How Long Will We Be in Above Zero Territory?

I hope the heat has left the Southern hemisphere at long and weary last for you all in OZ who have suffered the terrible heat of the past few months.

It has sounded unbearable for most of the time.
Thankfully, while in OZ for 6 weeks over Xmas, Xmas was the coolest for 26 years!

But, that was it! The days began heating up and I can tell you, I was really pleased to be headed into sub-zero temps again!

...Even though it did look strange at the airport at 7 pm, middle of a heatwave summer in OZ, wearing a scarf, hat and overcoat, with the obligatory boots!

Too heavy to pack and too bulky to bring in the cabin allowed baggage...so, wearing it was the only sensible and practical option.
As it worked out, Abu Dhabi was quite cool on the 19 1/2 hr stopover, so it was a good move indeed.

So things are going OK here now.
Imre has completed the underpinning and fill required on the walls in the front room, after the water inside dramas last week.

He also removed the gas heater and repaired the wall behind that...
 and now the gas man has to come check it before it can get hooked up to the gas!

I have to apply to get the gas re-connected as they disconnect it when the place is empty.
Plus, I did not like the ugly gas pipes outside everywhere all over the walls...so I pulled them all out last year and made scaffolds out of them!

Now, I have to get new ones and go thru' all that pipe laying over my nice walls process all over again!

Hahaha, I didn't like gas, was afraid of it, had never used it, so obviously only thought electricity was best.
Not so here for heating homes it seems!

Imre has completed underpinning the front room walls and filled the walls so they are nice and flat again. After that dries over the weekend, he will begin the lovely wall jobs he does so well...after he digs more holes for the power points and cable runs.

Can't wait for that.

It should take him a day for the ceilings, a day for the walls and a day completing the power points hooking up, I'm hoping!

Then I'm going to ask him to make me one of these!

Nice floor in this room too!

I really like this colour scheme, but it's too dreary for here! Makes you think it is a converted industrial shed in New York!

A gentle lace bedroom effect in creams? Pine and lace...

I found a nice brand new Double bed mattress locally and as it is rare over here, I'll buy it and have Imre make me a bed to fit it, how I want, that looks something like these above with the 4 posts,

Will invent a bedhead for it as I go and have him cut it in a nice pattern, if I go that way...or just pad a piece of board and attach to the wall where the bedhead goes!

Just had another search and found this one. Imre came in and he said he can make it easily. I like the tiddly bits on the trim at the bed ends, plus the round finial on top of the posts. I think it is admirably suitable for this place and quite in keeping with  some of the original furniture that was left here.

Trying to work out how the curtains should hang...on the outside, but where do the tracks go...inside or outside the top frame bit???

Plus, do the curtains hang outside the posts or inside???

So,a bit more research on that is needed I can see.

The second from bottom, the lace curtained bed frame is probably the tidiest way of hiding everything, but I'm not sure about using lace yet.

Baked some veggies and put some Madras marinated tofu in the baking pumpkin "bowl" and cooked it up too. Yummo!

A bit of a difference! Dogs food cooking here...Turkey carcass, rice and vegie scraps. No potatoes or onions, but they seem to eat everything else. It's good having the stove going each day. Only used the electric stove once this week...to bake some vegies, above!

Oh dear...! The ridge being cut out for the power cables...Sigh...more dirt and dust...

Imre setting the power points cable in place, before he seals it up and covers the walls in his magic potion!

The pups are growing fast but  it is hard to get good shots of them by myself.

When Imre comes tomorrow, I'll get him to hold them down for me and take a few pics for you.

They are adorable and so playful...and messy.

My poor garden is a write off at the moment. Will get Imre to put up some wire netting around the gardens next month, to stop the dogs wrecking it as things begin to grow again..

Temp here has hit over zero, for both day and nights now, but it feels colder when it's 3C in the day, than it did at minus 10C.
Crazy!

Am off to Budapest on Thursday with friends,so will check out some antique shops for bed ideas if I can find that huge antique shop I saw on the way to OZ at Xmas.

It had 3 or 4 floors and had some good pieces.

Not that I'd probably ever buy any for this place, but checking out the shop is the only way I can find to get ideas of another era of furniture fashion over here.

Well, Imre needs something, so I'll go see him and finish this blog for now.

