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.