Another week in Bér

Last weekend turned out quite different from that expected. The Trotsky film was awful. Not only pathetic in characterisation and historically inaccurate, but as a piece of art it was total rubbish. However, as Roy wanted to go shopping on Monday, at least the trip into BP was not a complete disaster. Apart from stocking up on food, he also bought a lot of timber, screws etc. while I got some lovely rectangular china pots for my hyacinths. The weather was quite mild to start with, but still miserable, however, towards the middle of the week it went cold, but bright. He got on with making bookshelves in the Library, while I set about some gardening chores which should have been done before Christmas. The first picture shows my lovely, newly dug veg patch in the sunshine. I did nearly a third of it before I gave up and paid Marci to finish it for me. For the princely figure of £2 I think I should have given him the job to start with. We have very heavy clay here, so much so, that I reckoned that if I put a shovelful of it straight into an oven, I might have ended up with a pot of some sort. It stuck to my shovel so hard that it would not drop off, not even when the sod (so to speak) weighed at least 10kg. We bought a lot of seeds, so I am now setting about growing them in trays prior to planting them out from March onwards.

The leaks in the Library have temporarily been fixed while we are thinking of long-term solutions. Roy in the picture is sitting and contemplating the layout of the shelves in the Library. I can't wait until they are done and I can start unpacking my books.

The third picture is the Kottage from the back, which looks very lonely now that Roy has abandoned it to finish the Farmhouse Library. I still think that there is something really charming about that small building in preference to the other two. Not quite sure what, but I love it even in its unfinished state.

SkyEurope finally published its summer timetable and I managed to put another little trip together to Amsterdam. As they don't fly from Budapest any more we have to go to Vienna. Roy has opted out this time as museums and galleries (the main targets of this visit) are not his cup of tea, so this'll be a girls' outing. Jutka and Klari are orienteering friends, Kati is one of Jutka's friends plus me. We are off in the early hours of Sunday, 9th March and return late on Tuesday, 11th March.

This Saturday is another training event in the Vertes. I'll be going if my cold does not get a lot worse. It seems as if I have been struggling with this one for the last 2 or 3 months. Roll on spring, I can't wait!

Miserable weather, waterleaks etc., etc.

No pictures today as I had nothing to photograph this week. Budapest was quite mild for the rest of our stay there. On Saturday I went to the Vertes for an orienteering training event, which was great. Crunchy snow under my feet, good course and reasonable weather. On Sunday I went to the theatre to see Terrence McNally's Master Class which was excellent. Kutvolgyi Erzsebet played Maria Callas, masterful performance!! On Monday I went to inspect a forest where we might do a Trail-O event and OK'd it. On the way home I popped in to my new/old bank trying to unravel the mysteries of currency transfer. As the CIB has swallowed the IEB I was full of hope for better and more reliable service from a much larger organisation. What naivete!! The old building is still beautiful, but the staff is all new and horrible. 45 minutes wait, a positively unpleasant and uninformed young woman who couldn't tell me anything useful. I have news for the Central-European International Bank: They are going to lose my custom! I am currently researching alternatives and hope to make the switch by the summer. On Tuesday we left on the bus for Ber. Before that we went to do some food shopping in the new Arena Plaza en route to the Bus Station. Yet another monstrosity built for the purposes of conspicuous consumption with strip lighting. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

The temperature in Ber was at least 5 degrees colder than in BP. There was snow still on the ground and on the roofs, although in the process of melting. By today, however, it deteriorated into thick fog, low gloom and a lot of slippery mud. Not the crisp January weather with sunshine I hoped for.

Car started up straight away, which was good news, but the garden gate was a bit damaged. Thankfully, no sign of break-in, which I was worried about - especially after the gate was a bit funny - as the village shop was broken into last week. Bunkhouse central heating was so good that within a few hours we were warm as toast. Farmhouse is another matter. It was only 4 degrees there, so obviously the central heating failed. The boiler was not working, but by opening the front of it it started up. Need an electrician soon. Big waterleak coming through the ceiling of the library, which was puzzling us first, but now looks as if it is coming from the upper terrace where the insulation on the edge has separated. Yet another job to fix, as if we didn't have enough on our plates.

