Washing day

I put the weashingout from yesterday, which wasn't quite dry. Next thing I know is the heavens have opened and its chucking it down! Not "Just starting to spot" but full on "turn your garden into a new river" deluge. Well, no point in bringing them in, they aren't going to get any wetter out there and it will stop tonight. Bugger, means I have to do some ironing now :D

Thursday

Hung my washing out today, first one of the year. I moved the internal washing line to the garage. The front room is now looking more like a bedroom and less like a junk shop. (But only just).

Not really warm enough to dry the washing when I brought them in but a bit of a morale booster that the weather is warming up.

Put some chile, paprika and leek seeds in my seed tray. Leeks are great in the winter.

Spot of Gardening

With the snow mostly gone I looked at the poly tunnel over the grape cutting and repair any damage. The covering had moved off the hoops. I probably need more hoops and more garden fleece now.

Hopefully the grapes will take and I can then start planning a trellis or some sort of support.

Ordered some brown bottles for the beer I'm brewing. Should arrive Monday which is when the beer will be ready for them.

Table

Decided to reassemble the table I brought over (Hi to Steve and Linda!). I'd been thinking of the best place to put it for a while. No real problems. Its fairly solid and the legs just screwed on. Gave me a place to put my fruit bowl, rather than precariously on the floor!

While it gave me a bit more room in the main bedroom it mad the kitchen a bit smaller. What I need is a bigger house or something.

Went to the pub later on where Hobo asked where I was yesterday. I'd forgotten I was supposed to meet him.

Monday's Körmend

The normal weekly trip but just needed odds and ends as I'm pretty well stocked up at the moment. Over did it a bit and ended up with a bagful of stuff. Ones of these days I expect the handle to break, probably when I have a load of Olive oil or something equally fragile!

Had a pizza for tea then had some Guinness!

Körmend

Yup the second trip of the week.

Started raining just as I got to the bus stop. Hope it not an omen. (Usually, it ends up with the shops not having anything I want and the bus doesn't turn up!)

Went to the local Lidls for some bits and pieces. Mainly bulk buying instant coffee and English tea. On the way back got half a kilo of white onion sets and half as much of red onions. If the weather keeps up I'll give it a week and then start digging.

Planted a couple more Marmande tomatoes. Once these have got to about 6" high I'll put them outside.

Warm Days

A blistering two or three degrees above freezing. Soon have no snow at this rate!

In the evening went to the pub. I went early as I didn't want to have too much of a session. Steve was already there, recovering from his 1st post fall trip to Körmend. He stayed for a couple before going off.

Steve mentioned that our favourite gardening/tool shop in Körmend were selling onion sets. Have to make a trip there tomorrow to get some. I use onions at a fantastic rate so it would be nice to be able to supply all of mine from the garden.

I got the impression that Hobo is going to give/lend me a disc of Hungarian music. I've certainly agreed to meet him in the pub on Saturday!

Old Washing Machine.

Finally got around to moving it outside into one of the old barns. Not too sure what I'm going to do with it. Sell it for scrap?

Also mopped the floor for the 1st time since the old machine died on me. While it came up nicely, i think I'll go over it again on the weekend, just to be sure.

Tuesday

Finally caught up with the washing. Phew, I can get back to a normal once a week washday now. The ski-slope of washing has sunk too. At this rate I'll have nothing to do this weekend!

Half the tomatoes I planted have come out. Surprise tomatoes these will be as I can't remember which ones were the Marmande (Beef) tomatoes and which ones are the Normal ones!

Hobo turne up at about 10:30. Something about the bins (In Hungarian "bin" sounds remarkably like "cooker") It seems I need a new sticker for this year and without it they won't empty it. Its about 5000 forints (about £17) for the year. I should have had a bill with a payment slip on it but I certainly didn't have anything from the name on the sticker.

Went out in the evening and Steve hobbled in, trooper that he is. :D

Hobo went over the bin thing and by the end of the night I got my head around it. (It was actually 500 forints by the way!) Hobo had noticed my bin hadn't had the sticker and had actually gone around and sorted it out for me so I owed him the money! Thank goodness for that as I wouldn't have known where to start.

Afterwards I watched "Have I got News for You" with Brian Blessed on Youtube. Possibly the funniest one ever.

Bin Day

Made an effort to remember today and dragged the bin out through the snow at 6:00 this morning! I even cleared away the snow from around it so the bin men wouldn't have to.

When I went to pull it back in, about 11:45, I noticed it was still full. Bit of a mystery that, I'll have to ask Steve.

