still waiting...

... for that spring that seemed so near in previous blogs...
very cold winds are making us miserable, we even had some frost.
Luckily Alan did not plant anything new outside then - seedlings are waiting patiently in the living room as per the picture.

My dad seems to be stable, maybe a bit better, though there are some problems the GP thinks would need another hospital stay, but at present not only the patient but everyone else is against the idea;
so far hospital stays meant rapid weakening inspite of first rate care. After this nearly two weeks at home I am back to Budapest for 5 or so days on the 25th.

We have hostelguests for ten days now - 3 people, who bought a house in the village but can't move in yet due to the house being yet inhabitable. We are getting a bit overrun doing interpreting (mostly Alan!) for them, organising the repair of the heeating system, electrics, than the total re-decor of the place... we have just resolved to get less involved... it was bad enough to do it over a year more for for ourselves - these people want it done in 10 days! We got the ball rolling - now it's just standing back and see who will trip on it...

Alan will be busy going on with the planting, he's got help in the person of our first wwoofer, Liza from Montana, who is probably a bit shaken, as soon as she settled in was taken to a wild-hog dinner and a rough-ride accross the Palkonya countryside, which is I have to say, a lot more wooded and, well, wild than around Kiskassa. We had gone round the fishing lakes, the little chapel on the hill visible from Kiskassa, and the miriads of grape-wines. It was my student who invited us, he is a qualified hunter and he shot the dinner himself, and cooked it, and showed us the gun that's done the deed and half a dozen others... and the trophies and skulls of vaious not-so-wild-anymore life... such as a badger, fox and roe-deer...

The food was great, and it was an interesting afternoon - see pictures... hm next time more of the winecellars now only could
put in these lot with host's dad holding the wine dispenser.

march alright...

yesterday full glory as per the previous post, today
freezing winds we had to fight through while walking up to the culture house to the annual International Womens' Day quiz...
It means no speeches about equal rights around here - only flowers from a gallant mayor - and a merry get-together for the villagers, they need it, I tell you. It was a very good natured quiz - I was there for over four hours! About 4 glasses of very drinkable red wine helped me. Alan joined later, he met this year's first hostel guests at the bus stop first. And we won the quiz! Inspite my poor performance at the give us a clue part of it.
We were in the same team with Miska, the village's, and probably Baranya county's only MTK (Budapest football team) supporter.
I was such a supporter in Budapest when I was young and am somewhat amazed to find a supporter here - MTK won the Hungarian league
a few time in recent years due to the lucky appearance of an owner who put in lots of money in them in spite of the grotesquely low number of spectators at the matches. Anyway,
The prize was a beautiful cake shared by the team and everybody else. Tomorrow I am off to Budapest to give a bit of a relief to my sister and the lovely transylvanian Marika, who's looking after my mum and dad. I bought the train tickets via the Internet, and am a bit worried how that will work out, but I'm getting a lift to Pecs by a greatful English student of mine, so I shouldn't complain.
Oh, and Alan bought with Pali the setup to make cider - our newest venture...

wonderful spring day

... especially as a few days ago there was deep and beautiful snow
in Budapest - see picture made while waiting for tram no 59.
We had 20C+ today with sparkling blue skies, I sat outside with the cats and dogs, on the red comfy chair, reading!

My dad is slowly getting stronger, eating better and moving about a bit - the good weather arriving should help tons.

So we had a couple of the sort of days I imagined it would be; pottering about in the sunshine, preparing and doing English lessons, reading the last of the xmas books, at the moment "It's all Greek to me" (besides that thick Dawkins selection which I'll read bits by bits) enjoying it immensely, as did all the others... bit of cooking a minimal of housework... hm, soon more as we actually expect hostelguests for Saturday.

The other photo was made by Alan's mobile in one of the shopping centres - he liked the shop's name for some reason...

oh, yes, the hotbox experiment is continuing - it has to be kept open, otherwise it must produce too much methane, the first lot of
seedlings were not happy, until this discovery was made...

and - the three remaining old hens started to lay! We are expecting some more layers as promised by Anna... soon...

greetings to our one blog-follower, hope you enjoy your new job, dear Cronoguard...