Good Weather

Finally stopped raining today so I had a go at the lawn. The grass grows so quickly that I'd expect to flush out new tribes of pygmies or Japanese soldiers who think the war's still on. (The last would be pushing it a bit now as he'd probably be in hid eighties!)

I had an unexpected call from Steve to say his flight had been delayed (by a day or two!) and to let Hobo know. Using my psychic powers, I found him in the pub and let him know.

Eventually made my way home and started making Lecso (pronounced letch-o). I'd bought the paprika in the shop in the morning and let slip I was going to make lecso. All the locals seemed pleased that I was attempting it and wanted to make sure I had all the right ingredients. ( You've got onions? How about tomatoes?)!

Monday

After short commons on the weekend I caught the half eight bus into Körmend to get some cash. I also needed some things in the shops that can't easily be got in the village such as pepper. (On a side-note, the Hungarian for "pepper" is paprika but this refers to what we'd call in the UK either 'bell pepper' or 'chili pepper', but what we refer to as 'pepper', the stuff in condiments, is called 'fekete bors', which as near as I can tell is 'black powder')

Met one of the villagers and explained I had no money was was here to get some. Did my shopping and decided to go to a local bar for a drink while waiting. Its friendly in that the bloke behind the bar greets you as you come in and seems pleased to serve you, whereas the other pubs seem to act as if they're doing you a favour by letting you come in.

I had just calculated that I'd be able to have 3 quiet drinks before the bus came so had bought my 3rd when the village guy came in and bought me a drink! Well that was the evening cancelled, when I got back I just sawed some firewood for a bit!

Rain

Its been raining the past few days so I thought I'd tackle the ironing and washing up. I had a simple plan to tackle it. Rather than do it all in one heroicpush, I thought I'd just do some washing up until I got bored, then tackle the ironing and then swap back. So, that's 1 cup and 3 spoons and a pair of socks done.

More Hay

Spent most of the day loading up hay in a handcart and taking it around to Steve's place. We cleared the lot with four trips.

...While the Sun Shines

...While the Sun Shines, a photo by A John Walters on Flickr.

I heard a noise at the gate about lunchtime. When I got to the door, I spotted a bike but couldn't see anyone. Looking up the garden, I could just see Hobo and Steve disappearing behind my Walnut tree. They'd come to turn the hay over in next door's garden.

Hay

Tuesday night, Hobo had suggested that we collect the hay for Steve sometime early in the morning as it was too hot by 10am. Sure enough, he turns up at 10:40! We loaded up the hand cart and took around to Steve and then Hobo suggested that we have a beer break at the shop. (The shop keeping a supply in the fridge)

There was an interesting bit of street theatre with the woman in the shop as she wanted to catch the post van. So she quickly shut the shop (we hadn't paid yet). She went to the Posta van and some people turned up and waited. No problem but coming up to closing time she'd just locked he shop when two people turned up desperately needing something or other. She'd wanted to catch the ice-cream van now and looked down the street to see if she had enough time to open the shop and serve them. Of course it came past while she was in there but Hobo flagged it down.
After the beer break it was back to storing the hay.

I seem to have mastered the art of unloading the cart as it only takes me 2 or 3 forkfuls to clear it but it takes Hobo much longer to put it in the hay room. (To be fair, it does need a bit of fiddling with.) There were another to loads to get from the garden so of we went again. While stacking the handcart up I managed to knock the head off the fork! Looks like the nail had worked loose. So bit of a QUAD repair and by this time, black clouds had come rolling in. The temperature had dropped noticeably, thank goodness, and it was starting to spit. Hobo said this would be the last load today because of the rain and off we went. It was starting to rain properly while we unloaded and Hobo wanted to get the cart back to the owner before it really opened up.

So, there's me and Hobo running up the street towing the hand cart and as well as the rain, it starts raining hailstones! big ones too, like broad bean sized! (Nice and cool though). After dropping it off we quickly made our way to the pub absolutely drenched. The locals inside waited 10 mins and never got a drop on them.

Oh, and Steve's new kid arrived. Lots of talk on the lines of "THIS time don't sell him but keep him to make sausages with".

Food

A bit of a milestone tonight, apart from the meat and spices, all the ingredients for my evening meal came from the garden.

Onions

Harvested the onions today. Very disappointing. I had planted more than last year but seem to have only a fifth of the crop. Very roughly about 3 weeks worth. On the other hand I have a lot of onion seeds so may next year will be better.
The tomato plants are doing well. i planted them in a new plot so hopefully they won't get blight this year. The biggest is starting to fruit and if they grow as big as last year I'll have tomatoes for months!

Pickles

I spent the morning getting hay in for Steve's goats. Steve gave me a half litre of home made cider vinegar.

In the evening, I used the vinegar to make a pickling brew for some of the walnuts, for the rest I used plain white vinegar. I dated one of the jars and gave it to Hobo in the evening. The Hungarians don't really have a word for pickle and the closest, "pácle" can also mean a walnut coloured paint which led to an amusing conversation in the pub!