Glorious weather here for the past 3 months really.
August wasn't too bad and both September and October thus far, have been sensational.
Autumn colours are appearing so fast, I can't believe how quickly a tree can turn yellow!
Going to town in the morning on the bus, then coming back around 2pm ish...amazing. Such a quick colour change, I can now verify I was not seeing things in Alaska some years back.
We did a bus tour up into the Klondike from one of the stopover ports and the trees everywhere were half golden on the way in about 9am. Then on the way back later in the afternoon, they were almost all golden.
I thought I was seeing things and always remember the sudden turning of the entire forests from greenish gold, to deep golden in the same day.
Great memories up there...on a cruise up the Inside Passage to see the blue of the glaciers in Alaska. Another bucket crossed off the "to do list".
Breathtakingly beautiful to see the massive glaciers up as close as we were allowed to go...to see them calving as summer came to an end, before winter set in.
Also, sitting in the spa, on the glassed in viewing deck, not sipping
champagne, watching whales frolicking alongside so many dolphins, sun
shining, no one up there on the viewing deck at the time with me, was another treat
for sure.
We were the last of the very large cruise ships allowed on that route, as it was the end of tourist season.
People were packing up their animals and shipping them down to Seattle too, I think it was, for the winter. I'd never heard of anything so strange at the time.
Now I live in a climate, where a similar thing happens. People send their bigger animals to special boarding compounds for winter!
Great news here too...finally, I was able to find some workers to start work on the cottage!!!
They did the exterior this week past, and coated it in slurry at first, then huge nails and criss/cross of wire wound around the nails. They only do this fancy wire work on mud bricks, and as half the cottage is original...it needs these extra steps to secure the render to them..
Next they do a layer of render, then next week they will put the netting stuff on and a couple of special coats of whatever the black stuff is that glues it together...like a bondcrete I think... and then the final white coat, ready to paint.
Only one guy is coming on Monday, and will seal all the inside and get it ready to render etc, before the 2 of them start on the exterior while the weather is good.
They also had their own massive scaffolding to get up top to the apex of the gable and rendered the end gable. Next Saturday, they will brick in the other end gable, put in the window and hopefully get it rendered the following Saturday.
A bit XXXy for the scaffold hire from them, but that's how it goes.
One happy chappy here now...me...smiling from ear to ear!
Waiting for the roll of roofing material to come in on order, for the little lean to at the back of the tool shed. It will be great to have an undercover area again for odds n' ends of wood, junk etc.
All the old animal sheds have been converted to either a woodshed, a toolshed or part of the cottage which is now a new bathroom and kitchen area! So, no place to store junk and spare things.
There is a lovely seamstress in town who does all my mending, hemming etc. She charges a dollar a metre for hemming curtains etc. It's not worth stressing over looking for the needle, let alone the eye of the needle on the sewing machine!!!
So, over the past few months, with no one working on the house, apart from my awesome volunteers, I've been able to empty all cupboards and boxes, suitcases etc and sort out things, get curtains made, hems fixed, elastics in skirts fixed and so on, which has been great.
Took out both doggy and kitten's desexing operation sutures today...by myself! They both had 3 stitches each.
Dog was amazing. She just rolled over and thought I was playing with her tummy!
Kitten just thought the same thing until I got the third stitch loosened a bit to slip the scissors under it...when she decided that wasn't going the way she hoped!
So I just wrapped her in a towel and took out the last stitch and she was good as gold. I thought I'd have to get 2 or 3 people to hold them down...but no.
Testing heaters for the house this year, as it is the first time I've been here for all the seasons in 12 full months. Every month with an R in it, is the time for heaters over here. The idea is to keep the house at a constant temp, so you don't have to use so much energy to heat it from scratch.
So I have a wood fire, a gas heater, an electric heater and a wizz bang 9 coil oil heater with thermostat.
I think the oil heater will be my favourite, it's portable, (as is the gas heater) and it is very good, even on lowest heat, it throws out a lot of heat.
They had one like that up at the Ginger Monkey ski lodge in Zdiar in Slovakia in Feb and it was amazing.
Bought another load of wood this week, along with another load of sand, cement and lime for the guys! Getting used to this preparing ahead for winter thing now.
So, we'll see how they all work in winter!
