Happy Birthday Roy!!!

We had the usual hiking crowd descend on us for Roy's Birthday weekend. There were 31 of us on the Saturday hike, although Roy did not join us. Still, he helped with making the fire for the couldron gulyas, which was delicious. He enjoyed his cake, which looked very sickly, but it turned out to be made with cottage cheese and it was very yummy. He also contributed to the meal by making two trays of crumble and some baked apples. We had a good weekend all round, especially that the weather was unseasonably warm, in spite of the Met Office promising us a 5-6 degrees drop in temperatures.

The piccies are: the couldron over the fire; Andor and Lajos carrying it into the cellar to keep it safe from enquiring wildlife (including Böbe the dog) overnight; Andor trying to work out why his GPS is showing the wrong way, (dying battery!!!); a nice old chateau in one of the villages we hiked through, now a school; some of the crowd after we managed to find the spring in the woods.

There is quite an interesting story over this: in the old days these springs were properly looked after by the foresters or water bailiffs, so they were kept clean and free flowing. In the last 20 years (along with lots of other nice things) these were allowed to fall into disuse and now there is just mud there and the whole area is overgrown and neglected. Shame, because the forest around it looked glorious. We also lost a few of our group who insisted that it was too hard to carry on in the forest and returned to the cars on the path. Shame!! It was their loss.

Harvest Festival

Just a few pictures of the Harvest Festival which was put on by the Slovak minority in the village wearing their lovely traditional costumes. I attached a couple of my late roses too, especially the white one is lovely as I rarely manage to grow pretty white ones. They are too vulnerable to all sorts of diseases and pests.

After my visitors departed last week I got busy with Francesco's arrival and then with the HOV Congress. It was well attended and the interest of the audience was evident even though Francesco's speech with the translation probably ran for too long. I got very tired by the end of the day, but enjoyed it all the same.

This, of course, meant that I missed the Harvest Festival, but at least Roy took some lovely piccies of it. Finally I managed to delete about 1400 pictures from my camera, which was well overdue. I discovered that my camera has a facility by which the card does not get full until it reaches the maximum number of pictures at the smallest size it can take. Even if you set the size high, rather than declaring itself full at that resolution, it keeps reducing the size to fit on as many as possible. Interesting, isn't it?

I am back in the village now, pears are the next to be bottled, but today I am having a rest, which I need after I got up at 4am to take Francesco to the airport.

Mick and Anne's visit

Our English solicitor and his wife came visiting this week. Unfortunately they have to go home prematurely, so their visit to Ber has been put off until their next visit.

We had a long day in Budapest where we saw lots of interesting things together on Wednesday. Fishermen's Bastion was the first stop, then the Castle District (see lovely balcony and funiculars passing each other), followed by a walk down to the river, lunch, then walked across the Chain Bridge where we saw this crazy amphibious bus. We walked along the river all the way to the big XIXth century covered market, then home.

Today they have struck out on their own, saw several museums and art galleries, then soaked in the thermal waters at the Szechenyi Baths. Dinner at David's was the day's end.

Tomorrow Roy is going home by bus where the Harvest Festival awaites. I am staying in as Francesco is coming from London and I am attending the HOV Congress on Sunday.

Callum growing up

Callum is a month old tomorrow and I thought I would post a few more pictures of him on my blog. I have also created a Flickr account and put some of his piccies on there as well. Flickr is so easy, I should have had an account ages ago. I put some of my pictures from two of my trips: Istanbul last November and Paris just last week on there, started a set with our visitors' photos and also one of the gorgeous coal tits using the wooden bowl with food in and the piece of fat I hung up for them last winter. Any of you who wishes to receive a guest pass to look at them just drop me a line by e-mail! :-)

I am still feeling very wobbly, have a sore throat, headaches and general malaise which has been around for about two weeks now. Hope it will go with a bit of a rest, but I can't have too much of that yet. Andor visited for a day recently, as this was his only chance to cycle out to us as he did the last couple of summers. About 100 miles round trip, which is not bad for an old man like him. We did some preserving as the peach crop was good again. 14 one litre bottles of peaches in syrup was the end result of our labours. Pears will be done soon, when we get a minute. The herb garden is still going strong: today I had some marrow with home grown dill. Yum, yum!!

