An energetic weekend with a bit of family history research

Saturday Andor, Roy and I went to the next orienteering training event in the Vertes. This part is quite technical and very steep in places. As I haven't really run for 2 months I decided to take it easy. I jogged some of it, but otherwise walked round. This made the navigation slightly easier, although as you can see I was somewhat perplexed at control no 119. The nominal length of this was 4.6km with appr. 175m of climb and it took me 80 minutes. I felt surprisingly well afterwards, which was a good sign. During the last few weeks I felt really grotty after any physical exertion, so feeling reasonably OK on the way home cheered me up.

After Andor dropped us at our car we went to Farkasret cemetery to see if we can find Arpad Czettel's grave, who we knew was buried there in the second half of the 1930's. Unfortunately the office was closed, so a return visit would have to be made sometime in the future. This little cemetery is really nice, on a hill side with lovely views, but it seems so jam packed with graves and with each grave having 4-5 people in it, that there was no point to look for him, even though the area was quite small.

On Sunday morning Andor rang, as agreed, and I found myself on a training run in the Buda hills with him. As the sun shone and it was quite mild for January I risked a 6.5k run and even though I am sure he would have preferred his usual 9.2k circuit, he stayed with me. I felt quite sluggish, but managed to keep up with him until about 1.5k from the end. My joints started getting very painful in the last couple of kilometres, but that is OK, because while orienteering I do not normally do more than 4k anyway. En route home I suddenly decided that there was still time to look in on the Budapest Hash, which I have been planning to run with for months, but flu and very cold temperatures prevented me until now. After hanging around for a good while we finally started to make our way to the start point, which - WAIT FOR IT! - was by the Farkasret Cemetery. Small world, isn't it? There were about 23 of us, 14 of them Hungarians, which upset some expats sufficiently as making a point of announcing the figures. I found some familiar faces: Ian the UK taxman, aka Sextax (Hash name), his wife Ros, Cedric and a few others I remembered from he fish and chips dinner back in December. Their habits differ quite a lot from the bunch I used to run with in Brighton, but the idea is about the same. The run was totally uphill as the start was by the cemetery and the finish on top of Szechenyi hill. Circle time at the end is not necessarily my cup of tea, especially hanging around in the cold wind with an overheated, sweaty body, drinking cold beer. However, they seem a nice bunch (with a few exceptions) and I will be back. Next Sunday is in Erd, just South of Budapest on the Buda side. Let us hope there will be less climb there. I tried to measure the route on Google Maps and ended up with about 3.5-4km, but the climb was at least 200m, if not more.

I got home by 4pm, had a shower, a little rest and was off to the theatre. Ostrovsky's Wolves and Lambs is a brilliant social study of PB country folk in late Czarist Russia. I went to primary school with one of the actresses on stage, but she didn't have time to have a chat afterwards. Must ring her next week.

On Monday morning we returned to the cemetery and while the office was now open, our search produced no results. Due to the cramped conditions of this cemetery, they clear graves quite often and especially when nobody looks after them any more. Arpad's grave was cleared in 1967 and even his bones have now been disposed of. No mention of his brother Gyula or his widow Gizella either, so they must have been buried somewhere else anyway.

Now we are back in Ber and I am trying to catch up on correspondence and carry on with my translation work.

Wet and miserable January

Yes, it is what is called "snotty" weather around here. Yuk!! I have been indoors for days now, I don't feel like going out.

The one good news of the week is the arrival of the long overdue Christmas parcel from Canada. You can see Roy modelling the star item, his tank comander's hat. He is very happy with it, even though the real big winter has gone. Mind you, it may come back! There were a goodly selection of socks and a marvellous set of thermal underwear for me. Thanks kids!

I am planning to go orienteering this Saturday, but if it is this miserable, I might think better of it. Not that I mind orienteering in the rain, I have had enough practice at it in the last 20-odd years, but my joints are decidedly wonky nowadays and it is not worth risking going lame again in the cold and wet. Same goes for the Hash on Sunday, if its bucketing down, it's off the menu yet again.

Last weekend I followed up a news item on the O-net relating to cross country skiing gear and am now the proud owner of a pair of Xcountry skis and boots. Unfortunately the poles were far too short, so I am still in the market for a pair of those. Needless to say the little snow still around melted the moment I bought them. Still, I couldn't go out without the poles anyway and they will be OK next year as well.

I have been to the theatre on Sunday for a very weird play by Ingmar Bergman. It was called The Ritual and apparently it is an adaptation of one of his films. I have never seen it, but it was quite interesting. While I am fond of Bergman on the whole, somehow I wasn't quite in the mood for this depth of screwed up angst and nastiness amongst 1950's theatrical folk.

