Hot May Days

I thought I've blogged about a week ago - time really has been flying, it's been quite a bit longer... We had 2 trips to Siklós, Alan is actually enjoying the driving and the idea of getting out whenever he wants a cake in the nice confectionery. My prescribed course of massage and exercises started;former is a bit boring and worryingly had made the back a bit painful; I enjoyed the exercises more. This week the treatment continues. I had a bit of a break, went to Budapest with Timi, whose son had the big school-leaving day. Had lovely time, Jutka took me to the fab cinema, Uránia, which has the wonderful indian decor, to suit the film we saw, Marigold Hotel. A feel-good movie for old people, very enjoyable, even if holywoodish/smaltzy with classy evergreen stars, such as Judy Dench. Had a meal in the student's cafeteria, which existed on Rákóczy út since Adam was a led, but I wasn't aware that it was open to the public as a very reasonable self-service restaurant, very nicely done. Had roast duck with red steamed cabbage, very nice and cheap for downtown Budapest, and atmospheric/comfortable. Before all that we had the village beautifying/cleaning up day, it was a decent turn-out. I mostly helped with the communal food preparations, Candy and Alan did more back-breaking stuff. The dance-group girls cleaned the pensioners' club rooms, which is usually done by the pensioners themselves, so it was a great help. The weather was unseasonably hot, also for the May Day village picnic, so we chickened out of the cooking competition. There were teams competing through various stations, I was the boss of the table-tennis, and managed to play a bit and did no harm to the back... The Mayor, the so far rather decent Erika invited us to share their family dish of stuffed cabbage, which was rather nice. In the evening we had the curried goat that we failed to cook earlier in the cauldron but done it in less hot environment in the kitchen. It turned out rather tasty, Vic and Maggie happened to come by to have a taste, as did Erzsi's family. It was a bit tiring all this serious social life. And I haven't mentioned that we had a further guest family with toddler, this time from Poland, and they are staying again foor a couple of days on their way back home. We have lettuce now and stuff started to show. Unfortunately the cherry situation doesn't look good, the frost did get to the trees we'll see. The figs still look a bit sad, but the grapes are lovely. Pictures show Candy's dress-code, the chefs at the cooking competition, the view of the very hot cooking area, and the snake that was caught by one of the cats. And the polish guest enjoying milking with little daughter witnessing the adventure.