Quiet village life

Long time no post!! Doesn't time fly when you are enjoying yourself?!! Life in the village has settled back into its rather monotonous, simple pattern - making us both feel secure and happy. The weather is still crazy with heatwaves, then stormy periods with lightning and thunder, then a bit cooler, then hot again. We managed to mow the lawn this time, thus saving ourselves one lot of 10.000Ft. When it is hot and the grass grows slower, you can keep on top of it.

The roses are still very pretty and the grapes are close to harvesting again. Roy is never happy unless he has a project on the go and this time he was building a memorial to my parents whose ashes we brought home from the cemetery. This saved us 50.000Ft in renewal fees and having them this close will make us feel closer to them and we can look after them with flowers etc. easier. The heavy work is now done, but I am thinking of creating some pretty borders round it with flowers and/or a hedge. Not quite the right season for it, but we'll see.

Last Tuesday I had my checkup with the homeopath lady, who told me that I can relax a bit on the diet. I am so concerned about the effect this would have, that I have not gone mad, but am having some peaches and apricots which are delicious. I also made a small rhubarb crumble with this funny sugar I am allowed to have and it was not very sweet. Still it is a step in the right direction and every little advance is most welcome. The next checkup is in about a month or so's time, we'll see then how it goes. I have also put on a couple of kilos, although Roy is very pleased with the new svelte me and requests that I do not put all of it back, if possible. I agree. Especially that I now fit into my old Rohans which have not fitted me for at least 5 years. Not to mention the marvellous saving of at least £100 which I can make with wearing an old evening gown to Stephen's wedding. This gown has not fitted me for at least 10 years or more. It is actually really gorgeous, made of wine coloured velvet with a matching embroidered silk shawl in a similar colour, just in lighter shade. Hopefully you will see it on the pictures next month.

Must go now as I am watching the Lewis DVDs that Steph and Alan gave me. I have so far seen one and a half episodes and I liked them. The tone, pace and atmosphere of them are very similar to Morse and I do like the young Fox. He will not bring shame on the dynasty I am sure.

Andor's visit

Andor arrived by bike on Thursday afternoon, bang on time, even though it was quite hot and he had to stop three times en route for a drink and a rest. After the success of the wood cutting effort the day before (see wood store!) we busied ourselves with making jam on the day of Andor's arrival. It was rather long and exhausting and the result could have been better, but another batch since turned out better. I think on the first day we have not put in enough sugar or the pectin we bought was too old and had gone off. It didn't want to set for ages and even now it is a bit runny. Still it tastes great, so who cares?

On Friday the forecast was for rain, but it wasn't too bad. We made an attempt at a short hike, but only got to the end of the village when the skies opened, so we ran home. It is so long since I had a good chinwag with Andor, that we were perfectly happy to stay at home and talk.

On Saturday we finally did manage a short 4km walk around the village and its wodland, which was very refreshing. It looked like rain again, so we didn't dare to walk too far from home. The picture is of a large group of swallows mustering on the electricity wires. We were wondering if they were getting ready to leave or just having a meeting.

I also took some further pictures of my roses, which are not a patch on last year, but still producing some blooms. Andor finally left on Sunday morning after a large English breakfast of sausages, bacon, fried egg, mushrooms, tomatoes and fried bread. He put it away in no time at all and was fully armed for the cycle trip home. As the weather was absolutely perfect for cycling (cool, calm but without rain) he rang to say that he only stopped once, and then only for 10 minutes to have a drink and was home in 3 and half hours.

Back in Bér

There seems to be a lot to do in the garden, which is not surprising, considering we have been away from here for nearly a month. Thankfully, Bandi has been to cut the grass about a week ago by the look of it. The garden looks so nice and tidy when the grass is short. The raspberries look at their last legs - obviously in their first season they do not take kindly to no watering. Shame, but that's life. On the other hand, some of the yellow plum trees have produced a nice lot of fruit, so this morning we have been picking plums. (see picture!) Roy's method of two years ago will be applied again:
1. half cook them with their stones in
2. squeeze the stones out so that you are left with just the partially cooked pulp
3. add sugar and pectin and finish cooking them
4. bottle, seal and wrap them in duvets to cool down slowly and thus create a bomb proof vacuum.

We still have a few bottles from two years ago and they still taste heavenly. We gave a partially full big jar of it to Sheila last month, which I hope she will enjoy. The only thing you have to be very careful about is never to stick a dirty implement into the jar as it will go off. Using 1 litre jars adds to the risk of it going off, because no matter how much you like it, it usually takes a few weeks to finish such a big jar.

