Back to a not-sunny place...

... that was full of confused goats, as the electric fence was not well maintained after all. So the first few days were spent re-learning the (only slightly) painful lesson of not doing naughty goat things like eating fruit trees. But all is repaired by our able farmer... Due to not eating properly, milk production was down, but improving steadily - this will be the first winter when we'll milk through the season.

We had our wood sawed - we bought cheap left-over stuff from plank-manufacture, so all legal and even greenish, but good quality wood to burn. And no need to chop them - only a few thicker pieces. Nice to look at the pile - our insurance in case the Russians fall out again with the Ukrainians, turning off gas-supplies, which was the unhappy feature of a few winters here.

We don't look forward to a long winter - it will seem especially long this time as we managed to skip the worst bit last year.
We left here a lovely summer when we flew to England and came back to winter - it was -7C in the morning! Did go upto 20C during the day, mind you. The leaves on the fig-tree and the green stuff (chad, kale, brussel sprouts) looked frozen dead in the morning and during the day they managed to look good again, should have made pictures...

I returned to the same cold war simmering in the village - E. decided not to do the village newsletter - in the last minute, when this month's issue should be published. But hopefully the youngest of the councillors will take on the job - we will show them! Including the mayor, who is in touch from abroad, but still in a sour disposition, about us daring to oppose him - just the once...
Until now his office printed the newsletter for free - from now on he would charge the village. How petty he can be, I am so disappointed. Still, the Teleház will print them, with only the cost of paper and ink. And I don't have to worry if my responses will be printed or not...

On Sunday the pensioners' club trip to the theatre was a success, the minibus and a car managed the transport; all had a good time - except Marika néni's worrying wobble, but she was ok after the first interval. Even I thoroughly enjoyed it; I remembered Kálmán's Csárdáskirálynő as mighty smaltz, but actually it was full of humour, good tunes and even a moral against snobbishness and hypocrisy... it was very well done on every level, the direction, the singing the dance, the set were all spot on. Alan agreed. He had no trouble to follow the story, even some of the jokes.
We had champaign and cakes in the intervals, dead posh, dead cheap.
(Two glasses of champaign, 2 little pogácsa and two chestnut hearts for less than 1000HUF - less than £3)

talking about food - (sorry, Dad) lunch was duck soup reconstituted from frozen base, pasta bake (with goat cheese, bacon, mange-tout and sweet corns - I know, a bit idiosyncratic but it was ok, and no cake whatsoever! Lots of home grown figs. I experiment with fig preserves, so the kids can have a taste of them
when they are coming for Christmas - the silver lining on winter...


Pictures show the Manchester campaigners we talked to, who were (are?) camping in the city centre in dismal weather, against the global bank
system - is that what it is for? For the bottom 99%? Of course I am supporting them - but what is it they want exactly?
the whole system -sooo- sucks, but still nobody
talks about that - if banks were nicer, all would be honkey-dory..??
Népszabadság makes me sick with its "how nice is everywhere else" lectures.

the other photos show the pensioners in the theatre, and Alan in Wetherspoon, Rochdale with his three-beer taster deal, not a good picture, but you can see his happiness shine...

from the land of rain

not really fair, allegedly this was a hot and dry place a couple of days before our arrival. However, the drizzle and other varieties of wet had never stopped since we arrived to the midst of the Pennines (picturesque when visible...)
We are having a pleasant time, though we had our adventure with officialdom and the ruins of public transport here. But lovely curry, chat with old friends staring at miserable Rochdale (reaffirming we did the right thing) make another reasonable holiday. Dad and Muriel are lovely and are doing fine, we are well looked after.

Jai and Kylie are looking after the farm on their own, Alan found them well capable. There are a few problems that would have happened whoever is in charge, hopefully all get solved - will be back in a few days. On the 17th, probably late night, as we have stuff to do in Budapest. It is also nice to be away from the local politics of gossip and petty quarrels; I will keep doing my best as I was elected by a handsome majority, but another 3 years of this stuff seems awfully long...

Student Zoltan got 40/50% for one part of the exam (it is what I expected) but 0 for the other - which is usually multiple choice - so I would query that, it seems
impossible to achieve. He is a bit downhearted, but the truth is that the
difference between the basic level and advanced level is nearly as great
as that between nothing and the basic - it needs more time, unfortunately.

