Great tits, ancestors and other interesting pursuits

The suspended speck fat did its job and our little tits did not starve while we were away. I put large handfuls of sunflower seeds into the wooden bowl as well since, so they are happy.

I have written about the difficulties of finding great grandfather Daniel Czettel's grave before, due to overgrown vegetation and vandalised gravestones. Eventually we did find it, but as I forgot to take the cable with me I couldn't download the pictures I took. Now that we are back home I did and here they are. The very short, obviously truncated dark grey grave is that of Daniel, the other lighter one has one of his brothers, Ödön and his wife in it. That is almost legible, although we needed real jungle hacking skills to get to it.

The puzzle is what on earth had happened to the main gravestone on Daniel's grave? In fact, Daniel is altogether a mysterious character. Why was he buried away from his first wife? Well, I suppose he was already married for a second time when he died, so his widow didn't want him buried with this first wife. But then why was his name registered in the burial records as David? Thankfully the proper civil register had his correct name, but once we identified his grave the main stone was missing. In most cases the missing stone is lying just on top of the grave, or next to it, or sometimes some distance from it in the nearby row on another grave. But his stone is nowhere. We searched for it in vain. These granite and marble stones usually weigh about 400-500kg, so who on earth would just pick one up and run away with it? If anyone has any suggestions they would be gratefully received. As you can see, it is not only missing, but the rest, that is there, is at an angle. There are no inscriptions on it, presumably those were on the missing bit, but we know that is the right one because we managed to identify the graves on either side and they tallied with those in the register on either side of his entry. So that was that!

This morning we had another snow flurry, but it has all but melted again since. 20 people are coming for 3 days tomorrow, so we were cleaning and lighting up fires next door. Three big hikes are planned, so I hope the weather cheers up. Today the fog was pretty thick, but as I had my brand new TomTom, there was no danger of getting lost.

Must go now as I haven't had any dinner yet. Roy has cooked for himself and left me out! :-( I better go and fix myself something.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Long time no blogging. Time flies when you are busy. Since I have posted we had a lot of snow, but now it has melted all over again. We didn't do much Christmas shopping as we are all on our own this year, but made sure that there were a few presents bought for those we love either by proxy or sent in the post. Our star present this year came from the kids - all four of them - and it was a TomTom. This is a car based GPS and it has the whole of Europe on, so it should come really handy in the summer.

The pastor had turned up with three more calendars and 1 each got posted to Stephen and Alex. Apparently we bought all the booze in Toronto, some glasses and a vase for Stephen and an item of clothing for Lucy. We kept the age old tradition of not buying each other anything. This is so funny. As the years go by this is becoming more of a joke than anything else. The kids never bothered themselves with it in the past, but Alex (especially since he married Meaghan) seems really puzzled. I have no idea how it started, but now it is a tradition for us and it means that you do not need special reasons to show love and appreciation by buying presents. We do buy each other things all year round, but often can't quite think of anything for Christmas. So what? Believe me we are secure enough in being loved not to bother with presents.

Today was great: I had salmon en croute, Roy had two large pieces of fillet steak all washed down with champagne, followed by walnut "beigli" (Hungarian Christmas Cake). He is now happily snoring in front of the TV showing "The Antiques Roadshow". Can you have a better Christmas? Well, perhaps if Callum was here that would beat this, but it is not always possible.

We had a chat with Alex, Meaghan and Callum on Skype, but unfortunately even Skype could not cope with 15 million users on line, so the video didn't work. Still, we heard his little gurgles and we were happy. Stephen hasn't phoned yet, but I am sure he will later.

SO, NOW I'M OFF - A VERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU OUT THERE AND AN EVEN HAPPIER NEW YEAR!

The 2010 Calendar

Well, my posts are coming like buses this week: nothing for a long time then three come at once! :-)

We had a lovely surprise this morning. The local evangelical pastor came over with a present of a calendar for 2010. It was not a run of the mill calendar, but one that he and his friends produced using the paintings of Sandor Panteli, a very talented watercolour artist, plus lots of photographs taken at various events over the year in Ber. The story of how Sandor came to be good friends with the people of Ber is charming. A few years ago he found his way to the village while he was on his summer wanderings looking for subject matter. He fell in love with the area and proceeded to paint several aspects of our village: old houses, cellars, the church from many angles etc. When the pastor noticed what he was doing he offered the Church Hall for an exhibition of Sandor's work and the rest is history. He offered a percentage of the proceeds for the parish fund and since then took part in summer schools, several festivals and even the building of the outdoor bread oven by the school.