Lots of post, I am still going through it: answering some, chucking others, filing most. The one good news is that after getting very frustrated with a total lack of travelling options for Alex and Meaghan in May, I found a way round it and they will spend their honeymoon on the Dalmation coast after all. I will probably drive them to Zagreb (about 3 & half to 4 hours) where they will catch a Croatia Airlines plane to Dubrovnik. After a 5 day stay there they will catch a nice slow boat up the coast to Split, where they will stay 2 nights and then fly back with EasyJet to Gatwick.

I am awaiting the delivery of a book today and as soon as it arrived we are driving to Budapest. I am needed for some work in the block which I will have to do with the chairwoman of our committee, but the main reason why I am going is that the YCL is showing a film about Trotsky in their committee rooms and that I cannot miss. Will report on it in next post.

British interlude en route home

Zoom Airlines got us to Gatwick half an hour early only to then spend over an hour waiting for our luggage. With completely dead mobiles I had to use a public phone box for ringing Stephen. It cost me 60p for leaving a 15 word message before I got cut off. Mobiles are definitely cheaper, if only Canadian 110 volts would charge them!!

Bought Alex's calendar, had lovely lunch in Basketmakers (again) met up with Stephen and gave him his Toronto Maple Leafs shirt from Alex and Meaghan. Got to ASDA to pick up our glasses and buy Roy's nostalgia items of Cheddar cheese, English pork saugages, porridge oats, gravy powder and OXO cubes. We decided to forego the thick cut marmalade trying to look after our luggage zippers which were already under undue pressure.

Met up with Stephen again after which he gave us a lift back to the B&B. In the evening we had a couple of slightly too cold pints of bitter and a good meal in the Six Bells in Horley. While part of the Traditional Old Inns chain, this old pub is so quintessentially oldy-worldy English that the atmosphere is still there. Must suggest to future in-laws for a drink and/or meal, should they have a stop over in Horley any time.

The second leg of the trip was really amazingly uneventful. Plane left only slightly late and arrived on time. Then followed a record that should be quoted in the Guinness Book of World Records. We landed at Budapest Airport Terminal 1 at 4pm. After being bussed to the building, standing in the immigration queue, waiting for luggage, getting a taxi and travelling into BP in the rush hour we were inside the flat by 4.40pm. Anybody who can beat that should contact me on this blog!!!

Now I am trying to acclimatise and get over jetlag. Roy is great and has instantly readjusted, I am a bit slower.

Distillery district & the last few days in Toronto

We are back home. The trip was quite uneventful, if somewhat exhausting. I am still quite jetlagged, but intend to go orienteering tomorrow to shake the cobwebs hopefully.

The last few days were just as hectic as the whole holiday. We went to the Distillery District which housed the old whiskey distilleries and associated warehouses in the 19th century and is now converted to a lovely area with nice brick built buildings housing shops, galleries and cafes. (see photo) We had an amazing cup of hot chocolate with chilli in it. We looked at some impressive Swedish furniture and visited a gallery with stylish paintings and sculpture. (see nude on Indian rope trick!) One of the shops had really posh kitchen ware where I fell in love with a jug. (see piccie) Not that I could ever afford to buy it. :-(

Later Alex and Meaghan found a lovely goldsmith who is likely to get their commission to make their wedding rings. Sod's law would have it that gold is at its highest price for years, but thankfully so is the Canadian dollar. We also managed to squeeze in most of what was left on the "to do and see" list, including a big steak for Roy, Vietnamese food, another Japanese and a Chinese restaurant. We also went to The Beaches district of Toronto to walk by Lake Ontario and generally saying good-bye to the city. On the penultimate day we went to a fantastic cheese shop on Danforth, called Alex Farm Shops (or something similar) and purchased a small amount of that heavenly Quebecois goat cheese I tasted the previous week. They even vaccuum wrapped it for travel, what lovely people!!

Just in case anybody thinks that suddenly we have become millionaires with all these trips out, it must be put on record that Canada is a very reasonably priced country, even in the big city and Meaghan and Alex are clever life artists who know how to find all the great places at minimum cost.

Must go now as somebody is on the phone waiting for me. Rest of return trip a bit later.

