April 2014

I have just read the March post, and sheesh we did get a lot done.

As I write this its the 17th April so we are only half way, but I have quite a bit to put on and lots of piccies.

I am writing this from a wheelchair!

When I got back from SA Steve and I went to the local pub, and I (very stupidly! Hindsight is a wonderful thing!) celebrated a local chaps "Name Day" by drinking too many of the local Hungarian spirit called Palinka with him. I do not recall falling over, but the next morning I was very battered and bruised, and minus my mobile phone. My left ankle was bruised and swollen, and blue. The assumption was a sprain and tearing of tendons and/or ligaments, but five weeks later when the swelling had still not gone down and it began to click, it was time for professional help.

To cut a long and boring story short, I fractured the ankle bone, and the very efficient Doctor at our local hospital has put my leg in a half cast for a week, with strict instructions to keep off the foot in order for the swelling to go down, and then its a full cast for four weeks.

Half cast.

Its really frustrating not to be able to do anything, but hey ho I have learnt my lesson! Bones are getting older, and its no more Palinka for me!

Onto lighter things!

Namely the new additions to the family, our Sussex chickens! We were given two hens and a magnificent cock by our local friend Istvan, in payment for helping him with his English course homework. But after a couple of days we realised that the area we had for them was too big, and they were a little too lonely, so we begged him to sell us a couple more, a week later he delivered (unceremoniously in a sack!) three more scrawny hens of the same type. We have had these now for a week, and already they are flourishing, since they came from a flock of around thirty, and probably had to fight for every morsel of food, this is heaven for them.

They are producing 3-4 eggs per day and considering that the 56kg sack of corn we bought for them, and a 15kg bag of minerals and vitamins came to around 12 quid, we will probably land up getting our money back on the eggs.

Our first 2 eggs! Check out the colour and yolk size!

Lots of grass, fresh water and space!

They are such a pleasure to have! They have their own personalities and are getting quite tame now, and the rooster Cocky is quite a character!

The other big news of April is that we "Finally" had our roof done! It was a cheap quick fix, but it has now sealed the roof, made it rain/snow and wind proof and that was the main thing really. It was done in four days.

Pressure washing the old roof!

Last strips!

This has of course held up everything else, so as you can see, the patio is yet to be completed and the gates are half painted, it was just pointless doing anything with these guys making a huge mess, but its done, yay!

We have also done a bit of socializing in April, Yvonne and Rich who live a couple of villages away are a great couple we met recently, and also Ian and Jayne. Ian's Dad lived in Hungary and recently past away, so he was selling up all his Dad's goods and had a drink in celebration of his Dad Toms life. Here is a group pic of that afternoon, I was (force?) fed 70% vodka it was a great day.

Great people, great day, great weather!

One of the highlights was that we bought Tom's BBQ. Steve is utterly delighted with his purchase and was determined to try it out, undeterred by the rain!

In closing, I report that the spring rains have arrived, but we have sown the new grass, some corn and sunflower seeds so we can sit back and watch them all grow, for myself, its a relief that its raining I don't have to feel too guilty watching Steve work whilst I sit with my foot up letting it heal.

We know summers around the corner and we look forward to it!

March 2014 and Spring has Sprung!

Its been quite a year!

My Dad got rather ill, and Steve decided it was time for me to go and see him so I spent a lovely sunny month in Johannesburg from Feb to beginning of March. The folks and I had a delightful month together, playing golf, swimming, sunning myself, and catching up with family.

Blesbok on my folks lawn.

Party time with Dave Roberts and Sheila Roberts.

March and spring is deffinately in the air with temperatures reaching the early twenties! I mowed the lawn for the first time this year, and Steve has been busy outside almost every day, he has found himself a helper in the form of a Romanian chap Tibor, who works hard for rather small money, and its all go.

They have been clearing out the chicken coop, (below) erecting fencing for said chickens who should be arriving at the beginning of April.

The bottom section of our land has also had fencing put up, so finally both sets of neighbours can stop lusting after our property!

The sweet little house for our chickens.

The guys have also been busy stripping the gates of four layers of paint, repairing it and have begun painting it a warm gold colour. (See photos below)

A lot of effort.

March! And boy have we marched on! Rotavated the vegetable patch and the last area where we want grass, and managed to sow both grass, corn and sunflowers before the rains came.

Vegetable patch.

First mowing of the year.

We have also had the side of the barn cleaned, stripped of old paint and re-plastered.

Barn before.....

Stripped.....

After....

So all in all March 2014 has been extremely productive thanks in no small measure, to the glorious weather this country has, and to Steve's endless intellect, boundless energy and utter devotion in making this our dream home.

Roll on summer................

First Posting Of 2014!

We are incredibly lucky to report that the weather has been exceedingly mild. We saw -4 in early December and that has been the coldest so far this winter. One light flurry of snow that did not stick and thats it!

I suppose I should mention that we had a quiet uneventful Christmas, and actually I completed my first sewing project a large pillow case for the duck down pillows we inherited with the property. I completed this on Christmas day. Since I am totally useless at sewing I am quite proud of my achievement!

Istvan (Hungarian for Stephen) whom I am helping to learn English came bearing gifts.

Homemade biscuits, a candle, wine, Palinka and a crocheted and starched angel. The boxed gift was from our local English friends Pam and Glyn and contained, wine, chocolate and a toy for Mr Roly who was over the moon at 3am!

We missed our families and friends and were really glad when the day was over!

On New Years eve, we were rather excited to look forward to ringing in a few New Years, as we are still operating 2 hours ahead of local time (Bailey Meantime - BMT) and England is 3 hours difference, we figured we could toast BMT new year, then Hungarian New Year and finally the English New Year! We also decided we would support our local eatery Hunters Rest run by Cottie, so we ate a simple breakfast of cornflakes with fresh walnuts and left it at that. We walked down at a 6pm, a few vodka's already under our belts, only to find that Cottie was holding a private party! A recipe for disaster! We then got very very drunk and do not remember a single midnight!!!!  An excellent night by all accounts.............

On Saturday the 4th of Jauary Nandi, a good friend who speaks awesome English, took us to a nature conservation area. He, grew up knowing this place and gave us a full history on it, (which I am sorry to say I don't remember!)
However, he did point out some rather amazing things, like............

These are pictures of the remains of  trenches which were dug by the German soldiers in WW2 to make a stand against the Russian army. The woods are littered with these in this area, along with bomb craters.

Obviously they would have been deeper, but I stood in one of these trenches and looked around me, it must have been just horrible. According to Nandi the Germans were starved and freezing to death as it was towards the end of the war. He says he found a German helmet with a bullet hole through it, which belonged to a 17 year old boy in one of these trenches, and his corpse was dug up along with the remains of 20 other German soldiers.
War is unspeakably horrendous.....

Nandi - Our  savvy guide!

We tramped around the woods for a couple of miles, until Roly and I could go no further! Here are some pic's Steve took.




It was another lovely mild day considering we are well into winter.

The Love Shack!

This little cottage is aptly named the Love Shack and we aim to rent it for a night or two when it gets warmer.
On our way home Nandi stopped to show us this incredible thing...........

Woolly Pigs!

A rare breed of piggy that produces some of the finest ham!
A brilliant day, thanks to Nandi!

In closing, I wish everyone reading this a very prosperous 2014! Come on summer...................

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????