Off To The Dentist in Belgrade to Be Crowned!

Well, that was one long protracted work of patience to get this far...

That is to eventually have the 3 door shed repaired enough that I can finally go and receive my long awaited crown!

Make that 2 crowns...and add Dentist to the mix...not so posh after all.

Am going on Sunday afternoon train to Budapest and will just wait a few hrs for the 10pm train to Belgrade, arriving 7am.

Am not going sight seeing or anything on the way down but will spend the full day in Budapest on the way back in 10 or so days after arriving in Belgrade.

Will check in to my hostel, opposite the dentists where I have an appointment at 10am Monday next.
Will be glad to have the big back tooth fixed so I can get rid of the gaps she left for the crowns to slip over the existing teeth.

This will be my first 2 crowns, so have no idea how it all goes.
Looking forwards to catching up with friends down there, visiting my castle there and having a champers with Jelena and Venos at the beautiful Astoria Hotel, just near the train station and about 100 mtrs from the dentists!

My fave room...Hotel Astoria, Belgrade

Not sure if I should go for the bubbly before or after the crowns!

The best room in Belgrade to have a long, cold glass of champers...poured for you from your own piccolo bottle...yaahy. All for under 2 dollars!

OK...just booked my bed and got the last one where I wanted it...all for 5 Euros a night, plus a 1 Euro visitor tax a night. (an Euro is worth 1.52 Ausd), so that's about $9 Ausd a night all up.

Not bad for a lovely fully equipped kitchen, full bathrooms with real baths, wifi and right in the heart of Belgrade. This will be the 4th time I've stayed there now.
Home Sweet Home it's called and Damir, the owner and his staff are awesome.

A really great place to stay in Belgrade. It is a posh 4 bed room apartment in the heart of Belgrade and in each bedroom they have put some bunks. It takes only 18 people, so it is an amazing hostel. Better than any hotel for miles around...at 5 Euros a night plus the Euro Govt visitor tax.

It will be great to mix with interesting and excited travelers again, kids on the go from here to there.
I love them telling about their trips and have had so many ideas I've followed since first starting this journey in Jan 18th 2011.

So,..The 3 door shed is looking good to-day, Tuesday...well, I think it does!

After weeks of on and off rain, the work begins again on the 3 door shed. Tuesday 14th June 2016

Will do a bit of blog each day and post pics of the transformation as for me it is very exciting to change from this....

End April 2016, before the repairs began...

Sort of looks romantic in its own way...the poor neighbours! This was their constant view...

So, after the guys took off the roofand knocked down the remaining bits of wall, this was my wild west wall remains!

Footings down and the rebuild begins...

Ewwwhhh, well at least the 2 inside divider walls are intact! This should be before the one above...oops!

Lovin' it! Up she goes...Hahaha, recycling to the nnnth! The aim of this place is to show how resourceful Hungarians/Aussies are!

Completed...one boxed up 3 door shed, about to become a workshop with 2 rooms instead of 3 rooms.!

So excited...the reconstruct begins after weeks of crazy weather...similar to what we had in Australia in 1988, 1989 and 1990....Finally, the entire 960 people in the village will have something nice to look at again!

Went to Eger on Wed to check out the tour areas and this is what it was on Wed when we left at 9am...

This is what it was when we returned! Now the guys do the backside with battens today, Thursday and tomorrow., Friday..the roof tiles go back on!

Getting there...

Then I go to Serbia for a week now, not 2 weeks as previously told. The dentist has fast tracked me to get it all done in 5 working days! Yahoo!

When I come back, on the 26th June, the guys will knock out one of the 2 dividing walls inside the shed, put in the floors, make a real door in the right door hole, render the end mud wall, fix the extra width gap in ceiling space and then, later on, render the out and insides to make it look nice.
The back wall will be rendered when the big room is built, so it can all be done in one hit.

Just went out to check the angles of the pitch on the roof...which originally was about 80 degrees, but only noticed now that they have made the new one only 100 degrees , which is obtuse, not an acute angle to the 90 degree point.
Drat them.
Hopeless.
I kept the 2 old angles for them to use, which were perfectly OK...but, "naaah Mairey, nemm, neemmm, shork prob-lem, faa(wood) nem OK"

I'd make them pull it all down and fix it back correctly, at their own expense if I was a better foreman, but as it is the end shed...and this is a test drive for the next 2 main building renos, I can let it go.

It does alter the height of the new big room to be though... by about a foot or so at the apex...
But, I'll cope with that challenge when we get to that point.
Will really let them know I must have the angles correct in future...

Happy with this so far...

The garden is coming along, but no pumpkins, melons, cucumbers or zucchini came up! Dud year this one for all of those crawley plants.

Lookin' good...

