Roy's sex change

Ahh, so I got your attention then!! No need to panic. One of our English keyboards had died and we replaced it with a Hungarian one.  That swaps the Y with the Z.  So he has become Roz, very fetching methinks! :-)

The remaining few days in the village went past in a flash and thankfully were totally uneventful. The cefre is still sitting in the barrels and according to Pali is not likely to be distilled now until the New Year. That will probably cause a small amount of administrative hassle, as this way we might have two lots done in 2014 (one in January one in December) which together might go over the allowable 50 litres per calendar year, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  As we nowadays say with some resignation: You have to live that long first! The trip in on the bus was quite good again, although black ice was giving the bus driver some concern, so it took a good 20 minutes longer than normal.  I managed to fall over just outside the gates after Roy warned me, but my boots were not good enough to counteract the thin sheet of ice that covered everything. A couple of purple bumps and a small scratch on my right shin is nothing to worry about. Especially when you think of the ice storm in Eastern Canada of the last few days. I hope Alex & Co. are OK, but I haven't heard from them yet, so they might still be without electricity.

On Saturday I went to a choral concert at the Basilica with some friends and beforehand had a little walk about in the Christmas Fayre in front of it. They even had a small ice rink and plenty of stalls selling everything from pottery, through cotton candy to sausages.

On Sunday I went to the theatre where I saw a stage version of Mephisto. This was the same story that in the film which got a Foreign Language Film Oscar about 15-20 years ago. It's about the corruption and moral decline of an actor under pressure to conform to the Nazis and fascist ideology in 1930's Germany. When I saw it all those years ago I wouldn't have dreamt of the very sorry fact of how much relevance to reality it will have in 2013.

Sunday was also the night when the final episode of Homeland wowed us all. I totally agree with kiiling Brody off.  He really had nowhere to go any more. I wonder if Carrie with newborn in tow will manage to control Zavadi from Istanbul, as well as produce story lines that are more believeable and still exciting in the next season. I will be watching, that's for sure.

On Monday we did our final shopping, including food, so the usual fare of fillet steak for Roy and salmon for me is ready in the fridge, coupled with sprouts, which we finally managed to get after some difficulty. While we normally do without a tree, any cards or decorations, or even presents - it is most certainly not Christmas without sprouts.

So, the rest of this post is my sincere wish for everybody anywhere in the world who are reading this to have a Merry Christmas and hopefully I should be back posting before New Year.

Nasty cough, cold and miserable weather

This is not going to be a long or unduly happy post.  Mostly because I have been really ill ever since I have posted last but also because the last couple of days before we went to stay at Stephen's were also a bit stressful. If you recall, I promised some further detail about the disaster of the last cache.  Well, to cut a long and unpleasant story short, the moderators rejected my cache due to its physical environment being a bit tatty. There was some truth in that, but commemorating the old airfield and an early female flying pioneer, you are stuck with what the airfield looks like now.  They wouldn't budge, so Roy and I went on the day of our travel to remove it.  In the afternoon we had the Ripszam conference, which also was quite unpleasant. I was the first speaker because we were in a hurry, but I got cut off midsentence due to time restrictions within the conference.  Not nice when Roy did months of research totally free of charge for them, but such is life. That should teach you to be nice to people!! :-)

Returning to last week: we didn't dare move out of town for a whole week, during which I faithfully stayed in bed, did very little other than watching TV, videos and reading when I was not too tired. Roy was his angelic self, doing the shopping, cooking and looking after me. He kept me so well fed and watered that finally yesterday we decided to risk the trip down to the village.  Main reason being that I ran out of pills and we were both concerned about the house, the cefre, the garden etc., etc.

The bus trip down was amazingly bearable.  There was a bit of a draught due to the idiot bus driver running the air conditioning, but otherwise all was well. Before we got on we had a langos between us, which was delicious. Having shopped for the 4 days we'll be down here, we also had lots of satsumas to nibble en route.

