A busy week in town and country

Peter Dobszay

The week before last was very hectic as the last post described it.  However, the following week was not a lot less hectic and with spring arriving, now in the village we are also working a lot. Monday of last week we were still in town and it started with a free concert which was also the conductor's final exam at the end of his Music Academy studies.  He was brilliant. Most of my friends were there, some sitting next to me, others up in the gallery above us. Peter Dobszay is a charming and very able organist and now a qualified and very competent conductor as well.  I hope we'll see more of him than we did in the last period from now on.

On Tuesday Roy had his dental appointment.  The dentist was very pleased with his progress and decreed that after another couple of weeks he will be ready to have the upper set fitted. That suited us perfectly as we were planning to spend 10-12 days in the country before that.

Gregory Sokolov

In the evening there was another fantastic performance from Gregory Sokolov in the Palace of the Arts. He was playing Bach, Beethoven and Schubert.  He does have a strange manner with very little emotion, but his fingers on the piano do the talking instead of him. He is also well known for the endless number of encores he gives and that night was no exception. I have never been to a concert with 7 encores before, but last Monday put that right.



On Wednesday we departed for the village, rather unexpectedly making a detour to pick up Nelly.  She phoned while we were in Tesco's mentioning the fact that she was also shopping in another town. There was no problem, but unfortunately we couldn't pick up Claudia from across the road as well, due to the car barely having space for Nelly, never mind anyone else.

The great delight of watching someone else working

The fair sized pile of earth, s..t and rubble on the patio.

The first couple of days in the village were spent having a rest and planning further activities later on in the week and at the weekend. Roy got it into his head that the collapsed cesspit had to be done at once, so we put a shopping list together by Friday and ordered about £250 worth of building materials for the weekend.  He found three guys to come and do it and as it happened, they ended up an excellent little brigade working together very well.

The first job was to break up the top of the cesspit, then dig out the collapsed wall and all the earth that fell in, as well as some of the yucky stuff from years ago that thankfully by now was totally dry and not at all smelly. Roy was amazed at how much came out of the hole.  It is currently covering up almost the entire surface of the Kottage's back patio, but hopefully should be shifted later on this afternoon.

Once the guys started actually building the walls, it was quite quick.  The idea was to get some hollow breezeblocks, which are considered very suitable for cesspit building, do a brand new wall where it collapsed and build the other three in front of the old, still standing ones.  As this would have reduced the capacity quite drastically, they had to extend the cesspit beyond the collapsed wall to make up for the loss.  That would partly explain why the rubble/earth that is still covering that patio was that much, although the main reason was the fact that Roy underestimated the quantity.

Roland, being the youngest, got all the hard work.

6 rows of breezeblocks awaiting being filled with concrete.

Once two rows of breezeblocks were laid they started filling in the hollow middle with concrete and reinforcing it with iron bars. It went up in no time at all. Saturday was spent digging, Sunday building. Currently the top of the cesspit is not yet done, they are coming back to finish it on Saturday this week. I will not be here as I am going orienteering on Saturday, hashing on Sunday and probably geocaching on Monday, but Roy will hopefully join me on Tuesday, as he has his next dental appointment that day.

The chives are the first to start growing as usual.

On Monday of this week the sun was shining so beautifully that we risked doing a bit of gardening, the first session this year.  We tidied up the herb patch and the strawberry patch. It took about and hour and a half, but that was more than enough as both of us started flagging by then. I have also taken on three jobs/activities for this week or two and after outside activities, always finished the day doing one or more of those.  They are: 1. proofreading a book for some friends prior to republication; 2. finishing the marriage register transcription from 1939 which I have been working on for at least a couple of years and the owners of which were getting a bit shirty with me for the delay; and finally 3. reading a book that we printed off the internet and which was sent by a family history research contact of Roy's. In it the lady, who is of Hungarian Jewish origins, but now lives in Australia, recalls her own life before, during and a bit after the second world war and all the suffering that she and her family went through.  I am only a little bit into it, but it is very, very enjoyable, if such tragic events can be enjoyable.

Sprouts from last year.

My old faithful rhubarb still going strong.

On last Sunday Alex rang from Toronto and we had an interesting chat on family matters. I often think that even the most ordinary families have some interesting stories to tell and feel that ours would produce a really fascinating saga.  Then again, I usually change my mind about writing it all down, as I don't fancy the lawsuits!!

The text says: National Tax and Customs Office

I also found on the internet a fantastic T-shirt shop and went ahead buying some. The business is run by some young guys who are somewhat on the left or at least anti-establishment, which endeared them to me on top of their T-shirts being brilliant too. The one I copied to here alludes to the fact that the Hungarian equivalent of the British HMRC is so corrupt that a comparison with the Godfather is spot on.  I think the only inaccuarcy in that is that this one is ruled by a Godmother. I have just heard that the shirts will be delivered tomorrow, I hope they fit.