Must go now, filing and other boring tasks await.

Berlin

Nearly two weeks without a post is unusual for me, but I was waiting for some nice piccies from Berlin.

The weekend was really brilliant: on Thursday I spent a really nice evening with Nina whom I haven't seen in a long number of years. Saturday I did my bit of translating one of the conference lectures, then absconded with Alex for a sightseeing tour of Berlin and finished the day with listening to another lecture, followed by an enjoyable social with all my friends I haven't seen for ages.

Even though the weather was somewhere between minus 5 and 10 we enjoyed seeing some of the sights. We walked down from Alexanderplatz all the way to the Brandenburg gate, then saw the Reichstag and the Russian memorial. The next interesting site was the Holocaust memorial made of lots of grey stone blocks. Very eary! En route back to the hostel we saw a bit of the Berlin wall that is still standing near Checkpoint Charlie.

The main aim of this weekend was to meet up with Alex, but the general political purpose was also well served. The demonstration on Sunday was very well attended and there was no hassle with the police or anybody else.

Sunday's march had brilliant sunshine and the banners were impressive. Thousands of red carnations covered Rosa Luxembourg's grave, it was very moving.

I got a bit sad saying good-bye to Alex, but I am used to having him half way round the globe by now. Still, it is still sad seeing him go.

Back home now, lots of snow and minus 7, but the house is nice and warm.

Happy New Year

Well, we are in 2009 now, but let me recap about Christmas in BP. .............. That is our Christmas in BP in the greatest of detail. Mmmmmm...., nothing happened. We lazed about indoors, Roy had one of his precious lamb joints, I made him fresh mint sauce from the last of the mint leaves and I had lots of lovely roast vegetables. It turned cold, so we just watched TV and had a very lazy time.

At the weekend I went orienteering in the Vertes, which was probably a mistake, as it gave me very painful joints due to the cold. Andor came back to us afterwards, showing me lots of lovely photos on his laptop and sorting out a few queries with Roy about the Family History program we gave to him some time ago. He has done a fantastic job of inputting his entire Holluby tribe into it and now is going to print out the whole lot.

Then we came back to Ber, put the central heating on and fired up the pottery stove in the Bunkhouse. Agi, Gyuri, Zoli, Zsuzsa, Marica, Andras and Eva duly arrived 2 days later and took up residence in the Bunkhouse. On Tuesday I went with them on their hike, which was lovely. Unfortunately, the best weather was on Monday, when the sun shone from early in the morning until late afternoon. Tuesday was still sunny, but much more overcast. We went towards Bujak then up towards the forest and ended up at Viragos. It was just over 10km and we managed to get home before dark.

On Wednesday I had too much to do, so I didn't go with them, but they had a circuit of much the same distance, starting under Bujak castle, walking to the stages of the cross on the top of one of the hills and then back. In the meantime we made sure the houses were warm and made the mulled wine. We had some food and the mulled wine after they got back in the Farmhouse with an invitation to Roy and me to join them in the Bunkhouse later.

When we went over it was all decorated for the festivities. We started dinner and the New Year's Eve revelrie around 8pm. Lovely cabbage soup, roast piglet, sausages, potatoes and braised cabbage was fast devoured. Followed by Hungarian Christmas Cake (beigli) and all washed down with copious quantities of wine, palinka and champagne at midnight.

It is a long time since Roy and I have taken to the dance floor, but with such lovely people and in such good atmosphere, we both did. We saw in the new year in Hungary, then waited an hour and did the same to the bing-bong of Big Ben on Sky News. The fireworks were great, very impressive both in London and in Edinburgh.

It was all quiet by 2am after a lovely evening, spent in good company.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!!

The Bér Christmas Party

The New Mayor together with the gypsy and Slovak minority councils have organised a Christmas party to which everybody was invited. The little ones were sweet (see photo), the food was quite good and I found a new friend. He and his wife live a few doors from us, but we haven't talked to them before. Well read and well informed old guy with a few interesting views which he expressed cogently.

This was on Sunday, today we have done some more cleaning in the Bunkhouse, helped Nelly with her wood and finished another bit of translation for the web site. Off to BP tomorrow.

The run down to Christmas

No pictures this week as I wasn't in the mood. Events in the last week included (in no particular order):

Meeting up with a mixed expat crowd for fish and chips in our favourite little restaurant, the Hunyadi Kisvendeglo. We met some of them last month and managed to join them for their Christmas meal this month. Most of them are hashers and that means I now know how to contact the Budapest Hash. They were fascinating people, including an American teaching gypsy kids, a British taxman and his wife and assorted other fun types of all kinds of nationalities, including Russians and Azebadjanis. A very enjoyable afternoon/evening was had.

