quiet birthday...

... we planned a posh nosh at the Aranykacsa in Pecs, but it was such a close and humid day this Monday, we decided to postpone... it may have something to do with Sundays marathon table tennis (me) and beer drinking with deep conversation about life, the universe and everything (?) (Alan)... I did surprise myself for being able to play quite intensively for 2 hours in hot conditions without stopping!
Meanwhile beetroots were pickled, carrots chopped and frozen, apricots picked and made into lekvar (smooth jam, not jelly!)
Our first apricots from the trees we planted; beautiful large fruits, lovely to eat. From the two trees we had about 6 kg, and to our surprise there is a third tree which had not quite as ripe or quite as large apricots, but still lovely and about 2kg now also picked. The grapes down here look fantastic - see pic.
There are giant marrows, courgettes and cucumbers several types, the first tomatoes were discovered... Alan is back into re-beautifying the garden doing heroic stuff, considering all the rain and mud we are still having. In fact for the last week we had some rain every day.
Pictures show besides the grapes, Clegg Hall, Alan made that picture on the walk along the canal with the kids while in England;
the apricots, the rhubarb, Alan in relax mode...

13/14

Well, the sun is out and hopefully all the greyness has gone...
Helen picked black cherries from Misi bacsi's trees at no 106, and they were stoned mostly by her in the afternoon nasty job...

Henna, the finnish girl with the beautiful bike has left - I still can't figure how she maneuvers that big thing, pity I forgot to show it to Zoltan, who was here for the first post-exam lesson; I learned something: one always has to check out those language CDs...

I'll be back to less frequent blogging from now, that Alan is back and life will be back to its more normal chaos...

Bonzo seems fine, his appetite is fine, and he's back into his naughty old self. Pictures show the bike with Henna in full gear before leaving, Helen with the cherries, and the american ladies who were here about a week ago in Zoltan's dad's wine-cellar.

By the way, Zoltan offered to take English-speaking people round just for the chance to practice his English - though I think there could be a little business lurking in this, especially, if wine-tasting is included...

day 12

... started with a lot of people having breakfast... I finished first, then Helen, the wwoofer from the UK, then Christopher, hostelguests walker from the UK, then the group of 2 Polish one Irish guests, then the group of one English and 2 oz guests... I hope you are with me, here... and pleased to be informed, that there were enough kiflis, butter, jam, coffee, tea, fresh milk and honey for all... even cornflakes for a homesick ozzie... by about 10:30 the last six departed; there was a quick change of bedding and washing and drying - with the rain still chucking it down, it was nice to discover, that the dryer, indeed, is working. Before lunch a load of onions were pulled from the very muddy soil, gently cleaned up and laid out to dry on the covered part of the verandah. Just before 2 - as we started to have lunch - there came Henna, the Finnish girl on a very impressive and massive Yamaha motorbike - all the way from up there!! Wow! I'll put the picture on the blog when she'll be in full gear on it again. She booked extra day(s?), and at the moment is pleased being off the bike, as she was riding it all the way in the most dismal weather, alas, that is here, too, was raining most of the morning, stopped in mid afternoon and is 16C.
The vet came, Bonzo has a tic-induced illness that causes red bloodcells to die; he had an injection and should be somehow force-fed with milky things, should report to the vet on Wednesday about any progress. He is listless and wouldn't eat or drink, we'll have a session with Helen of this Bonzo feeding in a bit... I am not looking forward to it... as I was typing this, Helen appeared and looks as the injection just started to work: Bonzo licked the pot clean on his very own! Phew.
As you can see, Helen is a treasure. She enjoys cleaning things!!
Our kitchen is just - beautiful! She decided, that in this rainy weather she wanted to scrub our kitchen, bless'er (as she would say)... and she wants to go through thoroughly the private room - which is good, as we have a booking for there for to USians for two days from tomorrow... (run out of exclamation marks+)
One of the giant sunflowers fallen over, so I dragged it to the goats when it dried a bit - happy goats resulted. They were out yesterday, but in all day today.
Anna was in hospital her blood pressure shot up to 220 or something;
she's back home and the family managed to keep her in bed.
Wimbledon started. We only sleep twice now and I can be "her indoors" again... one dreams...