Unfortunately the weather turned very miserable, so even though we are not down for too long I decided to fire up the pottery stove.  It has never been left this long before lighting it for the winter. It's normally sometime in November or on occasions even in late October we fired it up, but not this year. We have been flitting between places with such regularity, plus the weather has not been really cold yet, that it was never worth starting it up.  It takes days to get up to full operation, but this time I thought, I must have a go.  I don't know if it was this new wood we got in the autumn or because  it was very dry, or the slight breeze which made the stove pull well, but it was no hassle lighting it after about 8 months. I adore this stove, it feeds my pyromania, it warms the room and the cockles of my heart. And unfortunately, it fills the room with smoke occasionally, which in my present state of coughing is not very useful.  Still, while the weather is cold, dark, overcast and instant depression inducing, the stove's quiet noise with the gorgeous sight of the flames is good for the soul.

As it was not raining I went to inspect the garden, which looks OK. The 6 new trees are still there, but we won't know if they took or not until the spring anyway. Found a few fresh molehills and set upon eradicating the little blighters. I know it is not exactly green to put poison down as soon as you spot a molehill, but those of you who had been following this blog for a while will know why.

And now for the only funny story of the week, which concerns a plateful of chicken goujons. Roy bought himself some chicken breasts to do them in strips coated in breadcrumbs.  I was on the computer and he comes up with this bottle asking: Is this cous cous or breadcrumbs? Strictly speaking I didn't think that the mixture in the bottle looked like either, but in the face of such a specific enquiry I thought it looked more like crumbs than cous cous, so I answered "crumbs". So he did his goujons and as I decided to fall off the wagon of vegetarianism for once (I do so about once or twice a year) I asked for a couple of pieces.  They tasted interesting. They were not bad, but nothing like I am used to in crumb coated chicken. After a certain amount of detective work ( I actually guessed as such after a while) we discovered that there was roughly ground cornmeal in the bottle. The thing you make polenta out of.  Obviously it is not supposed to be fried, so it was rather crunchy.  Do you think we invented something?

Currently I am munching one of our own Golden Delicious apples from the cellar, which tastes gorgeous, so it has kept well. We will take some to town as well, to eat and also perhaps make a crumble or a pie with. We are off to town on Friday as I have a concert on Saturday, a theatre performance on Sunday and another one on the following Friday. We will probably not be back until after Christmas, even though I prefer to be here as against in town. I can't quite explain why, but my whole being thrives here with much more pleasure in my soul, than in town.  Never mind, I can do some last minute Christmas shopping, if nothing else. I must get a pair of trainers as I have abandoned my last pair at Stephen's last week. Speak to you soon, but if not before Christmas, have a good one everyone!!

The Grant clan gathering

Well, it may have been quite a long time since I posted, but I have a very good excuse. I was busy and then went a long way, where I was even busier, then fell ill and now I am back home and I am still ill. We're in town where we will stay until I get better, so I have time to blog again. It is only a bad cold, so hopefully it should not take weeks to get over it, although who knows? Thinking back, the events before we went to Hassocks were as follows:
Tuesday: Sanyi came and we planted the two cherry trees.  I hope they are still alive!
Wednesday: We left for town by bus.
Thursday: I had a haircut, then in the afternoon I went to place my 4th cache with Andor, followed by an appointment with my homeopath. The cache turned out a disaster and I had to go with Roy the following morning to remove it. Details about this later!
Friday: After the removal of the cache we got ourselves together and complete with all our luggage we went to the House of Sports for me to speak on Roy's researches into Henrik Ripszam, the father of Hungarian orienteering prior to leaving for Hassocks. Where we arrived quite late, but in one piece.

 Lucy and Elian

Elian with his drink

On Saturday the clan gathered: Roy, me, Stephen, Lucy, Emily, Matt, Vic and Sue plus three children: Jason Jack, Elian and Xander. Life was made interesting by a power cut due to a vandalised local generating substation, but the electricity board brought an enormous mobile one and power was restored. We went out to the pub all together and I took some lovely videos of Elian and the rest of the clan.

