Gainesville

Kids' place is absolutely amazingly beautiful, spacey, comfortable, it is just the best place ever, for a rented apartment, they got very lucky with it.
We had a couple of walks, and it is so interesting - for lack of a better word - sad? - to see in this area renovated beautiful houses like this, and next them places from Uncle Tom's cabin, if not worse... all very atmospheric for sure, exotic trees with those hangy down bits. People are very nice even when seem to be rocking their chair outside of the most ramshackle looking place. This is the end of the "nice" bit apparently, we were not allowed to venture to the
really poor bits. It doesn't help that I am reading Kathryn Stockett's "The Help" book.
Pictures are made by Martin, I left home the relevant wire for my camera. These are about the amazing apartment and Martas'60th birthday combined with our proper USian thanksgiving dinner - well as proper as we could make it with only one USian amongst us - Donna - and she's been living in Canada for yonks so probably doesn't count
I hope to have photos of the areas mentioned above after our trip to New Orleans, where I hope to be too busy doing the touristy things such as eating good food and listening to music to do any blogging.

made it to a place far far away...

... journey wasn't too bad, so far only met nice people in the US, even at the immigration/security controls.
the shuttle to hotel was a mess, but you can't have everything... Alan managed to make life long friends at the hotel bars already...

sad news from the village - Kresz Ernő died. Ex-mayor, bit of a talker, often a bit of a pain, but we did like him, Alan will be upset when I tell, Marta and he are sleeping for 10 hours now, they are not snoring, so who I am to complain? otherwise all is well with animals said Timi, except Bonzo is off his food - must be missing us...
I d love to swim before breakfast, there is a pool (ofcourse) at the hotel. Off to Gainesville to Martin's and Sharon's in the afternoon...

the Anna fiasco

so yesterday 4:30am my mobile nearly gives me a heart attack. It's
Anna - the neighbour who used to keep pigs here, still keeps her zillion bottles of pickles in our wine-press room and was going to look after our place while we were gone... she's screaming at me, that Gus killed 25 of her fattened ducks... so I walk outside still a bit worse for wear - Gus is right there, not even wet (it was raining all night) and no sign at all of the alleged massacre. Not a dot of blood/mud, anything at all. I go over - they still hysterical and don't want to hear about looking at the spotless dog. Besides, whatever did in their ducks made a hole on the chicken wire at the door (which somebody obviously left open) so it wasn't a dog - a dog would have just jumped that chicken wire which was less than a meter high.
besides that even if Gus somehow got out - which he hasn't done since he were kept here in the front, because he couldn't - he was never clever enough to find his way back if the gates were all closed. Which they were. I am furious. If it was any chance that it was Gus, I would of course fork out whatever Anna demands as compensation. But this seems like that somebody of her staff made a mistake and they want to find somebody who is able to pay up.
(Of course both the people who could be culpable swear that they
saw Gus ("a dog with red collar") to jump a fence a few minutes before Anna rang me... making Gus a wonder dog, who showered and
dried himself, brushed his teeth in a few minutes, besides keeping Bonzo quiet who probably due to jealousy - tend to bark his heart out when Gus has one of his escapades.

Anyway - Anna says she rang the mayor (she did, he rang me and now knows how silly these accusations were) and the police (I don't really think she did, and even if she did, she has no case)
but obviously, we had to look for somebody else to look after the house last minute. Thankfully Timi (the lift-help for us and guests) and her husband Feri are doing it. In a way it is better,
they are internet savvy, which Anna's lot isn't so we can be touch
from that far USA.

