Happy Holidays! - December 2015 and into 2016.

I must say that there are many things we missed about home!

Three months away from our comfort zone sure makes you appreciate the little things in life, like our own bed, pillows and our space, aside from the fact that constantly living out of suitcases is not fun!!

Having said that, it was a truly wonderful experience and it was awesome to spend quality time with the family.

We had an uneventful trip on the 7th December, after shutting down the house, clearing out the fridge and switching all the utilities off. Mum and Dad met us at O R Tambo, and the Johannesburg ratrace began! After "four cars is a traffic jam" here in Hungary, we felt rather like hillbillies, in Johannesburg, having forgotten how crazy it is, and how badly people drive! We went straight to an Ocean Basket and treated the folks, Prawns and Mussels oh yes!
Then to a huge butchery where we bought some decent Porthouse steaks, borewors etc for future Braai's BBQ's).

The sun was shining, and the weather was absolutely wonderful for the entire three months we were in Africa, aside from the fact that there was an awful drought, and the odd day of 40 degrees plus, we could not complain!

Mum and Dads place is still an absolute hidden jewel, with the Blesbok and Springbok wondering around their golf course, with a plathora of many different birds, and the delightful gardens painstakingly cared for by the residents.

Mum and Dad, still look fit and well, they are both still very active, playing golf, bowls, and taking an active part in the running of the resort.



We had a lazy two weeks in Magaliesburg, playing golf, swimming and shopping for some new clothes.
The resort held a dance before we left, which was good fun.

Then the four of us made the trek to Kei Mouth to spend Christmas and New Year on the coast with the family.

KEI MOUTH CHRISTMAS 2015 AND NEW YEAR 2016

And what an absolutely wonderful time it was. Kim And Dave are just the most fabulous hosts, their house is organised chaos, with people coming and going, and Kim makes everything look so effortless!

Christmas 2015 has to go down as one of the best of my life! We had such fun, playing games in three teams of seven, the competitive spirit rearing its head at every turn!
Darts competition, Quiz, bingo, golf and most fun of all was the water pistol shoot out to find the hidden Santa, we were all drenched exhausted and thought we were twelve again!

Christmas Day 2015.

Then there was the wonderful spread, heaps of delicious food, lots to drink, in short, a very memorable day, thanks so very much Kim and Dave - we love you!

Of course every day during the two weeks we were there, activities abounded. Dave took the dogs to the beach every morning, and crazy cricket was played, swimming or just lazing in the sun.

Tails the crazy dog in his element!

We went to two live concerts as well, very good South African bands, Prime Circle and The Parletones played at The Bushpig pub, both were brilliant!

A few more pictures of Kei Mouth.

Dave. The  most Awesome Cousin and host!

New Year past with copious amounts of alcohol and more games played at the pub we went to, I could see other groups of people looking on enviously at our table of crazy laughter and frivolity, and 2016 came to be, 2015 passing into history, with my dear parents jiving and staying to the midnight bell!

There is nothing like being surrounded by family and loved ones to make these the special moments in life.

2016

January passed in a slow lazy haze of doing very little, lying in the sun by the resort pool, taking the folks golf cart for evening game drives. We spent a week with Louise and Hugh in Pretoria, which is always a good laugh. Also great hosts, we had fun catching up with these good people.

Hugh! Intrepid Barman.

Bliksum! Cheeky noisy African Grey.

FEBRUARY 2016

We decided in February to hire a car and do a bit of touring, as we could see we were getting under Mum and Dads feet a bit in their little house.

Here is the red beast! The power of a lawn mower, and about as comfortable!








We collected the Chery QQ (Chinese revenge on the west?) from a domestic airport close to my parents house, Lanseria Airport, said goodbye to Mum and Dad, and drove to Pretoria and
dropped a suitcase at Louise & Hugh's place, borrowed a cooler box, and various other essentials from them, and began our road trip!

Again we took advantage of Dave & Kims great hospitality, this time in Swaziland.
What a great place Swaziland is! The people seems happier, the place is litter free, and of course the weather is awesome.We spent a great week in Melkerns with the cousins, eating too much, drinking too much and doing the touristy thing around Swazi.

We then booked five nights in the Lubombo mountain region to the East of Swazi almost on the Mozambique border. We booked a very private cottage called Leadwood Lodge right on a river frontage.
It was gorgeous!

Right in the heart of the African bush. Far from anything and anyone!

Leadwood Lodge. Paradise right there.

Steve in his element.

Almost open air shower.

More photos of our five wonderful days.

View from the deck.

