Happy Everything!

so this is the last one before xmas - best wishes to all, especially those who asked for no cards for very sensible reasons... thank you for keeping a caring and sympathetic eye on us... have lovely holidays, lots of groovy and totally eco-friendly presents - not like out new telly; lots of lovely food - our xmas cake came out with a few unusual mountain formations and ravines, (befitting for the winter landscape!) - with a camel this time, our snowman snuffed it last year, after decades of good standing. I decided on Martin's little allegedly silver camel - stop nit-picking, camels look good with snow, and we still have the robin... I am off to Budapest for 3 days with my mum and returning with Szonya this time, on the 22nd.
We'll have open house on the 26th from 3pm - you are all invited!!

thick white stuff...

... and serious cold forcast - proper winter.
Seen Feco, got Martin, things are looking up, even though we were given the wrong advise for our savoy-cabbages, or our cellar is too warm/damp. We hung them up; they all rotted in a few weeks, damn, just when I figured out how to do those bakes! Never mind, I am into cake-making again, got quince cake and apple pie - real success story, and they freeze well, too!

Chronoguard - ta for the supporting comments, couldn't send you xmas card, as I don't know your present address - hereby Seasonal Bestest Wishes for all those who detest xmas cards for various reasons, and for all those who I horridly forgotten - but only at the time of card-writing!

Martin is helping, as ever, beautifying and cleaning the place, the new green-house type of thing is nearly ready, with the use of the Almadi doors, next time I put in pictures, presently I don't feel like going out in the white wet cold out there...

I had another nice walkabout in Budapest, had lovely chat and food at Marta's and a meal with Juci, and boyfriend Alex (who is lovely, we met him first time) nagyi, marci and Eva (nagyi's carer)
in the Silver Carp - I liked my food, others were not so impressed, but the company was good!
We walked to Ujpetre with Marci yesterday, when the snow wasn't thick yet, but icy, to make it more of a challenge; I slipped a few times, but managed to stay vertical, and didn't get tired. We chose a good looking xmas tree and had a couple of helpings of heartwarming mulled wine in the Dark Dog, until time for the bus back. This season is just made for non-remarkable, yet somehow memorable afternoons like this...
Sorry Dad (he's fed up with all the food here) but one of the pictures shows the surprise aubergine Alan and Martin found, with a few papikas, (stir-fried with tomatoes from the shop) when they were clearing the polytunnel. (no they didn't find them stir -fried,
I should take more care with my English, now that unsuspecting students of mine are likely to read the blog. So: here is a declaration: I am totally aware of all grammar and spelling mistakes here, they appear, so thay can be spotted by stydents for their idification!).

Kishapsi!

Yes, my sister is now a double-grandma, little Hani has a little brother called Ferenc Janos, born on the 30th, and he is beautiful and doing very well all the things babies do. I am very much looking forward to seeing him next saturday, when I'll be in Budapest again, also to meet son Martin, who's arriving for a xmas hol. stay before starting his next adventure, I mean, his next job, in Florida.

Yes, we are in pre-xmas period, Mikulas, the Hungarian version of Santa arrived last night to the village, as all the thrown away szalon-cukor wrappings and tangerine skins on the street evidenced this annual event.

We were asked to help to download yet another lot of EU donated goodies on Friday morning; after a 2 hours wait the truck arrived - and took more than an hour to chain-pass everything to the store-rooms, a good few tons of sugar, flour, pasta, milk, cheese...
No sign of macesz this time. Walking home we moticed a first for the village - a parking bar thingie - stopping other people to park on this particular entrance - hm... we are getting into urban
weirdness round here...
Talking about being into overcompensating and nasty consumerism;
we bought a new telly after about a year of getting ready for the deed, Dodi brought it home for us, its an 82cm LCD samsung and it is beautiful, you can actually see the ball for tennis and football, not to mention subtitles. But not too big, it is just right! And we managed to set it up. Doctor Who looked so much better... Not to mention Crouching Tiger...
Also mention at this technical wonders section, that I managed to transfer money from our account via the internet - a major feet indeedy...
and, and - Martin and Sharon did a fantastic job at overhauling our website - just look at it: www.ecohun.com

And a bit of farm-section to sneak in: guest billy goat went home yesterday, let's hope that Miska is doing his bit, we read at a goat-website, that often they do it at night when nobody looks.

As we have some beautiful savoy cabbages and we just cannot eat that much kelkáposzta főzelék, I thought I replace spinach in the greek cheese/egg flat pie - type of thing recipe with the cabbage, and it turned out to be delicious. Let's hope it wasn't just the "first time lucky" thing.
Pictures include the overboard xmas Arkad in Pecs, a pool-playing concentrating Dodi, an autumn Kiskassa byroad view from Mustafa's car, the weird parking block and of course, the brand new addition to the family.