Not one seed shot, except one lone zucchini seed. We dug up the mounds when we laid the gutter drainage pipes...the day after planting the seeds...dohhh...and buried the seeds under mountains of dirt and one little plant popped up a few weeks ago.

White mulberries...

But I have white mulberries???, never heard of them before and heaps of tomatoes, which seem to thrive here.

The fence extension quickly became integrated with the rest of the house garden area & looks as tho' it's been there for eons!

No marigolds or alysium either...really weird, but I did buy some petunia and mixed flower plants last week and the rain has shot them along.

Lookee what I found at the hardware shop yesterday! It was behind a door, not for sale, slightly the worse, paint wise, for wear, but perfect for my goals. I asked the girl could I buy it...she laughed...I said, really I do want it, must have it...(as she did not speak English, lots of sign language happened) and she asked her boss and he said yes! $25 later, I was one very happy chappy! Saved me heaps of implementing other things to make an amazing arch like this for the big outdoor deck!
Awesome huh?
Puuuurrrfffffecccc.

Next, the curved stairs/steps will be done and lastly, the right side of the deck after the guys complete the exterior of the summer kitchen next month. Do you like the rubble edged gardens? Have to put more soil in yet, but I can't believe I did it all on one cool overcast, non rainy, but drizzly, day this week.

Had to dig under so much undergrowth and find the gardens, then pull out all the creeping vines that must grow about 6 inches a day...honestly. The Amazon jungles have nothing on this place!

Also, have to find someone to come and feed dog every day I'm away too...which is a nuisance...
Am just weighing up the value of keeping Dog and going through all the dog sitting dramas, as opposed to just going whenever I want without all the stress of arranging dog watchers etc.

Stop press...The Mexican family has just contacted me to ask if they can come back as their plans did not work out well in Maria's home in Split, in Croatia, with the little girl.

She becomes hyperactive with food colours etc and the mother's sister took power over Maria and gave the child sweets etc which ends up in screaming matches against discipline...

Anyways, we had some episodes here and I quickly got them sorted out with eating real food, not junk, rubbish and poisons and the kid was a delight the last week here...saying "thank-you, sorry for my bad behaviour" etc - which she had never said in her entire life.

She said this by herself when she felt boundaries enforced and felt secure. Her Mum kept shaking her head, saying, what is going on? She is saying sorry! I never hear this before...where she get it from?
The child is very clever and amazed me too with her actions(non junked ones, that was). She is a genius child indeed. She only speaks Polish, but understood other languages somehow.

So now, the story evolves!

Bring on a live in caretaker ASAP!
Any takers?
Accommodation, electricity, groceries for one person, milk, bread, wifi, water, garbage, mower fuel, all supplied, in exchange for mowing the property twice a week, feeding and talking to dog, weeding, watering and maintaining the gardens and property.

Hahaha...I may have some takers before this even hits the street today!

Cheers for now...will do the Eger blog in the morning before I go...
Mary
xxx
PS...the Volunteers can't come now as they have no money to get here.
Shame.

Some History About The Little Lodge of Many Wonders!

Conversation with Ferenc Guba, grandson of the builders and family who owned the property for just under 100 years!

The house was built in 1919   by Istvan JOBBAGY (1893-1948) and Zsuzsanna TÜDŐS (1893-1976)

Builder and original owner of the property...

Beautiful wife of Istvan and co-owner of the property. It was built after he returned from the 1914-18 world war 1

Pal Tudos...Ferenc's great uncle?

The big photo is Pal TÜDŐS who was a brother of my grandmother, and martyr in World War Ist.

I am very glad, that this house is managed by you who is very extraordinary and emphatic for the heritage,This house might be collapsed if you do not arrive.  You can see the hard life in Tiszaigar, And you COPE WITH!

My Uncle Janos live there the longest from 1924-2010.

This is taken a year before he died in 2010

A nice pic for posterity...

I love this cheeky smile...note his lips and check out the lady following...her smile is very similar.

Yup, they stick the sticker directly onto the bread!

• My grandparents were farmers.
• In 1948-1963 there was a forced nationalisation and communist repression against my family also.
• My uncle was forced to cooperatives. 
• He was the last one who joined .
• My uncle lived only here, his older sister also
• My mother ILONA moved to my birthplace MEZOTUR in 1969

Ferenc's Mother...

My mother in 1957. lived in this house

My aunt JOLAN had 3 sons, they also lived here with her husband Ferenc VARGA (born 1913-2000) 

My aunt husband was partly communist fan, tried to remove his mother in law and sister and brother in law from the house in 1950's

My widow grandmother and her family was declared class enemy by the communists, since they have 25 acres land

My uncle Janos not married

My mother moved to Mezotur

My aunt Jolan raised 3 kids 

In 1960s my Aunt JOLAN and her family lived in the room left from the entrance door (5 person) and in the room at the street my grandmother, uncle and my mother.(8 people total)

The long awaited sketch of the property. The room on the end right in this pic was not originally connected to the 3 rooms. I cut a hole in the 15 inch internal mud brick walls to gain access internally. So the 3 rooms the original family lived in were the first 3 rooms from the left, inwards. Amazing. 

