December - Hibernation Time!

12th December 2013

Winter creeps upon us with stealth and relentless vigour! Its still early December and so far it has been suprisingly mild, the temperature reached 10 degrees on a day or two last week, but the night time has also dipped to -4. We have only had one light flurry of snow so far, and mostly the days have been bright, sunny, and crispy, with averages at between 7 and 10 degrees. Our local friends warned of fog, but so far that too has stayed away.
I love watching Roly when I let him out in the early morning, remember he is almost completely deaf, and his eye sight is also beginning to fail him a little, but "The Dog Whisperer" said that we should not feel sorry for dogs as they don't feel sorry for themselves and just adapt, which he does! But he does not hear the sounds around him, the chickens to the left and right of us, the dogs, also both sides of us, he is locked in his own little world, mostly of smells, and there are some stray wild cats around, that come onto the property whilst he is lying in front of the fire, trussed up in his blankie, and it annoys him intensely to smell their tracks. If he gets an especially strong whiff, he plants his back legs wide apart, and gives a few resounding barks in the air, all the while looking back to the house to see if we are watching what a "very good watch dog" he is, then he comes screeching inside and his little fat body feels ice cold!!

Indoors, well, it is just darn right cosy! We have our kitchen log burner going during the day, as we spend most of our time in there, and late afternoon, early evening we light both of them. They are absolutely awesome! The fire in the bedroom was a secondhand buy, through the expat club, and we got an absolute bargain! We have priced them new at around two hundred and fifty to three hundred quid, and thats without the pipes etc, we paid around one hundred and fifteen quid, inclusive of delivery and all the pipes! Our walls are about two foot thick, so its pretty well insulated and very very warm and cosy, with the added bonus of being able to watch a fire as they both have nice big glass doors, this, we have told Lotsi is our television! But there is nothing quite like settling down in bed at night and having the ambient flicking orange glow of warming flames to put you to sleep..........mmmmm its the little things that make life worthwhile!

We have no television, and even though we may miss it for a show or two, in general, we feel we are better off without it, as it used increase Steves blood pressure no end, and thats was just watching the news!
And we are not complaining, it is a time, according to those around us, to mend, fix, make and above all relax. It feels a little weird not having ANY family at all around us for Christmas, no sons, parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts or uncles, you get the picture! Nada! Its just going to be the three of us!

However, we did have our "Bailey Builders" Xmas office party last week! That was a wonderful day out, Roly, poor boy wasn't invited.

We caught the bus into Marcali, and small town about 5kms away.

Waiting for the bus - Office Party.

As you can see, it was a glorious day!
We had a gorgeous steak, stopped off at at few very nice lounges and bars, and drank a few of these nasty shooters they call Unicum, urgh!

Me chatting up the boss!

I made "Employee of the Year!" and got promted to "Chief Brick Scrubber" from next Spring thats why I look so happy!!

Some pictures of our clean cute and very quaint village!




















Saturday 21st December 2013

Well, its now officially mid-winter, although my friend Pam says that this is the start of winter! But we feel a little better knowing that from tomorrow we will get a litte more daylight. And according to the locals, its been very mild and there has normally been much more snow.

Our window has been fitted (finally!) to our patio, so the whole thing is now enclosed, this has done an amazing face lift to the house, its has made the whole place seem bigger, the sun streams into the patio in the mornings warming up the whole area.

Since last entry, we have been to the ex-pat Xmas party, which was good fun. Its nice to socialise with the English, they are a lovely bunch of people.
We have also had a night out with Pam and Glynn and had a drink at my Dad's Pub.

So, to sum up the last ten months here in Hungary, we have to say, we are not sorry, we have not regretted the move not for a second, we are both so very happy here, our life has changed immeasurably for the better, we have a better quality of life and we are both so much more relaxed.

We love our home, we love each other and we love our life!
Merry Xmas all, and a very happy 2014.....

Last Of the Work For 2013

The weather is finally closing in on us, temperatures are now dropping and apparantly next week we will see the first of the minus figures, so we are having to pack up everything and put it all away until next spring.
Its such a shame really we are so close to finishing our patio, but it will just have to wait now!

We are very proud of it, it has taken some hard slog from both of us! The bricks look absolutely fantastic, each one is unique!

We probably have only about six or seven more rows to do and they are getting shorter and shorter, damn winter!!! I will post more pictures of the details next year when we have completed it.....

But this has been our main objective during the last month!

This is our central heating for the next four months! 

We have absolutely no idea if it is enough, too much or if we will run out???? 

We have spent around GBP300, plus some wood we inherited with the property, which we reckon had been in this wood store for around 20 years, as it was so dry and hard it feels and sounds like white bone! The main type of wood used for internal woodburners in this country we have discovered is a strain of Acacia, and the stuff you see in the middle and to the left of the picture is mostly that, Steve and I have split most of what we had a month ago, it has given us a huge sense of satisfaction as we will have no horrible central heating bills, its paid for! The long logs to the right of the picture were delivered on the day the picture was taken, two days ago, and another load yesterday, its our kind of insurance policy, just in case!!! We will take stock, in mid winter 21st December and compare pictures we have taken to what is left, and decide whether we should shut our bedroom down and move into the spare room near where the kitchen fire is to conserve wood, but lets hold thumbs!

Life is still absolutely marvellous though! We have people coming and going every day, I am presently helping a 56 year old chap to learn English, he goes to night school and brings me his homework in the afternoons, in turn he tries to teach us a little Hungarian.