day 11 hectic sunset

such a nice quiet day, even the weather wasn't as cold as expected, after the initial 13 it went upto 22C. So we sitting around with Helen and read and ate a lot (sorrel soup, the mange tout fozelek with schnitzeled stuff, and for tea: the wonderful new and early sweetcorn and poppy/walnut guba). Zoltan took Christopher for the usual trip around Palkonya, but including some nature walk, around 7 I go to put chickens and geese to bed, when Helen comes after me, that there are some strangers at the gate. It was the English guy in the landrover who was here a good few months ago, with two oz travelling companions, if they could stay, please. Well, yes, ofcourse, come in have a drink, I look for the key to let your car park. As soon as they settled in the kitchen, there is a bell - 3 people at the door - can we sleep here please tonight? Polish people also with car. Yes, just sit down, have a cup of tea - while I work out that Christopher took the keys with him for some obscure reason, but they are on their way back... anyway, everything is sorted, extra rolls are ordered, cars are parked... all seem happy. As I sat down to blog - there is a booking for tomorrow... also Bonzo might be ill, have to ring the vet tomorrow. there is a queue for the internet -

nosedive day 10

... that is the temperature, from yesterday's 28C to 15C,
but it has been raining for the last 2 hours, which is good,
I was a tad worried about the upper garden not being watered since Alan has gone - the hose disassembled itself probably at the first turn-un... Everything yearns for the good eyes of the Masterful Alan, whether he lost his glasses happenthence or not...
As for the day; it started up as usual, with just a touch of cool wind to signal the arrival of the promised cold front. Brill weather to work outside, so after breakfast and dealing with some hostel admin stuff, we headed up the hill; Helen weeded the grapes and the raspberries, while I cut the sorrel. Then I went down to the bus to meet our long-stay hostel-guest Christopher, who is a retired teacher from England (Burnley at present!) and is staying for 5 days.
After lunch Helen insisted to go on working, after some relaxation I processed the sorrel, and prepared some schnitzel type pork steakes. We had a hearty tea. Then I soaked my feet. I forgot that one doesn't work the land without socks, my big toes turned black.
Now they are nicely de-pinkified and nivea-creamed. I hope certain far away person would pay attention to the effort one is making here...
I left the sweet-corn standing in the greenhouse, I thought they give a good place to climb for all those frightening lot of things growing there, it's turning Hitchcockian there... But the earliesr ever sweetcorns are marvellous, I made a picture.

day 9

I've been a jolly good consumer today, sorry. Lots of food - including icecream and apple-turnover in Pecs, breaded marrows and aubergines and loads of raspberries at home (raspberries from Pecs market, had a couple of ours, but keep missing them, finding when already dried up the berry.) Anyways, hot day, good wwoofer planted everywhere she could, cut and washed loads of coriander and rocket, cleaned up the kitchen beautifully, helped to water things, took frustrated Bonzo for walk, I am looked after right nicely here... anyway, going back being a consumer, as the old (and I mean o l d) toaster we brought with us from England packed up working, I bought an all singing-dancing one, that can accommodate 2 large slices at the same time!! Like proper hosteliers' should! And I treated myself to a beautiful kitchen scales - I wanted one for ages, that's one for my birthday, ok? Anyway, the toaster was real cheap (6000HUF).
I get thoroughly muddy every time I water things, I am getting fed up. But I keep discovering stuff that needs being picking - tomorrow will be cucumber pickling day - loads of them are ready.
Oh, Zoltan rang up, he thinks sure he failed with the listening part of the exam again, what was fairly happy with the rest, he says he made the examiners laugh (in a good way). Results take a month. But the listening part was all about flying - again - and he is not familiar with that stuff as he's never flown before.
He might start reading this blog, I'd better start to write like a proper person...

day 8

... and another quiet one with the best June weather - hot, but pleasantly so. Helen turned into a wonderful wwoofer, did a lot, pulled out the radish and planted tons of things, she also cleaned and tidied the washing machine room, and hung out the washing I completely forgot about while I went to sleep after lunch, like a noble lady..! All I did was, sorted/shelled those mange tout as mentioned yesterday, helped Tahar with a letter, dealt with the septic tank maintenance team - still no stuff in the new one, but the old one was emptied; and the digi-man fixed the satellite dish for free (part of the contract), the little middle thingie was broke. (Alan, that's why it made weird noises for the last few weeks) It turned out that we have 4 extra channels now, one is film 24, which seems to have good films wall-to-wall, - in Hungarian only... I hold the ladder for the chap, as he seemed a bit unhappy up there.
So after lunch I had the nice little sleep, had a shower to wake up for that ultimate English lesson - didn't help, it was quite a useless lesson... But Zoltan thinks, that his position is safe until the New year, anyway, and that by keeping my lessons he'll pass in December, he believes in me... so I'd better start to plan the new regime of learning, now that I actually know the standard, vocabulary and the system of the exam...
We had our tea outside, it was so beautiful, no flies, no mosquitoes, clear skies, green views, flowers - lovely. Helen watered here, I did the rest, we even had time to sit in the comfy chairs and read a bit outside... all in all, lovely day...