The view looking into the shower.

The only neighbours we encountered.

All too soon it was bye bye to Leadwood Lodge and Swaziland, and onto White River in the Lowveld.
I discovered this website called Airbnb, where normal people offer a spare room in their homes, to guests for a fraction of hotel/B&B prices.
And we met Rob and Daelene, who opened up their home to us, we had the most amazing stay, with their dogs and son providing entertainment and Rob cooking up a storm with Braais (BBQ's).

Airbnb also provided a further stay in Johannesburg in a small self-contained cottage in Kempton Park. We also then made contact very old friends that we have not seen for 20 odd years. Gary and also a friend of Steve's, Anthony, that he hadn't seen for at least 25 years.

Frequenting a pub in Edenvale - Our Place, we stayed with Ronnie and Adri. But then our troubles began, with Steve contracting food poisoning, and us both discovering some vile looking bites on various parts of our bodies which we found out to be a Sac spider! A particularly vindictive spider which rots the flesh.

One of three really bad bites I contracted.

Steve's bite.

Also hooked up with Don, who is living in our house in the UK. It was wonderful to catch up with him. Nice to see you Don, lets try to do it more than once every three years!

That really put paid to February! We flew back in March, which I will leave to the next blog, Its enough for now!

October & November 2015 - Getting it Together.

October 2015

October turned a little chilly, and I began marking off the calendar counting down the days to Christmas.
It landed up being a very quiet month, which suited us, aside from the rugby world cup which finally saw the Springboks beaten by the Aussies.
For many reasons, not the least is that we would like to be able to defend ourselves should there been an invasion, one of the first things we did in October, was buy these two beauties.

Beautifully crafted recurve bows, we are having such fun with them.
I spent a lot of time this month practising, our target stayed a virgin for a few weeks before we got the hang of it.

During the first week, we spent two days again at Mariska and Les's house making vension and pork sausage.
Les, being a hunter had mounds of vension, which we minced along with pork, smoked fat and spices, and a two day team effort produced double this picture.

Our share of the sausagefest weekend.

On the 10th the guys who promised to come and lay the kitchen floor, actually pitched up on time and did the job.
The floor has been the hold up, so we were very chuffed to finally get that out of the way.
We then spent another week trying solve the kitchen cupboard issue, and finally settled on a company to come out and fit the righthand corner cupboards for us, but they could only do this in November, doh!

I spent hours and hours building up very hard questions for the Balatonbrits quiz night, as last years heralded three winners, and I wasn't going to let that happen again!

I also tried to spoil my chickens giving them more free ranging time in the garden, as I knew their days were numbered!

After a very successful quiz day on the 28th October, I resigned from running the ex-pat club due to some very stupid critical people who have nothing better to do then, pick holes in everything I did.
Steve and I celabrated this at the usual place, catching the bus into Marcali and having a lovely evening out.

Still the best burgers in Hungary!

NOVEMBER 2015

Starting to light fires in the evening, nights are drawing in, the leaves are making a mess everywhere, but the autumn colours are still an amazing array of golds, oranges and browns.

On the 5th November the kitchen fitters arrived, and two hours later, the left hand corner was done!

Steve then cracked on with the tiling on the walls, and we are both very very happy with the result.

On the 7th we had Mariska and Les around for an evening, along with the beautious Maddie.
We decided to bus it to Marcali so that we could all have a drink. Steve and I have done this many times we know how the buses worked, or so we thought!
This being a Saturday, when we went to the bus stop to catch our 7.30pm bus home, there was no bus! They only run Monday to Fridays, oops!
So we went back into our local bar run by a lovely lady called Judit, who speaks no English, explained in our broken Hungarian that there was no bus, next minute her, and at least three other people around the bar, were hauling out their mobile phones trying to organise us a lift home!
Which they did in short order. The chap, half heartedly refused the 5000huf   (Twelve quid) we waved at him but we left it for him, very grateful to be back in our village!
Another testament to Hungarian generosity of spirit!

Do we look worried?

We had a great laugh, and invited them back on the 21st to help us finish the food in our freezer, before our journey South.

Putting the chickens to bed one night, I discovered a sweet little hedgehog, making himself a bed in one of the chicken houses, I put some straw over his little sleeping body, and he snuffled, sighed and snuggled in further without even opening his eyes. Here's hoping for a Happy Hedgehog family! Sleep well Harry Hedgehog.

What dampened everyone's spirits were the crazy goat shaggers blowing people up and shooting them in Paris on Friday 13th, 130 people in various locations were killed in one stupid wasteful way or another by some idiotic radicals all in the name of ......
I am not going to make this Blog about politics, but I think you all know our views on this subject and the non-stop invasion we are having in Europe.