Aidan Turner

And if there was any time left on any day to watch TV I did that, although I must admit, no matter how much I like some programs, television is definitely the best sleeping tablet around and I often had a hell of a difficulty staying awake.  My current favourites are BBC's Poldark and Channel 4's Indian Summers. I especially like Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson in the roles of Ross Poldark and Demelza while Indian Summers has quite a few great actors who are totally new to me: Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Jemima West, Nikesh Patel to name but three.

Eleanor Tomlinson

I have just gone outside to see how shovelling brigade is getting on and they seem to be getting on very well. Two of them are shovelling it into the wheelbarrow, one then wheels it to the fence and the third one shovels it over the fence straight into the truck that'll hopefully take it away later.

Roy saying good bye to the rubble as it leaves on the truck.

The rest of the week will be spent with gardening (if the weather's good) and my various jobs on the computer. On Friday or Saturday I am going in to town and Roy will join me on Tuesday for his dental appointment.  If all goes well we'll both be back by next Wednesday.

One hell of a busy week with lots of fun, some interesting new people and two anniversaries

The few days we had spent in Bér were busy. The 4th, which was the day we arrived was our 45th wedding anniversary. we cooked a nice meal for ourselves and toasted the event with Canadian Icewine which we have been keeping for a special occasion since 2007.

Chop, potatoes, peas with stinky for Roy, the same just with salmon for me.

On this day we actually took our very first selfie as well, which didn't turn out very good, but it was fun all the same.

The selfie

On Friday we took Nelly and the little car out for a run to Hatvan.  We also discovered the delights of Lidl, which was actually quite nice. I found a German Fennel tea, which I have been drinking ever since like there was no tomorrow.


After the shopping we took Nelly to the Fenyves Fogadó for lunch, which also went off extremely well.

As the little car has just recently come out of mothballs, we spent some time washing, polishing it, followed by internal hoovering and cleaning. Roy also had to do some mole killing, which was much overdue, but only on our return from the Fenyves Fogadó could we buy the necessary pellets for committing the dastardly deed with. I am always upset at killing anything, but this was necessary again and I had to lump it.

The Fenyves Fogadó

 On Saturday we departed to town, as I had a concert in the evening and we also had a very busy week ahead of us, jam packed with activities of all sorts.

The concert was very interesting. This year there are only three violin concerts in the Festetics Palace and this was the first one. The violinist was a young man by the name of  László Nyári and he was very talented and a joy to listen to.

László Nyári

On Sunday I went hashing, but as we only had the 3 of us (Rabies, Baldrick and me) we went on a hike instead. We took the bus out to Tesco's on route 10 and started from there. It was rather steep, as we had to climb a big mountain to start with.  We went past an old cave and took some pictures from there as the views were pretty. At the top of the mountain we had a beer at a newly refurbished and reopened old buffet, which this time got a bit more upmarket and a great deal more expensive.  Descending the big hill was not easy, as we found ourselves surrounded by broken trees, destroyed by an ice storm in December. After the circle we phoned Roy and ended up having a lovely meal in our favourite resto on the other side of the river.

Baldrick and my good self on the Hash

Baldrick and Rabies pondering the route

Some interesting rooves in the distance

On Monday I managed to buy some new Opera season tickets for next season, as we all got a bit fed up with the old ones. This time we have all of them on a Shakespeare theme, 5 operas (3 Verdi and 2 modern ones, a German and an English one) plus 2 ballets, between next October and spring next year. I hope it will turn out to be a good decision.

Tuesday  was a busy day with Stephen arriving and me going to the Opera in the evening. Stephen came over as he was having a gig on Wednesday evening and he came early to acclimatise. The performance of  Bánk Bán was very good. I  forgot how nationalistic Erkel was, although this time probably the current prevailing political climate didn't help either.  Still, there were a few very good singers on stage, the best being a foreign guy whose name escapes me, but whose voice was powerful but like velvet. I must look him up, as his name was totally unfamiliar to me.

Bánk Bán

Wednesday was the day of Stephen's gig at the Brody Studios, which turned out to be a fantastic venue. When Roy went along and nosed around a bit he described it as an upmarket ruin pub.  Well, I think he was spot on. The place was in an old XIXth century block which they have renovated to have an interesting archaic and grunge look.  Some walls had no plaster, others did have some plaster but still looked like an old Roman ruin. It is a private club, so there is membership only for just eating and drinking there, but when there are special events, non-members can attend too, albeit at a higher price than members. Stephen's performance was well received and I am sure he will be back. He told us that the owner offered that Roy and I can come any time, provided we ring up beforehand.  We might do that some time.

Stephen in full flow

On Thursday, after putting Stephen on the plane, we went to see the Kunz family whom we got to know over the Internet in relation to family history research. Roy took on a project which was aimed to find out if their branch of the Kunz family was related to the famous linen trading Kunzes from the XIXth and XXth centuries.  Needless to say Roy proved that they were and how in about 4 hours. They live in a lovely little house and we spent a really pleasant afternoon with them.