Roy's minions are also working in the garden this morning finishing the cutting up of the logs for winter. I did take some pictures of them, but was asked not to publish them on the Internet, lest they lose their dole. One of them is also currently fighting the authorities in getting a disability pension, which I think he fully deserves. This is the guy that fell off the walnut tree by the stream and broke his ankle in so many places, they couldn't put him together again. He will never get a worthwhile job with that gammy leg, so he is entitled in my book. Roy is happy to give him the occasional bit of work, as even if and when he gets his disability pension he will only be able to starve on that.

Apart from the yellow plum trees, there is very little else in the way of fruit this year. The blue plums and the pears are resting, the apple has only a few on it and the remaining peach tree seems to have only about 15-20 peaches on it. Perhaps next year we might venture into palinka production if we can get a barrel to ferment all the fruit together for later distillation. Bér still has a government still, so provided all our fruit together fills a large barrel, Roy can have his own palinka.

The other pictures show the other trees, the grapes and the English rhubarb which feels very happy here. Lots of nice crumble and jars and jars of stewed rhubarb has been made with it already.

If all goes well, Andor is coming tomorrow by bike, depending on the weather.

Back home

We arrived at the flat with 14 minutes to spare according to the TomTom's estimate on Saturday afternoon. The town was empty in spite of the likely excess of cars due to the Grand Prix. I think Saturday is always a bit dead: all locals are out at their summer houses, the real keeny F1 fans have already arrived and the ordinary punters are only due on the Sunday. Our mileage was quite impressive: we motored 5175 kilometres (3235 miles). Considering our earlier troubles in the year and our advancing years, we fared quite well.

The trip back was about as hassle free as the drive there. After our overnight at Alan's we left around quarter past 8 in the morning and managed to put in a distance of 842km which was considerably more than planned. It was mostly to do with the weather plus a few other adversities. First of all the plan was to head for the lovely campsite at Karlstadt which we have discovered on the way out. The weather was comfortably warm, very pleasant without a cloud in the sky. Until we got near our intended destination when it went dark grey then black and it started bucketing down. It looked like it was set to pour for the next 3 days at least in that region, so we journeyed on hoping for it to be clearer further East. Deggendorf was the next target where we have camped some years before on the banks of the Danube, but it was not to be. About 20 minutes before that region it started to pour again. Now time was getting on, so we shelved the idea of camping and decided to aim for Passau where we were going to pick up the Upper Danube Valley and try to find a nice gasthaus. The one we found first is in the picture above, but don't let the attractive outside fool you! It was not very friendly, quite expensive (70 Euros for the night) and the restaurant had a cocky waiter and a choice of only 3 dishes. However, we were both very tired and especially Roy, also very hungry. I had something out of the cool box, he had the chicken breast in breadcrumbs with potato salad in the restaurant, after which we tried to retire to our room to rest. Fat chance! Right underneath of our window was a large group of people having a barbecue, result of which our room smelled of fried bratwurst, not to mention the loud shouting and laughing. We asked to be moved, which the receptionist refused to do on the weak pretext of having no more free rooms. Never mind the late hour, we decided that anything was better then this and left.

As this valley is famous for its beautiful and dramatic views, cycle lanes, lookout points, forests and hiking trails, we were sure to find something soon. Well, we have learnt that one should never take any amount of crap from hoteliers and restaurateurs and only after about 20 minutes come upon the find of the trip. A farm which has had a new building built about 15 years ago for travellers. The family running it didn't speak much English, but they were very helpful, friendly and charged only 18 Euros per head including continental breakfast. The room was palatial, clean and comfortable with no noise or food smells anywhere and we also found some lovely English speaking people in the bar to chat to in the evening. We are sure we will be back. It is in Engelhartszell right on the Danube, contact details available to anyone asking for them!

The following day we did some more motoring in that lovely valley before the road swung away from it towards Linz. The TomTom was a bit weird again, like back in Kent when it sent us down some very tiny little lanes just to avoid a completely pleasant and non-congested little town like Tenterden, but finally we did find the A1 for some faster progress.

The only bad jam of the entire three weeks was unfortunately encountered around Schwechat, just before Vienna Airport. To be quite honest we still have no idea why. We did see a few overheated cars on the hard shoulder after queueing for 40 minutes or so, but those could have just overheated in the jam, rather than been in an accident. Well, such is life and mysteries of traffic which is a classic example of a chaotic system.

Now we are unpacking, washing dirty clothes and trying to pick up our life where we left it three weeks ago. Oh yes, and will be watching the Hungarian Grand Prix in a minute!!!