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| Snow in the yard |
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| 2 cute little tits on the seed bowl |
I watched quite a lot of TV, although my favourite US series seem to have started taking their Christmas vacations early. Homeland is still going and I must admit it is getting better again. Both the storyline and the dialogue is getting much more exciting of late. I am enjoying both London Spy and Cuffs, but in different ways. I have no idea how long Cuffs will go on, but the former is finishing next week and I await the final punchline (if any) with trepidation.
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| Some of the Cuffs cast |
Talking of Christmas, I managed to put together our annual Christmas message (no rivalry with her Majesty, of course!) and send it. Amazingly, only 3 came back, so it looks as if my e-mail address list is getting nearly completely up-to-date.
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| Abu Dhabi F1 2015 - the top three |
In the middle of last week I had a phonecall from a hapless cacher asking where exactly the moving cache was. I thought I have hidden it very well and I also described the hiding place in quite some detail, but this particular punter was pretty hopeless at finding it. I started worrying about it, suggesting to Roy that we might go to town a couple of days early and check on it en route, but thankfully, before we could do so somebody else found it and moved it on successfully. I was relieved that nobody nicked it, just that guy was as hopeless as he sounded on the phone.
The highlight of Sunday, of course, was the season closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. I had a feeling that a reactivated Rosberg was unstoppable and that is exactly what happened. He won again with Lewis second and while the championship went to Lewis several weeks ago, he was very downhearted about Rosberg getting the better of him three races in a row. The final tally between them ended on 10 wins to Lewis and 6 to Rosberg, but if just one of the last three went Lewis's way, the ratio would have been 11 to 5, a much more respectable ratio. Never mind! Let's hope Lewis has a good rest and comes back in Rosberg beating form in March!!
And then on Monday we came into town. As the bookshop made such a hash of my last book purchase, we went and fetched the latest one straight away before they sold it to someone else. This latest acquisition added to a pile of yet unread books on the shelves, so I hope it is a very cold and snowy winter, allowing me to do a lot of reading!!
On Tuesday we visited the Jewish Family History Research Centre, as Roy had taken on some paid research for someone in Italy. He met this guy on the Tracing the Tribe Facebook group, membership of which he much enjoys. Jewish people all over the world, trying to trace their ancestors ask questions and he loves answering them. This is definitely a win/win situation, they get the information they need and Roy gets to do research which keeps him happy and occupied. I am pleased to say that the visit was almost 100% successful. We found the actual ancestors in the Synagogue registers and paid for authenticated copies to be sent on in about a week. When we followed this up with visiting another office within the same building where they keep the cemetery records, the experience was quite a lot less pleasant. One haughty lady, who seemed very inflexible and unhelpful, while admitting to having the record we were searching for, refused to let us have it, as we are not relatives. She finally relented and gave us her e-mail address, suggesting that the guy in Italy write to her directly. She said this service was free, but I wonder if that is true. We'll see!
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| Árpi and Zita's 2016 calendar |
On the way back we went to pick up our 2016 wall calendars, which are now definitely the last ones from Árpi and Zita, our cycling round the world friends, who have arrived back home in September. The pictures start with Central America, then go onto South America and finish with Europe. They are holding presentations on their trip all over the country and I hope to catch them at one of these soon.
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| The original cast |
Once back at the flat I started watching Star Wars films. About a month or so ago, one of the TV channels had spent an entire Saturday playing Star Wars 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Presumably in preparation for Star Wars 7 coming out on the 18th December. I recorded it and now set about watching all 15 hours of it in one go. Well, I didn't manage it, finally I watched them over three days, but the main fun was the first three (the ones that were made 22 years after 4, 5 and 6) as I didn't really remember them at all. I think I watched the first one, the second one only partially and the third one not at all at the time they came out. This way, I could remind myself what crap they were compared to the earlier ones (I always thought that) but a refresher of the story line was useful before I go and watch the latest one in a few weeks' time.
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| The Lone Cedar |
On Wednesday this week I went to see the Csontváry exhibition up in the Castle District. He was a really crazy genius, who was a loner, a bit weird all his life, but painted the most incredible pictures. I have been fond of his ouvre ever since I was a kid and I have never actually seen this many of them all in one place. My back can only take maximum 2 hours standing around, so I had to make sure that I saw everything in that time. I also bought the catalogue, which was £20, but worth every penny.
To make this week an arty one, I followed this up with another exhibition the following day in the National Gallery of a very obscure Russian born Hungarian painter by the name of El Kazovsky. She was a really mixed up lady with weirdly complicated sexuality, hung up on dogs, angels, ballerinas and lots of other zany things in her pictures, but I found her absolutely fascinating and very powerful. I don't pretend I understood everything she was trying to convey in her art, but it made a strong impression on me. After I put some of them up on FB somebody wrote that her style was somewhere between Dali, Freda Kahlo and Picasso. I think that was fair comment. My back gave out again after 2 hours, but that was enough in one go. I think what was there would take me a week to take in properly, but I had to be content with 2 hours.
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| The fist wall of paintings at the El Kazovsky exhibition |
And then the mother of all parliaments voted to bomb the shit out of the poor, stressed people of Syria, as if 4 years of war would not have been enough for them. The name of the 66 Labour MP's who voted for the bombing will live on in infamy, so will Hilary Benn's speech. I am glad Tony did not live to hear that, although I wonder if he would have had the temerity to deliver that speech had his father was still alive. Along with many of my friends I changed my FB cover photo to Picasso's Guernica, as the parallels are striking. Shame on them, history will not forgive them and neither will I.
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| Hilary Benn making his infamous speech |
For some better news, we had lunch with Ros and Ian yesterday, as they are back in town for a week or so. They are such lovely people and any time we spend with them is always thoroughly enjoyable. Yesterday was no exception. We took them to the Regős, which they liked a lot. Very reasonably priced at £15 per couple for a 3 course set meal with wine, beer and mineral water. The atmosphere was lovely as well, due to it being full of pre-Christmas crowds and a buzz.
They said that they are planning to attend the hash tomorrow, so I might have a go at that as well, provided the weather is decent. But before that I am going to the theatre with a couple of friends, so I better pack this up and start getting ready.
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