Update 1

So on the same day as I left for my trip to Transylvania, Alan happily invited 21 Belgian scout guys to camp at our place. The cellar was knee deep in beer-crates, the next day was Belgian freedom day or whatever is called… they stayed from Friday to Tuesday, helped to scrape the walls of the stables – a project I forgot to mention –
and harvested the sunflowers from Bill’s field – see their picture with Alan, nice kids.
Meanwhile the draught continued – with extreme temperatures (40C+) so even the weeds stopped growing. (there –is- a silver lining!)
I had a fantastic time, Transylvania is much bigger than I envisaged (bigger than Hungary, especially upwards) but we managed to see some of the cities, 4 of the “havas”s (tall mountain ranges “snowy” is the literal translation) and two lakes one of which we went into (Medve – hot salty lake, felt like the dead sea, but silkier and lush green hill surroundings, and Gyilkos – which means “killer”, a fantastic giant fir tree valley filled by water due to some earth movement – you could see the tops of said trees – swimming not recommended) anyways, great trip with the usual lots of giggles, eating and drinking and running around looking at things. Arrived back a bit exhausted, even though I was one of the 5 travellers who was excused from driving or navigating…
Alan made a fab job here, so a clean and tidy home waited for me.
Seth and Holly did a lot of good work, again, hope their bicycle tour continues well.
Still, not everything shrivelled up without a gain, we have a good crop of onions, more sweetcorn than it looked, beans to be collected, beetroot and carrots – some, if nothing like last year – but it means less work! Oh, and tons of tomatoes and paprikas
In the polytunnel which contains also a lot of angry wasps, as I was stung 3 times already, I am a bit anxious to get in there… as Alan was only bitten once, he insisted
going in yesterday, so far no allergic consequences, maybe these new tablets are stronger, we also collected some hay from next door yesterday.
Oh, the stable. It had a nice bricked floor up to the the concrete feeding trays, under which it was just soil, so the past 2 lots of wwoofers helped to brick/concrete the rest, that finished, the walls were attended to. It’s a large, high, cool room, Alan wants a summer cool living room sort of thing there that will also do for extra guests in the season. Pictures in bits.