Finished one major translation job, which is great. Now I need to get back to the even bigger one I left to do this one.

I didn't go to Warsaw as getting a ticket was becoming an absolute nightmare as well as me not feeling particularly well. It wasn't the timetable problems alone, but the fact that even if somebody would have bought me a ticket from Bratislava onwards, due to a railway strike I would have found it very difficult to get as far as Bratislava. Shame, but hopefully I get a detailed report of the discussions I missed.

On the way back to the village we bought a Christmas tree, which is the first one for at least 20 years. It is very sweet and cost just over 10 pounds. Roy dug out all the decorations, but I haven't put them up yet. The last few days we started cleaning, heating and generally titivating the Bunkhouse. Our friends will come and stay in it for New Years Eve, so it should be nice. We made all the beds there today and will finish the cleaning tomorrow. These friends will be our first paying guests and we will treat having them as a test run. I am still not sure how I will feel about it, but we'll see.

This week also became one when we started to get to know a newly found relative in America. Andy Der and me share a connection through my aunt Stefania, who was my father's sister that went to America in the 60's. She was his grandmother on his mother's side. I never really knew her and by the time Roy managed to find her family in Florida and Maryland she was dead. However, her daughter Maryetta was still alive then and both my sister Nelly and myself kept in telephone contact with her for a while. To cut a long story short, we are now getting very friendly with her son, who is my second cousin twice removed (I think). Andy seems to have known nothing about us and while he is aware of some Hungarian relatives on his father's side, he is not keeping in too close a contact with them either. He was quite surprised to hear from us as he was never told about our branch of his family and especially not about having Jewish ancestors. He is fascinated about this and we are now having a lovely correspondence about all manner of things. He is younger than me, but not by a full generation's worth and seems a very nice guy.

The last event was just this afternoon. Roy and I went to the old people's party at the Church Hall (not as guests, I hasten to add!!) and got invited to the pastor's for tea afterwards. He is trying to get friendly with us, and while I still have some reservations, I think he is only after educated people to talk to and the odd English conversation or lesson. We might have a go at that, I think.

On Tuesday we are off to BP to spend Christmas there, but should be back in time for New Year's Eve.

The 2008 Christmas Message

Dear relatives, friends and other interested parties

As you very well know we have not sent Christmas cards for several years now and nothing has changed. So, we are writing early to stop you sending cards in this direction, although we were very pleased that the vast majority of you heeded our warning and did not send any last year. Many of you keep abreast of our comings and goings by reading our blog http://emigrants-thegrants.blogspot.com/ and we urge you to carry on doing so. Still, for the benefit of those who do not read blogs below is a short version of 2008, a year in which the pound fell drastically against other currencies, including the forint. Life is a bit more expensive over here, but we still love it!

The wedding: the main event of the year was Alex and Meaghan’s wedding. It happened on 29th May under glorious, uninterrupted sunshine, which was important as most of it took place outdoors. It was preceded by the arrival of the Canadian mob, plus the Grant clan from England and was followed by the honeymoon to Croatia by the young couple and trips to Slovenia and Venice by assorted Canadians. It was magical, many people were talking about the day in the most complimentary ways for weeks. We were all touched by the couple’s love for each other and for life in general.

Travel: after our return from Canada in January the trips started with a visit to Robert and Volker by the Balaton for a weekend, including a hike to Rezi Castle in February. Then in March Julianna went to Amsterdam (again), but this time with 3 girlfriends. Both of us went to Austria in early May for an orienteering event, then July was rather busy with a trip to the Czech Republic for the Orienteering World Championships and then just Julianna going to Sweden for the same purpose, although a visit to a long lost friend was also squeezed in. August saw both of us in Transylvania, followed by two solo trips by Julianna again: one to Istanbul in October and the usual one to Venice in November, both for orienteering.

Sad event: Mike Freeman, our brother in law died on 30th August aged 82. We are both very happy that he could make the wedding in May where he had a good time. He was a real gentleman, an old fashioned Navy man, a great father and grandfather. We will remember him with fond memories. This also meant that another trip was made, this time by Roy on his own, when he went to Cornwall for the funeral and to support his sister for a few weeks.

Weather: the winter was pretty mild again, although not as much as the one before. As mentioned previously the weather gods smiled on us on 29th May and the summer that followed was hot, long and produced the most amazing fruit crop in years. Early snows arrived in November and painted a most glorious Christmas picture in the village.