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| My tour guide and Beth, my volunteer from UK in Sept on a tour to the biggest (or oldest?) tree in the area. At City Gas, near Tesco! |
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| Having a bread and local cheese lunch in the park in one of the 17 Tisza villages here! |
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| Beth, Jordan and Kaas... |
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| The Jewish section of the little brick museum in another Tisza village. |
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| All these bricks come from different churches in Hungary. |
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| It is a cute and very well set out brick museum, made by the pastor at the church in another Tisza village... |
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| A barrow full of artifacts from old church renovations in Hungary... |
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| You can see it isn't very big...but it very well presented and well worth a visit. |
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| Inside the rest of the church... |
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| Quite a pretty little village church... |
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| A coffee stop at the train stop coffee shop in another Tisza area. It's actually in a paddock somewhere! |
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| I think this place is also a living museum too! |
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| Hahaha.... |
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| Great timber work here from big old trees... |
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| A lot of number plates here... |
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| More nice wooden furniture... |
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| A great set up. The people are kind, the drinks are ridiculously cheap and it is a great spot... |
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| Money from all over the place...Paper notes on top and hundreds of coins stuck on the bar, walls etc. |
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| Always wanted to ride one of these... |
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| Some part of a nice old engine here... |
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| Very sad...An old Jewish cemetery not far from here...about 2 klm or so. Hungarians whisper about the Jews and in the brick museum, you aren't allowed to take pics of certain Jewish church bricks. I have no idea why they act this way towards the Jews.??? |
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| A typical Hungarian small village. Taken from the only hill in Hungary I think!!! |
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| A nice little walk up to the old church... |
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| Quite a few nice steps along the way! |
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| Finally, at the top! |
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| On the pathway up to the church, there is a nice "Way of the Cross". There are 12 Stations where the story of the crucification of Christ is shown in nice pictures and memorials. |
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| Hahaha, found a folder with old pics I used to use when I built websites! |
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| Sometimes I feel like this! |
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| Found a cover for another book I wrote back then too... |
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| My youngest grandson, 9 years ago! Learning to walk...with 2 of his adoring cousins on hand. My lovely grand daughters... |
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| Up goes a quick lean to at the back of the tool shed. It's already full of junk!!! |
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| Dave, a workaway volunteer from USA 4 years ago...popped in 2 weeks ago for a couple of days. Was great to see him again. |
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| More mushies...Have had abut 5 large gatherings and maybe 10 gatherings of only 3 or 4 at a time. But they all go down the same way! Yummy... |
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| We are having massive drainage put in at the other end of the village. Tops will go on all these drains once they get them all done. This house is very big and is for sale! |
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| Hahaha...best fun ever! we bought a massive bag of things from the German op shop in the next village...for $1.50!!! We were laughing so much, watching the kids try on things... |
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| This is the size of the bags the clothes and other things were in...So, Kaas went back and bought 4 more! Too funny. |
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| Jordan fooling around! |
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| Beth with her loot of boots, shorts, a jacket and a winter beanie. |
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| The door wouldn't shut after we hung it. The new flooring had been installed and this was the first time I'd needed the door put back on...so, a small cutting job was needed! |
I can't work out how this cloud confusion works with my pics.
They disappear for weeks on end, then pop up someplace weird. Am going back to a camera at Xmas time.
This way is too stressy for me! Never had a skerrik of bother with the camera card...Will still use the phone at times for pics, but I don't like not having my pics on hand when I want them.
Getting excited about that.
Am heading off to Belgrade to see my friend down there, see my dentist and hopefully visit either Lake Bled and Vienna over the pre Xmas period.
After coming home again, will then go skiing in mid Jan, next year, in the High Tatras for a good week, with a special someone, I hope!
Then if time permits, hoping to go to Poland...30 mins away from the ski lodge, for a look at the POW camps and salt mines, which are only a further hundred or so miles inside the Polish borders..
Have finally gathered up the courage to go, after all these years.
A few weeks ago, I saw an excellent 1 hour documentary about a couple of hundred Canadian high school kids doing a tour there, hunting out their relatives graves or last known places. It was sad, but gave a really good coverage, so now I don't feel quite so sick about going there anymore.
Well, that's it for this week...a lovely Sunday afternoon spent with you.
Nice...
Bye for now...stay safe and take care,
Cheers,
Mary
xxxx