I own two of Sandor's paintings and was glad to see that both are in the calendar. The one above is of 4 houses in the venacular style, 3 of which happen to be ours. From left to right: Bunkhouse, Farmhouse, Kottage and my sister Nelly's house. It is a slightly romantic representation, but very accurate all the same. They chose this one for March and the one below, which I love very much, is the one for September.

The story behind the September picture is very sad. Thankfully Sandor painted the picture before it fell down the following year. A lot of the houses in the village are derelict, but this one need not have fallen down if the owners cared for it at all. The old lady who owned it was in a home, unlikely ever to return to it and I asked the family why on earth can't they sell it to let someone with money restore it to save it from falling down. They answered: "Oh, no, what would Auntie say?" Well, Auntie obviously preferred it falling down rather than let someone else have it. That house is actually famous as when I bought a hefty volume of the history, architecture, art and craft of Nograd county, the only picture from Ber in there was one of that building representing typical late XIXth/early XXth century peasant baroque, but sadly it is no more.

Having rung the pastor back I found that today is the deadline for orders, so fairly soon further copies of the calendar will be winging their way to England and Canada.

Further forays into the jungle (aka The Main Jewish Cemetery)

Since I last posted Roy and I have done very little until today. He has a cold and I didn't feel up to my trip to Belgrade either, so we did a lot of relaxing, reading, watching TV and sleeping. Until finally today we returned to Ber and en route we braved the uncut jungle in the Main Jewish Cemetery to find some more Czettels. As you can see we have been successful in a couple of instances, although we still have not found Daniel. However, because the kind ladies in the cemetery office offered to look up two names for us, we now know his address when he died. This allowed Roy to find his death registry entry on the Internet and it reveals interesting things. For example: his normal domicile at the time of his death was in Vienna and his wife's name was Pauline Herzka. This, we assume, means that after the death of Fanny, his first wife in 1899, he got married again. We tried to find his grave in plot 5A, but had no luck. It is always a bit of hit and miss trying to find the correct row and then count the graves to arrive at the right one. Double graves count as two, but even that is unreliable and if the grave is vandalised, overgrown or damaged by weather, vegetation, war etc. then you don't know. Plot 5a is still a bit of a jungle, although the row we thought was the right one was cleared up to a grave which had a fairly recent burial, so we could walk along, but ended up none the wiser.

We did have some successes, however in other plots and as you can see on the photo found his first wife's grave in the middle of a great big jungle totally clear. Granite is too hard and slippery for creepers to cling to it, so the picture looks quite good.

The weather has got very cold, so we will be nursing our colds and other ailments indoors this week, hoping to recover for Christmas, which we hope to spend in BP.

Appendix added later on in the day:

Armed with name Pauline Czettel nee Herzka we played around with this on the Internet and came across an amazing Austrian site with about 150 members called www.grave-pictures.at This is a site where you can see some Jewish cemetery pictures of graves, some documents, read some accounts of recent Austrian history, family histories etc. One topic grabbed my attention as its address was "Suicide as the Last Resort". It turned out that when the Nazis marched in on 12th March 1938 and annexed Austria (The Anschluss) they instantly started the persecution of the Jews, aided and abetted by their anti semitic Austrian cousins. According to this site Pauline Czettel took her own life 12 days after the Anschluss to escape the persecution. That really shook me. I am now trying to find out more, but due to the scanned document posted about her death on this site being very dark and difficult to read, as well as my minimal German I am only guessing at this stage. So far I deduced (hopefully correctly) that she was rounded up, taken to some Headquarters and there jumped to her death through a window. I posted a request for help with translating this document on their forum section, so hopefully someone will either confirm my assumption or put me right as to what exactly happened. As soon as that happens I will post it here.

Bovril, Marmite, Branston pickle, marmalade and gravestones

Two very contrasting stories this time. One is about English food the other about a cemetery.

