold before, even though we let down the water in the other house, it still froze but luckily after heating there for couple of days the water was flowing alright when turned back on, no pipe-burst anywhere, which was a big problem for a lot of not-well-heated rooms in the village.

The deputy mayor and a council rep walked through the village every night to make sure all the vulnerable people had the means to keep warm.

Attila is growing rapidly, he'll be a big goat! When Alan is back, we can start to think about milking. Chickens started to lay 3/4 per day at the moment, nice. Have I mentioned that we had 8 duck-eggs that are in our new incubator at Erzsi's, as she has experience in turning them and helping little ducks to "be born"...

The specialist nicely tapped me over with her little hammer, written a full page about me - mainly being happy with mostly functioning bits - and had no idea what's up and sent me for MRI - got an appointment to a Pécs clinic for 21st of March. I am still doing well, even my wobbly leg-bits seems better today.

Had the pensioners' club yesterday, only 4 ladies turned up, which had allowed more personal stories. They talked about the village weddings in the good old days - when the whole community prepared together for such events.
nothing much else is happening, which is good...

on the mend

well, not everyone... we lost one of the little goats, got too cold... we brought them both into the kitchen when it turned to -25C... the female light coloured one failed to get her strength back, but black Attila is back with his mum and hopefully will pull through. He was quite well-behaved but still, it is nice not having a goat (however nice) inside...

Luckily and touch wood, no other little goats appeared yet, and keep your fingers crossed that those mummy-goats will keep them safe inside until Alan gets back from England. He'll be away 21st - 1st of March. We have a nice wwoofer Johanna to help, but she has to go back to Vienna to sit her exams next Saturday, so for 6 days I have to cope on my own, though Erzsi and family will help, of course. My back is much better, if I sit down often enough I can cope with most of the inside jobs such as cooking. My right lower leg is still numb in places, and The back can be painful at times, so I am to see a specialist on Wednesday in Siklós.

The last 3/4 days the temperatures during the day were upto +5C, and all that snow did a lot of melting. Johanna and Alan did tons of work outside tidying and stuff. Alan has seedlings growing well, so we are ready for some spring...
I have new students, 2 girls from the village, 11 and 15, bright and nice kids, I'll enjoy the lessons with them, too.
pictures show front of house with snow and less snow, Attila with cat and Alan, Johanna making bread. And my sister's wonderful grandkids.
except the sequence is all wrong again - first it was more snow, then less...!

news extra

see the surprise early arrivals plus a pic of village winter commuters. Snow is even bigger now, though the sun emerged, actually it would be lovely to go out a bit...
Alan says they look strong

winter village

I intended to show snow from the kitchen window with a few hours difference in size. A village view and happy hour(s) in the village shop.
I am glad I had to stay in lately... Alan says ducks put their feet under their wings, they are not happy. Dogs have warm places to stay, don't worry.

itchy arse

this is how Alan translates "isiász" which is what I got since Monday and it is
sciatica damnit, so my favourite things sitting and lying down are difficult and my right foot from above the right ankle feels peculiar. It's because the cold table-tennis room I'm sure, the heating was on for hours but it is a big room and it is cold around here, the last couple of days it hit -15C, even with bright sunshine it only gets to cca -5C during the day. I am sitting here with the elastic wool thingy round my belly/bottom that Alan purchased in Pécs yesterday, slightly worried in case this pain/discomfort ever goes away. Internet says, 90% of the time it does, and the bottom/back part is maybe a bit better but the leg is definitely not. First I thought it was a muscle-ache from the table tennis, but it got worse... Doc came and gave me a painkiller into the cheek in question (right) which lasted just about an hour while we chatted over tea with the doc... He didn't diagnosed as well as Alan from the internet... It is an ancient ailment and still nobody seems to know what to do, you can see very varied advice from the multitude of sufferers.
Doc is free here, but due to the stupid Hungarian setup, they are paid so little, that if they don't get tips from that part of the public who can afford it, they starve - well, no, they just go and work abroad for 10x + more money)
Ducks started to lay eggs, and we are buying an incubator for cca £50 and Erzsi (Timi's mum) who has the expertise, will deel with it all in her house, as she'll have duck eggs, too. Between us with some chicken-eggs we'll fill the 60egg tray. Apparently, you have to help these special Indian running ducks out of their shell.
Nothing much else to report besides the KiskassaBlues getting more and more thought to it, though no money yet.
Last week we found a new restaurant to savour in Pécs, the Bohemian Kitchen,
everything is cooked in beer, Alan loves it, But I liked what I had, too. It was a large portion that I resolutely won't eat anymore, I have to loose weight if I start to get these age/weight related horrid things.
I can't remember if I mentioned the chain-saw, Alan got one and between us, after a safety lesson from Zoltán, we cut up quite a lot of wood without chopping off important body bits.
Goats/ cats/dogs and us all are getting fed up with the winter, that's about it...

