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.