You can see in the first photo a set of shelves in one of BP's Tescos that disproves our whinge about not being able to buy Branston pickle, marmalade and other such delights over here. Well, it is true, except in this particular Tesco the store's buyer obviously acquired by extra sensory perception the list of goodies we could not get so far, ordered them and when they arrived put all of them on the same shelving unit. It may just be a special treat for Christmas and they will disappear for another 12 months soon, but we were utterly shocked by the sight. Mind you, if you have a look at the price of some of them (exchange rate of 300=1) you might as well consider them not being available, as who would want to pay nearly 5 quid for a jar of peanut butter?

And now for the cemetery pictures. You may recall that recently we have visited the old Jewish Cemetery of BP where they have not buried anyone for at least 50 years. I have quite a few of my ancestors interred there and the last expedition revealed a very overgrown, neglected and ruinous memorial on top of a looted vault for the Posners as well as a fallen gravestone which we reckoned was that of my great great grand mother Czettel, although we weren't sure. Since then we checked in the burial register using one of the names that is visible next to it and were fairly sure that was it. The problem now was how to lift it to confirm that it was hers and then take pictures. I reckoned the stone was too heavy, but Roy had some great ideas with planks and ropes. Well, we did it. I couldn't believe it, considering that we both have arthritis and bad backs, not to mention Roy's hernia!! I suppose the recent rains helped to make the ground soft and the half ton stone gave way and allowed us to roll it 180 degrees.

As you can see the lettering is as sharp as the day they carved it into that piece of lovely, shiny, jet black, polished Swedish granite and Roy was very pleased with himself. He is now talking of getting someone to place it back on top of its plinth from which we reckon some anti-semite vandal pushed it off some 60 years ago. If it is not too expensive we might have it done, we'll see.

2009 Christmas Message

While most of you have already received this by e-mail and regular readers of the blog would have come across most - if not all - that is in it during the year, we have still decided to post it, just in case some of you have missed it! Have a good read and apologies for the length of it! :-)


Dear relatives, friends and other interested parties

As you very well know we have not sent Christmas cards for several years now and nothing has changed. So, we are once again writing early to stop you sending cards in this direction. We were very pleased that the vast majority of you heeded our warning and did not send any last year. Many of you keep abreast of our comings and goings by reading our blog http://emigrants-thegrants.blogspot.com/ and we urge you to carry on doing so. Still, for the benefit of those who do not read blogs below is a short version of 2009, a year in which we became grandparents, a year during which the world economic crisis was still hitting Hungary, a year in which Julianna managed to get robbed in Spain and lose a lot of things and a year when in spite of all those potholes in our roads, a corruption quotient of 81% as quoted by PWC and a manner of all evils, our love of Hungary carries on unabated. J

The great event of the year: The birth of our first grandchild Callum. He was born on 14th August 2009 and we heard the news in the middle of our madhouse existence in Miskolc during the World Championships. He weighed only 6lb half an ounce (2kg 70dkg) but has caught up since. We visited them in October and saw that he is a real little glutton, demanding to be fed rather frequently and thus putting on large amounts of weight and length as well as becoming more and more aware, smiling, gurgling, laughing and generally getting so cute its unreal.

Travel: Tried not to travel too much for orienteering this year: partly due to finances, partly to having too much to do elsewhere and getting a bit too old for too much gallivanting all over the place. Still, looking at the list below, it doesn’t look as if we have cut down too much, does it?
Berlin (politics J only), Slovenia (Trail-O), Austria (orienteering), Bükk x 6 (Trail-O planning) + WTOC itself, England (visit J only), Spain (politics J only), Slovakia (politics J only), Paris (visit J only), Canada (grandson meeting).

Garden: Having no significant building works, our attention was turned to the garden. Established new veg patches, demolished retaining wall made of old beams, reseeded some lawn patches, evened out embankment between two halves of garden. Harvest was good, dozens of bottles of pears and peaches, but no chutney or lecsó this year. Planted some more roses and hibiscus in the flower garden. Walnut harvest was excellent again, although we are still trying to get through last year’s crop, so we will have to go into business selling walnuts.

New acquisitions: Nothing too exciting this year, mostly because having had her rucksack stolen in Spain Julianna had to replace several telephones, netbook computer and cash. In Canada , however, she treated herself to a Flip camcorder, which is an absolute gem. Fits in your pocket, is smaller than most cameras and it has a function of e-mailing videos anywhere, no matter how long the clip is.