sunny winter

yes, we haven't had it colder than -3/4C even at night, so since that first cold-spell sometimes in November we didn't have to turn off the water in the other house or do any other frost-fright measures. Lack of rain/snow was worrying, with the Danube being it's lowest level for donkey's years; but had a bit of rain and snow since.

About the all-important council meeting on the 4th of January - well, Alan represented me, I accompanied Martin to Budapest - who knows when we see him next - I wanted to use all the time available to be with him.
So anyway, the outcome seems positive for us, the elected reps - we voted not to dissolve ourselves, and all the (2) arguments against us turned out to be silly. One was, that the mayor resigned because he couldn't work with us - well, I did tell you why he resigned (I have first hand information, that he hasn't turn up to start his 5 years sentence - the well and not so well educated opinion is that he is in somewhere South-America... the random Hungarian system of justice allowed him to have travels abroad while his appeal was pending, and that even after that was finally lost he was allowed free to start his sentence 30days later, which, as I mentioned above, he had failed to do.
Anyways, he did make the village the extra money he promised, even if the company registrations were somewhat murky, with the agency doing these transactions having disappeared, and the list of registered entities safely kept in the ex-mayor's head and nowhere else, never mind.
oh, the other complaint was against us, that 2 of us become part of the council, because of 2 places became vacant (Ernő bécsi died while we were in Florida last year, and one chap moved away) so the next two person on the list who received the most votes become members. As they were voted on, this was another silly accusation. As there were no other complaints it did seem quite apparent, that it was a covert ploy by the post-woman mayor-candidate, who seems to think herself already victorious at the March elections and rightly guessed, that we wouldn't be pawns on her chess-set.
Anyways, the village finances are in good shape, lot's of useful works have been decided, such as assisting parents who are taking their kids to the Ujpetre nursery, with bus-passes; to repair the road to the cemetery - which seems to be a major grievance here, we also purchased a projector planning film-screenings, and of course, the table tennis klub is to be developed further.

The Durant household also ended up with extra moneys (nothing to do with village communal finances, honest - my mum's apartment in Budapest was sold), and as the advice is not to leave much in the banks, we plan to spend - yes, sorry, our green credentials will be a bit shattered - we are planning getting a small pick-up truck, that would help us with the continuous problem of hay/straw collection, and the carrying of goats and other difficult stuff.such as guests. So with the help of multi-talented student Zoltán, we are hunting for such a vehicle. It should be able to climb these hills, as well as going cross-country to Boly, which is a decent little town this way much nearer than Pécs.
We had some victories over some long standing technical glitches - managed to install a new main line phone with hand-sets and fixed the door bell. Well, mostly Alan did it. Also he managed to connect the csecskavágó (the cornstalk /straw chopper) to the old 3 phase motor in the grinding room, so we do not need to turn the wheel manually, which was hard work as Martin had found out...
What else? The hens started to lay again, only a couple per day, but that is brilliant for winter and plenty enough for us.
The biggest success of the bottled food this year is the pickled red cabbage and the cherry jam, but everything else turned out well,but as per usual, we are lagging behind with consumption, which is much better than the other way round.
And at last but not least - it seems that Kiskassa Blues might happen, pencil in the weekend starting on 31st August, Friday night to Sunday afternoon 2nd of September. The Finnish Sami and Bori from Budapest are the organisers, it is a university project and the grant-application, website, video, design are all being kick-started, very exciting. I got the approval of the council...
just two photos, a favourite walnut-tree in its winter looks and the kemence of Hokkedli - a pleasant and individual pub in Pécs where we spent a pleasant afternoon with the kids over their xmas stay.