He needs a hand to take the gas heater upstairs until I get the gas on in a few months time...

Cheers and do take care,
See you all next week with some amazing pics...I hope!
M
xxx

Chop...Chop...Chop...

Well, I thought my underpinning wall days were over!

But when the snow melted last week it came in through the gas heater vent and we ended up with water all over the front room floor...and it sogged into the bottom of the walls, which made for a wet and smelly mess!

Imre is onto it though.

We never expected that to set the front room tidy up back an extra 2 weeks..

He was to just sand back the old and flaky bits on the beams and walls as the way he does it, it ends up lovely and clean, smooth and tidy.

I wasn't going to get it done until later this year, although it was badly needed. But I was sick of the constant layers of dust everywhere and was just hoping for a tidy and dust free season instead. Hahaha...

That turned into a major project, so now as he's chopping away at the walls in there, I figured he could run all the water heating pipes to their installation sites and also run the powerpoint cables at the same time and bury everything in the wall while he's at it!

If it's tidy up Mary, it's tidy up all the way now!
This big job will get rid of all the heater cords, double adaptors and power cables strewn across the rooms all at once now, so it turned out well after all.

Who could resist this kettle? Love hearing it gurgle away on the stove. Very comforting indeed.

Would you believe roasted beetroot and roasted parsnips could tastes so good...with white cheese and toasted walnut halves?It was so good...The grated black pepper for photographic effect on the plate was supposed to look better than it turned out here...

Dog and her pups are outside now all day and night and I'm sleeping all the way thru the nights again.
The pups are growing fast, chewing on bones and eating anything I serve them.
I still daily cook a turkey carcass for them with veggies and rice and they also share a fresh full carcass a day too.

One puppy went on the weekend. Someone stopped by on Sat morning early and wanted one, so they took Yappy. I had just started the last of their worming tabs treatment, so that was good.

Am thinking I'll keep Cutiepie, a male, but is the littlest pup of them all, as a playmate for Dog.
He is sooo adorable and is such a cuddle bug, I can easily see how people have animals inside!

Am keeping Dog until the weather gets warmer and then review re keeping them, as Imre has offered to look after them whenever I go away. A good offer.

He will make them a real dog house and we are going to run a water heater/radiator to the kennel for winter for them both.
Don't laugh...

This is the type of gas fired water heaters that are being installed here this year...and a smaller and shorter one goes into Dog's house too.

Will show a few drama pics of the front room...nasty, to say the least!

Starting out it all looked good...until the melting snow came in thru the vent in that gas heater there...

That's just the excess from the beams on the ceiling that is being swept up! I never knew you could do certain things with whitewash here, so once I found out how good Imre is at this stuff, I got him to straighten up the holes and rough connections between the ceiling and where the beams join. It was filled and plugged with dollops of whatever for almost 100 years, so it was time for a big straighten out indeed.

Now he has to go around the bottom of the wall in the front room and dig out 2 bricks high and replace them when I dry it out a bit with the fan going non-stop for 5 days until he comes back to-day.

Yeah, it never seems to end!

It  does look like a bit of a train wreck now!...It looked so nice after the girls from OZ painted it all in July, but it was purely a temporary cosmetic job so things were bright and clean for them. I hoped I could get away with it until about mid year, but the big scrape off and fix-it-up again, came early!  Imre will coat it next week with his magic formula and when he's finished, it will be smooth as a baby 's bottom and yet still retain the bumps and wobbles in the wall that keeps it authentically charming...and whiter than white.  Sorta like a cellulite baby bottom!

...but I did decide to get it all done while he was working inside. So now, once this is done, it should be good for another 100 years. He scraped off the loose plaster/whitewash on the walls and ceiling and sanded back the beams to almost raw wood. 

You can see the damage Dog did to the door in the lower left of the pic, when she was left inside too long. Imre has to cut the piece out from the new door handle down and replace it with a new strip of timber. A new surprise job to fix almost every minute over here!

Snow almost all melted now...

Cutiepie drinking from their historic water container...hahaha...Check out how they demolish everything...my old shoes are a great toy, plus the little stool they love to tip over, so it stays down now!

Snow all melted, then it snowed lightly for a day and melted the next day.

A light fall that vanished in 24hrs...