Visitors: Stephen & Katy, Gun & Jonne, Steph, Sheila, Janet & Bernard, Dick & Kreso (IOF Advisors), Andor & Ági, Mick & Anne, Andor’s hiking crowd. Alan was supposed to come in October, but family illness prevented him. Thankfully it now looks as if not only he and Steph, but Andreas and Maureen are also coming with them in January for a few days. Another large crowd is expected for New Year’s Eve, just like last year.

Family: Alex, Meaghan and baby Callum are all doing well, are very happy and we had a gorgeous time with them in October. Stephen finally concluded his divorce in the summer. Subsequently he has parted from Katy and is now looking forward to new challenges. Has a lovely new girlfriend, Lucy and started renovating the house at Brangwyn Drive . His disco themed bathroom has been dazzling all his friends on Facebook. We are very proud of Sheila for coping as well as she has on her own. She visited us, which we very much enjoyed and we are looking forward to seeing her again next year. Julianna’s sister Nelly is still going strong, even though she is now approaching her 80th year.

World Champs: The less said the better. It was exhausting but very rewarding as well. The team, the competitors and the lots of lovely people who said thank you made up for the appalling neglect and downright hostility we suffered from the central WOC organisation. Julianna has still not had her expenses reconciled and doesn’t expect it ever to be done. But at least she has left Trail-O behind and will never get anywhere near it again! AMEN.

Orienteering results: Julianna is the 2009 Hungarian Orienteering Long Distance Champion (2nd behind Fey Klari who doesn’t count in the championships as she is a foreign citizen), 2nd in Sprint Champs, Night Champion, Middle Distance Champion, Overall Champion – all in the W60 class.

Family history: We are still working on the Czettel and associated lines on Julianna’s tree. Latest exciting trip included a reccy of the old Jewish Cemetery in Budapest . Real overgrown jungle, but very friendly caretaker lady, who was very helpful. We managed to find the vault of her great great grandmother’s brother and all his family. We also think we found the grave of her Czettel great great grandmother, but due to overgrown vegetation, weather erosion and vandalism a lot of stones are on the ground and we think one of those was hers. We are now planning how to lift it to have a look, as – needless to say – it fell on its front. Our communication with our new found close relative – Andrew Der – has been on and off, but it gives us great joy when we hear from him. We are both very pleased to have found him and having the dialogue that gets us closer to him and his family all the time.

Politics: Julianna has hosted a meeting of the EECC in Bér in the spring, which was very successful. Work in HOV is still reasonably successful and co-operation this year included making friends in the ‘democratic network’ and with young people in Slovakia . Recently she attended a demonstration in Bratislava to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.

Disasters: No great disasters, but 2009 seemed a year of physical exhaustion and bad luck (other than Callum’s birth). The exhaustion was to do with the World Champs and we are still trying to get over it. The bad luck related to being robbed and losing stuff. The losses include: the little netbook computer, money, telephones, leather handbag (left in Miskolc Hotel room), wedding ring (lost during an orienteering run) and a few others. Let us hope 2010 will be luckier!

2010 plans: Take it easy; take on less; enjoy life; accept the advancing years and try to make the most of being grandparents. Doubtless we will work in the garden, on the properties, do quite a lot of orienteering (some of it abroad), have some visitors etc., etc. So, it looks as if it will be a bit more of the same as ever, but hopefully at a slower pace with due care to our health and strength.

A very happy Christmas and New Year to you all!

Stay healthy, happy and keep in touch!

Love from Roy and Julianna in Hungary

Long week in BP

We have been in BP since I last posted. Managed to sort a few things as well as have a good rest. I did a lot of reading and we both watched a lot of TV. On the way in I did manage finally to replace my phone I had stolen in Spain with one exactly like it. Well, there are a few differences, the most noticeable are that this one is Plum instead of Charcoal and that the keys have Cyrillic as well as Latin letters on. Obviously from a consignment intended for Russia then. The price was about the same as it would have been on the Internet direct from Nokia, except that this one is not tied to any network. The pictures above have been taken with it, so I am now capable of taking both still and video footage any time anywhere. Good, innit?