... and more photos

the little xmas shaw with the hospitality food display in the culture house, this year's tree, and The Yorkshire Pudding.

Happy New Year!!

Well, not so new, we are well into it now... Kids got back to their proper lives, far away from this little village. This little village had a bit of a boat-rocking with an attempted takeover of the elected committee of representatives, but in the first round we prevailed... though I wouldn't have minded to resign, to tell you the truth, but wanted to support the others, but anyway, this is too long a story for the blog... meaning, that I could go on and on...
anyway, there will be elections to find a new mayor, the previous one resigned - either in prison, as he got a guilty verdict with his appeal lost, or - as some in the village guesses - somewhere in South America...

The New Year's party was quite good fun, we had a bit of jumping about even though the music wasn't quite as "retro" as we would have liked it... the atmosphere was very good, there was enough to snack on and tons to drink... we walked home at 2 a.m. from újpetre under the stars - three of us, as Szonya had left by then.

Photos include food (of course) snow - yes, we had a white xmas, about the only such area in the country - though it has long gone, with some very mild rainy days since. Also the smaller xmas program in the culture house, visits to the Opera House, pubs... it's a jumble... maybe two lots of them.

post-xmas pre-New Year

we were too busy having a lovely time with the kids, sorry for avoiding you, dear reader.
Pictures will come next time, when I figure out where they are. So, all was well, my little trip to Budapest to meet Szonya, with nice evening with Juci eventually and a little bit of Márta while having a peep at Juci's groovy new apartment. Then we had walks, meals, lots of drinks in Pécs, got our xmas meal ready - this year to Szonya's initiative, we made proper stuffing and proper yorkshire pudding, none of your instant rubbish - first time! Cake, tree, all just perfect really... We played the new games - the Discworld looked at first a bit complicated, but it turned out very enjoyable. The Banana wordgame is more intense, I wouldn't have minded a few more goes...
anyway, time to get ready for the new year's party in Újpetre, retro with virsli and lentils we were promised... so I left a few things out, but I am not yet back in blogging mood.
Happy New year!!! B.U.É,K,!!!

sunny winter pictures

so we did have the sun out, which I'm sure the goats approved of, too. We are taking them up the field every morning, Hannibal and Cassandra are tied, which more or less ensures that they do not jump fences to the neighbours. The electric fence battery is charged via a solar thing, so at the moment the system is down. The Sheep is back, keep your fingers crossed for little sheep.

The mayor resigned. Not publicly, I only got to know about it because we had a meeting with the chief administrator of the Ujpetre office, where all the 3 other surrounding villages belong. And she told us. We had this committee meeting about the grant application of this company, that paid more than 12million in car registration tax to the village, but had the right - apparently to claim 40% of it back - doing useful things in the village. Well, the useful thing will be a concreted and fenced depot area - which will mess up the view of the village. I failed, not checking the law and the minutes of that meeting - I am sure I told them to put in the condition of application that the village view cannot be compromised. Well, we'll see what happens. It is a big firm with lots of trucks - that's why they could pay us so much tax...

Anyway, I am glad the mayor is disappearing in the mist, but what next? I can't see anyone decent surfacing. Tried to convince Nora, the minority council activist to stand, but she wouldn't. Well, maybe there will be a last minute new face - we were lucky that way the last few times - up to a point...

We checked up with Tibi the ping-pong tables,and he promised to fix them during the holidays. Still no bats and stuff - the deputy really promised this time - but hasn't delivered again, so I have to figure out how and where one find decent sport stuff myself.
We wouldn't have had time with sis, we were too busy looking round again at the Croation market, and other shoppy places.

Jenny - it is really nice to hear from you, thank you for the compliments - please send me your e-mail address again , because I can't find it

Had the Santa do for the children of the village, and while the clown did his bit, 2 of the present bags of sweets were stolen. I think it was an over 14 kid, who felt bitter about not getting any... Still - a nasty crime in anybody's book... the village is appalled.

