Engeland Engeland

As I type the big match started - hope they manage some play rather than the boring seatshop they produced so far; if they again play so timidly, I definitely won't watch it, too frustrating, especially after the splendid game Ghana played with the USA.
Pali took Alan and Mei to the Dark Dog, where he's got a big screen set up - but it is inside, and I couldn't face the smoke and a big pro-Germany crowd.
Anyway, after about 1 (one) dry day we had more rain dammit.
Managed to do cca a dozen jars of black cherry jam, though, so I feel better on that score. Also Mei fought her way through the chinese cabbage lot and they are either cooked ("rakott kel" style) or frozen.
We have a dozy couple of guests, who managed to end up in Szekszard instead of Pecs, and arriving a day late here and sitting in the front of the house for a couple of hours, not realising, that the gate was not locked and mei was waiting for them inside... but they insisted that they'd had a lovely time, meeting the villagers out there... We had two roundabout calls on our mobile about the situation (we were shopping in Alan's fav ironmonger's and chilling out in Pecs). Mei managed to get them inside eventually, whereupon they went to bed and slept for the rest of the day...
Alan constructed the framework for the solar shower and placed the watertank in that dangerous height... so, come the next heatwave, hopefully it'll be ready.
well, what else? Can't think of anything reportable...
after posting this I went out to tidy the other house, replenish toilet papers etc when noticed that all the gengstergoats were out, luckily just on the lane. You should have seen me!!! By myself I chased all 7 of them back, and they are now locked in their pen the bastards. Alan will have to put a strand of the electric fence on
the "normal" fence they now learned to destroy. If anyone thinks rural idyll, forget it! This life is frenetic and full of baddies, luckily so far they all have four legs - round here.

back in nearly full fettle

after another visit to the GP and another - very expensive (4500HUF with the insurance = £14 for seven tablests) I only had 2 coughs today. I took Lois's advise and did as little as I managed.
... it is again cold and wet, the same seemingly endless rain returned, and it must be horrible for all those people whose house is flooded, mostly in the Eastern part f the country, but we have fields here with new lakes on it, and Zoltán has frightening stories about cellars collapsing in Palkonya and houses becoming inhabitable.
This morning we went up with our lovely new Taiwanese wwoofer, Mei, to pick some raspberries and black cherries but we were beaten back by really heavy rain that caught us; we only managed a crumble-full. So anyway, managed (well Mei did the work) to totally clean and tidy the freezer room, which was in a mess, and worried me for some time. But come hell or high water, we will go up the hill again tomorrow, I want my black cherry jam, I don't let this horrid rain rot the lot.
Besides my hearty coughs it was rather quiet here, not much else to report. The loveliest news are that Szonya and Drew are coming on the 28th of July with an oz friend of theirs, and they are staying for nearly a week! And on top of that Martin and Sharon are arriving on the 17th of September! Sharon only be able to stay 10 days, but Martin is staying till 6th of October! So fab! We have to think about planning our trip to the big US in November - not an easy project to get all the dates and people coordinated.
Alan got himself a second hand scything machine for a good price and he is quite chuffed with it so far. Should have made a picture, it looks rather impressive.
Our wireless internet is working, alas not from the guest house, too many thick mud-brick walls in between... but people can internet and skype away from other rooms of this house and even can sit outside with their laptops but have to leave the doors open.
Picture show Cattoo under the Damocles log that keeps the awning awning.

and now it's too &%$**& hot

... and I have a mega cold. I nursed a bad cough for weeks - my sis dragged me to the doc and I had a course of antibiotics - sort of got better, and a couple of days ago in Budapest I really went down with very sore throat, and a very nasty leaky type of cold, which still persist, though I had a good night sleep without sweats and coughs, maybe it is over now. I haven't had a cold since we've been here, so it's a shock to the system in every way.
Meanwhile while I am climbing through piles of tissues, it turned -really- hot, in some place of our county (Baranya) there was 37C.

So while some of Hungary is still under water - the Intercity train to and from was hours late, balancing between continuous newly formed bodies of water directly next to the rails - we are getting dry here already. We have 2 Irish wwoofer girls and we found tons of peas ready to pick in the upper field - and the soil cracked like if it was not raining all spring.
Our new cherry trees had not a lot of cherries - less than last year, but they had no skin-damage like Nora's, very beautiful.

A tired, and probably very dehydrated pigeon landed on the fruit drier while I wasn't here, it is from Croatia, I just sent off e-mails for the local pigeon racing people with the code we found on it, I hope they'll com for it. Meanwhile it is eating and drinking and calmly watching Gus watching it, Alan made it a comfortable little run.

Oh, our "author" left, so we won't earn our nest-egg, but we are not particularly sorry as such.

Mustafa decided, as he cannot at the moment sell his house with profit, he'll invest in it tons of money, and starts a very un-green business of exotic flower cultivation. Well, good luck to him, hope it'll work out. He plans to employ people, which would be good for the village.

Meanwhile the football world championship started, Alan is watching with Pete, the Dutch next door neighbour, and he reckons England would do so much better if I joined them shouting and getting excited... so there I go. Pics show the leeks I talked about last time and the pigeon.