Lotsi our Hungarian buddy is always in and out, and we had a lovely visit from Atilla and his wife Rita, the house was owned by Atilla's grandmother whom we bought it from, they were pretty impressed with the work we had done.

But, as I said, winter is coming and we will have to go into hibernation for a couple of months now!

Here are a few pictures of our village.

Our nice peaceful street! Standing on the main road, the yellow building on the right is the council offices.

Good old rural country, these horse and carts come past our house all the time!

And lastly, Lake Balaton in all its autumnal glory!

Stay warm dry and safe everyone!!!

Busy! Busy! Busy!!

Since last posting we have had a wonderful visit from my Granddaughter Tullulah and her mother Vikki. The weather could have been better, but Lu and I had a lovely eight days spending some quality time together.

Day of arrival, having fun loving and squeezing the gorgeous girl!

We went swimming in Lake Balaton which was freezing but they braved the water. We played dollies and ate out lots, also went to the warm thermal baths and had a goof there.

Last night out to dinner.

Vikki sampled our local and very cheap wine, and gave it her seal of approval, especially when we told her that it was only 85 pence a bottle, she mentioned that for the same "glass" of wine it would have cost her four quid at her local pub!! She is a great Mum to Lu who is pretty advanced for her age, chats non-stop!

Last night at Cotties! Our local resturant.

I loved having them here and hope they come back again next year, maybe in season and when it is a little warmer.

PATIO!

There has been some delays to the patio, we had to wait a week for delivery of some chippings to back fill, the Hungarians are an unreliable lot!!
Palfi our local builders merchant promised them on the Monday evening, 2 weeks before Lu and Vikki's arrival, we sat outside from 6pm, poured a drink and waited and waited and waited! By 11pm we were rolicking drunk and no Palfi!
On Wednesday we went to see his wife to tell her to remind him, (via sign language and gestures as she speaks no English!) she again promised delivery that evening, again we sat outside exercising immense patience but  - no Palfi!!!
On Friday we went to his yard where he keeps the chippings and Steve (again) shook hands with him, to us this means its a deal, but very obviously not in Hungary,  he again said "eshte", evening, and guess what, no delivery!!! Uurghh!!! Its so incredibly frustrating, Steve was ready to punch him, but of course we have to stay calm, stay calm..................
 On Sunday we spotted him at a small local fair and for the millionth time shook his  hand on Monday evening delivery (a week now!). As insurance we also rallied our local friend Lotsi, he got onto the phone with Palfi, and rattled off in Hungarian our urgent need for this stuff and yay!!!! A week late it arrived!!!
But it did set us back some what.
We spread the chippings and then the rain came...................

After chippings! Slow progress!

The first few rows.

We have also been a little bit torn between doing the patio, and now that autumn is here, we also need to get organised for winter. That means cleaving and splitting our wood. So again the patio took second place and Steve and I cleaved and split every log in the barn, which took some doing! He bought a small hydraulic splitter which makes short work of even the biggest logs, but it takes two people and a lot of time and patience, but also a great sense of satisfaction, knowing that we will not freeze this winter. The best part about it though is that our central heating is now paid for and no scary bills will arrive!!!

So to date, wood is chopped and its back to trying to do as much of the patio as we can before winter arrives, so I had better go, as the patio is calling!!

Sharon

Rates & Taxes

Today we had to pay our six monthly local council tax. We had been told that it would be reduced if we registered as Hungarian residents, so we spent a day last week in Koposvar jumping through the silly beaurocratic hoops  (Forms, forms and more forms!) and got our residents cards issued there and then for the princely sum of GBP3.00 each!

The six monthly bill stood at approx. GBP132.00, thats about what we paid monthly in the UK! We wondered down to our local council which is at the end of our street, and the nice lady there introduced us to a young chap who spoke English in the council, we produced our residents cards, and were told by him, that yes we would get a reduction, wait for it.........................

Its now GBP31.00 PER YEAR!

5,400 florints every six months, and at an approximate exchange rate of 340 florints to the pound, its just ridiculously cheap!
The council do not collect the rubbish, that has been privatised and is run by a very efficient German company who collect our bins once a week for the princely sum of GBP3.00 per month, so we pay GBP6.00 per month council tax and rubbish!
How is it that this country has clean well kept streets, no litter, decent roads, sewerage, street lighting etc for that amount, and Britian charges more than 200 percent more, and gives so little back??

Makes you wonder doesn't it????

Patio Progress

We are getting moving with our patio, this is essential before winter, as we need the verandah to be enclosed and we cannot do that until the patio is done.

Yesterday Lotsi our local Hungary friend (Borat) told us he had dismantled an old outbuilding and had plenty of old bricks, and Steve got the brain wave to surface the patio with these bricks, so today it has been a frantic offloading of bricks, as Lotsi wants them off the property as a tractor is arriving tomorrow to rotavate and the bricks will be churned to dust.

New!

So, I now have my new Hungarian teeth, (see pic's) and Steve and I went and had new hair styles as well! We are both slimming down due to more physical excercise, and are also getting nicely tanned, when we are able to get out in the sun, luckily it has rained a little and cooled down to a reasonable 28-30 degrees, we are also acclimatising more so the heat is not hitting us nearly as badly.

Today, we decided to walk up the hill, and dragged Roly along, his nails are getting long as he is not getting as many walks as the UK as the property here is so big, he is puffed just doing a lap.

Our local friend Lotsi told Steve an interesting local fact, and Steve wanted to show it to me. I videoed it see the video.

Carol and Mark the Aussies visit in baking 38 degree heat!

Lake Balaton cruises

Pleasure boat on Lake Balaton

Sunflowers and Kethely church in the background