A busy, if somewhat fraught week

As we had a lot to do, we decided to stay in BP and return to Ber on the Monday. While I was struggling with my cold and chest infection not a lot could be done, but by Thursday I had recovered sufficiently to venture out to see the latest Bond film. Yes, the story is the flimsiest excuse for the chases and fancy gadgets, but why not? I think the world of Daniel Craig ever since 'Our Friends from the North' days so Roy and I had a good time. As it was in the morning and on a week day, we practically had the entire cinema to ourselves. I think I only saw one more guy apart from us.

We also popped in to our favourite tyre place and ordered a set of winter tyres to be fitted on Friday, but he said Monday would be better, so we agreed. Back on Wednesday we also decided to convert our analogue cable contract to a digital one and we were promised the guy would call on Friday afternoon with the set top box and install it. Therefore Friday morning was spent by spending a lot of money on a couple of 32" LCD TV's. Why not go the whole hog? Digital TV and a new flat screen LCD TV, now we won't have to buy each other anything for Christmas, that was it!! However, while I was waiting for Roy to fetch the car I did have some funny looks from people wondering why we needed two. Well: there was one for the flat in BP and the other for the Farmhouse in Ber.

The little chap did come in the afternoon and we started enjoying the lovely picture and the extra channels (some with the facility for switching to English) on the TV. A few hiccups have remained, which we will have to work out later, like how to stop everybody being rather wide and fat, also the unpredictability of some programs in relation to switching to English. Why should it not be available when the original program was in English? Who knows?? The mysteries of Hungarian TV programming!!

After watching Foyle's War in English (sheer bliss) we retired early prior to leaving for some family history research and orienteering the following morning. The picture of 3 gravestones looking like obelisks above are of three Czettel ancestors I might or might not have had and who are buried in Abony, near Szolnok, South of BP. We did find some jungle like vegetation, although November was a lot more amenable than high summer, when we were there last. As a consequence of pottering around overgrown Jewish cemeteries, we nearly missed my start time at the Juniper Open on the Great Hungarian Plain. This area is really hard, as the juniper does grow into an impenetrable jungle, (see maps above!) where getting lost usually wastes a lot of time and is quite painful. I did manage to win both days, but not having any quality opposition lessened the value of it. Still, the navigational challenge is always tremendous on sand dunes, especially covered in juniper, so it was good, even though looking at my wanderings around control 2 on day 1, you wouldn't think so. We also found a really lovely hotel on the Internet for Saturday night, where we had comfort and extremely good service, so the weekend was shaping up well.

However, the icing on the cake was my Sunday night surprise treat for Roy, when I took him to see the Moiseyev Folk Dance and Ballet Ensemble, (see poster above) which was truly magical. I really wanted to see them and somehow suspected that Roy would enjoy them too. His shock revelation to me, however, was when he told me that he had already seen them in London, albeit 55 years ago. He enjoyed them then and he most certainly did so this time round as well.

After all this lovely time we came down to earth with a bump on Monday morning when it turned out that there were no winter tyres available at any of the wholesalers our little guy uses and we had to go back to Ber on summer tyres. I was furious: how on earth can it be true that nobody stocks the right size tyres for one of the most common little cars on Hungarian roads? When I managed to calm down I got on the Internet and found a garage (unfortunately on the other side of town) who had a few and eventually we ended up with some Hungarian manufactured tyres, called Hankook, which are made under South Korean licence and paid 300 quid for a set of 4 plus fitting. It was just as well we did, because as we approached Ber later in the day the snow started falling and has by now covered the entire village in several inches and is still coming down.

Today I also phoned our satellite man and he is supposed to be coming out on Thursday (subject to weather conditions) to see if he can commission the new TV with the SKY box Philip brought back in July, and if he can we will be a couple of very happy little campers after that. On this upbeat note I bid you good bye, that is assuming you are still reading this, which I doubt!