Unfortunately the boot fender protector for the car had not arrived by then, so we will pick that up tomorrow en route home. While in BP we managed to get the 19 inch monitor mended, let us hope it works when we try it out tomorrow!! Roy agreed to have a mobile phone (miracles will never cease!!) but he is only going to wear it when the holder that fits his arm is done sometime next week. We also had some baby photographs done, so we are now proud owners of an album to bore all and sundry with. Roy finally managed to buy a simple black and white laser printer for Ber, but amazingly they do not supply the cable that connects it to the computer. Let us hope that in our box of dozens of redundant cables there will be one that fits.

The first weekend we went orienteering in the juniper jungle down South. I did manage to have a few hiccups: namely one of about 20 minutes on Saturday, which put me in second place behind my good friend Ildi, then on Sunday I managed to fall over twice, ruining both my knees and breaking my glasses. I finished second overall, which wasn't bad, but the juniper is currently winning against me about 10:4. Hopefully I might manage better next spring. We found a new hotel to stay in, which had a lovely thermal spa swimming pool. However, the quality of the place itself was probably not as good as its price suggested it should have been.

I went to the Opera on Tuesday and the theatre on Friday. Both were excellent. Madama Butterfly is amongst my favourites and the cast, while unknown to me was good. In the theatre I saw a modern adaptation of three ancient Greek tragedies with the title of Oedipus's Children. I don't normally like modern updates of classics, but this was very good. On Friday before the theatre I had Kati, Jutka and Andor visiting to look at the Canadian photos, videos and have a buffet supper. That was quite good, although, as usual, not long enough.

And finally today we went to the old Jewish Cemetery to look up some Posner and Czettel graves. It was pretty much as neglected and jungle like as those of Abony and Cegled in the country. There was a really nice lady who came round with us and tried to explain the row numbers, but it was mostly hit and miss. We did find the vault where the family of my great great grandmother's brother was buried, but my phone battery just died, so no piccies. Those above were taken earlier just to give a hint of the atmosphere of the place. Shame that the Jewish congregation does not spend a bit on its upkeep. I suppose as the last burials were about 40-50 years ago no relatives are left to contribute.

We're off home tomorrow. Let's hope the weather is not too bad, the garden is not too jungle like and all's well there. Now I can start doing the rounds of my friends with baby pictures as promised.

Another eventful week (well in parts)

The guest mentioned in the last post has come and we had a lovely chat. He is English and lives in Szirak. He brought a lovely hot dip, some jam and a collection a jalapeno and other very hot little peppers. We have now tasted all but the hottest and they are lovely. He updated us on some of the Szirak gossip and we had a really nice evening with him.

The main event this week was my trip to Bratislava (see photos). Tuesday was the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution which signalled the fall of Stalinism in Czechoslovakia. My friends invited me to attend a demo organised by the Communist Party to protest against the hardships that the reestablishment of capitalism brought to Slovakia. It was nice to see that at least some of the Left is still alive and cicking in Slovakia. In fact, one of their slogans was: "The communists are still alive!" Needless to say that the core of the demo was male and over 60, but it was also very refreshing to see that there was a significant minority of youngsters from a variety of organisations taking part. The Slovakian CP is obviously slightly more enlightened than its Hungarian counterpart on the need to co-operate with other anti-capitalist forces when it comes to show its face on the streets.

At home I managed to teach myself how to make films out of my little videos and even how to burn them onto a DVD. Unfortunately Roxio is still a bit of a mystery to me, for the life of me I can't find the button "Burn" on my version, so I used Windows itself. A 4.7 gig disc took almost all my Canada videos, which is great.

The little Flip camcorder is an absolute gem. Its own software allows e-mailing of videos, irrespective of their length. Obviously, when you click on the e-mail function, what it does is uploading it to its own site and then send a link to it in an e-mail to the address(es) you specify. Brilliant and so simple even a technophobe like me can do it easily with no hassle. END OF COMMERCIAL!

Today we are off to pick up my new(old) phone and the extra protector for the car's back bumper en route to BP. We should stay there for a week or so, as I have Opera and theatre tickets for next week.