There will be pictures, such as Alan drinking 3 local beers simultaniously, if I find the lead to connect Alan's mobile to the PC.
and now Dad is taking me to Morrison's so that I can replenish our supply of tea, custard, curry-paste, parkin...

hot pre-trip times

- bit busy here, what with starting every day with fig-hunt - picking them before the sparrows wake up - and collecting a about 10-15g (cca quarter pound) raspberries every day...
then eating it up quickly before Alan claims them for his jam-making...
due to this incredibly lovely indian summer, other stuff still insist ripening.
I've just done the above pleasant morning tasks, waiting for Alan to get up to do the goats - he's got a bit of a sniffle, so I let him have a bit of lie-in. We have about 2 pints of milk a day from these new goats, so I made the first batch of cheese. Still got a rock-like remain from last year, smells and tastes like parmezan, and grates beautifully.
so I am in a grande mood, even though should get the place tidy, get myself decent (I mean at least on the outside) process some stuff - no need for cooking, I did a "rakott padlizsán", with cheese sauce on top, that should last till we leave for Milnrow, on Wednesday afternoon.

Also have to show how to do things to Timi's family, who's going to do most of the animals - rest will be looked after by a nice couple Jay and Kylie from Florida, of all places, who were here for a few days as hostel guests and decided to return (on Monday if all goes well) as care-taker wwoofers.
They are inexperienced in the agribusiness (ha ha) but they will be in the house and keep enthusiastic company with dogs and cats.
so in theory all is sorted. I have to work out tons of homework for the students, lessons being today and tomorrow, as they keep want to sit exams, which is stressful, not just for them...

well, I did want to chat to my kidlings this morning, but the third next best thing, an e-mail, turned out sort of blog-like, I'd better put it on, before we leave. At least this pre-composed way Szonya read it...

another thing not to talk about...
well, we had our first bust-up, us four reps voted down the
mayor's proposal for a deputy-mayor brought in from outside.
She would have no voting rights or access to finances, but
would have some role when/if the mayor resigns, apparently.
His protege is Erika, the postwoman (she was on the council before us and helped a lot lately organising village events), but she bears a lot of grudges and makes decision on not necessary what advantageous to the village.
Before I made my decision I had a chat with her - she of course said that she would work together with everyone, but she dropped some threatening type of remarks which made me uneasy.

the mayor was furious and surprised me an unpleasant way when he declared that in his first year he did more for the village than all the other lot before him. He did bring in some money with the manoeuvring of some of the local taxes, attracting some companies to register their cars here (thereby bringing their car-taxes). But I still to see how much this will be as said companies can request a good part of their monies back "doing good works" for the village. I'll be the chairman of the committee that decides on this - mayor and deputy not allowed to sit on this body.

so things are hotting up. I wanted the two table-tennis tables moved down to the culture house to start a table-tennis club for the youngsters, one of them were moved down after 6 months of begging, it turns out the other one is ruined - these are cca 3 years old tables, hardly used, dammit.

mayor will be away for a month managing his foreign assets or whatnot, Alan thinks he is organising a getaway...
exciting, init??

Oh, and we had an other cultural event - the hot-air balloon bloke at our own Festival of Light (see July) turned out to be a multi-faceted artist, this weekend we had the "Autumn greeting" in the culture house, with an exhibition of his pictures, and his style bab-gulyás, with free-flowing beer and wine, for all attendees (this later ones I preferred to the pictures, which were too kitschy for me, but the villagers were very enthusiastic about them. One was sold - I wonder who bought it? Maybe one of the German inhabitants) and there were our home-grown talent; little boy reciting poems, and a girl singing karaoke style, but quite well, and we have now another dance group - most pretty young girls in the village seem to be in it, and 2 lads, too, Erika organised them, another good thing she' is doing - for which the village should be very grateful. See, you don't have to have an official title to do good things for the community...
which reminds me - I managed to secure tickets for the pensioners, we are going to see the most famous operetta, Csárdáskirálynő, on the 23rd of October, transport more or less arranged.

pictures are a scramble of new goats, village cultural event, our newly delivered wood for the stove, a morning collection of raspberries and figs; some might be put on next time;
and one of them is not re-sized, sorry, it might take long to download.