still here...

longest blog hiatus for a while for no apparent reason - the usual existential crisis (being lazy)? anyway, as per occasional routine, I copy here my this morning's e-mail to Lois. all sounds very traumatic - puts into perspective my annoyance with the Mayor Erika, who decided that it was too much to ask to use the village table-tennis facility during the day when nobody else is interested. In the evenings The Youth are there with very loud crap so called music etc. They do want the place for themselves, which is fair enough, as nobody but us wants the damn table. Her "I got the power" tendency reclaimed her again - I hoped she got over it, but no. Also, I get a bloody e-mail from good eva, claiming that god wants hungary to become like it was a very long time ago, because look (map was attached) a temperature pattern shows so, if you use your very biased imagination. So I had to tell her, that I do not want to occupy Croatia I have the feeling I have the Croatians on my side in this, unusually united. I do not want war and camps, like all those maniac old-fascists who send such e-mails. Hungary is bigger than a dozen European countries, who used to be much mightier in their particular allegedly glorious past, e.g. Denmark. We have enough problems with the place with the present boarders. We already been in two horrendous wars, and lost, about time to learn from this part of history dammit. ah, well, at least the Greeks seem to be trying something, good luck to them, but I am losing all my optimism concerning the intelligence and future of mankind. the farm is ok, lodgers happy, racka is to go to freezer this weekend before it can do harm to expected new lambs, hens are laying like there is no winter - which there isn't a lot of, no seasonally cold days since the beginning of the month. Our stay in Budapest was very pleasant indeed, Jutka's place is getting very comfy, kids stood the birthday dinner in Szép Ilona, again, a very joyful evening. Seen to movies - Pride and Birdman, good stuff. more health checks next week, hippo also getting a go-over by our nice car-fixing Attila in Siklós. Getting new laptop next week, as both, the ancient PC and kifli are on their last heroic days.

happy new year!!

We had the six monthly heart checkup for Alan in the Heart Centre in Pécs, with the running test, again very satisfactory results, better then last time. no need to go for a year and can stop one of the medicines. We had a celebratory dinner with some prawns on toast for starter - a mistake. Alan was sick as a pig till four am so not a lot of sleep last night, though of course he had a nice slumber now since 4 am (noon now) while I had to feed etc the bloody zoo. Erzsi helped though she had a fall and done her back a bit last night. With all drinkers needing defrosting for the rabbits, and carrying water from the kitchen, as water is switched off in the back so that the pipes won't freeze, and I have no patience with Alan's ingenious waterwheel to get the non-frozen rainwater out - it is a tad tedious. Also my tom is a bit off, too, but for me it means no appetite and a slight nausea/headache. and I have to cook the piece of lamb I got out the freezer and marinated for days. Put it in the slow cooker, hoping we'll be better eventually - well, otherwise I just have to freeze the curry... problems, problems... But otherwise, the holidays were lovely with Szonya and Drew, with only one outing I think to Siklós and Villány. They seem to be happily settled now in the apartment in Budapest, we'll have our first trip up end of next week all being well. The New Year's party was pleasant enough with good food and too much drink and competing fireworks in the middle of the street. Found a beautiful bantam chicken in the chapel next door, put it with the rest, this morning it sat with Bonzo, maybe the others wouldn't let it in with them being a stranger (poultry can be like that...) kind of Bonzo (who's been tied again, he seemed to be actually too warm inside, but when in his favourite place - in the gap front door, he was keep going out to the street - not very far lately, but still a nuisance and danger) to look after it... well - have a nice year, which is only possible if we overlook the reality of an even sadder, badder and madder world... We had the Dutch estate agent around - a nice youthful chap with a geography as well as a law degree and a Hungarian wife - he seems fairly enthusiastic, but don't know if we appeared on his website yet. We are not abating our breaths...