My another cousin Ferenc died last September

His wife is in Rakoczi 43.

Their daugther is Mariann Szelene, who is a teacher in the primary school.

I have a feeling this pic was taken about 2009 ish...on the 85th birthday perhaps???

Looks nice and lush! The middle shed looks pretty good here, but obviously fell down and deteriorated very fast once the roof broke.

I can't find a good front on shot of the place, can you believe? You can see there is no big shed and the end 3 door shed here was fast going to join it. But we saved most of it in the nick of time, thankfully.

By the looks of it, we'll have to clean off the roof tiles! They looked nice a few years ago in the older pics.

OK...that, with a tiny bit of spelling correction, is directly from Ferenc, the grandson of the original owner - taken from a chat we had the other night.

This is Ferenc and his lovely family. They live in Budapest.

I am hoping they will visit in the summer as they have said they desire to, so am looking forwards to that very much. 

Feeling really very special and blessed to be able to help preserve a tiny piece of rural Hungarian life over the past century. 

2 World wars, a Communist regime for 15 + years and thousands of years of so much past history of take overs and suppression of their rights, it certainly is an amazing country, filled with a very strong and resilient people.

Would love someone like my sister or even Tom Warne to ask better questions from Ferenc to obtain more history, as I'm not really a good asker of questions. 

Perhaps someone could write out a list of questions for me to ask of Ferenc... as he said he'd love to help.

I'm not afraid to ask...my brain just doesn't seem to go there, but I really appreciate the history when it comes out, via someone, anyone!

OK, that's it.

I hope you enjoyed this little trip back in time.

I did, it was interesting to note that the Hungarian Revolution, where the Hungarians lost in their quest to over throw the Communists in 1956, had an effect on our family in Corowa at that time. 

My parents took in 3 refugee families, one each from Italy, Holland and Germany at the one time, as all the camps were overflowing with people from Europe, fleeing the Communist regimes. 

They all stayed for 18 months in our house and the Italian couple and the German couple both had babies at our place.

My Dad divided the house into 4 big flats, yes, it was a huge home on 10 acres. Idylic.

To accidentally discover that Hungary had an arrangement with Australia, in thanks for assistance provided at that time, was KARMA indeed when I came here 2 years ago and the solicitor told me I could stay now, because of it. 

So, I didn't have to marry one of the 30 year old hunkies I had nice friendships with after all...I had 2 lined up...

Australians wanting to live in Hungary are welcomed and the paperwork is basically 5 simple questions!

Bye until next week when I hope the 3 door shed has a roof on it if it stops raining!

Cheers,

M

My Mexican/Croatian/Polish Family Has Gone...

Wow, that time went so quickly, I can't believe it.

Almost 5 weeks and tons of jobs done, some half done and some just started.

Somethings we couldn't complete due to not knowing how to take the next step, like fixing the wine vat...others, we ran out of time, paint or whatever and one big one...we blew up a second sander machine, just when there was one panel left to complete sanding on the wardrobe door!

All in all a great time with the young ones. One is a tad younger than my 2 older grand children, one is a year or so older and their 6 year old girl is the same age as my youngest grandson.

So it was like having my own family here, in a way. It was good company to be able to speak English and I learned how to make bean paste and bean and chicken soup!

Getting close to the ceiling level on the 3 door shed renovations. It will be called the tool shed once it is completed to make things clearer for guests and volunteers.

Painting the little shed which now becomes called the wood shed...Still a bit of patching up around the door etc, but at least it's all in one piece now....and retains one front wall where the plaster finish is 100 years old almost.

Don't know what happened to the champers glasses...they are up to the red now...I gave the red a miss.

Missy having lunch...a picky eater at meal times, so I made her a face sandwich...which she ate OK.

Mileania made one similar the next day, so she liked the pattern it seemed.

Speaking of patterns...this is how the art work begins.

Then a long study online hunting for the right patterns to use on the chairs. There was only one set of chairs we found and they were the ones from Catherines' Cottages in Budapest...So it looks like they are pretty unique!

I just noticed the shading on the flowers here. She is jolly good...plus how on earth did she do the tiny legs on the birds?

Now for the rest of the chair...

Getting there...All sides, front and backs and inner legs etc are to be completed too...This pattern is nice and light and lacy where as the other is bolder and makes its own statement. I like them both and can't pick a fave...

We had a farewell bottle of bubbly with nibblies followed by a nice going away meal of beautiful turkey breast in bacon and mushroom cream sauce with peas and a should have been, cold potato and corn salad...which ended up still in the fridge the next day...oops!