Went to Debrecen with Eniko on Thursday and collected my 2 year staying Visa. Yippee! It was snowing up there and the city was still covered in a foot of snow in most places.

So wonderful...

Just so magical...

Like icing on a cake...well, sort of!

Maccas playground...a bit snowed in. McDrive, it is called here and the other one at the other end of town is called McDonuts!

The tables all looked like burger bun tops...Snow burgers anyone?

Wow, how utterly lovely!

The most perfect Xmas tree ever!

Went here on Friday with English friends...Awesome set up. About 50 klms away in a town that sounds and is very hard to pronounce!

I was fully dressed and could not get past the foot bath in front of me! hahaha...

In one of the spa nooks...

Under the massive shower/water falls! Now I know how it works, will go for the day next time and take my swimmers and a white bath robe! Everyone was waltzing in and out, wearing bathrobes and slippers out into the snow covered carpark....Looked so funny. . It's only about $7 for the entire day and a 50 min massage is under $20! There was a non-stop parade of people all afternoon. Amazing. Various temps in the pools too.

As the sun sinks slowly in the west, another perfect day draws to a relaxing close. From the waiting area in the spa complex. 

As I'm going for a few week long trips in April and May, I'll get Imre to paint all the windows and timbers while I'm away in Serbia, so by May, it should look like a million dollars, with power points, heating organised and even the flooring going down!

Can't wait now. It feels good at long last to be this close and have a beautiful job done too!

Now I have a real tradesman on the job, it's amazing to see the difference from my efforts and a real pro who knows the ways of  mud bricks and plaster/whitewash, plus a million other jobs I tried my hand at.

While it was passable, once I saw how Imre did his work, it was a simple decision to say...Start all over again Mary...and I will be very happy with the results now.

OKey, so that's this past week's happenings. Alot accomplished indeed.

Will catch you next week from a nice, white front room!

Take care in all that heat going on in OZ too...

Temp here at the moment is a delicious minus 1C, headed to minus 4 overnight.
This time next week, they predict  + 11C in the day and + 3C at night. Amazingly fast temp changes coming.

Bye,
M
xxx

Mush...Mush...Mush!

No, I'm not up with the Eskimos yet, or driving a dog sled...

The snow all melted in 2 days and there is water and mush everywhere!

Today it is + 8C and sunny, with a few clouds. Amazing when this time last week it was minus 15C below zero!

Anyways, it's all very nice with the better weather as the dogs are outside all day now and love it.

It's going to be 3C at its lowest tonight, so I'll leave them outside all night and see how they go.

Leaving this to come to sub zero temps...hahaha, lovin' it!

They are sleeping thru the night now...Mother doesn't need to go out to the loo or feed them during the hrs from 8pm to 6-7 am, so it has been 2 good nights of sleep.

They are trained to go to the loo on the paper on the step at night, which is easy as in the mornings I don my rubber gloves and roll up the paper and the floor is all nice and clean. A nice hot mop over with tea tree oil in the soapy water and all is as good as new again.

They are so cute and cuddly, but messy as messy in the garden as the snow has made everything so mushy.
Hopefully I'll be able to give away 3 of them in the next week and wait a bit to decide on Mother and 1 pup.

I'm really wanting to travel a lot and am torn between having the security of Dog here or not.

Will wait another few weeks after 3 of the pups are gone to finally decide.

What I really want and need is some independant person who can stay here while I go traipsing around.

So, I looked up the difference between Volunteer, House Sitter and Caretaker...

Volunteer...For each person, they work 5 hrs a day x 5 days a week, with 2 days off, in return for their food and accommodation.  If they have kids, each parent does a few hours extra work each day to make up the child's food, accom, power, unexpected child care by keeping an eye on the children to see they remain under control at all times etc. Depending on the age of the child, these extra tasks are undertaken until they can do their own 5 hr days.

Hours can be varied, as with days off etc, plus after the 5 hr day, you can offer to pay them for extra work hours, as I often have done to help them with their finances.

House Sitter...Basically, it is a free rental situation. In exchange for using your house, they look after the place! They walk the dogs, feed the fish and so on, as required. They supply their own groceries and in most cases, pay fully or contribute towards the utilities.
They don't use your food etc, unless arranged and must keep the place tidy and leave it as they found it. No money changes hands.
Major repairs and maintenance are taken care of by the owner. The house sitters must contact the owners when breakages occur and replace the breakages, the owner can reimburse the house sitter if arranged to do so. There are basic agreement type contracts available so each party knows their responsibilities.