 Vic and Sue

 Stephen with Xander

Jason Jack, Roy and Matt

On Monday Roy and I got on the train to Brighton, which was fun. Hassocks is only 11 minutes from Brighton Station, which is probably quicker than catching the bus from 41. We walked from the station to Boots, then to the Bank, followed by Infinity and finally The Basketmakers. What a lovely pub that is. It hasn't changed one iota since I first went in there God knows how many years ago.  The Governor now has white hair and sports a small pot, but nothing else has changed in there. I still drink half a bitter and eat my usual feta/pitta salad with humous.  Heaven!! We arranged to meet Ruth and Ian there and had a marvellous time watching them discovering and enjoying The Basketmakers.

Ian and Ruth

On Tuesday Elian went to nursery and Roy and I went for a walk and some shopping in Hassocks.  Delightful community with lovely little shops, friendly people and nice old houses.  We discovered the nice shiny new temporary generator parked on the end of the station car park, providing electricity to our area, including the railway station. Some racialist comment was made re: who had nicked the copper earthing cables from the substation, but I was most impressed by the speed and efficiency with which they installed the replacement until they can fix the substation.

The temporary generator, presumably towed there by a large articulated truck.

Wednesday was spent in very much the same manner, enjoying the children's company and getting to know their new nanny, Chloe.  I must admit Stephen and Lucy had hit the jackpot with that girl.  She is gentle, kind, soft spoken and very efficient.  The children already like her and I hope she stays as my grandsons will be well cared for by her, I'm sure.  The plan is for her to come on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, which means that only Monday will Lucy have to have both of them to herself, assuming Stephen is not around, as Elian goes to nursery on Tuesday and Thursday.

 Ramsbottoms Fish and Chips Restaurant, 58 Blatchington Road, Hove, East Sussex

Thursday Elian went to nursery again and for us it was the day we met Pete at Ramsbottoms in Hove.  He has never been to our favourite Fish and Chips shop and it looked as if he liked it. Every time we go back there I await the disappointment, as over time most places finally go downhill.  Not this place!! I am glad to report. The fish is still absolutely fresh, white, thick and you bit into it. The batter is light and isn't greasy and the chips big, fluffy and crisp.  And even the prices are very reasonable too.  I love it!!

 My lovely half of Harveys

The interior of The Greyhound

On Friday, St. Nicholas's Day, we went for lunch to The Greyhound in Keymer. We walked, even though I had a really bad cold by then, but thought the fresh air would do it a world of good.  It was the strong wind on Monday, especially near the seafront, that didn't help my cold, but I safely made it to Keymer on foot. Roy had a nice piece of steak and I had scampi.  We did elicit a sad comment from Alex on FB when I posted my glass of bitter, saying "Not fair!" Well, don't go and live in Canada if you like to drink bitter!

Granma's little tiger

On Saturday we looked after Xander while his parents and brother went to the nursery Xmas party.  He is such a good lad, sweet tempered and very bright. As he was going down with the cold too, it was thought wise to keep him indoors. We had lots of cuddles, the odd bottle of milk or two and some sleep too. In the afternoon, after the rest of the family returned we were fetched by our friend Ian Macdonald, so that we could go to his house in Lindfield to visit him and his wife Ros. We were treated to the most gorgeous scones and a variety of cakes, including stollen, shortbread and some home made flapjacks. My diet went straight out of the window, I have to admit. We had a really enjoyable afternoon, chatting, catching up and gossiping, as we usually do.  Ian took us back to Stephen's by 7pm.

On Sunday we had some more lovely time with the children and we again let them go out without Xander, this time to another Christmas gathering, which they all thoroughly enjoyed. Our babysitting was much in demand during the week, as we sometimes had both children and at other times just one or the other. Stephen and Lucy managed a night out eating sushi and one at Komedia. It was always fun having the children, especially with Elian's great sense of fun and infectious laughter. The little one is also a joy to behold.  So bright and sweet and even tempered.

 Elian

Xander

And then came Monday, when we had to go home. Now I am nursing my cold, hoping to get better as soon as possible, so that we can return to the village and see if Roy's palinka had been distilled yet or not?