So all we needed this pre-trip drama, when, as I mentioned, we are stressed, nervous tummied... never mind... forecast is 26C for Gainesville for Tuesday... Florida, New Orleans, Key West... here we come... I'm taking my lovely Kifli with me, so you might get a few blogs from the US... all packed... off to Budapest tomorrow, flying via Gatwick Monday morning, arriving to Orlando late afternoon, staying in an airport hotel, then Tuesday meeting up Donna, who's picking up the rented car and four of us should arrive to Martin's comfortably for tea - I mean, dinner...

travel pains

The birthday meal was lovely - just close family, ten of us in Béke buffet lunch, where we used to go a lot when my dad was still around. It was the first time we made it there without him. The two ancient musicians were re-instated giving a bit of atmosphere and cheering my mum up no end. She was happy, all old-bone-pains forgotten. Food and the 2 grandkids were at their best, though Hani was a bit quiet, I think she's still in shock about having a little brother and not being the centre of the universe any more. Pictures are from there except mum's which is a bit older, I managed to forget to make a picture with her, and the cake and all that. Others did, with me on, too, so you are not missing anything...
I also send that picture of my mum to lovely sounding Marlys, who is yet an other of my approving readers from far away cyber-space, I mean Santa Fe NM...I'm afraid I am not as familiar with the Tarr films as she is, but I try to catch up, I haven't seen any decent film for ages. But we are going to Pécs opera on Friday to see Donizetti's Anne Boleyn, so we are getting cultured...

I try to get over our main stress; we got an e-mail yesterday, they re-scheduled totally our outward flights, adding another leg and about 7 hours extra to an already daunting journey to Florida. Anyways, with lots of panic and phonecalls and e-mails, we end up going a day earlier, but by keeping the original flight times. If that's what's happening, still haven't received the re-issued e-ticket. it is very stressful stuff never mind.

Having to fill a "statement of wealth" for me and for Alan for the pleasure of being a council rep
was not a particular pleasure either...weather was pretty English, too, tomorrow must be a better day...

quick autumn pics

Yes, we went for a walk, and here are some pics I tried to make arty... easy when at last we had some beautiful weather, nearly as enjoyable as springtime. Pictures are of the Kiskassa cemetary next to the church.
We had temperatures up to the 20Cs, so Alan did a lot of work, sowing autumn wheat. ploughing, getting in some hay - it will be good next spring if we get goats or sheep maybe... his eyes/face was still sensitive, so the allergy maybe more to do with some nasty weeds than sunshine.
General clearing, sweeping - it is really enjoyable to mess about outside.

Today is Zoltan's written exam - lets keep our fingers crossed, though he can probably obtain his degree certificate now with just the oral results. He is much more confident lately, thinks more in English, I think we got through a barrier... update: he just phoned, sounded slightly hopeful even though he left his dictionary at home, which he could have used...

And the big news is, that it seems, that through this very blog we managed to re-connect with one of our oldest friend Jenny, from Thessaloniki, Greece!! Her husband Kostas was the one making a comment last time here, and when I looked up his profile I managed to read the Greek letters and knew he was from Thessaloniki, but I didn't make the connection, it is a big city... But out of the blue I got and e-mail from Jenny!! Such a lovely feeling, we really were worried about her, as we just couldn't get any letters/phonecalls getting across to her, and not heard of her for something like ten years, if not more! Now we have to convince them to visit us in Kiskassa...

I am off today to Budapest to celebrate my mum's 89th birthday, I'm afraid you'll get pictures from there, too...

The first serious council meeting was last tuesday, I swore, that I'll do my best, keep secrets(!!) and I managed not to say the "so help me god" at the end, which would have been cheating from an atheist, nobody objected.
The new mayor set out very energetically to do all he promised, he seems a quiet, resourceful, intelligent sort, let's hope all goes well for our pretty village.

Meanwhile we are having our probably last guests this year, and other surprise returnee; did I tell you about the Finnish lad who threw up in Zoltán's garden when visiting the "Palkonya Open Cellars" wine-event? Well, he's back with his lovely Turkish girlfriend, initially for 3 days, but today is the fifth...
Hesn't done the

ooo, should have made a picture, of me after Alan cut my hair first time ever, it was so much better than Csilla's, even if a bit uneven, but that suits me well, - alas, I went down to colouring and I'm back to 60s village round-head style, never mind...