The first week back

No pictures this time as I have not taken any. Lots to do back home, some of which had got done others not. It poured hard with rain the first three days, so we stayed indoors. Lots of post, filing, e-mail answering, picture and video downloading, cleaning, washing etc., etc. got done. We brought some food with us from BP, otherwise we existed on very little mostly out of the freezer. Finally on Thursday the sun came out, so we went to Hatvan. We had the winter tyres put on the car, shopped at Tesco's and I carried on my spending spree by ordering a new phone. I eventually found an outfit that would sell me a network independent Nokia 3600 for about £125 and I could even choose the colour. Went for plum this time, let us hope I like it, as she could not show me one. We also ordered an SX4 rubber fender protector that Roy fancied on somebody else's car in BP from the garage where they changed the tyres. Both the phone and that should be in by next Friday.

Friday the 13th was a nightmare. I have never been supertitious, but I might have a conversion based on that day. We have tried to burn a CD with no success for 2 hours, until we gave up and used the old desktop's ancient, wonky CD burner. There were other things that didn't work either until we gave in and ceased trying to do anything. We did prune the roses earlier, which at least was a useful bit of activity, but we did not achieve much on that Friday.

On Saturday we went to Paszto en route to the orienteering in Salgotarjan. We bought two big bags of bird seed, which the tits have been chomping on ever since. We posted Andrew's CD and bought some peat and raspberry plants.

The orienteering was great, but I managed to get myself off the podium by makign a silly mistake on one route choice. Still, I ended up 4th (not last) in a field which with the exception of Marika consisted of women up to 10 years younger than myself.

Today we planted the raspberries and tidied up prior to a guest coming. Roy made friends with Peter, an Englishman, from the next village and he popped over for some cheese, salad, wine and conversation. Only he didn't drink the wine as he was driving. Roy didn't mind that one bit as it was a nice drop of Merlot, he was rather partial to. He seemed a very interesting guy and we hope we will stay friends in the future.

On Tuesday I am off to Bratislava for a demo, otherwise next week is fairly quiet. The weekend will be spent in the South at the Juniper Cup, the season closer in the painful juniper jungle. Watch this space for photos and report in a week or so's time!

Home again

In the last 5 days we have still had a few adventures, but now we are happy to be at home. The dinner with Stephen and Lucy was really interesting. (see the plate of nibbles above!) I have never been to Food for Friends before, but it has definitely gone upmarket from what I gathered it was like in the past. Stephen's bathroom is getting done, although it must be a bit of a bind as both of them looked very tired. I had a chance of playing a bit with Stephen's new iPhone, which was fantastic. Who needs a separate phone, camcorder, camera, GPS, electronic diary, palmtop computer, compass etc., etc., etc. when you can have it all in one? Mind you, it would probably take me years to learn how to use it, never mind sorting the compatibility and other computer issues. However, I need not worry - it is not likely that I will ever get one.

The other picture is one of Alex's arty black and white efforts, which I find really touching. And just to think that his hands were once that size! Aahhhhh!!!

The coach trip up to Horley was uneventful and for once we had a really luxurious room. Watching TV from bed and showering in a large room size shower was indeed sheer luxury and made a change after the shoebox in Brighton.

Good flight with really soft landing en route home and in a mere 3 hours inside the flat. The season finale orienteering event was over the last 2 days where I enjoyed the steep rocky hillsides of the Vertes in spite of feeling quite jetlagged still. We are off to Ber tomorrow where I hope the house is not going to be too cold and look forward to a bit of peace and quiet.

Blogging in the draughty corridor

Just in case anybody is wondering about the title to this entry, it goes like this: we have booked three nights at a B&B in Kemp Town which promised to have WiFi. No sign of it in the room, but we discovered that the hall, staircase and corridor is fine. So if I want to blog, check e-mails, look at Facebook etc. I have to freeze my butt off in the hall, but that's life! :-)

The pictures (with the exception of the last one, which was taken by Alex) have been captured from my videos I have taken in Canada with my lovely new Flip camcorder. What a fantastic little gadget, I love it already. We are going out to dinner with Stephen and Lucy tonight, I will have to use the last 3 minutes on them and then I will have two whole hours of video from this holiday. The next job is to learn editing and putting together a DVD!

We are off to Horley tomorrow to stay at our favourite B&B from which they take you to the airport free as it is in the price of the room. Roy will have a farewell meal of sausage and mash in the lovely 500 year old pub near the B&B, but I will only photo stills by then as the camcorder will be full. Hopefully the next post is from BP.