We hosted our final dinner party of the year, with Sue and Klaus and Mariska and Les. The kitchen was very crowded with the six of us plus Maddie. It was a great evening, everyone had a good laugh!

My chickens were uncermoniously bagged up in a sack yesterday and shipped over to our Hungarian friend Istvan's place, and dumped in with his chickens, where they all began fighting! They are now in a tiny (smelly) concrete hock dreaming of the paradise they had here.
My poor girls!

We are now closing down and counting down to Christmas, yay!

My next blog may well be from much sunnier climes where we will be enjoying another summer! We were so bored last winter, we are heading South like the smart birds do!

August & September 2015

So, with the party safely out of the way, Steve began the mammoth task of renovating the kitchen!
Immediately the house went from cleanliness and order, into utter chaos again! Firstly we removed everything from the kitchen that we possibly could, into the lounge, we have set up a mini "summer kitchen" in the entrance hall, with the stove, butchers block, table and a couple of cupboards for the bare necessities. The microwave is now in the bathroom and the fridge in the boot room, its all functional for us, but we won't be having any dinner parties any time soon!
The first job was getting the new water pipe inside, this meant digging up the floor through the pantry and into the kitchen, what a mess!

Pantry! Water pipe coming in from outside.

Digging up the kitchen floor.

Then the new electrics went in, this without a hitch, amazingly enough for Hungary, we found a reliable and efficient electrician who re-wired the house and kitchen in a weekend of endless dust, angle grinding and hammering. Fourteen plug sockets went into the kitchen at strategic points.

My 55th birthday  was spent with some good friends at Mesters having a meal out. The evening was sweltering! Ditto our anniversary on the 7th September came and went, 19 years together we treated ourselves to a slap up meal, which was just as well as there was no further progress on the kitchen.

Aside from our kitchen renovations, September was the month when the migrant crisis became international news. Our Prime Minister Vikto Orban, erected a fence to protect our borders from a mass invasion, much to the vilification of the media and the world, personally we gave ourselves a private pat on the back for choosing Hungary as our retirement spot, with a Government that refuses to bow down to Political Correctness, and puts the Nation and its people first.
That crazy cow who runs Germany, opened her arms wide, issuing a welcome to the refugees, who came in droves, thwarted by Hungarys fences they were forced to find other ways to get to Germany and UK, and this caused some tension between the neighbouring countries, Croatia and Slovenia, but since then, many more fences and border controls have been put into place, which only reinforces our high opinion of Mr Orban as a forward thinker.

We had another visitor in mid September when Max the pooch came to stay. A lovely chap, with crazy idiocyncries but no trouble at all. He was on hunger strike for two days, until I cooked him some pork mince, which he decided was excellent grub!

Other September notable notes, was that the Rugby World Cup started, and Series Five of Downton Abbey, two of my most favorite Television occupations!
Since we do not own a television, we were welcomed into the lovely home of our good friends Mariska and Les, everytime the Springboks were playing rugby, we spent some lovely evenings staying overnight and there, we fell in love with their precious Maddie, a darling happy hunting Spaniel. I gifted her with a pink bunny, as she chews nothing (being a well trained hunting dog) and she in turn fell in love with the wabbit.

And then on the 25th September we packed our kit and went off on a beautiful easy drive to Slovenia for a spot of "Glamping"!
It was situated in the gorgeous setting of Lake Bled, we had booked an "A" frame hut, complete with outside hot tub. Friends Carol & Alan, pulled their caravan to the same site, and we had a marellous couple of days, chilling, drinking eating, laughing and to end the days events,soaking in the hot tub.

Steve cooking breakfast. Hottub on the right.

The hot tub was this crazy bath, behind those
wooden slats was a stainless steel fire box
submerged into the water. Two logs, and the water
was steaming.

We absolutely loved it!!! Every evening after saying goodbye to our caravan buddies we would pour a drink and have a soak in the tub. Steve has promised to build us one, hopefully next year!

More pictures of Slovenia and Lake Bled follow.

The Happy Couple!

The only other significant thing that happenned in September, and in Slovenia, was that I got the archery bug.
This chap (see below) dressed in traditional garb, was selling ten arrows for five Euro's and I had a go, and absolutely loved it.

And so, my closing words are that this invasion of Muslims is on everyones lips and minds, the EU leaders simply do not have a clue what to do.
We are just very glad that we are middle aged and safe in the arms of Hungary!