a more relaxing day 7

before breakfast I collected -our- blackcherries - aboy half a kilo!
after breakfast I bottled the beetroots that were cooked and forgotten yesterday in all that chaos, then picked some mange tout - which will be slow to shell, as some are now proper peas, some stayed French...
Ariella left for Budapest, and I told Helen, that this could be her day off (it is Wednesday after all) and she could go with her to Pecs. After lunch I just lazed about and got ready for the lesson with Zoltan, which lasted 3 hours today, doing a proper mock-exam and going through it afterwards... the exam is the day after tomorrow!
that's it really, nothing else to report, the new loo in the guests' house is working marvellously. I did pull out a few weeds when looked around before tea and cut some lettuces, one can see how much work was put in to keep it all nice by dear at the moment distant husband. So that's why he was always so late coming in to have his tea! Goats and plants -all- missing him desparately
It was rather gray and not very hot today with a pleasant breeze, giving a less pleasing colour to the picture of flowers, never mind. Also included the picture of the missing tiles, and can be seen that the tiles are disturbed elsewhere; Armin will fix them whenever he re-appears with the necessary replacement.

day 6: drama and drama...

It started well, after breakfast and the grand tour, Helen, the hostelguest asked if she could change into a wwoofer tomorrow, which is great! I'll have help now while Alan is away. I picked some beetroot to cook and pickle later, we had lunch, than today's English lesson and Zoltan took the girls to show Palkonya, this is becoming a routine program... meanwhile a bloke I found in the Golden Pages arrived from Boly to fix our blocked toilet in the guests' house, how embarrassing!
The girls were brought back early as the blackest clouds ever - with white stripes, appeared and suddenly a hailstorm - hails bigger than walnuts, rather frightening. The usual slates rained down, and then rain... it was over with blue skies in half hour, but there was a decent amount of rain. When I looked up th damage: a couple of square feet hole on the guesthouse roof, and loose on 3 more places. Panic and panic. I run up to Armin and managed to convince him to come over and he fixed most of them in 30 minutes, only
a few slightly loose places left to do and the missing ridge tile from the last storm. I gave him 5K HUF - the insurance is giving us 13K, they rang up. I pay him the rest when he fixes the rest.
Meanwhile the local dynoman couldn't get anywhere from the loo side, so he stared to do it from the septic tank side, and a mere 2 hours later - a breakthrough! He's still here, putting the toilet back as we speak, I made him a sandwich, he's been here for more than 4 hours... so, just maybe, things will end well... Anna's Jozsi locked up the geese and goats, the guests packed away the garden-furniture as the storm was breaking out... all exciting stuff (I was preoccupied with saving the drying washing of guests...
I wonder if the black cherries I wanted to collect tomorrow morning are still there... the hails were large, but not many of them, there is no damage visible in the lower garden. I'll go up the upper one early in the morning, I planned some hoeing... nearly 11pm now and the loo is not ready yet, should I worry...

day 5

wow day 5 already! It was 32C today, and it felt unusually humid.
I'm glad I did a little watering in the morning. (as well as night! relax!)
After leisurely shop and breakfast routine I started to make beds and clean up the other house. After an even more leisurely lunch got ready for today's 4pm English lesson. Got Zoltan to return later to have a conversation period with new hostel guests, who, of course turned up to be lovely, Ariella from Sydney and Helen from South of England. As it worked out so well last time, got Zoltan to do with them the Palkonya tour tomorrow after lesson.
They've actually heard about my kőrözött from last week's guest Anna!
Lucky I had some for the evening meal! And some of the new beetroots, carrots, sweetcorn... I think they were not disappointed... Tahar borrowed the talicska and two pickaxes
(he pronounced csákány real well... brought some cherries in exchange which to my dismay, were not black cherries, and not very good, never mind. Looks like I miss out on black cherry jam again...
not that I have -that- much time to make it anyway...

day 4 I think...

