ready to farsang...

"farsang" being the word for the February/March carnivals, the noisy balls to forget that there is snowy cold out there with spring seemingly very distant dream. Next Friday - our pensioners'club theatre outing afternoon - also the time when in Pécs there will be
"Busó" - Serbian, Bulgarian and other folky frightening masks and noise to disturb and excite downtown.
Besides our lively old ladies in the newly resuscitated club, there is no such revelry in our village yet... but they do their best, we had champaign and gigantic birthday cake for Ica not to mention the lovely sandwiches - which here mean an open type with ham, boiled egg, pickles and grated cheese, lovely. The delegation of jobs organising stuff is not easy as most ladies are not in the best health. Still, I managed to pass on the birthday present buying task for the next party...

Alan is back and into his several projects, such as connecting the Savonius (see picture) to a working generator. He managed to get out some voltage... he promised to explain all that himself, very soon.
He is also getting a lot of painting and repairing done.

I had a few days of down with a cold - enjoyed most of it minus the headache - with all the books Alan brought back from England.

other pics show Pécs fresh food market, the club birthday do and the Southern Black Racer snakes Martin caught last weekend on the camera in the Paynes Prairie National Park, near Gainesville, Florida - where we with Alan also saw fantastic wildlife and beautiful trees... did it really happen??

home alone

Yes, Alan made it to Dad's in Milnrow, and I am coping... today was supposed to be the only day without seeing any other people - but Dodi and Timi turned up, so I had company after all. Tomorrow Juci is coming with her boss for lunch, so that is exciting (pumpkin soup, stuffed pork with veg/rice/red cabbage, apple crumbles.) hope they know that winter Kiskassa is sort of gray, not like those lovely summer pictures... and of course all is in bad need of that spring cleaning, the windows, for example look terrible.

On Friday we went round the village with Mancika to get pensioners to turn up for the re-opening of their club, next Tuesday. It will be in the doctor's waiting room which doubles as village library reading room. The rooms where they used to come together previously are difficult to heat even when the dodgy chimney pipes are working. A theatre trip is half=organised too, just have to see how many people will be interested.

Yesterday was the Újpetre Nursery Fund-raising Fancy Dress Ball, I got a lift there with the Kiskassa Belly Dance team. There were some good costumes, the best, Mr and Mrs Shreck, so much like the smaller version of the movie stars... I was a wet blanket and left the others dance till the morning, I walked and managed just to catch the last bus home.

There was the first proper council meeting where the more I contributed the more stuff I ended up lumbered with... no wonder, that 2 of the 4 reps failed to utter a word yet.
By the way, "council" is a word they try totally avoid here, it is associated with that nasty old system, for some reason. Now they use "önkormányzat" which means, self-government, twice as long, in any language, never mind.

and thats's it for now... hens are laying nicely, dogs are cute, geese are nasty...

picture shows Zoltán our new mayor (any similarity to Tony Soprano is purely coincidental)
and Norbi, who is the new all-round administrator who helps him - and the village of course, he printed the nice flyers for the pensioners' club, for example.

gray winter

... but we are cheerful and busy so there.
Alan did some painting and fixing walls, laid foundation for a decking in the front, and made a biobrick press - well, the presser bits are to be made yet, maybe Zoltán will help...
The little fire is crackling away in the smaller kitchen, some nice meals were cooked though freezer stocks are far from depleted.

I was asked to take over the organisation of the village pensioners' club and entertainment, and I had to say yes, being the only pensioner on the council. So I am to look over the club that was not used since october; as the heating is dodgy. I had a good talk to Mancika, who did all the work for the last few years. I like her, she is a nice person, but ended up doing all this work alone, including cleaning the club, baking cakes etc... well, no chance of me doing all that, I have to do some motivation and delegation... whatever I got myself into??
still, there is plenty of time made in the evenings for knock-knock rummy with Alan, I am just ahead
25 to 22 - "Honi soit qui mal y pense"

Thank you for comments from Nicole (from Quwait!!) and John - weird that you
read the October blogs - I did hear that for some not the latest
of my gem appears but older stuff and the newer has to be found,
weird, when I look it up to see it's still there,
http://ecohun.blogspot.com I always get the latest entry.

I smuggle in just one more picture from Gainesville - guess which one - as well as the above mentioned good works and freshly chopped wood guarded by Gus, who hopes all of that basket will be used as throwable sticks.