gatherings

yes, we done peas - those weird ones, were snappable after all, ok. Done a few batches of sorrel, chard, made pesto from ruccola, have a few strawberries on the long suffering 3 plants, got paprika already in the polytunnel, and after weeks of cherry- eating now we got to raspberries and black- cherries, colllected a bucketful of the latter and done the receipt which produces juice as well as jam, using veg pectin, which also means less sugar used. met old girls, gone to Budapest for a pleasant weekend, we decided to go to Poland again, retracing our first ever parents-free adventure - gasp - 48 years ago... we won't take the train to Krakow it is bloody expensive at 32K HUF while the coach is 6K! and takes the same long - 7 hours, but at more comfortable times. as you can see on the pictures, the garden is truly beautiful now, with some of Erzsi's weird flowers, the roses, the grapes... we'll have tons of those, if not on the red one, as that one started with a bad atka invasion. Also one of our apricot trees suddenly curled up and died. We had a quick very non-organic spraying - we hope we saved the others, Alan chopped all dead bits. oh - and we have 1 (one) little gosling!! We were sure with having such an old gander, we'll end up with the same smelly eggs as last years, so we thought we collected all of them - but the goose decided to sit on something - and lo and behold - one little yellow thing! And the parents are so proud of it, and incredibly aggressive - even more than usual... all that sissing... meanwhile we are overjoyed about Corbyn's success, so glad Szondzs had a positive first activist experience... well, interesting times .... also all sort of sad things happened such as Jutka's ex - grandad of 4 - suddenly died. The pics also show the fountain in P;cs just before the cruel caretaaker type of chap chaces away all the happy children... and a rainbow in Budapest from marta's window... seen a bad Kusturica film, the newest, don't bother. It has a few bizarre ideas and nothing much else. Even the music is not as good as before. also you can see Gazsi's grandtwins in the village, getting comforted after inocculation at the doc's, and our new banana tree. By the way, the mandarin-tree is flowering like mad - we'll have to find a good home for it for the winter - we plan to go back to Aghios Andreas again from mid-October...

sedimentery

Last open pince day in Palkonya, bank holiday here (pünkösd*) hope Alan will feel like going later - he is working in the garden... the uphill struggle against weeds... though he's nearly winning... *májusfa kitáncolás, in Kiskassa happened last week with szalonnasütés but we did not feel like going. . beautiful day today, not so hot with a bit of breeze (28C) no rain forecast for ages, not good for garden... started feed surplus tons of lettuces to hens, but they are too old to get through them, and not many left, (6) dying out after relatively long hopefully ok, but very eggful lives. Hungarians don't want our lettuce. They still only have use for it in its sugar/vinegar bath. I keep looking at last blog postings, and the gaps grow bigger - is there anybody out out there, or is this just a boring diary record to myself? Now without hostel, interesting guests, or attempts of being environmentally friendly, or any other way, it is a bit of a bore... pics show Siklos resti - still very good, especially now that we can sit outside under those gorgeous trees. And Alan's tea yesterday, salad mostly lettuce and rocket, last jar of beetroot from last year, and an egg-pie thingie I made mostly with chard - that taste very much like spinach, the last of Marta's proper cheese, my pesto. kefir and brown cus-cus... turned out very tasty but a bit dry and too much, frozen 3 portions... conserved and froze away sorrels, picked and eaten perfect cherries for the last 2 weeks or so. Otherwise I am sitting too much, reading and being still addicted to italian style hungarian crosswords. Watching tennis. Quite nice really, this is how I pictured old age, would be perfect with an hour per day intensive table tennis, or tennis (it turned out, it is available free on the Ujpetre court, any time. But Alan is usually tired from working on the land... there's nobody who does these sort of things -and - has time for it... am I a bit down today? Maybe I am. Must be the politics...