bonfire

Yes, done it, it wasn't chilly and wet enough to be the real thing, but it was dark and fairly damp. The parkin came out quite well considering the lack of the main ingredients, and there was mulligatawny soup (!) also with secret substituents, (the speller doesn't believe there is such a word, but there should be). And lots of jacket potatoes, roast pumpkin, etc. I tried to do pumpkin seeds and chestnuts on the top of the little fireplace, but I think they were overdone, gone too hard to eat.
Alan made mulled cider - it was tons more enjoyable than the original, though not as nice than the one Zoltan brought, which I managed to drink nearly single throatedly.

Anyways, the party finished by 9, we must have tired everybody out with the excitement (there were sparklers, too!) and they left quite early, by 9. All my present students were in attendance.

The H1N1 haven't seem to have done any damage, I feel my arm bruised a bit, that's all.

I messed up big time this afternoon; I wanted to book our flights to Manchester for February. I went through the on-line rigmarole once - and when at the last stage they declared that the flight for that price was no longer available. The price that they gave me click on. They sent me back to step one.
I was so angry, that I haven't noticed, that I went back to their original destination default - so I ended up booking the flight starting from Manchester, and not Budapest, and I was mighty pleased for awhile as it was about £50 cheaper this way.
Until I noticed the f.up. Then panic and panic, as I knew they won't allow cancellations or the change of destination. The phone is still out of order (main line, so that I can use the callcard for cheap calls) so I rushed down to Csilla's to call the call centre. A calm girl with a difficult chinese-american accent devulged the email address where I could ask for a discretionary refund so that after 5 days I'll be able to re-do the all bloody thing, damn. And after returning from Csilla's I realised, that I didn't really have to change destinations, only the dates... however - I'll leave it now, I let the admin people do their worst, I don't want to confuse them and myself any more than we already are.

So I had a big eating session (jacket potatoes with sweet corns, dressing, beetroots, hard boiled eggs, followed by loads of roast pumpkin...) to make me feel better, and I am damn well better...
I even remembered to lock up the geese and the chucks (Alan is in the pub, being Sunday, last I'd heard he was playing table-tennis with Zoltan.)

And I only make these blog-sessions long and grammatically difficult, so that the students could practice...