After the New Year's Party we managed to surface amazingly early and decided to catch the bus home in the afternoon, as planned. Since then a few more pictures appeared from other people, one of which is posted here.
The weather was surprisingly calm, no snow, no wind, so the house wasn't as cold as we thought it would be. However, firing up the stove was a nightmare. The mild weather, no wind and high humidity simply depressed the air round the chimney so much that we only lit it after a great deal of struggle and once it was lit, we could hardly keep it going. My sister experienced similar problems, and we both resorted to heating by other means eventually.
I finally managed to finish the transcription I was doing for Ana and vowed never again to volunteer for another one. I loved listening to Fred, but his style of speaking is not easy to transcribe, not to mention the hassles of rewinding an MP3 file and switching between it and the Word file with the text in. I thought I might get on with other work now, until yesterday a request from Jordi arrived for an article on the situation and recent events in Hungary, so there is no peace for the wicked, as they say.
We had some chats with the little monster as well and received a video of him playing with our main Christmas present, which was a joy. His entire being radiated not only pleasure and excitement, but an inability of knowing where to look and/or which bit to play with. I am glad it gave and gives him joy, although his parents are not necessarily pleased with the size of the thing. Once it is put together there is no way of getting into the snug, which is a bit of a bother, I have to agree.
We came into town yesterday as I had several engagements, including making truffles with my friend Jutka and attending another concert in the Basilica. The truffle making was tremendous fun and finally we managed to make about 40 truffles, some with boozy cherry pulp and palinka in, the others with walnuts and covered in tempered chocolate. We divided it into two and I even used one of the lovely little boxes Stephen got me for Christmas to present some of them in.
Shame I can't really eat them, but I am sure we will have volunteers for making them disappear. Talking of which, a Canadian friend of mine, Erika, has just come out of the woodwork after having done a vanishing trick. She did come to the first Hash party at Hulk and Haggis's house, but was absent from the subsequent two, including the New Year's Eve one. On both occasions Roy took some of his palinka for Erika to taste, but she didn't turn up. Finally, she rang today and invited us to dinner tomorrow. Yippeeee!!!! I do like her and she only lives 10 minutes walk away, so that should be a hoot!
After the truffles we went to the second Basilica concert, which was pretty good again. I managed to take a picture with my phone, apologies for the bad quality, but that's the best I could do. The music is always amazing. These guys have such mesmerising voices and this time there was a woman singing with them as well as a female opera singer who was doing some of the solos. Magic!
We are in town until Tuesday when I have another concert and the plan afterwards is to get a lift home from an orienteering friend who is coming to start negotiations with the owner of the local estate about having an event there at the end of March. Orienteers amongst you might be wondering how negotiations about land permission etc. were not started earlier, but this is normal for these parts; although in this case they are a result of being let down by the forestry and environmental authorities, who having given verbal permission for months on their original choice of venue, just recently decided against giving it in writing. And permission is not the only issue, the map is nearly 7 years old, which means that even if they get permission, getting the map ready will keep them rather busy in the next month or two. Still, this guy is a marvellous young man and both Roy and I are fond of him, so we offered to put him up and help any way we can. I am sure that given half a chance the event will be a great success. By the way, did I say that it is actually the Extra Long Distance Championships? :-)
Must go now as tummy is beginning to rumble. Taraaa to you all and just for the last time, have a peaceful, prosperous and healthy 2012!!
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