Went to Kormend to get some bits and pieces. Mainly some meat for stews and stuff. While I was there I noticed some multiplugs on sale. I got a few as this would sort out some logisticals problems I'm having unplugging and replugging stuff back. (Manly cos I need an adaptor for my stuff) With a multi-plug I can leave the adapter in one socket.

Beer

Made a quick visit to Steve to see how he's getting on. Seems to have plenty of food and Hobo pops in now and again so he's not going to starve to death over the weekend!

Started another brew today. Slightly different to the last one in that I used a different strain of yeast to the one that comes with it. I'll also let it stand for 2 weeks before racking it off into bottles. I'll start another batch almost immediately using yeast I intend to harvest from this batch. I'll also bottle this lot and then then use the barrel for the next batch. Should be an interesting experiment to see how the different conditioning environments work.

For future reference the OG was 1034.

Saturday

Went to the shop to get a load of stuff and then had to put it all back when Irealised i didn't have any money on me!

Went to visit Steve as it appeared his tumble was worse than it looked when I left him. Chatted a bit but as the shop was about to close I went over and did a bit more shopping. Got some more mushrooms. They do seems tastier than ours for some reason.

Got one of the beer kits from the garage. I'll let it thaw overnight and do some brewing tomorrow. I checked the cat tracks in the garden and found a hole in the fence. I'll block that tomorrow around about 3pm as the cats don't seem to be in the barn then. B*****ds.

Also had a look over the fence at the snow next door. I haven't seen the tell-tale glow of the telly for weeks, maybe months. No tracks by the door, none out the back. This means no-ones left for at least 3 days and probably a week. Might have lost a neighbour before even getting to know them.

Beer as a health food. I knew all this beer drinking was good for me! Now, if I can just find a scientific report that shows smoking will cure my asthma, I'll be back on fags quicker than you can say "got a light?".

Washing Day

To be honest, every day is wash day now until I've caught up with my backlog. The weakest link is the drying as it takes about a day and a half to dry stuff. I can now see the floor again and over the weekend I'll move the old washing machine into one of the outbuildings.

Mosógép Day

At long last my washing machine came!

Its a bit of a minor triumph. I barely speak the language yet I managed to navigate through a website, order and pay for the machine and get it delivered. I got an Electrolux since thats a brand I've heard of so there may well be an instruction manual in English. The last machine was German and I'll be buggered if I'm gonna learn another language for a washing machine!

Took about an hour to unplumb the old machine and plumb the new one in. Gave it a test drive on empty to make sure none of the pipes leaked then gave it a full load! As the its snowing quite heavily, I'm shelving moving the old one for today. Might do it tomorrow.

Now I can catch up on the backlog and then attack the floor, which has been buried for weeks!

Mosógép, if you haven't guessed, is Hungarian for "washing machine". Its a good example of how clever the language is. "Mos" is a verb, meaning "to wash" (its a bit more complicated than that as the infinitive is "mosni" but this is close enough). Now "-ó" is a suffix that converts a verb into a noun, so "mosó" is "something that washes". Finally "gép" is "machine" so "mosógép" is "machine that washes" or "washing machine".

Another example, more relevant to me, is "ás" which is "dig". So a spade would be?... Yup, put an -ó on the end and we get "ásó". Clever, isn't it?

Its a big help as it means I don't have an endless list of words to learn. For example, I wanted a trowel in a shop and although I didn't know the word, or indeed shovel, I said "kisásó" and they instantly knew what I wanted.

Oh yes, we had more snow and the bottom step up to the front door disappeared.


Went to the pub and Steve had one of his sessions. Very slippery on the way home. I skidded about a bit but Steve took a tumble near the church. I couldn't help him up or we'd both end up scrabbling about on the floor. I made sure he got home alright and he seemed to have got over it by the time I left.

Not Much

Quiet day today. Potched about a bit. Put some tea towels in the laundry bucket for a long soak and forgot about them!

Told Hobo in the pub about my cat problem and he suggested putting a dog up there. All I need now is a dog...

Garlic plants are doing well but my last Rhubarb plant is still looking a bit peaky. I think I might order some more seeds and just plant them straight in the ground. I need to order some more garden fleece while I'm at it. Last years got ripped.

Oh, more snow.

Bloody Cats!

Well my plan worked, kind of. The bloody cats woke me up at 2am crying to get out! So I went out and open the door and, of course, they ran back up the ladder and hid.

Went back to bed but couldn't get back to sleep. Gonna be a bear with a sore head today, from lack of sleep.