The 2nd chair has been almost completed and looks awesome too, so when they all dry and I can stand them up to photograph, you'll see the finished set finally.

Very excited about the Lodge now as inside it's beginning to take shape...in my mind anyways!
Can't wait to build the big room now...One big open room, no walls, apart from the bathroom walls and stairs up to a mez floor with a west facing window so I can take sunset pics!

Up on the mez floor in the big room, I want a west facing window like this one here so I can take sunset pics without trees, caravans, dunnys, dead sticks in winter and too many trees in summer! Am hoping there is enough space up there to do it.

The guys have been working away in other cities, so I have to wait for them to have a day off or a Sunday half day to get some work done now Summer is here and also in between the blessed rain.

The 3 door shed walls are almost done this afternoon, Sunday 5th June and the rafters should go up next, then roof tiles go back on, a new door gets put in place of one of the smaller door holes and the floor gets concreted.

That will then alleviate a huge storage problem here and should only take a week at most, but if they are working elsewhere, it will be finished in June sometime.
Finally I'll be able to lock up the cement mixer and other tools and take them out of the end room, which now is going to be the lounge room and not a bedroom.
Thus begins the second  last big clean up inside finally.

And so it all begins again...the 3 door shed starting its make over mid May...then it rained on and off for 2 weeks holding up the work...

2 weeks ago...A clearish day and it's full steam ahead...

The day ended up nice and the guys worked an extra 2 hrs to get as much done as they could.

To-day...Sunday 5th June...The red bricks are 1cm smaller than the cream bricks we discovered...hence some wiggles in the rows. After a cement render job, it all gets covered up and looks great, so no probs.

Looks like I gaine a foot or so in the shed inside so that's good. They will have to add a row of timber to fill in the ceiling now...sighhh, nothing ever goes straight here!

Yeah, well...the end of the poor old shed. At least it is still ok the bit that is still there!

The gap in space that I gained inside the shed...That inner white wall you can see gets knocked out once they have secured the ceiling onto the new wall next week.

Naaah, I didn't do any cementing or laying bricks...Just posing!

The last job my volunteer family did...heading into the bathroom for a shower and then we party!

Rather sad in a way as they were here for almost 5 weeks and dog and I got used to chaos in the place with the little one....It was great having them here and helping get the child stabilised before heading off to Marias own home, which is in a group of 6 or more units on the seaside on one of the islands in Split. Am so pleased to get all the furniture almost completely repainted, stained and or sanded back and varnished etc. Still have a robe to do from scratch and a bit of sanding to do on the front panels of doors on another robe.  But that is OK as I know how to do it now,  so when I get another sander...yep, the 3rd one, I'll get it done.

Look closely and you'll see dog's playmate and the biggest wild animal over here.

So cute, it's about 5-6 inches long and a fiery little thing!

I must rescue them if I see her hunting them again...so pretty.

We only have to cut a window in the now kitchen which is becoming a real separate bathroom...and take out the poor old window in the existing bathroom, enlarge the window hole and put in a double window. That will look amazing and so will the new kitchen.

Then we remembered that behind the existing shower is a half closed off window towards the east, under the verandah, so that will be knocked out and a new window put in there too. That will allow me to be in the new kitchen and see visitors at the front door...from the kitchen. Pretty awesome for here.

Another surprise...the grandson of the original owner sent me a bunch of pictures and information on the history of the property the other day.
I'll enclose some of his message for you, plus was hoping to get a sketch plan of the layout now of what is falling into place at the moment.(Sorry Richard, will photograph the sketch next week)

"My Uncle Janos live there the longest from 1924-2010

In 1960s my Aun JOLAN and her family lived in the room left from the entrance door (5 person) and in the room at the street my grandmother, uncle and my mother."

That's 8 people in the 2 roomed house, plus the middle cooking room with 2 fire ovens.
I have more info but will fix it up next time and do an entire post on it.

The property about 10 years ago it seems. The now collapsed shed looked good here and the summer kitchen's roof line is ok...so once things begin to crumble and collapse, it's over in a year or so! Check out the thingy on the well for pumping up the well water!

See the different levels on the 3 red roof lines?
Well, at the left end of the middle one, in the gable, is where I'm hoping to put that little curved window to the west.
The big verandah on the shed, which you can see, is going to be the same...ish and will be a nice patio, plus there will be French doors opening onto the patio from inside that one massive room.
It's about 7mtrs  x 7 metres clear...ish.

OK...am all done for now.
Next blog should be great with the history of the place here and lots of pics, along with the following weeks blog, as the 3 door shed should be finished and all the tools and machinery stored safely in it.

Meaning finally, I have a real house to live in!
Bye now...
xxx
M