late spring fatigue

must be all these fronts - or the trips for those physio - but we were a bit knackered this week, all the limbs and the rest weighing even more than usual somehow. The wwoofers seem to be feeling it, too, spending most of their days off in bed/bath... or we worked them too hard, as we are too shattered to do much ourselves - well, don't really think so, the present couple has never been up early enough to see the goats being milked - and Alan being a gentleman-farmer, that never happens before 8am... It is lazy Sunday afternoon and the others are off to the pub as usual, and I'm trying to think up the news - but there weren't a lot of them lately. We had the cinema on in the village culture house last night - of course from the 4 options the one was voted on by the great unwashed, was the one we liked the least, Real Steal or whatever, robot boxing. Never mind, the pop-corns were ok. We've got 4 runner ducklings, I'm afraid that's all that survived the last batch - which is four more than the previous one. Erzsi tries the last batch now - an other thirty eggs, but not much hope. They were all impregnated alright (well done that beautiful drake) but the ducklings were too weak, even if managed to get out the shell, they had no energy left to live. Anyways, these 4 are lively enough and lodge in the kitchen until big enough to face that dangerous world out there. Next week is off physio-wise, as Hippo the toyota goes for a good check-over to Zoltán's, a few hopefully minor things need to be fixed as well as a general maintenance.

cultural dawn

well, the meeting went well, Gazsi promised to lead a healthier less-beer life, the public workers and tools were sorted... and we have quite a marvellous village program to look forward to; starting with a cinema experience on Saturday evening, (aperitif to the ever comic Eurovision songcontest night) using the new village acquired projector, there'll be pop-corn and fizzy drinks to complete the experience... We'll have our Festival of Light again in August with a painting exhibition, several dances, a reading - competition for the summer holidays with serious prizes for the most diligent library users, a table-tennis competition on the 7th of July if I remember correctly... Alas, it seems, that our blues festival won't happen this year, our Finnish volunteer organiser seems to be too busy with all those events in Turku... The new wwoofers arrived and did good work, at this moment they are out collecting elderberry flowers for this year's syrup - and champaign experiment... Leesa made yesterday deep fried onion-flower - interesting. My morning trips to Siklós for the massage and physio are continuing, I haven't noticed any benefit as such, but everyone assures me that I am a fool if I give up mid-treatment... The drive itself is beautiful and Alan doesn't mind sitting outside of the cukrászda waiting for me. We are looking for good homes for this years' new not-so-little goats - remember Attila? It would be nice if we find them people who'd be more interested in producing milk than gulyás... Photos show the front yard with flowers, the comfy corner bereft of guests (we had a late booking couple of girls all the way from Korea! for a couple of days) and the new sheep - I forgot to mention, we have a very Hungarian racka curved horn sheep, in summer suit, looking rather bare next to our much more woolly Moxie, even though Alan already had a go at shortening all that fleece.

abitovagold

Managed to return from Budapest with severe effects of very cold icecream, bit of chilly wind and probably some confused virus... Sneeze, cough, boxes of tissues and 5 days later I am nearly back to normal, now Alan started with it, but the weirdly simultaneously shown final games of Man United and Man City seem to be helping at the moment, especially as United is up by a goal at the moment... We also have a well forecast cold front after a hot week of 30Cs we are down to 12C with lots of rain last night. I missed a week of massage and physio, all restarting tomorrow. WWoofer Candy left yesterday for coachsurfing in Budapest, and our new wwoofers are in Pécs, rearing to get their hands dirty here from Tuesday. Our Polish family with lovely little Lenka arrived back here on Friday and gone on their long drive home yesterday. Milk/egg/lettuce doing well, figs showing signs of life. The nice early cherries had definitely had it with the frost as did the apricots, which is sad. However, the other cherries will do it, if much smaller in numbers, and Lois - the peas are growing like mad. Also the grapes and the raspberries look if anything a bit overenthusiastic. Alan got in one batch of hay already with Candy, with this rain the next lot will grow fast - as do the weeds all over the place, all grass need to be cut again. A few bits and pieces of pictures/artefacts and books need sorting in the other house and Bouli's left a few small mountains of miscellaneous stuff than need tidying away, that is the domestic task of the next few days. As for the public problems, tomorrow is work-meeting, all about the work-fare team. As I mentioned, unemployed people here are given the "pleasure" to work for about half of the minimum wage in particular periods of the year and not all of them can or expected to participate. Anyway, their supervision tended to fall to representative Gazsi, who against my optimistic expectation, is drunk most of the time, which commands not a lot of prestige... anyway, one of the workers - who does most good work (which is usually cutting the grass on the public paths, cemetery etc) who happens to be a roma, attacked and broke in half the handle of an expensive motor mower... so one of the typical local rows is brewing and needs smoothing out. Good luck to us... I hate new blogspot format it doesn't allow paragraphs! Anyone knows how?? Thanks for encouraging comment, Amanda. Photos show Candy victorious after clearing the steps on her last working day which was very very hot, and little Lenka having kept quiet while his dad is showing us fantastic clips of the Kotor Bay.

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.