Pali's newest quotable: he couldn't come today because his van was glued in the mood...
(= stuck in the mud)
Pictures show the first ever sauerkraut we made - we were so frightened to look at it, that we had left it for 2 months on its own to do its thing - and it turned out ok! Just had to skim the top, and it is good! I bottled 8, I haven't he foggiest how it keeps, but one would think it did all the maturing there is to do, and it is salted after all.
the others just made while walking the goats/geese/sheep up the hill, and the winter clothes of the fig trees.

winterish

mild weekend is promised - just a change would be nice from this foggy, damp dark cold we've been having for weeks and weeks.
Unfortunately, we had to give up the experiment of milking the goats over the winter, the little bit they produced, was not worth the energy spent in washing the milking cloths and the work itself. But there are 4 pieces of cheese made waiting for the kids judgement when they arrive in a couple of weeks. We cannot even get the delicious local cow's milk, as Erzsi said, two of their beasts are off milk, and they need the rest to fill their quota, they are not selling to individuals until sometimes in mid-January. However, we do have fresh, unpasteurised milk delivered in the village by a local dairy, it is nice and cheap, I tried it last spring before we had the goats.
We just have to make sure we catch the van, in lunchtime, playing the Boci boci tarka - popular Hungarian nursery rhyme about little cows and milk.
Slowly we are making things tidy, we trimmed the figtrees, the roses, the raspberry, the grapes. The houses are a bit tidier, but not exactly sparkling...
I am busy with council stuff - more and more murky, it seems, with that comparison of our mayor to Tony Soprano having been unsurprisingly apt... The Télapó celebration is on Sunday, with that fairly dreadful clown doing a show again, and every under 14 will be given a decent bag of chocolates. The giant tree in the bus-stop wont be decorated - there aren't any mad people risking their life climbing it to put on decorations, so we are buying a modest tree with roots, it will stand in the front of the council buildings.
Our sheep is visiting a ram in Újpetre, but the sheep keeper chap there doesn't think it very hopeful, it was too late in the season.
The second table-tennis table was found and allegedly taken down to the culture house, so we do have them now at last, all is needed some decent net and bats and balls, but the second disappointment is the deputy mayor, who is - how shall I put it - thick. He keeps wanting to do everything - like this purchase, for about 6 months, but he just doesn't do it. So when my sister comes this weekend, I'll buy the lot and claim money back.
No photos today - I don't want to depress you with all that gloom...

crisis comment

do we want another global war - that is the usual solution of capitalism for global crisis.
How come more people cannot see this? I just can't comprehend this uncomprehension, I am not -that- clever, yet it is so evident...
The local "left" "liberal" daily seems nowdays doing nothing else but trying to convince people about TINA in every bloody article, just because the Demagogue of the Day realised that anti-capitalist slogans Can be Popular (though what he does in practice is the panicky defending and cushioning the 1%)...

Eva exasperated and making the wine-cellar into a refuge...

long winter?

shouldn't complain, as it is rather nice during the day, but so flippin' cold in the mornings, and the winter seems very long... Water is frozen in the ducks' basin in the mornings, water has to be turned off at outside taps, lucky Alan's contraption pulling out water from the rain-collector, works well; I think we forgot to mention this thing.
We having the little stove on in the little kitchen, which is nice.
Gus is still not sorted - the very thin wires for that radio control snap very easily, that's the snag.

The pensioners day went well, the food was good, it was hard work, as was the singing clown...
Apparently the number of the guests were the same as usual, some old people just doesn't like these communal things. There were about 60 people.

Eva the shop keeper took me a Koncz Zsuzsa koncert, that was really above my expectation. This singer of my youth - must be quite near to 70 - was moving and singing, as before, and the old songs were great, and the new ones weren't bad at all. Also she was political to my liking - she was always giving the impression of being the intelligent one...The concert was in the fairly new Expo Centre in Pécs, where I haven't been yet.

We managed to put the furniture we dragged down here to good use, the computer room is rejuvenated, see picture! There is even a sleeping place for Szonya ('tis a bit small...)

well, that's all for today, we've been to town and I'm a bit necked. Photos show newly done room, the pensioners and the a living room vista with papi's lamp.

more moves

Well, as I'm typing into Kifli here, a second lot of furniture and tid-bits are being moved here from my mum's flat in Budapest, which was miraculously very quickly sold (if all is well...) via Pali's pick-up. Stuff we don't really need, but it is a heartache to give up. So the next job is finding home for everything - won't be easy, though of course, Alan has his plans in the ready...

