guests!! Pickup!! WWoofer!!

The French ones were just lovely - helped me with a serial disaster, while Alan was in Budapest welcoming Pete and Bullie. The hot water refused to function in the guest house (solved now!!) so they had to come over to ours for showers, and yes, the drains played up here - has never happened before, of course. That got solved the next day, I got out the dugulas chap, who's the expert at blockages... So in spite of all this, Quentin and Anais offered to repair the French directions on Hostelworld, he said it was dismal. They worked on it for hours, and then even insisted paying me for their stay... Pete and Bullie arrived and settled, with Pete being an enthusiastic helper to Alan, doing welding and plowing and tons of other stuff, while Bullie managed to sort out all her stuff she left here 7 years ago, including some retro dresses, that pleased a lot our wwoofer Candy (see photo, Candy with Bullie now after the text, which is better I think...), who also arrived and settled and done all the grass mowing I would have done usually but had failed doing so far due to dodgy back. (I've seen the rheumatologist last, and was duly prescribed a course of exercises and massage at the Siklós clinic, to be attended 4 times a week.) Which won't be a problem - as we have transport!! (see photo) sorry, we sold out... got fed up with being stuck and relying on lifts and buses. Now we can fit at least 5 goats and 5 people into this lovely 9 years old toyota hilux. Alan and Pete scrubbed it yesterday - it used to belong to a professional hunter, and was a bit messy... So by the time (cca 10pm) the next guests arrived yesterday, all was sorted! And we've got Moritz, an absolutely adorable 15 months old and his parents, Karl will defend his PhD on Wednesday at Pécs uni - the main object of their stay, but as that only takes about 30min, they decided to have a holiday as well, with mum Katya, who is Russian, they are staying 7 nights and seem to made friends already with other guests and wwoofer. The ducklings were a bit of a disaster - 10 hatched, but they were too weak to survive for some reason - we have to look into it - another lot will be tried. The peas are showing nicely - everything is late due to the horrid cold weather we had, though the lilac is flowering everywhere earlier than usual. Alan, guests and wwoofer are at the giant Pécs Sunday market, I am enjoying a bit of solitude, trying to rest my back while catching up on cleaning/washing...

poetry day

Easter was quiet, eggsearch for toddlers was in a new location - I was a bit worried about nettles round the fence and ducks. We had just one merry round of parfume sprayers - which is good as we just somehow ended up short of wine - just enough for this lot, all three managed to produce a different verse, which is novel. We had a short visit from the sound-massage couple Jenő and Gundi, who bought a house in the village. They are moving in in the summer, hoping relevant house-repair work will be done by then. Nice people.
Our usual Wednesday Pécs outing was pleasant, we had less chores, especially as we forgot to do most of them, had a meal in Korhely - very nice food there lately. No cake! We gained a bit of weight back, as our Easter treat was a rather large apple-cake - not my fault, Erzsi had given me about a kilo of grated apples from her freezer... I did freeze some of the cake, but managed to eat too much, even with giving away quite a lot of it.
We are waiting excitedly for the hatch of the ducklings, and there are an other 30-odd to go into the incubator, as soon as they are out - the success-rate wasn't much for Erzsi's lot last year - 8 out of thirty, we have to see...
Yesterday our village celebrated Hungarian Poetry Day in the library - as the dance-group turned out, with the participants and their families it was a decent attendance. there were about 6 poem-reciters, and me, the only old one venturing a performance... the Jury was the retired headteacher from Újpetre and an other nice old teacher, both seemingly welcomed with fondness by the teenage dancers as well as the adults they used to teach. I received a very kind and enthusiastic appraisal - well, I was one of the 3 who put in a bit of fun and articulated well enough for the listeners to understand... I received gift and certificate. To my amusement József Attila's Nincsen Apám was chosen by two - see below (sounds much much better in Hungarian!) - the rebelliousness was ignored...) The rest of the entertainment was the dancegroup doing their country-western(!!) routine outside on the street, and the singer girls, also performing outside as the sound-system could not function elsewhere for some reason.
I stayed inside in the warm (we're having another cold spell),in the company of all the pogácsa and a nice old lady who told me interesting local tales. I have seen the dancers and the singers before, do not tell anyone, but have found them a bit tedious.
After the jury declared its judgement and gave out the prices, we had a nice chat with the teachers, turns out, that the headmaster is a painter since retirement, and must be fairly good at it as he's having a few exhibitions in Budapest as well as other places. We invited him to exhibit in Kiskassa - there are plans for another Fényfesztivál.

With the cold we had a bit of rain, too, the grass/lucerne is growing nicely.
(better today). Expecting the first hostelguests for the season - a couple of French walkers.
Had to put the heaters on for them - managed to take the chill off in the hostel house,
Unfortunately, I couldn't make good fotos of the poetry afternoon in the library, only the shivering singers and audience outside. Had to put in another Catone pic - enjoys the bit of sunshine so much.

1925

With a pure heart.

Without father without mother
without God or homeland either
without crib or coffin-cover
without kisses or a lover

for the third day - without fussing
I have eaten next to nothing.
My store of power are my years
I sell all my twenty years.

Perhaps, if no else will
the buyer will be the devil.
With a pure heart - that's a job:
I may kill and I shall rob.

They'll catch me, hang me high
in blessed earth I shall lie,
and poisonous grass will start
to grow on my beautiful heart.

Translated by Thomas Kabdebo

the good and the bad

we had a night of intense frost a couple of nights ago that managed to noble our tomato and marrow plants even in the green house. Luckily, we haven't put that many out yet.
We've been letting Gus off the chain a bit and so far he's been behaving decently.
I went to see the neurologist this afternoon, and she was a bit puzzled why I was not hurting as such, with those missing bits an'all shown on the MRI. She was happy that her diagnosis was right however... she's sending me to a rheumatologist this time to get exercises and whatever prescribed this time, she says stretches can't do no harm, but shouldn't do anything strenuous... but she worried me with all sorts of ideas about operation - I told her no one is to touch me, it's not hurting! Touch wood.
we had a nice day in Siklós, found a comfortable lunchtime bus, and Timi gave us a lift back.
we sat outside on this balmy spring day at the "Two seagulls" and had a very decent meal, Alan managed to find out what "Gordon Blue" is at last.
We also had a nice trip out last Sunday, courtesy of Zoltán again,to look at a pick-up in Andocs, near where we used to live in Somogy. Alas, the Mazda in question was pretty but dodgy.
Maybe the gods turned green and decided to keep us transportless a tad longer... well, we managed for 4+ years...
photo shows the Big Sheep - still hopefully pregnant, but if nothing happen for a week or so, than she's just big. Also the nearly cherry blossom, Alan's banter with Hannibal, the church steps.
Happy Easter!!