Well, a whole year after last year's jaunt to Bratislava, we are spending this Christmas in Bér, awaiting the arrival of Stephen and his girlfriend Valéria. Stephen has not been to Bér for 16 years, I wonder if he remembers any of it now? I hope his plane is on time today, as dinner will be very late if it, and therefore they, are late.
 |
The front of the "Crazy Market"
|
We came home to the village on Sunday via Lidl and Tesco, but before that let's see what was happening in the last few days in BP? On Friday we started the Christmas shopping in earnest in the Lehel Market, which we call "the crazy market", due to its weird architecture. That place was my mother's favourite market for decades, but then it was a simple, old fashioned open market with stalls and very few proper shops.
 |
The fishmonger's stall at the market
|
We went very early, as later the queues would have been horrendous. It was quite busy already at 7am, but we, thankfully, didn't have too much to buy there. We started with Roy's fillet steak, which has not gone up in price by too much, so we bought a large one for about £35. Then we quite accidentally found a woman selling marzipan sweets and bought four. More about these later.
 |
One of the bars of marzipan
|
We walked along the veg section, buying nothing, as we have good veg near home and didn't fancy carrying it all the way back to the flat. The next job was to find the same place as last year for the turkey and while I am not sure, but I think that one wasn't there any more. Still, we did find one that was selling very large turkey breasts and bought one weighing about 3 kilos. That was about a tenner, not bad, considering the food price inflation since last year. That is the advantage of shopping in a large and very busy market. It keeps the price down, and is always fresh, due to the fast turnover.
 |
David at Gaby's
|
 |
Roy with his giant burger at Gaby's
|
Next stop was at the fish stall, and I got my usual large piece of salmon. A large bunch of dill was also purchased, to go with the fish and/or anything else that might need it. The next stop en route back to the flat was the Doctor and Baker bread shop where we bought 3 loaves of his glorious sourdough bread and two bars of walnut beigli, the traditional Christmas cake in Hungary. The rucksack on Roy's back started to get really heavy, so we hightailed it home.
 |
A heaving fridge with all the provisions
|
The meat got cut up and some of it went into the freezer - the same idea as last year, when a whole turkey breast travelled in the car with Stephen and Elian, slowly thawing out and not going off. Half of the turkey breast stayed in BP, the other half came with us to Bér.
 |
David and Ági at Gaby's
|
Saturday was the highlight of the week when we went to have lunch with Ági and David in Gaby's, but before that we finished and wrapped their present, the home made or home produced food and drink basket that we put together. The box of truffles, that were made before ,sat comfortably with the compote, jam, pálinka and oranges. All wrapped up in cellophane and with a pretty red bow on top.
 |
My prawn and avocado salad at Gaby's
|
The food at Gaby's was exquisite again, and the company fantastic. Ági and David are such joy to be with, and they seemed very happy chatting, eating and drinking with us. I do hope we can see them more often, as since we stopped getting invited to David's place by the Balaton, we have really missed them.
 |
Winter wonderland by the front lane
|
And then Sunday we packed up and drove home via Lidl and Tesco. We started with Lidl, as their veg is superior to Tesco's and a few other things are really good there too. There was something really interesting happening, which was most surprising, but most welcome too. The norm at pre-Christmas time, as it is more or less all the time in Hungary, that the stress of the whole thing causes people to be impatient, rude, pushy and pretty unfriendly while shopping. Well, I don't not who it was and what it was that possibly drugged the populace, but in Lidl and in Tesco, everybody - repeat everybody - was smiley, patient, kind, courteous, shoppers and staff alike. It was delightful, and made the shopping a joy, rather than a chore.
 |
The Bunkhouse and gate under snow
|
After Lidl we went to Tesco, starting with buying the tree. I fell in love with a cute little tree right at the beginning, so that was quick. It is a very long time since we bought a real Christmas tree, so the price of £16 for a 1 meter tree, which I am told is very reasonable, felt really expensive. The food shopping in Tesco, again was laid back, friendly and smiley, all and sundry wishing you Merry Christmas and not jumping ahead of you in the queue. We got basically everything we needed, packed it into the car and went home.
 |
A rip-roaring fire in the stove
|
The unpacking is now such a military operation without noise, questions or instructions, that it was done in no time at all. Once everything was put away we sat down to cook ourselves a lunch, followed by a little rest. On Monday the real work had started. We had to have a quick tidy up and clean up of the house, which is always quite a job in the heating season, as keeping the stove going with big dirty chunks of firewood, as well as the occasional smoke coming out of the stove, always make the lounge quite mucky. The stove is now operating at its maximum capacity, producing so much beautiful heat that one morning I managed to restart the fire without paper, just with kindling on the remaining hot embers.
 |
Our pretty little Christmas tree
|
We first erected the tree, decorated it and put it in one of the windows in the lounge. Then we wrapped all our presents and put them under the tree. We made Stephen and Valeria's bed and cleaned their room. Finally, I made 29 pieces of marzipan sweets and 7 truffles rolled in chopped almonds. They are now keeping cool in between the inner and outer door in the kitchen, although we did raid it a bit on the day. On Monday morning we had a lovey surprise: about 3 inches of snow fell overnight, making the village and our garden look like a Christmas wonderland. Took lots of lovely photos to illustrate my FB posts and this blog. |
The back of the cottage and its garden
|
We also settled with Dani, what time he is coming to fetch lunch for one of the old ladies in the village on the 27th, the day we have taken on providing her with food, sweets and a little present. He is coming for them on Friday at midday and I hope she will like our turkey meal and the sweets. She is a nice old lady, who has no family and is very poor, so when the communal kitchens close - like they do for Christmas - she eats only canned food. It was Dani who suggested on the I 💖Bér FB group that we tall ake on feeding her over the holidays, and there were plenty of takers, which I was very glad to see.
 |
Front lane with well
|
Since then we have been carrying on with the tidying and cleaning and yesterday I made the provisional geocache page for my good friend griffs, but couldn't send it as apparently he has two of his own caches out of action, and in these situations the programming stops you sending anything until after they sorted the problem. I hope he does, as this cache page is needed to be done and gone through moderation, which takes two days, before 4th January, when he is running an "icy bike outing", during which he was to put the box out with the participants and get the cache published. I hope he sorts this, as I like him a lot and those that brave winter snow and ice, while on a bike tour, deserve another new cache to find.
 |
The back garden with the pavilion under snow
|
Finally, yesterday I managed to get out of Stephen the information of how much money I have to send him for the Christmas presents for him, Valéria, Elian and Xander, so that they will have some nice pressies from us under their tree. And then, today we are finishing the tidying and cleaning, then putting the turnkey in the oven, and await the arrival of our guests for Christmas. I must admit, I am not one for celebrations of any kind, but I hope that this year's Christmas goes off without any family discord. I have a feeling Valéria will make sure that it will. 💖💖💖💖
No comments:
Post a Comment