so last breakfast for wwoofers and hostelguest ladies (Sue, Anita and Marilyn world travellers at 66, 77 and 79) who made real good friends. English lesson to Timi and Doddy, part of it is the 30 + minutes chat and goodbyes...
I forgot to mention, that I pulled out the first 3 beetroots, and cooked them yesterday, and they are beautiful, I might just process them bits by bits. Also pulled out the first few carrots today, as they were visibly "there", very nice medium sized ones.
Will be good for the evening salad tomorrow, the two guests arriving asked for tea... apparently, they've heard about it from another guest... after all those people, it was a sudden change to be on my own... hm, but it was nice... washed all the bedding, had a long lunch with book, and besides picking the flowering bits of the origano I didn't do anything outside - it was 30C.
I invited Tahar over, as it's his birthday today, I even managed a little present, and then started to walk over to Timi's with him, when she appeared in a borrowed car and gave us a lift. Had a nice sitting around in the garden, listening to the reharsal of the band. EMO Kasszi was at first in a good mood, later not so much...
I went home early to do tons of watering, as it'll be a hot day tomorrow, probably do some in the morning, too.
Also picked some courgettes, will give them to Jozsi, who mentioned them a few times - I have no time to process them and seems that there will be a few more yet - not to mention that we do have still loads in the freezer.
Goats behave a bit weird tonight, as the fence is dodgy, I thought I lock them up for the night, but they insist standing on top of the "rock" at the viewing point, seemingly fascinated by all the village dogs' barking (there is a loose little dog around, the village is worryingly noisy at night - guests said they slept ok)
hm, I might have another look...

day 3

overslept till 6:30, run to shop, had enough kiflis.
Livestock ok; though geese are back to hissing mode which they did not have yesterday. Temperature stayed under a very pleasant 25C, I got the garden furniture out yesterday. I did not wateras there was big rain and it is not very hot, will do it in the morning,
(I did the polytunnel, don't fret)
though they forecast a very cold night (<10C) Alan chose his time well (or was it me?) for next week they say 35+C.

Anyway, I helped to book ladies' next stay in Keszthely (seems dead nice I wanna go, ensuite for €15) by which time it was quite late to start to cook, but managed; in spite of the fact that I bought the wrong saurkrout, it was cabbage leaves, so instead of rakottkaposzta I had to do stuffed cabbage which is much more fiddly, and I never done it before. And shelled the peas Ries collected for a soup.
Belgians did their bread pudding again. It was all very good, we stuffed ourselves, even though the cabbage leaves unfolded, so it was meat-balls, cabbage-leaves and nice sauce. Hm, that pudding is very good.

Zoltan arrived to whip away the ladies just as we finished (3pm!)
by the time I dealt with dishes and clothes it was nearly five - but I had a nice hour with my book sitting outside. The internet went away for a couple of hours, as you see, it came back.
Zoltan and wife Anna brought back the ladies after seven, they all seem to have had a wonderful and useful language-learning time.
I had a chat with Zoltan and his Anna, they tried the pudding and the elderberry drink. They asked me to go with them to Kaposvar to a super spa thingie, but Timi and Dodi are allegedly coming for a lesson tomorrow morning, and frankly, it'll be nice to have a bit of peace and quiet. WWoofers are leaving, too, I'll have food for all next week I think, holiday from cooking, so that I can do wonderful things in the garden...
We had an e-mail from our ex-lodger Keith - he graduated! And he's going to be on a coach tour passing through Hungary, but cannot really go to Budapest to meet them, maybe next time...
No wwoofers responded for last minute sos call - so it'll be me...
never mind, I think I will enjoy it, whether I like it or not!!

day 2...

... actually finished at 11:30pm, so I am blogging in the (very) early morning of day 3. So it was a lovely coolish after-storm 25C - which is called a cold front around here in June...
Got up, did the chickens, geese, let out the goats, who were left locked up by you-know-who, watered the greenhouse, went to the shop - I won't bother you with this detail for every morning, unless there is something unusual... anyways, wwoofers were bright and early, Elsie started to tie up the tomatoes in the greenhouse, Ries to pull the oldest peas. That was after breakfast, the oz couple was happy, paid and left. I cleaned up, got ready for Tahar's lesson, done lesson, invited him over for Sunday evening meal, as it is his birthday, don't know what I'll do yet then...
Anyway, as I was actually doing some work for 10 minutes OUTSIDE (clearing up around the tree-trunks, and the drains next to the wall) there was a bell... and 3 USian ladies were asking for accommodation, they arrived with the 11am bus! The youngest is cca ten years older than me (but prettier), and the oldest is on the other side of eighty, fantastic travellers of the world. Anyways, I sat them down with elderberry drinks in the kitchen, and run over to change the bedding and clean up, which I planned to do later, after the oz people in the end room. While there Armin appeared, to look at the storm damage, it turned out that there are tiles loose a few places on the guests' house as well as the bits damaged in the other. He is working on bigger emergencies at the moment, but will come asap. Ladies meanwhile finished the pizza they brought with them for lunch, and I installed them and started to do lunch.
(Chicken soup, paprika chicken tarhonya and mange tout) lunched with wwoofers, washed up, got the first lot of clothes out to dry, put in the next lot,
got ready for Zoltan's lesson, but I must have had an hour or so somewhere there to read a bit (Spiro Gyorgy: Fogsag) got Anita to talk to Zoltan after the lesson, which gone real well, from the agreed 10 minutes it became an hour - while I prepared evening meal stuff - and organised Zoltan for taking guests for a Palkonya visit
- Ladies came for the meal, too, had a pleasant conversation that lasted till 10:30 - by the time I cleaned up, the day was over, as I mentioned... and here comes the next one - time to do those chores...