Caretaker...Is virtually a replacement of you! Their job is more a full time position like looking after vineyards, dairy farms, orchards, cattle, large gardens and so on...sort of full management.
Depending upon the time and variety of work it entails, a wage or salary is usual, but not in all cases.
They supply their own groceries etc and are not always required to live on the property. For those who live on the property, no income is usual, up to a certain amount of hours worked a week.

So, it seems I have had need of all 3 types of people!

I think Volunteers will not needed from now onwards as Imre is doing all the jobs and it is heaps easier and much more professional.
The volunteers were fun, enjoyable and did a lot of the fiddly, girly jobs earlier on in the tidy up stages, but now the jobs are more tradesmen like, I need a pro to swing, balance and hinge doors, lay flooring and all such tasks ahead now.
Finding the treasure called Imre, has been a wonderful bonus and I'd like to keep him on forever! There is not one thing he can not do...Check this out...in minus 10C the other day, he refused to come inside and do this task...

I asked him, whilst he was sanding down the daggy old front door for repainting soon, to see if he could cut out the wood panels in the top of the door and put in glass to make the entry light. He had it done before I could blink! Turns out under 100 years of peeling and tattered paint, the door is in excellent condition. So now with some new handles and back plates(about $5 AUSD all up each, and a coat of paint and it will be like new!

At lunch time Imre said..."Imre Huz"...and off he walked, so I gathered that meant he had glass at his house and sure enough, he comes back with an old window, but good glass, in hand!

2 hrs later, the front/outside door was back on, with clear glass panels for the time being. I never thought to get coloured glass or even leadlights, as it was a spur of the moment thing I had no idea he could pull it off, let alone so easily and so fast! I'm on the inside here, with a fogged up couple of door windows! Now all I have to do is get the right lace curtains they use over here for this.

Next...To go to Vienna for a few days, preferably a week or more, would require someone to keep an eye on the place and look after dog...if it isn't winter, of course!

To go skiing from Dec thru Feb...not every day obviously...Someone to keep an eye on things and keep the house warm...

To go to the Eagles' Nest and Amsterdam, Greece, Venice etc in Summer... would need someone to mow and weed the gardens every 3-4 days, water the plants and so on...

So, it is easy to see, Dog will cause a lot of problems if I try and keep her after Easter this year.

I need a homebody really, someone who hates travelling, but loves dogs!

OK, now I have that sorted out, I'll work on that scenario...Any takers? Will need you for at least 4-6 months at first and re-evaluate the position.

Will join a House Sitters club, as a host and look for long term people who want rent free premises for 6-12 months at a time.

The place here will be finished shortly with a spare sleeping area in the main house/lodge and then the Summer Kitchen will be ready after end June/July...ish as either a rental cottage/honeymoon or romantic get-away, so they'll be able to take care of customers for that too.

The big room will be ready a while after that, so sleeping rooms will not be a problem!

I'm off on a few traipsing around Europe trips in Spring, Summer and Autumn this year as, I have not travelled much in those 3 nice months over here as my previous tripping around times were always in Winter and both shoulder seasons...to get the cooler weather and snow, so this year will be fun indeed.

Gosh, that's the challenge that happens when you renovate and complete it...you have to maintain it! Hahaha, no wonder I really love the excitement and unknown factors of reno sites, there is no boring maintenance!

Something like this for England or France

All is in the pre-planning and ideas stage just now, but think I'll go to Greece, the Greek Islands, Italy, Venice, Croatia again, via Vienna and the Eagles Nest which is just over the Austrian border into Germany, do a few cruises around either Dalmatian Coast and across to Italy, and tour around that area and head back.

Then maybe duck across to the English canals and hire a flat long boat later on in the year. That has been on the bucket list a while now.
Then pop into Amsterdam and see my mate there and spend a few days at his invite, at his place too, about 3 hrs out of Amsterdam.

Actually, it might be a good idea to invite him on the long boat trip too!

It's all a jumble of places just now, but what I wanted to do when in Split, in Croatia 2 yrs ago. I had it all planned out and suddenly realised at the last minute, actually on the way to the boat/ferry across to Italy, all the places I had planned to visit were in Schengen zone and I was in time out! Dohhh..