Garden: it produced a fantastic crop of produce this year. Village people tell me that occasionally you get years like this, but it was very unusual indeed. All fruit trees produced so much fruit that some of the smaller, older ones broke under the strain. We lost the lovely shape of some of our trees as a result. The crop (in no particular order) was: plums, peaches, pears, morello cherries, apricots, walnuts, grapes on the fruit side; peas, carrots, cabbages, tomatoes, peppers, radishes, celeriac and a few others in the veg patch. We made: chutney, lecsó, jam and compote in endless jars, bottles and filled all our freezers to the brim.

Building works: after forced labour under the draconian regime of a wedding deadline, which gave us backaches, increasing exhaustion and frayed fingers – these have now finally finished!! Halleluyahhh!!!! Not that Roy has stopped. He is not happy unless he can fiddle with some DIY somewhere, but most of it is now leisurely, no rush, new bits here and there plus maintenance. In 2009 he intends to turn his attention to the garden.

New aquisitions: immediately after the wedding the old Volkswagen breathed its last and so instead of spending a 1000 quid on a new gearbox we decided to have a new car. A month or so later we became the proud owners of a new copper coloured Suzuki SX4. It has great ground clearance and is very economical to run. Other upgrades/new stuff include changing to digital cable in Budapest, which now gives Roy the option of switching to English on a few channels, as well as the purchase of two new 32” LCD television sets (one for BP and one for Bér), which enhance his enjoyment no end.

Visitors: the first visit was from Chris and Jo, Roy’s nephew and his wife who came over at February half term, followed by Stephen and Katy in March, as he had a gig at a BP comedy club, which was very enjoyable. We also had some old friends, Pablo and his friend Marta, who did not stay with us, but we shepherded them round BP. Then we had the family before, during and after the wedding which made good use of the three buildings and inaugurated the use of them all. We had two birthday parties in Bér, one in January for a friend and then another for us and another friend in September. Both were attended by a dozen or so people. We also had last year’s hiking crowd come again, but this time there were only about 15 of them and some of those are coming back for New Year’s Eve as our first paying guests in the Bunkhouse. Philip stayed with us before and during the Hungária Kupa and then Julianna met up with him in Istanbul in the autumn. His company is always much appreciated by both of us. While she didn’t visit Hungary this year, Julianna met and stayed together with Ruth in Venice, which was also great fun.

Budapest: our block has had a good year, including the departure of the tenant from hell in one of the few remaining council owned flats. Unfortunately the new management agents have gone off the boil and are getting as negligent as the previous ones were. Hopefully, they will not get as dishonest as well. My rowing boat got renovated, but due to our busy schedule we are yet to get out in it on the Danube. That’s now left for next year. Had several visits to the theatre, opera and concerts with friends, both English and Hungarian.

Orienteering results: in line with Stephen’s current set Julianna has been second at all four major championships: sprint, middle, long and extra long. She has also come second overall for 2008 in W60. Victories include the Hungária Kupa and the Slovak Championships, with the major disappointment being Venice where a 7 seconds better result would have got her a silver medal.

Family history: the star find of 2008 was Renee in America. She has added a lot to our knowledge of what happened to part of Julianna’s family from 1904 and we are now trying to fill in the earlier gaps. Roy has also been fairly active on the Internet as a “so called” expert on Brighton and now helps others out with their own histories.

Politics: after being quite active in Britain, Julianna took a backseat for the last couple of years while settling down over here. This year produced developments which made her get involved with a solidarity movement and a developing group of young people who are not happy with the way things are going in the country. This produced a lot of translating work and the occasional meeting and/or demonstration on the streets.

2009 plans: the idea of planning is a bit futile in Hungary as I am yet to meet another nation so unwilling to plan for more then about 5 minutes before doing anything, if at all. However, I cannot discard the habit of a lifetime, so here it goes: trip to Berlin for a political conference in January, welcoming Stephen again in early February for another gig and the long lost Swedish friend with boyfriend later on that month. As soon as the snow melted several trips to the Bükk mountains planning the courses for the Trail-O World Championships. Doing lots of orienteering, but perhaps with less travelling. July includes a short trip to Britain, followed by the usual conference in Barcelona. The World Championships in Hungary will fill the rest of August. We have our English solicitor (by then hopefully retired) coming in September and then we will have a well earned rest. Let us hope our health holds and we might even get going with the backpackers’ hostel. It is long overdue, I know, but we have had a few things to deal with lately! You may not believe it, but slowing down and simplification are the twin slogans for 2009. Let’s hope we can stick to it!!

A very happy Christmas and New Year to you all!
Stay healthy, happy and keep in touch!
Love from Roy and Julianna in Hungary