day 1 managing farm

well, as it was fairly eventful, I decided to blog every day while Alan is away... this way he'll also know what's happening, no need for long phone reports...
so, after a weirdly foggy/misty morning (you couldn't see the church) and the usual last minute getting things together before somebody travels, the wwoofermobil took me to Harkany after goodbyes to Alan. Arrived good and early, found rheuma hospital (you don't really wanna know - my Achilles tendon decided to thicken; after the ultrasound I was told I must have strained it sometime in the past, got a cream, it might go back to normal, or it might not, just one of those things that happen to old people)
anyway, I finished with all this just before 2, we had a lovely, pleasant meal in the terrace of one of the thermal spa restaurants. Wwoofers didn't feel like soaking in the spa, so we headed back to Siklos, where after getting poor dears to take me to Liddle for a big shop (we were running out of toilet papers!) they were rewarded with cakes in the cukraszda, again, sitting outside, weather being rather hot and stuffy by this time, making us sleepy, so we headed back home.
Which was a good idea, as a nice oz couple was waiting for us there, asking if they could stay in the hostel... so I quickly had to change the bedding Anna, the Canadian girl just left this morning, while nice wwoofers did all the packing out of all shopping. Nice to have a guest couple that isn't so unashamedly young then most wwoofers and hostelguests... they had their tea sitting outside, while I dutyfully watered the greenhouse, and decided not to water the rest as greyish clouds approached. I went over to the house and put away shopping etc - next thing I could hear the wind picking up. By the time I got out, lovely and quick thinking wwoofers locked in the chickens, closed the greenhouse. All I had to do was to lock the geese and goats and shout at wondering oz people to get inside. Which was a good idea, as we had again some roof tiles blown down with the mini tornado and cloudburst that came next. I was too frightened to go out to save the hanging basket flowers - but some of them managed to hang on...
after 30 minutes I went out to check for damage; so far I couldn't see more than the 2 tiles, have to check the other side from Nora's and the trees tomorrow; Anna rang up and asked if everything was ok, which is nice of her; her guests had tiles falling on their car and one of her apricot trees broke in half. I rang the insurance, sounds as rather than sending the nice roofer who done such a good job last time they want me to make pictures and pay us having the job done.
It'll cost them, I tell you...
I picked sweetcorns and 5 out of six was well ready, had them for tea, yummy. In mid-June! And, Martin, got tons of paranyica, there was an "akcio" in Liddle... some pictures from tornado-free yesterday.

flipping june

and very fast, was too busy, honest... Alan is off to England tomorrow, well, flying on Friday, returning here on the 24th, so exciting times, coping without him... Woofers are staying only for another 2 days, so after that it's up to me to defend the place from those wolves, weeds, aggressive pumpkin-plants etc... while Zoltan's exam is looming on the 19th, and I seem to be more worried about it than he is... We have loads of storms - first of them took the nice new blue awning straight off, luckily the house stayed minus a few tiles, which was replaced by Alan masterfully, and later properly by the nice and skilful people of the insurance, who were nice enough to fix a few that were missing from difficult places for some time.

We had a few short notice guests to liven up the place, and the Belgian mobile wwoofers Ries and Elsia are doing a good job all over. We have a totally unexpected villarental booking of a Finnish family for a week from the 26th, so plenty of time in theory to get neat... so stop panicking!

Managed to pick mange tout (sp?) in time, things are growing beautifully, had the first courgettes today - about the first in the village! Alan put some sweet corn and pumpkins in the poly-tunnel, they are giant. No wonder Alan is a tad anxious leaving in such a gorgeous time... hm, but it will stay that way!