Yet another seriously busy week

Monday started with a visit to a variety of shops, including the Central Market and our favourite toyshop. After about a couple of hours we felt that we have bought all the presents that we wanted to. Callum's was duly posted and the rest will be presented personally in a week or so's time. Once we popped all the shopping home I managed to get a quick appointment to have my ears syringed, which restored my hearing so sorely missed in the last week or so. In the evening I went to the theatre for a poetry reading interspersed with songs - a novel idea that was very well done. Tuesday I visited a friend who works in a path lab to have a special test done to see if I managed to get rid of my Lyme's Disease.  The results will be a few weeks yet and I am not optimistic, as this disease is - I'm told - hellishly difficult to eradicate.  We'll see! In the evening we had a couple of friends for dinner: Roy cooked a fantastic curry and we all had a lovely chat and a good few drinks afterwards.

And this weird looking chicken takes us to Wednesday.  I went geocaching in town with my friend Klari. I listed 8 caches and we actually managed to do 7 of them.  The last one got benighted and we left it. Having started on the left bank of the river we then got to the island where we got two caches.  There was a little zoo near the first one on the island, full of weird little feathered things, like this one above.

After the island we crossed over to the right bank where we found this medieaval looking steep street leading us to the grave and statue of a Turkish soldier from the XVIth century.  It was like travelling back in time.

 Gul Baba's statue

 One of the decorative mosaics on the wall by the grave

 The Grave from the outside

Gul Baba's grave inside the small building

On Thursday we went to the Bank partly to get some money and partly to set up a direct debit for the water bill. We also tried to get a book of paintings I forgot to buy some weeks before, but having travelled all the way to the Gallery, they told me it was sold out. :-( However, in the evening the play I went to with another friend was excellent.  A slightly weird version of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire started a bit slowly, but got into its stride by the second half with some superb performances from the principals.

Friday was also devoted to geocaching, this time with my friend Jutka and slightly further out of town than on Wednesday. The second cache was 3 metres up in a tree, which was unclimbable.  Well, at least by me, as I decided that a few more years on this planet was probably more important than getting the cache. If you look at the picture: I would have had to climb out to the second bump on the tree on the left.  No chance, said I and retreated. Otherwise it was a rather religious caching day with quite a few of them being near churches, chapels, stages of the cross and other religious places.

These three pictures were taken high up on a big rocky hill above the town, so the views would have been gorgeous had there not been fog and slight drizzle about.  Still, the whole place was quite spectacular, even without the views.

This little chapel was in the old German cemetery, which seemed to have uniformed graves and very neat walkways.

Stages of the cross up another hill in a spiral with the cross, Virgin Mary and a to me unknown saint on the top.

We took public transport back to the car and I was at home in time to have a quick shower, change and be off to our favourite Thai restaurant for a meal with yet another good friend visiting town. That Thai chef is so superb that I am yet to have a dish that is just good, not absolutely brilliant, like my glass noodles with king prawns, egg and vegetables was that night. With a crisp large glass of dry white wine I was a very happy bunny indeed. We decided to come back to the village a day early, but there is yet some more gardening to be done as in the garden centre, where we went for grass seed, we spotted some cherry trees at half price.  We bought two, so there's some digging and planting that will be happening on Tuesday with Sanyi's help. On Wednesday we are off back to town and then on Friday we depart for communing with family and especially with latest grandson.

KB (again) and orienteering amidst a Pig Fest

This weekend turned out to be interesting, to say te least. Initially I wasn't sure whether we should go at all, as I had a violent head cold with sneezing fits and a blocked nose. However, as I had a concert on the Friday night we had no choice. Some of you may know that Kristof Barati, one of the best violinists in the world, is not someone whom I would miss, not even at death's door.  So we went. He played Bartok, Dohnanyi, Paganini, Saint-Saens and Sarasate. The second half was full of virtuoso stuff, which was breath taking, even though it looked as if it took its toll on his fingers. A delightful evening in all, he never disappoints.