Niagara, Wine Tour, Chinese food and Fish and Chips

After our magical trip up the CN Tower on New Year's Eve we have been waiting for another bright day to get down to Niagara. Wednesday dawned very sunny and while the weather was nearing -10 with wind chill we decided to brave it. I had all my thermal underwear with me, but Roy needed to borrow some from Alex. Driving through the gaudy kitsch of souvenir shops, casinos, hamburger joints etc. in Niagara Roy commented on the Blackpool atmosphere all round. However, once we got near the falls it became absolutely stunning. I have been before, but Roy hadn't and anyway, winter is very different with all the frosted up trees and the high spray. Even Roy was suitably impressed which is saying something. The picture of the kids tells you how nice and warm it was there!!

After that we popped into Niagara on the Lake for lunch. The whole place is very posh, large detached houses, expensive shops and restaurants, hotels and vineyards. After lunch we went on a wine tour at Peller Estates Winery - another unique experience for me. We have first gone into the shop where we tasted a Riesling, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Riesling Ice Wine. The latter was a revelation. I have tried the Vidal Ice Wine at Christmas, but the Riesling Ice Wine was more acidic, therefore less sweet and altogether delicious.

The next step was to go on a proper wine tour with Rose Anne, who seemed very knowledgeable about wine in general and Peller wines in particular. She told us all about the method of making Ice Wine, although I must admit, having started reading the book I got from Daphne at Christmas, I knew most of it already. The frozen grapes have to be harvested at -8 Celsius or lower, so they were hoping that they can start that very night. We have heard later that they did and it was a good night's harvest, followed by another night, but since then it got too warm again. We then repaired to the cellar (see photo) where the tasting carried on. This time it was a Chardonnay, Merlot and Vidal Ice Wine. Roy did not take to Ice Wine and along with the kids thought the best was the Riesling, but I could not choose, it was all so lovely. I suppose the reds were a bit too light, we are used to more full bodied reds, but I liked them all. Oh yes, we also had another bit of interesting information about this winery, namely that the founder, Andrew Peller, was a Hungarian. Small world, isn't it?

As that day was pretty long and tiring we took the following day easy and the day after went to a Chinese restaurant to try Toronto Chinese. We had four different dishes and tried all and amazingly ate all of it. Last night we had Fish and Chips, which was the second time on this trip for Roy and me. Yum, yum!!

Only three days left, it went past very fast. I might not get to post before we leave, but will try.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Most of the week since Christmas was spent with preparing for the New Year's Eve party, shopping, visiting the odd site and researching into a complete stranger (see old sepia photo). The latter's story started back in St. Catherine's where Heather and Lyle had this guy's picture up on the wall in a lovely old frame. They, apparently, had this picture for 20 years, it came from a local antique shop, but they had no idea who he was. Roy suggested to look on the back and lo and behold there was a name which looked like Bretton Penneton. Once back in Toronto he set about finding him in the records available on the Internet. While it was not a nice thought, he was hoping that the guy died in the First World War, as then he would be listed on the War Graves Commission site. He was, although his name turned out to be Peter Balfour Pennington.

Roy then got the bit between his teeth and in less then a week he turned up information on the following: his regiment, his date and place of death/burial, pictures of the cemetery he lies in, a memorial certificate about his death which gave his mother and father's name plus the address in 1916. Those of you who have any idea about family history research would probably have realised by now that he was well away and impossible to stop.

At the moment we now have his family back to the 18th century, all his sisters, uncles, aunts etc from Lancashire etc., etc. Just today he found a living descendant of one of his great uncle's and the story just goes on and on. What a lovely hobby (read for that obsession) this family history research is!!

The highlight of the past week was New Year's Eve. As the weather looked nice and bright Alex and I went up to the 360 restaurant on top of the CN Tower to have lunch. Roy and Meaghan both suffer from fear of heights, so this was a private trip by the two of us. The restaurant is about 1100 ft up and it moves slowly round (hence the name), the food was out of this world, the service friendly and very efficient, so an extremely good time was had by all. We stayed about 2 and half hours, during which our table went round twice. Took lots of pictures and even had the waiter take ours. (see two attached!)

In the evening we had lots of Alex and Meaghan's friends (see picture) around for a party, good food and lots of Martinis later we went to bed about 3am. A very happy, healthy and prosperous 2008 to all that read this!