We started the Dogs Do As Told Scheme; a few weeks ago, when Jutka took us to Pécs market, we found an interesting looking device, which with the help of a special collar and wall unit emitting radio-waves, gives electric impulse noises as well a bit of a pain (Sorry Gus) so that at last we thought to be able to free the dogs from continuous chain-up, which is even more pain for everyone concerned. Well, so far so good - to our (and Gus's) immense surprise, the system works, sometimes too well, Gus must be a basically relaxed dog not becoming a nervous wreck during the period of learning the whereabouts of his new invisible fences. Presently to be safe, he's staying in the goré where the milking stand is, and I am not encouraging further lesson until Alan is back.

We had a visitor yesterday, Ders, a Hungarian young man from Pecs, who entertains thoughts of becoming a self-sufficient person, and is in the process of making up his mind, how. He had the tour and a chat, he offered to come down, whenever we needed some day-help, which is nice.

The newsletter is ready to be printed, and the organisation of the big communal meal for Pensioners Day next week seems to be all under control.
From local to global - advice to Greece... http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2011/08/25/why-iceland-shold-be-in-the-news-but-is-not/


We had a few beautiful days with cold nights , a day of unusual pea-soup fog, and the autumn colours make the views spectacular.

It is pumpkin season - there aren't many, and not as sweet as last year, but the soup is nice anyway, and the roast is not that bad.

Photos show Ermintrud in the milking stand, Same corner with Gus in his new location and the bio-briquette maker in the background, the pile of wood, autumn green veggies and the half-winterish figs.

Back to a not-sunny place...

... that was full of confused goats, as the electric fence was not well maintained after all. So the first few days were spent re-learning the (only slightly) painful lesson of not doing naughty goat things like eating fruit trees. But all is repaired by our able farmer... Due to not eating properly, milk production was down, but improving steadily - this will be the first winter when we'll milk through the season.

We had our wood sawed - we bought cheap left-over stuff from plank-manufacture, so all legal and even greenish, but good quality wood to burn. And no need to chop them - only a few thicker pieces. Nice to look at the pile - our insurance in case the Russians fall out again with the Ukrainians, turning off gas-supplies, which was the unhappy feature of a few winters here.

We don't look forward to a long winter - it will seem especially long this time as we managed to skip the worst bit last year.
We left here a lovely summer when we flew to England and came back to winter - it was -7C in the morning! Did go upto 20C during the day, mind you. The leaves on the fig-tree and the green stuff (chad, kale, brussel sprouts) looked frozen dead in the morning and during the day they managed to look good again, should have made pictures...

I returned to the same cold war simmering in the village - E. decided not to do the village newsletter - in the last minute, when this month's issue should be published. But hopefully the youngest of the councillors will take on the job - we will show them! Including the mayor, who is in touch from abroad, but still in a sour disposition, about us daring to oppose him - just the once...
Until now his office printed the newsletter for free - from now on he would charge the village. How petty he can be, I am so disappointed. Still, the Teleház will print them, with only the cost of paper and ink. And I don't have to worry if my responses will be printed or not...

On Sunday the pensioners' club trip to the theatre was a success, the minibus and a car managed the transport; all had a good time - except Marika néni's worrying wobble, but she was ok after the first interval. Even I thoroughly enjoyed it; I remembered Kálmán's Csárdáskirálynő as mighty smaltz, but actually it was full of humour, good tunes and even a moral against snobbishness and hypocrisy... it was very well done on every level, the direction, the singing the dance, the set were all spot on. Alan agreed. He had no trouble to follow the story, even some of the jokes.
We had champaign and cakes in the intervals, dead posh, dead cheap.
(Two glasses of champaign, 2 little pogácsa and two chestnut hearts for less than 1000HUF - less than £3)

talking about food - (sorry, Dad) lunch was duck soup reconstituted from frozen base, pasta bake (with goat cheese, bacon, mange-tout and sweet corns - I know, a bit idiosyncratic but it was ok, and no cake whatsoever! Lots of home grown figs. I experiment with fig preserves, so the kids can have a taste of them
when they are coming for Christmas - the silver lining on winter...


