Roses

The recent winter has done considerable damage to my roses and most of them had to be cut back severely due to frost damage. The South facing side has recovered quite well, but the North facing less so. However, as you can see there are still a few really nice blooms on now.

Stephen and Lucy in Oz

I have just found this picture on Facebook, proving that happiness is good for you. It is so utterly delightful to see Stephen and Lucy this happy. This was taken in Australia, but I gather they have since decamped to Singapore. I hope they are really having a good time and will get home happy and relaxed.

Pete's second week

After the weather has improved in Ber and we had a few outings and a hike we returned to BP via the Matra. The picture with the nice long view behind the tall trees was taken looking North towards Slovakia en route to BP.

Pete has become quite independent by the second week, so while Roy went with him to Szentendre on the HEV, all other trips he did on his own. His love of art, architecture and all things in museums came into its own. He discovered one which I will have to go and see one day myself. It is called the Bedo House and I have been an admirer of its beautiful Art Nouveau exterior for years. It is opposite my old bank branch where I watched for years the process of its renovation. The gallery and exhibition are on the ground floor, but you can visit the basement and the first floor for some more furniture, furnishings, pictures etc.

In the meantime the planned boat trip had to be cancelled because of the floods that stopped all boats sailing this week. Roy found some pictures on the Internet about the floods but they turned out to be last year's, so this is an annual event. Except, last year they happened at the end of June, this year all this monsoon rain we had brought them forward.

As you can see Pete revisited Heroes' Square, this time in the daytime, and took some lovely piccies of the 9th century Hungarian chieftains at the bottom of the column. He was also much fascinated by the mosaics of the other museum opposite the Fine Arts one, which sparkled in the sunshine. The big church in the picture is that of the St. Stephen's Basilica which is now looking spectacular after its multi-million forint facelift.

I hope Pete has a good trip home. I have just looked on the Internet and his plane left Gatwick nearly half an hour late en routws to BP, but that means it will be bang on time as it never needs the scheduled 2 and half hours in my experience. In fact Ferihegy has just put it up as expected 2 minutes late, so that should be OK.

Hike to the Andesite columns

The weather being really nice again Pete and I took a trip up the Andesite columns today. It was really high humidity due to the heavy rain earlier in the week. After some trudging on a very slippery path we emerged by the side of the famous Ber Andesite columns, which look like a big wave. After climbing to the top of them we had the 200 degree panoramic views, which were very impressive. This time, the novelty for me was that the vicinity of the rocks included a carpet of wild flowers, including iris, pansy and bluebells. In the final picture Pete is seen pointing at the twin peaks of the hill of Szanda on the right and the disused quarry on the left. These lovely mountains are affectionately called The tits in our family.

A day in Hollókõ

After the current period of monsoon, which imprisoned us for days on end, today has dawned with some sunshine, so we braved the elements and attempted an outing. Pete has been with us since Monday and we were trying to show him a good time, which the weather kept sabotaging. However, as you can see today was most successful and we all had a good time.

We left home just after 10am and drove to

Hollókõ via Kozárd where there is a lovely restaurant. Unfortunately it wasn't open yet, so we took pot luck on the way back.

Hollókõ is a World Heritage site with lovely, olde worlde peasant long houses, a lovely wooden church, lots of history, pottery and other artefacts.

We visited the 13th century castle first, which has been a bit over restored for my liking. Still, it was quite photogenic and the view from its ramparts was to die for.

Then we walked, slid and tiptoed down to the village where we had some soup. The boys had the local delicacy:

Palóc soup, which consisted of pork, white beans and sour cream with tarragon. Yummie, yummie!!!

After some further photo opportunities we walked back to the car and then drove to Kozárd for the rest of our lunch. Kozárd is a an interesting little village which some years back decided to specialise in apples, cherries, pears, apricots etc. They now have a thriving community with a lovely village hall, nice restaurant, 6 places where you can stay and a friendly demeanour. Shame we don't go that way too often, but every time we do, we don't regret it.

The sun is still shining, which is amazing, let us hope that the grass and the ground with dry a bit and Bandi will be able to mow the garden soon!!

Boating

On Saturday finally we went rowing in my keel boat. Roy was very brave and even managed to steer the boat occasionally. Jutka, on the other hand, was the real brave one as she set out on our little trip never having ever rowed in a big boat before. Good job I didn't know that, or we might not have set out in the first place.

The boatman warned us that it might leak, but assured us that there was no fear of capsizing. As it turned out there was not a drop of water in it, which was the good news. Everything else was more on the bad news side:
1. Jutka was absolutely hopeless, although towards the end she started getting better, but by then we were scrapping the whole affair.
2. I was not well enough to counteract the fact that she was useless and we could not go round the moored big boat which is a hotel. The speed of the river round that boat, coupled with the early summer spate it was in stopped us going further up the river.
3. Her seat started disintegrating, which might have just been bad luck or was perhaps caused by her pushing on it due to her inability of rowing properly. The boatman promised to fix the seat, although I am not sure when, if at all, we can go out again. Perhaps when I find myself a strong, big bloke who knows how to row I might risk it.
4. I got myself a sore bottom from the hard seat and a big blister on my left hand from the oar, but who's complaining?

All in all I am glad we went. It was not exactly a resounding success, although we have spent about an hour and a half just going about half a mile up river and back again. Still, the old boat passed with flying colours and if the weather allows it, we might try again sometime this summer.

Today Pete Serres arrived, which is good news. Visitors can be a chore, but he is a great conversationist and will cheer us all up. I am at home alone now while the boys have gone out to dinner and for a walk along the river at night. I didn't feel like it, preferring my cosy armchair and TV.

The War Cemetery

Today we came across the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery en route to our lunch in the country. They gathered all the dead from all over the country and buried them here. Mostly airmen, although there were a few soldiers and one sailor amongst them. Apart from Brits, there were quite a few Poles, some Australians and New Zealanders as well. It is beautifully kept and is in very pretty countryside.

The carved wooden door is somewhere in BP where Roy fell in love with it. These lovely old doors are fast disappearing, so it is always a joy to find some still in situ and in such good nick as this one was.

Finally, the lovely lady in this poster is reputedly modelled on Jolande Aschner, one of my ancestors. We discovered it on a wall by a gallery with no acknowledgements. Her husband was on the board of the Tungsram Factory before the war and originally it advertised their lightbulbs. Isn't life interesting?