So, all those places are still on the list and I'll drag them out in the next week and sort it all out.

If anyone wants to come join me on this upcoming adventure, or parts thereof...let me know if it interests you.
I'll price it out for you in sections then you can select any part you'd like, so you can budget your way across here!

I always keep a few things really strict when doing these trips.

The first is the return fare to OZ...always under or around $1400 return.
For example, if you click the dates a few days back or forth, usually you can save about $400!
That is a whole week of touring over here!

The other is setting a weekly budget, and making things fit into it!
This is the most fun bit of it all as no matter how much cash you have to spend, it will get spent, so I figured there must be a basic cost for all this stuff and I set out to find it.
I set a basic budget of $50 Ausd a day and even got change in the 3 main years I travelled.

Touring, accom and food, plus all stuff listed below, averages a lot less than $300 Ausd a week for me...that has been winter touring, bus and train tickets, entry to shows, Phantom in London, Vienna, Liverpool, Cats in Edinburgh, all travel to Castles, Palaces, Balls, accom. etc included in the weekly budget, plus a champers or beer or 2 here and there each week if desired.

I toured for 3 years on average of $238.50 a week...not including my $1400 plane fares to OZ, return, which over the year averages out to $27 a week. So, put $30 a week away and come visit me every year! Simple really when you know your numbers. You must know the numbers to achieve any lofty ideals, budget or no budget.
.
During Schengen times out for the required 3 months I'd stay in great hostels with wifi and kitchens, mainly in Ireland and plan the next 3 months of touring...right down to the last penny. It was so much fun that way, learning about places, discovering trips and walks for free and so much more. Sure fills in time very pleasurably indeed.

It was an amazing 3 full on years and time's up for me of sitting still here, waiting for the grass to grow...just to mow it again!!!.
The call of the unknown and mysterious beckons me forth again and I heed the call!

Summer is a lot more costly, but if I do it on good shoulder periods, it should be pretty much like this..ya gotta budget it in ahead of time.
Otherwise it all runs away on you and you wonder what happened and never go anywhere.

I'm costing all this out now...selecting areas to visit, times to return here to check up on things and then back off on the trekking routes again.
If anyone really wants to come on an adventure, let me know the places and things you'd like to visit. I use hostels like this one below, which have free wifi, great kitchens and are virtually in the middle of town.

The kids you meet are amazing and so full of information, hints and tips, it is certainly not boring.

This hostel is in Belgrade...Euro 5 a night, right in town, near Astoria hotel, Moscow hotel and train and bus station.

You wouldn't believe I did not take any shots of the hostel in Buda! hahaha, only this window seat treatment in the hostel kitchen, including the heater, for Imre to copy if necessary when the time comes in August.

And the lights in Buda from the window in my room in the hostel in Centre of Budapest on 5th December 2016.

The hostel, a new custom built one I stayed at in Budapest recently, had free (cooked eggs) breakie, of tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber, eggs, bread, rolls, cereal, tea, coffee, hot choc etc, free wifi, sep cubicles, lockers and free padlocks...ALL for 5 Euros a night...that's correct, $7.50 AUSD...ish a night, right in Octagon square, the centre of Budapest. Heaps of cheap cafes were just outside and the metro services were at the door. There is a brand new kitchen, stocked with tea, coffee and a big bowl of apples, on each floor too, so you really can't get better than that.

One of the really cheap restaurants just outside the new Budapest hostel I just used and will be using from now on. 

Imre has a handle on things now, so I can leave him to complete tasks while I'm away.

Can't wait to get it all underway and be off again.

Like this one! It is in France, but I'm sure they have the same or similar, in England

OK...so,remember, if you are interested in doing a part or many parts of this in total, about 6 months of travel...ish, let me know.

Do not buy your tickets to come over here without allowing me to help you pick a great fare.

This video here I made a few years ago, gives you an idea of how to buy cheap bus and train tickets in Europe and UK..., just for fun to let you see it's really easy to travel here!

I can't find the one I did on how to find really cheap air fares by the main carriers of course. No Tiger airways on the international agenda here.


OK...that is all for this week, so bye for now and I hope some of you can pop across , even for a few weeks, four weeks at least.
M
xxx