Pictures show the Manchester campaigners we talked to, who were (are?) camping in the city centre in dismal weather, against the global bank
system - is that what it is for? For the bottom 99%? Of course I am supporting them - but what is it they want exactly?
the whole system -sooo- sucks, but still nobody
talks about that - if banks were nicer, all would be honkey-dory..??
Népszabadság makes me sick with its "how nice is everywhere else" lectures.

the other photos show the pensioners in the theatre, and Alan in Wetherspoon, Rochdale with his three-beer taster deal, not a good picture, but you can see his happiness shine...

from the land of rain

not really fair, allegedly this was a hot and dry place a couple of days before our arrival. However, the drizzle and other varieties of wet had never stopped since we arrived to the midst of the Pennines (picturesque when visible...)
We are having a pleasant time, though we had our adventure with officialdom and the ruins of public transport here. But lovely curry, chat with old friends staring at miserable Rochdale (reaffirming we did the right thing) make another reasonable holiday. Dad and Muriel are lovely and are doing fine, we are well looked after.

Jai and Kylie are looking after the farm on their own, Alan found them well capable. There are a few problems that would have happened whoever is in charge, hopefully all get solved - will be back in a few days. On the 17th, probably late night, as we have stuff to do in Budapest. It is also nice to be away from the local politics of gossip and petty quarrels; I will keep doing my best as I was elected by a handsome majority, but another 3 years of this stuff seems awfully long...

Student Zoltan got 40/50% for one part of the exam (it is what I expected) but 0 for the other - which is usually multiple choice - so I would query that, it seems
impossible to achieve. He is a bit downhearted, but the truth is that the
difference between the basic level and advanced level is nearly as great
as that between nothing and the basic - it needs more time, unfortunately.

There will be pictures, such as Alan drinking 3 local beers simultaniously, if I find the lead to connect Alan's mobile to the PC.
and now Dad is taking me to Morrison's so that I can replenish our supply of tea, custard, curry-paste, parkin...

hot pre-trip times

- bit busy here, what with starting every day with fig-hunt - picking them before the sparrows wake up - and collecting a about 10-15g (cca quarter pound) raspberries every day...
then eating it up quickly before Alan claims them for his jam-making...
due to this incredibly lovely indian summer, other stuff still insist ripening.
I've just done the above pleasant morning tasks, waiting for Alan to get up to do the goats - he's got a bit of a sniffle, so I let him have a bit of lie-in. We have about 2 pints of milk a day from these new goats, so I made the first batch of cheese. Still got a rock-like remain from last year, smells and tastes like parmezan, and grates beautifully.
so I am in a grande mood, even though should get the place tidy, get myself decent (I mean at least on the outside) process some stuff - no need for cooking, I did a "rakott padlizsán", with cheese sauce on top, that should last till we leave for Milnrow, on Wednesday afternoon.

Also have to show how to do things to Timi's family, who's going to do most of the animals - rest will be looked after by a nice couple Jay and Kylie from Florida, of all places, who were here for a few days as hostel guests and decided to return (on Monday if all goes well) as care-taker wwoofers.
They are inexperienced in the agribusiness (ha ha) but they will be in the house and keep enthusiastic company with dogs and cats.
so in theory all is sorted. I have to work out tons of homework for the students, lessons being today and tomorrow, as they keep want to sit exams, which is stressful, not just for them...

well, I did want to chat to my kidlings this morning, but the third next best thing, an e-mail, turned out sort of blog-like, I'd better put it on, before we leave. At least this pre-composed way Szonya read it...

another thing not to talk about...
well, we had our first bust-up, us four reps voted down the
mayor's proposal for a deputy-mayor brought in from outside.
She would have no voting rights or access to finances, but
would have some role when/if the mayor resigns, apparently.
His protege is Erika, the postwoman (she was on the council before us and helped a lot lately organising village events), but she bears a lot of grudges and makes decision on not necessary what advantageous to the village.
Before I made my decision I had a chat with her - she of course said that she would work together with everyone, but she dropped some threatening type of remarks which made me uneasy.

the mayor was furious and surprised me an unpleasant way when he declared that in his first year he did more for the village than all the other lot before him. He did bring in some money with the manoeuvring of some of the local taxes, attracting some companies to register their cars here (thereby bringing their car-taxes). But I still to see how much this will be as said companies can request a good part of their monies back "doing good works" for the village. I'll be the chairman of the committee that decides on this - mayor and deputy not allowed to sit on this body.

so things are hotting up. I wanted the two table-tennis tables moved down to the culture house to start a table-tennis club for the youngsters, one of them were moved down after 6 months of begging, it turns out the other one is ruined - these are cca 3 years old tables, hardly used, dammit.

mayor will be away for a month managing his foreign assets or whatnot, Alan thinks he is organising a getaway...
exciting, init??