Friday was an equally busy day, but the activities were different.  During the day I went geocaching with my friend Andor, who has been quite distant for some months last year, but finally this year got back to his old self and wanted to go caching again. I picked about 14 caches in the Buda hills, of which we found 6.  It still took us a hike of 15.5km with 400 metres of height climb and about 6 and half hours. The ice storm of December did some horrible damage to the forests, but in spite of that we had a lovely time.  I went into valleys I have never been in before and enjoyed the lovely views and forests all day.

Andor photographing the view

It's definitely spring now

The Elizabeth Bridge from about 3 miles away

In the evening we went out to dinner with our friends the Nemesházis to a brilliant Indian restaurant. It is a very long time since I have eaten really authentic Indian food, but this was it. Laci and Koxi are always good company and we had a really enjoyable evening out with them.

Some of the goodies from the Punjab Tandoori

On Saturday we went to see a guy and his daughter not far from our flat. I met the guy last time I was flying, as he was sitting next to me on the plane.  We got chatting and he said he was thinking buying a little cottage somewhere in the country and would I find him one in my village.  I never thought he meant it, but apparently he is serious and he invited us to talk it over. He lives in an amazing old flat, done up really nicely and his little 6 year old daughter Olivia was great fun. You do meet interesting peole on planes occasionally or at least I do.

Early this morning I managed to get up and watch the first F1 race of this season from Melbourne. I am really pleased that Lewis Hamilton won so easily as I am rather fond of the young man and would like him to retain his world championship title from last year, but on the other hand, if he and Mercedes will be this far ahead of the whole field, like he was today, the season will be seriously boring. Hopefully, other teams will do some catching up, so that he can still win, but not as convincingly, so that we might get a little excitement in the meantime.

A happy Lewis Hamilton after his win

And this takes us to the main event of the week.  The anniversary Hash run of The Incredible Hulk's return to the hash after his operation last year.  He was hare and the run was more or less in the same place as last year.  Unfortunately this year there were only 6 of us doing the run and that included Hulk and Haggis, but while somewhat diminished numerically, the 6 of us had a really good run arund, followed by an excellent lunch in the same restaurant as last year, where Roy also joined us for the festivities. I am very fond of Hulk and Haggis and hope that Hulk's health holds and he will be with us for a long number of years yet.

The hulk at one of his checks

The beer stop

All of us at the restaurant

The visit to my little monsters

The flight last Wednesday was quick and uneventful. Everything went so easily and quickly (facilitated by only having cabin luggage) that I managed to arrive a half an hour early. Stephen was away until the early hours of Friday morning, so it was just Lucy, me and the kids.

On Thursday I had to go to the bank and do some shopping while the boys went to their nursery. Lucy went out to some friends in the evening and I babysat.

On Friday morning Stephen was around and then in the afternoon Emily, Lucy's sister arrived with Jenson her little boy. In between I had lunch with Ruth and Ian in a cafe just round the corner. It was nice food, friendly cafe owner and a lovely natter with Ruth and Ian. Later Lucy and Stephen fetched Elian and Xander from nursery and they were very happy to see Em and Jenson on arriving home. The kids played together happily, in the evening Stephen went to work and we all went to bed early.

On Saturday we went to the local garden centre, where all three boys had a fantastic time scooting round on trikes and/or playing in the sheds and playhouses displayed.  At this time we also had Esther, one of Stephen and Lucy's friends and her little one, Rosalie with us.  That night I babysat again while Em and Lucy went out for dinner with Stephen joining them later after work.

Sunday Em and Jenson left for home and we went to the farm. The weather was very cold and windy, but we still had a lovely time on the tractor train, in soft play and in the puddles.  Chasing ducks was fun too! In the evening Stephen and Lucy went out and I babysat again.  I must admit, they were really fantastic, never gave me any hassle whatsoever.

Monday the wind subsided somewhat and in the morning we took of for Paradise Park, which is also a garden centre, but with a twist.  Around it there is a lovely park with lots of dinosaurs, lakes, gardens, models and a lovely cafe.  Unfortunately, Xander proved to be a bit too young for all those loud, roaring and very frightening dinosaurs, but he enjoyed the rest. In the afternoon we visited DFS and looked at sofas, followed by a run around in Toys R Us, rounded up by a bit of food in Burger King. In the night I babysat again, this time including putting Elian to bed on my own.

On Tuesday I had to go back to the bank, but got back in time to be taken to the airport by Stephen. I did miss Roy, but this almost a week was very enjoyable, if somewhat exhausting and I can't wait until I see them again in the summer.

The flight was 45 minutes late leaving, but made most of it up due to a fierce tailwind. Roy waited for me and we were indoors just after 9pm.