Mummy's Little Pumpkin

The two top pictures are from last week, but I have just got them from Alex. The first is Roy and me at the Brickworks, potographed from a distance, while the second one is a gorgeous colour orgy in the Niagara Gorge.

The last few days were just as lovely as the beginning of our stay with Alex, Meaghan and Callum. We had a yummy Japanese meal and a Greek one. We had a Fish and Chips takeaway supper one night and Alex cooked big prawns in coconut milk on another night. Gail and Sarah visited one evening when we all had a takeaway curry. You may have noticed the culinary theme here. Alex has put on a few pounds, he admitted, but we enjoyed the food, whether out, bought in or cooked on the premises.

We went to the babies' library session again on Tuesday, when Callum decided to be antisocial and slept through it. Shame, as that was the last session and the lady there was ever so nice.

The new stroller arrived on Wednesday, we assembled it and took it for a test drive. It is a great improvement on the previous one with spring loaded wheels and easy steering. Mind you, Callum still has the miseries as he is put into it. He is a real "perpetuum mobile" so it restricts his kicking and wriggling. Still, once out he loves it, lookes around, gurgles to the trees and then usually drops off.

He is now very talkative, gurgles, smiles, laughs and follows you with his eyes. The cute factor is getting multiplied as the weeks go along and thankfully he is also beginning to grasp that night is for sleeping.

The last big event of the week just before our departure was Halloween, which he celebrated with wearing a cute suit and making a visit into the pumpkin. Sorry about the shaky T-shirt picture, but I do not like to use flash if it is possible to avoid it. His sentiments about his dad are reciprocated!

We left Toronto last night and arrived into a downpour, strong winds and yuk weather in Brighton. Still, what would one expect in November? Home on Thursday if all is well.

The Don Valley Brickworks

We went for an outing to these disused brickworks where the clay exctraction site has been turned into a lovely park with ponds, ducks, walkways and sheer cliffs on the sides. The old factory is being converted into an environmental centre and should look really good in a year or two's time.

The other day we ordered a new stroller for Callum which arrived today. It is really posh and is much more comfortable for both him and Meaghan. Tonight Roy had a massive steak dinner which Alex cooked on the barbecue. So far he had big prawns, big steak, both of which are treats for him. I am having sushi tomorrow and unfortunately it is getting close to us leaving. Another bad bit of news is that we can't stay with Stephen en route home, so I booked 3 nights in a B&B in Kemp Town plus the last night in the usual Horley B&B. They only had a "superior" room left, so that night costs almost as much as 3 nights in the Kemp Town B&B.

Another funny event tonight concerns the cat. She has disappeared into the ceiling tonight and we had to chase her out of there. She has now settled on our bed, where she spends most nights. Lovely creature, I like her, even though Alex is not keen. As it is getting close to midnight I am off to bed.

The second week

Not quite a full second week, but so much happened it feels like it. The weather unfortunately turned a bit cold and rainy, so we couldn't do too many outdoorsy things. We walked, however, to the Danforth and did some shopping one day and followed it up with some more shopping the second day. We bought a travelling cot for Callum and ordered a stroller (pushchair come pram for you Britishers) on the Internet and generally played a lot with the munchkin whenever we could.

Heather and Lyle arrived on Thursday and we all celebrated Alex's 35th birthday at a greasy spoon type cafe which resembled Gutbusters in Brighton for those of you who hail from that neck of the woods. Alex bought himself a beautiful telescope with the money we gave him, which pleased me no end.

Then on Friday we departed to St. Catharines to stay with Heather and Lyle for a couple of days. Callum made a fantastic leap in development right on the first day: he noticeably became more aware, focusing for longer times, following us with his eyes, talking to us and able to hold his head up better. He suddenly became a lot older right in front of our eyes. A true dialectical turn of quantity to quality that was.

I managed to photograph some of the fantastic fall colours on the Sunday on our walks as the weather cheered up by then. On our way back to Toronto we passed through Niagara on the Lake where some beautiful vistas proved to be quite photogenic.

We are now staying at Alex's until we depart on Saturday. Hopefully the weather stays good and a few outings can be arranged. Next post probably later on the week either still from here or from England.