Oh, and we had an other cultural event - the hot-air balloon bloke at our own Festival of Light (see July) turned out to be a multi-faceted artist, this weekend we had the "Autumn greeting" in the culture house, with an exhibition of his pictures, and his style bab-gulyás, with free-flowing beer and wine, for all attendees (this later ones I preferred to the pictures, which were too kitschy for me, but the villagers were very enthusiastic about them. One was sold - I wonder who bought it? Maybe one of the German inhabitants) and there were our home-grown talent; little boy reciting poems, and a girl singing karaoke style, but quite well, and we have now another dance group - most pretty young girls in the village seem to be in it, and 2 lads, too, Erika organised them, another good thing she' is doing - for which the village should be very grateful. See, you don't have to have an official title to do good things for the community...
which reminds me - I managed to secure tickets for the pensioners, we are going to see the most famous operetta, Csárdáskirálynő, on the 23rd of October, transport more or less arranged.

pictures are a scramble of new goats, village cultural event, our newly delivered wood for the stove, a morning collection of raspberries and figs; some might be put on next time;
and one of them is not re-sized, sorry, it might take long to download.

new goats, busy times

there is a bit of asynchrony picturewise, so do not look for
photos of new goats yet. They are beautiful, though at first they were a bit intimidating, as they are four seriously bigger goats than the others. All of them with horns, except for the one billy. But they are not at all aggressive, and quite intelligent. They learned about the electric fence quite fast (touch wood) and milking is going well. It is lovely to have milk again. maybe cheese soon.

Probably the last guests of the season just left today, nice couple from Germany, we were given a CD of sound massage (TM) - hm - interesting... which reminds me - my sis is visiting more often, which is nice, and when she's here, she's getting Feri, our local qualified massage master to do her back, and she says he's very good.

Alan got some support in his idea of organising a blues festival here - so there goes - this is the very first mention of it... see what happens. He had a jamming session with Dodi today, both seemed happy.

Pics are made by Marta, of Capri and Sulfatara, which is another vulcanic crater near Naples I wasn't ever of before. From the holidays I talked about last time. A bit different.

back from city life

weird being back in Kiskassa, I collected tons of paprikas and aubergines and raspberries and 3 figs this morning, did my usual morning things, then had headache and had to lie down, the week in Naples was just amazing, but probably more tiring than I realised.
did everything, Pompei, Vesuvius, Sulfatare, Capri, Amalfi coast, museums, beach
(just an hour in Capri) pizzas... but the city itself is the best in my opinion, just wondering about in those narrow and incredibly lively streets... our apartment faced one of these, therefore we had a view along it (including a bit of the sea), on a little square (where kids played football till about 1:30am), and all the activities on the innumerable balconies.
I forgot to take my camera, but Eszter let me use hers, she'll send the pen drive with them, so you won't escape a few probably incredibly artistic shots...

6 out of the 13 guests did not turn up - the Croatian rhythmic gymnastic team hadn't bothered to tell us about a change in their plans. The Polish 7 did, but they were probably too tired after their long drive, to enjoy the place. They asked breakfast for 7am, Alan managed to get it all - in spite of the village shop opening later on a Sunday - including a variety of our fruits - but they declared at 7am, that they didn't want breakfast after all and were annoyed that Alan had no right change for their euros... it is a long drive from Poland to Montenegro...

anyway, Bonzo's little hedgehog has been turning up regularly, we hope it stays, and eats all those mole-crickets next year. The new ducks are becoming really pretty with more colours in their side feathers, will try to make better picture.

My photo with The Cabbage was made a couple of days before I left for my hols; same as the tree-frog photo and the ducks, Alan made The Sunflower picture while being on loose ends on his own. By the way, he also made raspberry jam and quince conserve. I forgot to mention, that we know at last, which is our quince tree...