Mick and Anne are coming on Tuesday, so we have been busy preparing the Kottage for them. There has been nobody in it since the wedding, so the cobweb collection was spectacular. Stupidly I left my camera in BP so I couldn't take any pictures when we went to the Halusky Festival in Vanyarc yesterday. This is also the reason for no pictures other than those of Callum. We are really looking forward to seeing him in the flesh soon. Just over a month and we'll be in Toronto! Yippeeee!!!!

Paris

Five days in Paris is what the doctor's ordered. I am still utterly exhausted after WTOC and a quick invitiation to visit with friends seemed a good idea. Mentally it was great, physically, I am not so sure as practically all the sight seeing was done on foot and I hit bed like a felled tree every night.

Andor, Agi and I spent 5 days trekking all over Paris, starting in the XIXth district, where Agi lives and the tourists are non-existent. A park called Buttes Chaumont turned out to be an absolutely magical place, so did Pere La Chaise Cemetery, The Sacre Coeur, the guys playing petangue in the streets, fresh croissants and pain du chocolat etc., etc. A new discovery for me was a park, which was built around the site of an old abbatoir and market on either side of the main canal and which included the Science Museum with a fantastic shiny globe housing an IMAX cinema. That globe was incredible and next to it we visited a submarine which was decommissioned in 1982 as the French fleet went nuclear. Weird place and all who visit it develop a new found respect for submariners.

Andor fell in love with the Arsenal pleasure port where houseboats were moored right underneath the monument commemorating the desctruction of the Bastille. I revisited the Notre Dame where I photographed my mother nigh on 40 years ago, but the millions of tourists have spoilt the memories and I wished I didn't bother.

France is a very different place to what I remembered, but then again, I was young then. The only downside to France and French peope I found was the chainsmoking, which my hostess was also quite in the habit of. As I had only hand luggage I couldn't bring too much back, but a giant artichoke was duly purchased in the market at Place des Fetes and will be devoured with traditional home made stinky sauce in the next few days.

It's over!!!!

Just a few snapshots from WTOC which has just finished. This is the first day of my life without TrailO. It doesn't feel as liberating as I thought it might, but there is plenty of time yet for it to sink in.

I have made so many very very good friends that the love I got from them, the grateful faces, the concentration while competing and all the lovely comments make up for the frustrations I have felt over the treatment of all the WTOC team by the central organisation from Miskolc. I suppose one mustn't wash one's dirty linen in public, but it is a never ending source of sadness in my life how irresponsible, unsuitable and downright malicious people can get away with all their nastiness just because the nice people let them. The jury is still out on this as far as I am concerned and we will see what (if anything) I will do about it.

If there are any people out there reading this who have been affected by any of our shortcomings during the last week, I can only profusely apologise. Especially to the one team (they know who they are) who I had to write a very painful e-mail to yesterday and whom I will never be able to look in the face without feeling utterly embarrassed and ashamed. Do please try it in your heart to forgive us!

Now for packing up and leaving. Ber awaits, knee high grass, dead vegetables, tons of post and all the other delights of getting back after nearly 2 weeks.

We are grandparents!!!!

As you can see finally the "wiggly" has appeared, it might still wiggle, but it now cries (I assume) sleeps (I know), sucks milk (I also know) and is generally very cute. We heard yesterday and were very pleased. Alex and Meaghan are together with him in hospital until Monday and the stream of visitors has already started. Shame we will not see him until October, but it should be a memorable visit (we hope!).

They named him Callum Alexander, he weighed in at a fraction over 6lb (2.70kg for you continentals) and he is incredibly cute, but then again I am biased. Alex has already posted not just pictures, but a video on Facebook as well. I might post that video here later, if the download allows it. We are away at the World Championships, so my computing is not without its troubles.

Will post as and when I get further news. Hopefully we can have a proper "wet the baby's head" party tonight, last night we were both so knackered that it didn't materialise.