Then on Saturday we went South for the last O event of the season. I never realised that it was coinciding with an Autumn Pig Fest that was being held in practically the same place as Assembly, so Roy could have quite a lot of fun while hanging around, waiting for me to return from my run.

The whole area was full of sausages, crackling, roast pig's bits, any bits you care to think of, some live mangalica piglets as well, then sweets, and lots of booze etc., etc.

However, in spite of all this delicious stuff, what got Roy really excited was the ingenuity of ordinary people with which they fixed up the rotary spits and other bits of equipment from bits and bobs that they had lying around at home.  His absolute favourite was the rotary spit manufactured at home from a bit of a bicycle, a motor from a windscreen wiper, two cogs of a bicycle chain welded together, a car battery, steel rods and supports. We were told that this contraption could spit roast anything up to a 120 kilo side of beef.

My run was OK, considering I couldn't run much, but in juniper jungle it's better to go slowly anyway. I finished without any big mistakes, which is good news in and of itself on this kind of terrain. 2.3k took me 41 minutes and that was considered a good time. There was only two of us in W65 and with the other competitor taking 90 minutes+ I was first.

Our accommodation was the next item of interest which turned out great. What was really fantastic was the quality of the renovations that our host lavished on what must have been originally a completely derelict hamlet in the middle of absolutely nowhere on the prarie. Roy did not enjoy the mile and a half of sandy lane full of bumps and hollows, but on arrival we were enchanted.

The group of buildings included a covered outside barbecue area, the owner's accommodation, two houses for guests, a covered garage and a swimming pool. Inside the decorations and the furniture were beautiful aas well as very warm and comfortable.

Before dinner we took some pictures outside again while the sun was setting.  There was a magical atmosphere to the place, even though the owner's politics was not exactly to my liking. Still, I didn't let it spoil my enjoyment of a place that was very reasonably priced and of a level of comfort very rarely found in these type of establishments.

Dinner was taken at a nearby inn, the food was delicious and plentyful and we retired feeling very relaxed and happy indeed  The following morning, after paying our bill and making our farewells we journied to the second day of the event, unfortunately by now without the pig fest. It was perishingly cold, but in my trusty wool mixture helly under my O top I was OK. The course was 3k long this morning and that took me 55 minutes and again, that was also considered a good time. I must admit I was pretty knackered by the end, but I loved it all the same.  Some Norvegians, whom we got chatting to, suggested that there was no need to put some controls into the dark green and I had to agree.  On the other hand, what's the point of the juniper jungle without impossible controls, one might ask?

So a fairly eventful weekend came to a close.  Roy was quite anxious to get going, but I had to wait for the presentations, which this time meant a certificate and a small present for my overall win. Now we are spending a whole week in town with so much to do that normally I would take about 3 weeks over.  Let's hope that my cold subsides and that I stay healthy to see my little Xander in a fortnight's time.

Gardening, orienteering and geocaching [in other words a normal week:-)]

It is still very busy in the garden, even though it is now November.  I still haven't got round to covering up my roses, although there is no panic as the weather is amazingly mild still. The latest is that having quite accidentally met a guy from a neighbouring village who was selling fruit trees a few weeks back while walking around the village with Val and Alwyn, finally we ran into him again en route to orienteering on Saturday. We arranged buying two pear, one nectarine and one apricot tree which he duly delivered on Monday. I also bought 15 raspberry bushes from him so today Roy was planting the raspberries and tomorrow Sanyi is coming to dig the holes for the trees. I couldn't get any peat and manure in Tesco yesterday, so we will have to do with the bag we have.

The orienteering was in quite reasonable weather and there were three runs in two days. The above  map is of the Saturday morning run in Eger and the first 8 controls were in free order. 39 was the one that foxed most people.  It took a while to spot that the flag was on the other side of the high fence, which in fact was a high wall, so you couldn't see through it. Tricky bit of fun that was.

