for some text see previous blogpost - see you from London or after if we won't get missiled or whatever. post

pre-olympix

Nice and diligent new wwoofers Hannah and Andrew from oz are getting into all aspects of our farm work, and are good at it. With Johanna arriving in a few days, we have no worries, the place and the animals will be in good hands. We are having yet more guests, it is hectic, there are bookings now for the period we are away, so our caretakers will double as hosteliers as well. The outside cucumbers are the star products so far this year, the stuff in the polytunnel is not happy, though we had nice salad cucumbers tomatoes and a few paprika and 2 aubergines so far. As we are getting ready to leave next Sunday (29th) there is nothing much else to report. There are a few extra photos from the table-tennis event with the picnic and just pictures from the farm in two parts.

concert and wedding

The concert of the Black cat White cat music at Siklós Castle was terrific. Especially the finale, when the musicians as well as the audience went ecstatic with the rain that arrived so pleasantly - there was no cover for either group, it was proper dancing and singing in the rain for a few hundred people. Then it became a bit serious and the group disappeared and everyone legged it to cars etc. Luckily ours was near, but we still managed to get soaked. We had to stop on the way home, so that the big hail crashing down won't break the windscreen... We had our longest trip yet with Hyppo, and we did rather well without the GPS we decided not to buy. They are so much more expensive here than in the UK. Anyway we arrived to our B&B in Pusztazámor and managed to have a beauty-sleep before getting smarted up for Ella's wedding about 100meters up the road. It was a beautiful location, an old gentry curia and park with ancient trees gently embracing a little lake with greek style gazebo where the ceremony took place complete with beautiful little maids throwing real petals and the chamber music. Good, atmosphere, good food, lots of drinks including Alan's none-floridan Margarita, very enjoyable affair. After a very good night sleep we comfortably rolled home by lunchtime next day.

heat cont.

yes, we have to borrow grass for the goats, we had never had it so yellow. A brief shower last night, a first for many weeks - did nothing, as the much above normal temperatures scorched a lot of the stuff. However yesterday I harvested pre-breakfast a couple of kilos of pickling cucumbers, 4/5 very handsome salad cucumbers, a kilo tomatoes and two tiny (but ours) paprikas, and there is a very good looking marrow crop, and we did well with green beans. Alan says the kidney-beans on top look good - I don't venture up there above 35C... You'll be pleased to know that smallest new goat previously known as Curry, was sold to a good home where she'll be spoiled rotten. Which reminds me, we had visitors, little Hani stayed with her granny who happens to be my sister, for 3 days, very eventful. I was taken to the Siklós baths twice, absolutely wonderful, especially the outside olympic sized swimming pool which seems to be overlooked by the rest of the rather numerous spa guests. Maybe they are frightened by the depth - probably about 2meters at the most in one end. Just perfect - not cold, but cool, smoothing, I could stay there all day. Little Hani is a little fish-girl, she was difficult to entice out of all the inside pools which are fun, fun, fun. And they manage to keep the whole glassed pool paradise well ventilated. The restaurant is a bit chilly, but full of ice creams and pancakes and very decent daily set meal, so who cares. Alan seem to have acclimatised to the heat and doing mad hay and straw collecting forays with Nina, who is an unstoppable lovely worker, helping so much. We all went down to the szalonnasütés that followed the first village table tennis championships. This is a hungarian style bbq, with thick slice of bacon on a stick with onion, potato, tomato, paprika, onion. The sophisticated version is the same ingredients wrapped in baking foil and put into the ambers. I am not fond of fatty bacon, but this was yummy. The ping-pong championship went well, with good humor and some surprisingly good quality games. The winner was the mayor's husband. I think I could beat him, he has a very strange, convoluted backhand... photos show Nina, little Hani dancing with her bbq stick, which she did for hours very happily, and me, as I quite like this shot Jutka made of me and the cooking goodies.

Heat

Yes, it was so hot, that after a pleasant meal, chat with the banktwerp, cake and new shoes for the looming wedding to attend, we made it for the relative cool of home, birthday or not. Photo shows the view of the cake place at the synagogue square. You can see the advert for their new strawberry wine. A small fröccs with that costs you 280HUF. Next time... We had an even faster week, last Sunday's ad-hoc guest from Belgium decided to stay for a week; with another guest and with the new lovely wwoofer Nina, our first guest to have a massage from our qualified local Feri, and she was well satisfied. At the moment they (Nadia from Belgium, Nina from England and Chantaill from Canada, braved the unusual temperatures and gone for the Sunday afternoon pub adventure, except that Alan had to drive them due to the extra number of people, which means he's on tonic water, which will make him grumpier than usual. However he will bring home his favorite liquid(s) to help him through tonight's European cup final. There were a few tedious matches I have to say. Eric did quite a bit to help us, collecting more peas, green beans, clearing the weeds under the fruit trees and stuff like that. We were quite sure he was not happy, but he left a lovely farewell note and apparently we got it all wrong, he had a marvelous time. Alan's eyes got better even though he did spend quite a lot of time out there. We have 3 more little ducklings, now we have 3 different batches, hopefully they will get on well together, they are related after-all. We let free the 4 medium nearly adult ones in the garden yesterday, and promptly lost one after a few hours. We were giving up and were upset about being so stupid letting them go, when we found the culprit sitting pretty in the very back corner of the garage; maybe Bonzo frightened it. We'll try a different strategy next time. There were tons of other interesting things happening, but I cannot think of them, sorry, It is very hot, we are into the 40C-s now.