The first week

We have left home a week ago and time flew past in a whizz. After our lovely time out with Ruth on Thursday we were supposed to have lunch with Katy on Friday but she had to dash off to Kent on union business. We did go for lunch at the Black Lion though, which is walking distance from Stephen's house and had their daytime special. That was so cheap that it was probably reasonable by even Hungarian standards nowadays.

The weekend started fairly early when Ruth picked us up at 8am with Ian in tow. The trip up to Cambridge was totally uneventful and we made excellent time, so we didn't have to use the Park and Ride. Parking is not nearly as expensive in Cambridge as I thought. Mind you, compared to Brighton anything is cheap.

The street event was quite good and I came 8th out of 23, which in my current state is reasonable. We went to have a little walk round Cambridge, then had lunch and watched the punts go up and down the Cam. Soon after we left for the Travelodge. We had a nice comfortable night followed by a fascinating wildlife show through the window of our room of a weasel, mobbed by two magpies, hunting for rabbits. A few minutes later it appeared again, but this time with a large, plump bunny in its mouth, trying to take it to his burrow in a hurry. I did not have the camera to hand, which was a shame.

Sunday's event was in a scrappy forest and I was entered for the wrong course. Ended up running up, doing 4.9k which was longer than my course in the Extra Long Championships in the Spring. I was running against women all my junior, some by 15+ years and wasn't last. In fact in that field I was one of only two W60's (the other lady did 82 minutes) and with my 66 minutes I beat 45 women who were all (but one) younger than me. Altogether a satisfying result, even though I felt like an asthmatic goat going round. I can't breathe well since my flu and the three months gap in orienteering will take a great deal of time and effort to get over. Losing a few pounds would also help!!

On our return we managed to catch the last 23 laps of the Brazilian Grand Prix and the celebrations that followed. It was fantastic to watch Jenson Button winning the 2009 driver's trophy, albeit he will only be presented with it a lot later. Then came Stephen's Corn Exchange gig, which was brilliant and we even got invited for drinks afterwards. I made two new friends: Corry Shaw and Julia, Stephen's new PA. Lovely women, both of them and Julia is half Hungarian as well. Small world!!!

And then we came to Canada. The trip was uneventful, although this most certainly was the last time we flew with Canadian Affair. The seats are so narrow that it was extremely uncomfortable, especially that I couldn't read my book without my elbow ending up in my neighbour's side. We were very jetlagged, but spent some time with Alex, Meaghan and Callum on the first day. After a good night's sleep we feel a lot better today and spent a lot of time with Callum who is delightful. I also picked up my new Flip video camera, which is fantastic. The guesthouse where we are sleeping is OK. Bit tatty in places, but will do. It is reasonably priced and we have a whole little apartment with kitchen, bathroom and a good room. The bed is extremely comfortable and we even have cable TV. On Thursday it is Alex's 35th birthday and on Friday we are off to St. Catherine's to stay a couple of days with Meaghan's parents.

I will upload a video about Callum to Flickr later, in the meantime enjoy his little cutie mush on this blog!!

Hike with Ruth

We have landed at Gatwick on time, Stephen and Lucy fetched us and we were in bed by midnight on Tuesday.

Wednesday was spent doing a bit of shopping and now I am the proud owner of the second volume of Michael Palin's diaries. That bloke should be on prescription for depression. I have never laughed as much reading a book as I have done reading the first volume, so I am looking forward to being entertained similarly this time!! I also got the 5th season House DVD and another one of Sharpe with 14 full length episodes for £30 each.

We had fish and chips with Wyn prior to a very good lecture on Christ's Hospital School at the SussexFamily History Group meeting in the evening where Roy could catch up with a lot of old friends he had not seen for yonks.

Yesterday the weather cheered right up, so we went for a hike with Ruth around Kingston near Lewes. You can see the pub where we ended up for lunch, Roy peering into an old Hillman Imp, the phoney 'old' mill being built on the Downs and the lovely friendly horse we met on the way in my pictures.

This morning Roy had a very painful leg, so I think today will be reasonably uneventful, although we are meeting Katy for lunch at the Basketmakers, so we will have to go out. I love that pub, I hope it is still the same as last time. All being well, we are off to Cambridge at 7.50am tomorrow.