proper November gloom

no sunshine for 2 days now! Temperature hovering above zero. About the tennants - maybe it'll be ok, Thar the algerian and Budapest wife, Bea. I like Tahar, simple, quiet yet intelligent - in my opinion. Bea is another matter - don't know if I trust her altogether. Too lazy to get an education and opportunist - is my unusually negative opinion - hopefully proven wrong. Tahar probably very proud of her - very pretty in her way and considering not so young (around 40) She was very Catholic and blond when first arrived, then changed into islam - Tahar was into doing the 5 prays/day - but now I don't know, she declared herself proud rightwinger when they were here to settle the contract and the moneys and had a chat. Who knows what she means by that - she is rather ignorant. It is still a mystery how they communicate as she speaks no other language but Hungarian, and Tahar is good at French. English, Dutch and Arab... he is picking up Hungarian, but not that good yet. Anyways, they are keeping the house clean and warm and payed in advance - shaped the inside to Bea's liking - see what happens if they see first month's electric bill. The other thing that is a bit dodgy, that they had fallen out with Mustafa, who as far as I know, selling all his Hungarian companies and properties. When I subtly asked him by e-mail a sort of reference, he said he has nothing to do with the former employee and childhood friend Tahar, (and Bea) which is a tad worrying. Well, it was a favour on our part to start with - they needed accommodation quickly. If there will be anything fishy - they go. I think, considering the price of heating, they could get much cheeper place in Pécs. But Bea works as a nursary assistant in Újpetre at the moment. The garden is getting tidier, Alan cur the grapes and the raspberry, the figs will be done in the spring this time. We still got the useless racka as Erzsi/Tibi had no time to chop it yet, but loads of ducks and extra new-adult cockerels are going to the freezer - well, Erzsi's cause ours are full... Been to see the last Pecs operetta production (Én és a kisöcsém= me and my mate) ok, not as good, bit more irrelevant than the previous ones. Had nice meal in Korhely before the performance with Jenő and Guni, very pleasant. meanwhile - been to a village presentation/lecture about the local (100km from here) facility of burying the secondary radioactive materials produced in the Paks powerstation (also cca 100km) under the only giant enough granite mass in Hungary. Fascinating technology and expense etc. While they do that, the -real- r.active used rods with the zillion half-time, are not transported to Russia since the EU stopped such trains (well the Russians just chucked them in the Bering sea anyways) they were stored in those special swimming pools at Paks, until no more room. Now they are hanging up like maturing ham, circulating cold air around, not good Danube water. But rest easy, there are military airplanes ready to shoot anything that get into its airspace... I've been -so- reassured... Hm - hope prospective hostel and eco-farm buyers are not reading this... probably off to Budapest next weekend to checkout the apartment in Kazinczy and have a few days there for a change. Village xmas tree is up, Pécs is full of the usual kiosks much earlier than usual. I suppose with the dark, foggy and fairly cold surround they are not out of syncr. I made a good lot of decent mull wine.

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it was a very decent outing - the only worry was having dad been a bit wobbly, ups and downs - like somebody else I shouldn't mention - but he and Muriel are quite well in fact, and we had a nice time. Budapest and London was great, too, Szonya took as to Bloomsbure theatere to a "science show-off" with researchers talking about their subject in a "stand-up" fashion, very entertaining, often funny and on top of all that informative, too. Met some of Szonya's colleagues, nice pubs, food. Wemet the usual friends up North, weather was ok. Back here we found ourselves with new tennants - more about that next time. Just turning winterish now, Alan just put in all the extra curtains and stuffings between the double windows. But had last raspberry still - a very large one, I let Alan have it in the middle of his porridge. A big bawl of paprikas from the greenhouse - most greenish, but a good few proper yellow ones - plus 2/3 bucket of figs - vow. I made my first fig-jam. Erzsi looked after things nicely and even tidied the larder, that vas ready for it. hm - sorry maybe this blogging had it - can't make it more interesting - even though our life still is, honest. the chocolet fudge pudding and the cider were had in the Gallows, very pleasant afternoon with Adele and Andrew. I forgot to mention, that we were spoiled rotten by everyone, starting with Marta and Szonya, and finishing with Judith, who put us up and taxied us all over the place. And it was so lovely to see Evelyn well and beautiful and clever. A new non-taxi taxi compani to remember in Budapest, can be booked on bestroad.hu, ride from Airport half price of the now extraordinarily expencive official lot.