This is Saturday afternoon's course, which was a lot more primitive, in effect a street run with very little navigation in it. Unfortunately my 5th control wasn't there, but fortunately I found the tag, so I went on.  Apparently they found it about 50 metres away, but once the tag is found you stop looking, don't you? The weather stayed fair and we had a reasonable night in the hostel.  Unfortunately our favourite restaurant was having a bad night with extremely noisy children everywhere and even worse service.  We had to wait nearly an hour just for the soup and more than an hour for the main course.  We were about to leave when it turned up.

And on Sunday we attacked the steep hills in even better weather, in spite of the dire forecast. I thought this was quite good, even though I was nearing 20 minute km's. That's mostly due to my unfitness, but also the horrendous climb. The map could have been better in places, but all in all it was a fun weekend.

And then Monday came and I went to the Great Plains with Andor to visit a church (see above!) where Vilmos Aba-Novak painted some amazing frescoes in the 1930's.  This was initially a cultural trip to look at the frescoes and - of course - Andor brought his camera stand to take some nice pictures.  Then we went to recce the village where a geocache could be placed, found the place and placed a microcache in a clever and tricky hideout.  I am not letting on where, just in case any of my readers want to go and find it for themselves! :-)

This is Andor's photo of the chancel and the chancel arch which are covered in Aba-Novak's frescoes. Apparently he incorporated many people he met in the village in the frescoes, including the then vicar, the person who commissioned the frescoes, the local shopkeeper, the local apothecary and finally himself.

Christ with his warning fingers. I find his almost caricature faces amusing. I wonder if this was the face of someone in the village?

This is hell on the right half of the chancel arch. The left one of two guys in the bottom right hand corner is the shopkeeper, who apparently used to cut up the end of the salami into the painter's breakfasts and that is why he was painted in a less than attractive manner. The one on the right was the apothecary who having admitted to being a mixer of poisons reckoned he'd go to hell for sure and didn't mind being depicted as such.

 Christ's right hand as saying stop to evil. Many of the saints  are also wearing the faces of the locals, some of whom were up in arms about their frescoes, petitioning for their removal, but the bishop and even the Pope declined to agree.

This is an image of the painter himself. Apparently he always put himself into his works of art, although never in a central or important position. After we finished inside the church and placed my third cache we got back into the car to find some caches in the neighbouring villages. The plan was originally to find 6, but the weather turned really rainy and cold, so we just did 4.  Also, those other 2 were at the end of 3 and 4 mile long drives on unmade, very muddy and narrow roads, so I wasn't going to risk my car's bodily integrity just for a couple of caches.  Although, we did decide that we will have to come back next summer, as both caches, especially the one nearthe recently renovated ancient chapel, really interested both of us.

The first cache we found was behind this lovely old chateau, which currently is the Police Museum, but having closed for the winter we couldn't see it.  We found the cache though in a small woodland behind it.

In the next village we visited there was this impressive early 19th century stone bridge, which is still used for through traffic and the cache was very near it by the river. The description on the net said that you will need half a litre of water to get at the cache. Roy immediately worked out, long before I left home, that it must be down something, possibly a pipe where you can pour the water in and that will float the cache to the top.  That is exactly what's happened. Very clever, I like tricky, but not impossible hides like this was.

And finally we got to the nearby biggish town to find two caches, one of them a multi. This picture was taken in the main square where part 1 of the multi was. We then found the second part easily, while the third part, the cache itself was missing, as it has been for months, but we could work the password out virtually.  By then it was still raining on and off and was getting dark.  We hesitated whether to risk getting benighted in a thick forest on the floodplains of the local river in search of the next cache, but eventually went for it.  We took the car as close to the cache as the Tom Tom would lead us and then walked the remaining 300 metres. It was dead easy, as it was exactly where it said: about 7m from the bank in a very large hole in a thick old tree.  On the way out we almost ran so that we could see where we put our feet. Since then the moderators have got to work and I hope that my latest, (3rd) cache will be published on both geocaching sites soon.

The rest of the week is being spent in the village, to be followed by a trip into town on Friday, after which we go orienteering for the last time this year, as the season closer is this coming weekend on my beloved sand dunes in the South. The week after that we are staying in town as plenty of things await our attention.  The trip to visit little Xander is approaching, I can't wait!