Made some mushroom soup which was pretty tasty.

More Work in the Barn.

Still had the scampering upstairs so Had a quick check outside the barn. Sure enough tell tale cats paw-prints near a hole so I went inside and blocked that off. Hopefully they'll get hungry and shoot off when I open the door tomorrow.

Had a phone call from someone. What with my lack of Hungarian and the signal fading in and out, we were both reduced to shouting "Allo?" before the signal died. Probably the driver wanting to know when he can drop my washing machine off... maybe.

There's a Rat in my Kitchen...

what am I gonna do? Well, OK I don't have rats in the kitchen, but I do have cats in the attic. The house is one storey with a ladder in the barn so if the can get in the barn, they can get in the attic.

Unfortunately, I can't. Get in the barn that is. I somehow managed to lose the key to the padlock.

A bit of a hangover today, due to the appalling game last night. Gave up watching 5 mins into half time

I went over to Steves to borrow a grinder off him to cut the lock off. Bit of a problem, the only extension cord I have is British while steves angle grinder has a European plug on it. After looking at the various options I cut the plug off a hungarian multiway and put a british plug on it. Home-made adapter!

Spent a brief time grinding the lock right up until I couldn't see anything in the sudden blizzard. Since electricity and water don't mix, except rather briefly, I took it into the garage and used a hacksaw to cut through the remaining sliver of metal.

With the lock off, a quick inspection saw no sign of errant beasties as I was half expecting Badgers (or wolverines!). I blocked up some of the more obvious entrances and locked the door again. I took the grinder back to Steve.

All was quiet for a few hours, which time I spent making Pork Goulash and planted a few tomato seeds. A few normal sized ones and a few Marmande which are a type of Beef Tomato.

Unfortunately the scampering came back and when I took a look, I spotted 2 cats. A black one and a grey one. In fact they looked like the pair that were chasing next doors chickens a few months back, well until the cockerel spotted them, then they did a feline VTOL up the fence.

I'll have to think of a way of evicting them but I don't fancy tromping about the attic as I KNOW its not safe.

Credit Card Fraud!!

I went onto my Halifax credit card to change addresses when I noticed a transaction I don't remember. Since it was last week, eve I would have remembered. Especially a flight with Ryanair. Especially one way trip from Poland!

Looks like 2 poles booked a flight the day before they took off using my credit card! If Ryanair used the normal security checking stuff they couldn't have used it so they must have used my credit card number AND the security code from the physical card.

Anyway, I phoned up to contest the charge and have the card cancelled. Thank you, Mr and Mrs Polack.

Planted some tomato seeds ready for Spring, if we ever get it here. My garlic is looking quite healthy. I think they might start flowering before I get them out into the garden at this rate!

Oh, and it snowed again today. The novelty is starting to wear off.

More Pruning

Had a look at the pear tree. Surprisingly, this has an open centre too whereas I'd expect a pyramid shape. Oh well, same routine then, get rid of dead stuff etc.

I only have the walnut tree to do now.

Washing

Gah! More washing, ironing and stuff!

I did do some outdoorsie stuff. I managed to do some pruning on the apple trees. It was fairly intuitive once I got started. Cut back or remove branches that are rubbing, cut off downward growing branches, and remove branches growing into the centre. Oh, and most importantly, stop before you think you've finished! Better to prune too little than too much. Mind you, make sure you get rid of the obviously dead or diseased stuff first.

Kormend

Went for my second trip this week. Got some nice blue cheese and some bits and bobs for a goulash on the weekend and possibly some chicken stock.

Funny enough, the bus wasn't crowded as usual. Managed to bag a seat. I also managed to properly pronounce the village name or something as the driver just give me the ticket. Oh, the price went up and is now 305ft instead of 165ft. About 15%.

Looking at the exchange rate,its not that GB is doing any better but that Hungary is collapsing faster!

Washing

I worked out that the indoors washing line thingy can hold about 3 buckets worth of clothes and that it takes about a day and a half to dry. Looks like the new washing machine can;t get here soon enough as I can barely keep up hand washing alone.

I noticed that almost all my rhubarb seedlings have died. I only have one plant left. Hope it survives long enough for me to plant outdoors. I can see now why people say "Don't grow them from seeds, too fiddly".

Cold

Found the front door open this morning. I didn't lock it last night so I'm gussing it was so cold that the metal shrunk enough for it to disengage. Must remember to always lock the door at night in winter!

Missed the bin collection.

I went to Körmend later on to replace some much needed stores, olive oil and that sort of thing. I'll probably need one more trip to round things off.