wild cat

Wild cat spotted! On the top field, Alan says it looked like the one we seen stuffed in the Siklós castle museum. (sorry, no picture. Next time…) He (Alan) was horse-manure spreading at the time. Rheinhard from Pécsdevecser gave us the stuff – he has horses – and shifted it (the shit) to our field with his giant tractor.
Alan spread it in two days, getting very fit and a wonky knee for a few days.
He also finished painting the entrance kitchen and started some
renovation work on the smoking kitchen which should become a self-contained apartment for wwoofers, or even for folk who willing to pay for staying there eventually. So my dear SO is having an unbecoming surge of energy… one felt obliged to go and do a bit of weeding and path-clearing… the English class steadying
now with about 6 serious students - hopefully. Next tea-house will be even more crowded, we expecting 4 English people as well as all those who turned out last time. Margaret’s biscuits are out of this world, and her cakes are too good for words…
Pictures show new shelves in living room and a “before” of the smoking room.
with the view from it. (Eva)

of belly dancing

You won’t believe this! What is the chance that a tiny village of 283 people in the back of Hungarian beyonds has a qualified belly-dancing teacher! Well, this is the case! One of my students from the English learning group learned from a bona-fide
Egyptian tribal dancer! So, I’ll have yet another chance to become fit again, while doing something enjoyable. We didn’t have our English lesson proper today – the village has the flu, even if an epidemic is not declared in Hungary. Don’t worry, birds are not involved… otherwise, piglets are cute, goats are weird, dogs are mad.
Weather ditto.(Eva)

village matters

BTW, in our monthly village newsletter, our mayor is considering to use our church (built in 1790) for communal functions such as concerts, exhibitions,
so that he could apply for building maintenance grants (it is one of the 60 churches in the county that was included in a list of potentials for falling down; in one nearby village one did that, pure luck -
I know, god loves them but not his church - that nobody was killed).

The mayor says, in a normal village 70 people visit the church for service, but here, there are only 5-10 worshippers... every second Saturday. Even the bell ringing is automated 6am, 12noon, 8pm. Wow, cool!

However, it is a lovely church, without it the beautiful view of the village would be lost, so I am actually considering what to do about stopping it sinking and moving down the hillside... any millionaires out there - pay us a visit and then more...

p.s. the village got European grant for 2 table tennis tables and a table football for our youth - no stopping us now!! I volunteered for table-tennis coaching;
the English language course has 12 attendees, but it’s early days yet. I knew teaching was hard, even stuff you think you know, but at the moment it’s a good few hours preparation for each lesson, and I still run out of stuff and had to improvise in yesterday’s lesson. So, hopes of my fame as brilliant teacher, still to scale the region… I am hopeful for a queue of paying customers soon to revitalise our sagging finances. This volunteering has to pay… see what rogue capitalism does to honest socialists? (Eva) later: Carolyn arrived from Iowa to house-sit, or rather house-warm next doors'. She seems nice...