sunny winter

yes, we haven't had it colder than -3/4C even at night, so since that first cold-spell sometimes in November we didn't have to turn off the water in the other house or do any other frost-fright measures. Lack of rain/snow was worrying, with the Danube being it's lowest level for donkey's years; but had a bit of rain and snow since.

About the all-important council meeting on the 4th of January - well, Alan represented me, I accompanied Martin to Budapest - who knows when we see him next - I wanted to use all the time available to be with him.
So anyway, the outcome seems positive for us, the elected reps - we voted not to dissolve ourselves, and all the (2) arguments against us turned out to be silly. One was, that the mayor resigned because he couldn't work with us - well, I did tell you why he resigned (I have first hand information, that he hasn't turn up to start his 5 years sentence - the well and not so well educated opinion is that he is in somewhere South-America... the random Hungarian system of justice allowed him to have travels abroad while his appeal was pending, and that even after that was finally lost he was allowed free to start his sentence 30days later, which, as I mentioned above, he had failed to do.
Anyways, he did make the village the extra money he promised, even if the company registrations were somewhat murky, with the agency doing these transactions having disappeared, and the list of registered entities safely kept in the ex-mayor's head and nowhere else, never mind.
oh, the other complaint was against us, that 2 of us become part of the council, because of 2 places became vacant (Ernő bécsi died while we were in Florida last year, and one chap moved away) so the next two person on the list who received the most votes become members. As they were voted on, this was another silly accusation. As there were no other complaints it did seem quite apparent, that it was a covert ploy by the post-woman mayor-candidate, who seems to think herself already victorious at the March elections and rightly guessed, that we wouldn't be pawns on her chess-set.
Anyways, the village finances are in good shape, lot's of useful works have been decided, such as assisting parents who are taking their kids to the Ujpetre nursery, with bus-passes; to repair the road to the cemetery - which seems to be a major grievance here, we also purchased a projector planning film-screenings, and of course, the table tennis klub is to be developed further.

The Durant household also ended up with extra moneys (nothing to do with village communal finances, honest - my mum's apartment in Budapest was sold), and as the advice is not to leave much in the banks, we plan to spend - yes, sorry, our green credentials will be a bit shattered - we are planning getting a small pick-up truck, that would help us with the continuous problem of hay/straw collection, and the carrying of goats and other difficult stuff.such as guests. So with the help of multi-talented student Zoltán, we are hunting for such a vehicle. It should be able to climb these hills, as well as going cross-country to Boly, which is a decent little town this way much nearer than Pécs.
We had some victories over some long standing technical glitches - managed to install a new main line phone with hand-sets and fixed the door bell. Well, mostly Alan did it. Also he managed to connect the csecskavágó (the cornstalk /straw chopper) to the old 3 phase motor in the grinding room, so we do not need to turn the wheel manually, which was hard work as Martin had found out...
What else? The hens started to lay again, only a couple per day, but that is brilliant for winter and plenty enough for us.
The biggest success of the bottled food this year is the pickled red cabbage and the cherry jam, but everything else turned out well,but as per usual, we are lagging behind with consumption, which is much better than the other way round.
And at last but not least - it seems that Kiskassa Blues might happen, pencil in the weekend starting on 31st August, Friday night to Sunday afternoon 2nd of September. The Finnish Sami and Bori from Budapest are the organisers, it is a university project and the grant-application, website, video, design are all being kick-started, very exciting. I got the approval of the council...
just two photos, a favourite walnut-tree in its winter looks and the kemence of Hokkedli - a pleasant and individual pub in Pécs where we spent a pleasant afternoon with the kids over their xmas stay.

... and more photos

the little xmas shaw with the hospitality food display in the culture house, this year's tree, and The Yorkshire Pudding.

Happy New Year!!

Well, not so new, we are well into it now... Kids got back to their proper lives, far away from this little village. This little village had a bit of a boat-rocking with an attempted takeover of the elected committee of representatives, but in the first round we prevailed... though I wouldn't have minded to resign, to tell you the truth, but wanted to support the others, but anyway, this is too long a story for the blog... meaning, that I could go on and on...
anyway, there will be elections to find a new mayor, the previous one resigned - either in prison, as he got a guilty verdict with his appeal lost, or - as some in the village guesses - somewhere in South America...

The New Year's party was quite good fun, we had a bit of jumping about even though the music wasn't quite as "retro" as we would have liked it... the atmosphere was very good, there was enough to snack on and tons to drink... we walked home at 2 a.m. from újpetre under the stars - three of us, as Szonya had left by then.

Photos include food (of course) snow - yes, we had a white xmas, about the only such area in the country - though it has long gone, with some very mild rainy days since. Also the smaller xmas program in the culture house, visits to the Opera House, pubs... it's a jumble... maybe two lots of them.