A busy week (again)

I have been trying to slow down for years and somehow it never works. This post is a bit early, but after a single day of relaxation, we are off again to town tomorrow, as I have two meetings (one on Tuesday and another on Wednesday) in BP, followed by the guys coming to install the air conditioning on Tursday. By the way, you may recall that I had foreseen the weather for this week, on account of the aircon coming. Yes, I was right: temperatures have dropped considerably already, it started raining again and the aircon is coming in 3 days.

One of our deep red beauties

Last Wednesday's reading/discussion group was quite interesting. Alex had warned me that the Revolution Betrayed is not a particularly easy text and he was right. After each of the questions, there was a complete silence. Nobody knew the answers. Not even Levi, and Zsófi wasn't there. I hate those stupid questions. I know and understand Revolution Betrayed, but often had no idea what they were after. Somehow the questions seemed very convoluted and difficult to know where in the text they want you to look for answers. I am going to suggest to discard these stupid questions and make our own. Or read the text together, after we discussed every page and made sure everybody understands the meaning. This, of course, will come as a shock to the comrades, because it will slow it down considerably, but in my opinion it is still better, than going on with it without anyone really absorbing what you were supposed to learn from it.

Roses, cellar and a barrel

Zsófi mentioned some weeks back that she would like me taking on education in the branch, which I would do gladly. However, since then there were some issues that had to take precedence, plus the branch was slightly hyperactive, which never leaves time for reflection and decisions, so I think this suggestion is now not going to come up until September, if at all. I am easy, if they ask me I'll do it, if not, that's OK too.

Welcome drink on arrival at the bunkhouse

On Thursday we came back to Bér to start getting ready for my 3rd birthday party, this time with my orienteering friends. A long time ago, there was a birthday party at Bér for Lázár Laci, one of my orienteering friends, who was 60 at the time. It was a great success, but we never did it again, until this February, when he was 75. He is only 6 months older than me, so it seemed like a good idea to invite them all again to my birthday in the summer. Originally it was supposed to be combined with the one 2 weeks ago with the geocachers, but the guy that is always doing the cooking couldn't make it. So it got postponed to this weekend gone and it was a fun time.

Laci 15 years ago in the Bunkhouse with his cake

They have all arrived on Friday night. Szundi, the chef, brought some delicious frying kolbász, which was a large, wide and thick sausage, that was home made by a lady, who sells them in the markat where Szundi shops for meat and veg. Even Roy liked it, which is amazing, considering he hates them all overspiced, but which these ones weren't. We had mustard and bread with it, it was gorgeous, even I cleared a fair sized piece.

The sausage

Saturday was the main day, during which we had several activities. First of all, Szundi made a big fried breakfast for everyone, which we chose to exempt ourselves from and have our usual cornflakes with fruit, but the rest of the group ate all of it. Then we tried to enthuse all of them, with the possible exception of the chef, to come on a hike with us, and only four of them did. Still, that made it a nice little group of five, and we left through the back gate and thrashed through an already harvested plot of land to arrive at the border of the forest West of our house.

Big skies above Bér

This is an area I have hardly ever hiked in, so was looking forward to it. Unlike the 170 metres of climb that awaited us in one go. Amazingly, I was quite up to it, although later I was huffing and puffing like a steam engine. We went through quite mature forest, and especially one place where there were very large oak trees, was really pretty. Once on the ridge, we turned right, walked more or less on the level for a while and then started descending. The route home went under the famous andesite columns, but as every single one of us had seen that a few times already, we didn't climb up to them this time.

Group photo by the big oaks

We got home by 1 pm, as we promised Szundi, and had a delicious lunch prepared by our resident chef, and his assistant Zsuzsi, of marrow and pork shoulder. I have prepared a large bowl of Somlói Galuska for afters, which not only was big enough for all, but it disappeared in no time at all. I was very happy that they liked it, as it is a further development from the original dish, with some additions, like custard, booze, nuts and raisins.

Szundi the chef

Saturday afternoon was for lazing on the whole, except those of us who were put in charge of watching the beef pörkölt (Hungarian stew) cooking in the couldron in the garden. Two weeks ago we cooked in the couldron, but that one was a traditional Hungarian gulyás, which is a bit like a sosup, while this one had less liquid round it, but was made with mostly the same veg and spices, although the meat was beef, not pork, like a fortnight before. There were no potatoes in it either, as this time Szundi went for dumplings, but more about that later.

Rita digging for the best bits

Finally, around 8 pm we sat down to eat, but the real surprise was the mountain of dumplings that arrived on the table. I bought 1 kg of flour, at Szundi's request, but obviously he forgot that he asked me, so he bought 1 kg of flour too. However, the major mistake came when instead of taking home his flour, or not touching ours, he made dumplings out of 2 kg of flour. I asked if he has invited the entire village, but he was adamant that 1 kg would not be enough. He spent hours making them, and needless to say most of it is now sitting in our freezer as a result.

A very happy Roy

Still, I shouldn't be critical, as the beef was gorgeous, tasty and we even had some pickled veg and cucumber salad with it. The dumplings were very good too, just nobody could eat enough of it to clear it out. I had some more presents from this bunch too, no cards, but some chocolates, nuts, plants and lots of booze. We ate and drank over this short weekend enough to happily starve for at least the next week. The company was great, it was lovely to have them, as I no longer orienteer, so don't seem them too often.

They all went home after breakfast on Sunday, and now the house is really quiet again. We are living on some of the leftovers, not just the dumplings, but bits of the stew too. Unfortunately, there was only an incy wincy bit of cake left, which we gobbled up yesterday evening. Currently we are getting ready to go to BP, although I couldn't resist making another small cake, which I'll take to my Tuesday meeting with comrades at the flat of one of them, just to ease the discussions.

The guests are leaving

Roy is cooking lunch, so I am off now, take care all you out there and the next post is now going to be about 9 days away.