An Interesting Few Weeks for Sure!

So many things happen here that are the same as in OZ, but have different customs surrounding them, making them appear surreal.

I went to a funeral of the Father of a dear friend of mine, this time last week.

Was amazed at the service, the real reverence displayed by everyone, kids and even babies, in attendance, not one whimper at all from anyone.
Real respect indeed.

Even though the lovely service, at the chapel at the cemetery, was in Hungarian, it was lovely, so I thought.
So many wreathes, I have never seen so many in real life, in all my life.
Not bunches of flowers, but special big wreathes of pine fir and white flowers predominately.

Then the service moved to the grave site and more prayers and blessings for the family were said.
Overall, a very respectful and solemn service.

I went home then and did not go to whatever followed. I'll ask my friend later, what they did, as I'd like to know how they do the follow up "Wake", I guess it is called?

So here are some pics of the last few weeks of our goings on...

Hahaha...One of my 2 USA girls...sitting by the fire to keep it warm...all the while being only half dressed and in the middle of winter! Too funny...

Then, my USA guests went and stayed at another friend's house for a few days to help out and had a sleep over to boot!

For some reason we had a swarm of flies hatch in between the 2 sets of windows in the sunny area of the house. Then they decided to come in and they were everywhere, so the great "Fly Hunters" from the deep got to work, hunting them down with weapons of great destruction!

A Toasty end for these flies!

Done! The last of the old shellack was so hard to get off this remaining robe, but the girls were dedicated to their focus on getting the job done. I was just going to paint it white to ease the pain of trying to remove all the residue shellack! Now we'll stain it again and fix the knobs etc. It looks so much bigger now it's all cleaned up.

It took a few years and 4 different people at different times to tackle these robes. The stuff they used back in the olden days was put on for life and certainly did NOT want to come off!

A lot of end of season jobs have been done...cleaned up all the wood laying around in various piles after pulling off the 3 rooves(roofs?) from the tool shed, summer kitchen and wood shed in the past year. Imre got stuck into that quick job and got everything that could be cut up, cut up!

A cute little view from up near Tesco...The path is really pretty as it curves through the grass...

While chopping and cutting up things, we chopped down the 2 youngish, white mulberry trees which were right in the middle of the big deck, cut back all the elderberry bushes over there, put in posts to hold the retaining wall at the back of the big deck and even put in the old big timbers to make a real retaining wall...and it actually worked!

This is where the retaining wall is going...and now is in place.

Then we dug out a place for possible side steps onto the big deck...to save people having to walk around the front for access...if they wanted to be private on the big deck in summer.

The elderberry bushes grow fast, thick and huge, so they make a nice privacy wall/room/area over there and maybe honeymoon couples might like to sit outside without broadcasting the fact to the world, by having to walk around the front to where the arch and other steps are.

Anyways, we then cleaned up all the mess in the yards, got the roof rafters on the honeymoon cottage and are now waiting for Tuesday to put on the temporary, low level roof and tarpaulin over it, for winter. The old bearers have been put back on in place and it will be great to get even the temporary roof on, so the work can continue over winter.

Imre has also done the underpinning of the interior and will start repairing the rest of the interior walls next, build the bathroom wall in there, run power and water pipes and cables, put in power points and TV access cables, etc etc, all ready for Spring when he'll paint it all after putting on a 4 layer roof.

A very puny roof line here, but strong enough to hold a timber roof with tarp over it too.

Exposed beams, white gyprock, insulation, silver foil waterproofing sheeting, battens, then roof tiles!
So, I think spring will certainly be a better time to work on that type of construction.

Bear went quickly on Tuesday morning...I was expecting him to go on the 29th December as Sabina had made arrangements for his operation, passport etc etc. but it seemed someone else wanted him before that! So off he went to the surgery for his op etc...

Bear sat in the car, in his seat belt,as happy as could be as there were 2 other dogs in the car too!

Painting completed...awaiting the colour trims now. Weeded the gardens and dug them over, pulled out all the tomatoes, morning glory and cut back the roses too. All ready for winter freezing to kill the bugs in the soil. Will put a little awning over the 2 windows on the left to even up the tops of the windows. My camera is playing up when closing down, so it looks like I'll have to sort that out soon too. The focus is becoming more and more distorted.

Gopher holes in my nature strip outside. Messy little critters!

Then on Wed arvo, Imre built me a spice shelf to see if my ideas work on that as I really want to get things tidy and in order...at last.

It has certainly cleaned up the jars on the bench and hidden them out of sight now.

My little secret, hidden spice rack that Imre built in an afternoon last week.!

Going to my friend's father's funeral last week.

The little chapel at the cemetery...

Some well kept grave stones...

Was very surprised how well kept the entire cemetery was.

Amazing...

Beautiful...

Going home now...

Cleaning up the cellar steps...Leading down to the medieval feasting room.

Cleaning up the last of the mess from the cellar...yet again!

Imre underpinning the interior of the Honeymoon Cottage...

All in all, the place is coming together quite well really. I did not realize just how much time and extra work is required on things over here, due to weather and the order of the way they do things.

Flightway tracks in the sky this morning.

Sunrise this morning on my jogging jaunt!

Up near the bus stop church at sunrise today...

Home again, just as the day gets underway...Hopefully a fine day...

I've tried to re-use as much of the original materials as possible and of course that means stripping things back to the bare wood etc, then starting all over again, but it really makes me feel better about everything and I think you can feel and see the difference.

It all seems to fit better, even the girls think so too!

Not much more to say, so will say bye for now!
Cheers and lots of love,
M
xxxx
Take care, be safe and whooo hoo...only a few weeks until Xmas!!!