Sunday, May 27, 2018

Here We Are Again!

Well, I feel like I'm connected to the world again now I finally have all my pics out of the phone...after about 5 years!

What a mess ...I now have up to 5 copies of some pics as the phone does not seem to want to delete the pics, but will work that out as time goes by.

Will start at the most recent pics and work backwards, if I can access the jolly images and see where I've been of late!

Things are good here, weather finally warming up and the colder weather seems to have retreated somewhat. Things are growing at breakneck speed. We measured the morning glory to see how much it grew in a day. Amazing...it grew almost 4 -5 inches, depending on the rain, heat or coolness.

The fence was bare 10 days ago and now it has vines covering it to the top wire. It will be amass of flowers when we next come back.
Tomatoes are growing very fast too, along with marigolds and gladiola.

Kerrie my friend from OZ is here and we arrived back from a 2 week stint in Croatia and Slovenia about 10 days ago for a rest, weed the garden, do heaps of work on the place and sort out the 2 part time workers here, before our next excursion begins.

Berry and cherry time coming up soon. Cherries getting bigger by the day now, everywhere on the jogging track. This was a berry market in Belgrade a few years ago.
When we came back from our 2 week escapade in Croatia, last week, we were met with this beautiful display from my lovely red roses again.

I cleaned up the big deck before leaving...bad mistake! It over grew with ground cover while away for just on 2 weeks...but I remind myself that it did look like this!
Our village storks are back again...they have 3 babies this year, not long hatched.
It is mulberry time too and the white mulberry tree I have is loaded with fat, juicy, very sweet, but otherwise, tasteless white  mulberries!
A lovely pic of Paulie, my youngest son, taken in OZ in Feb.
It is also Poppy and Cornflower time too, but...I just found out I can't get the 1500 plus pics we transferred from the phone to my computer, to come up in image searches for my blog! So, am back to square one again until I figure it out!!!
Dave, a volunteer from USA 2 years ago, turned these path blocks around to make the path wider and made a great job of it too. But it left us short a lot of blocks...so, guess what Imre's next big job is gong to be?
Yup, in 2 weeks time, when he has completed rendering the exterior of the tool and new machine shed, he'll make a new path along the length of the shed. That will make life a lot tidier I must admit.

Then he'll do the cementing around the house to stop the water sogging into the mud brick homes, like the custom over here is, then finally, he'll complete the front garden path!

I can't believe it is finally happening.

Then the temporary roof comes off the Honeymoon Cottage and the new highly pitched one will go up.

He has completed as much work on the interior of the honeymoon cottage as he can just now and needs it to be fairly water tight, so to speak, so he can put on the finishing wall surfaces etc. Therefore, it is roof on time!

OK...tried dragging and dropping the pics across and it seems to be OK! This is inside the big church in Eger...beautiful building and a huggge church. There was a wedding going on when we were there, so we had a double display of local goings on.
A bit snoopy, but!
Loved this...The bridal party had the train hired to take guests to and from the church...How cool was that?
The brides carriage! Note the number plate...
Anyways...this blog has been a bit all over the place but it is all sorted out and I have my France, Italy, Lake Bled, Split, Dubrovnik pics in the computer somewhere now, so can access them finally and start doing my real blogs again.

Cheers for now,
All the best,
Mary








Saturday, April 14, 2018

More of France...Avignon, Gourdon, Nice...

Was so tempted to take my bed and park it in the awesome supermarkets down in Nice area in France.
I don't know if it was because the food looked so amazing, or if it was because of the food looking so amazing!!!
Best range of foods ever...for my taste.

A lovely sunny day in Gourdon...800 mtrs high
The castle and village from the air...
Coming round the bend...castle on a hill...love these places.
Long way to go, but lucky we are in a bus!
A lovely walk up the rampant towards the castle...
Looking over the edges...
Lovely little alleys...
Time out...
Where Gourdon is on the map!
Off we went to Monaco...The Super huge Aquaruim.
All appear the same inside...fish in glass!
More fish...very pretty colours...
A big stingray type fish...
Then off to the Palace to see the changing of the Guard...
Princess Grace used to live here, before she was killed.
People waiting for the Changing of the Guard...
Coming into Monaco...
Overlooking the harbour in Monaco...Very Pretty.
Heading off to the Cactus Gardens...
Some of the back streets in Monaco.
A nice hotel on the waterfront.
More lovely back streets in Monaco...I had lunch down one of these alleys.
I can't believe how they build on the sides of these cliffs and mountains...
The food looks so nice here everywhere...
I love these narrow streets...
Different coloured footpaths here too.
In the wonderful cactus gardens in Monaco...What views from up here...
It took over 20 years to actually build this garden, lay it out, get the plants into it.
So many amazing cactus plants, shapes and sizes!
Itwas an amazing garden over all...steps everywhere, right up the hills, down the hills, around the hills!
What a view...
EEEKKK...a prickly edge here...
Sur le pont, d'Avignon, tout le monde, dance, dance...
I had no idea the bridge was only half a bridge!
This bridge is just across the road from the huge Papal Palace...
A visit to the very old Papal Palace in Avignon...
Beautiful sculptures given as gifts to the Palace by various Kings and heads of Govt over the past hundreds of years.
An enhanced pic of an ancient mural on the walls inside the old Palace.
The exterior of the Papal Palace in Avignon...
Beautiful painting on the ceiling murals..
Fragonard...A household name in France, the perfume capital of the world. We visited 3 perfume factories and one chocolate factory. I went and found a nice eatery, had some lunch, found a fabulous shop that sold beautiful bed linens...while the others went to the chockie factory.
The packaging is beautifully made and designed...
Everything is so scrupulously clean, shiny and smells delicious! So many bottles of flower oils in all those beautiful bottles lined up everywhere...
A lovely range of perfumes, soaps and other nic nacs they make out of oils pressed and gathered from flower petals. So many options and gifts for sale in the shop...Amazing!
The lady giving the talk on how they make perfume in their factories...In the foreground is a big bag of lavender.
Some of the big vats for the oils from flowers petals...
Leaving the French villages behind...
So that was our trip to France, Italy and through Slovenia.

It is lovely weather here now.
The grass has grown so much in just a few days, it is the time of year that we have to mow at least every 3 days! Andrea gave me her lawn mower which is one of those self propelled machines that goes by itself!

But you still have to start it!

Am getting a new washing machine and an actual vacuum cleaner too, this coming week!
When I do the washing now, the water isn't too bad as far as so much "mud" remaining in the wash water!

This indicates it is almost safe for a real washing machine...the poor little thing I bought when I first came here is now spitting sparks when it's on spin...that sort of puts a bit of urgency out there to get a new one!

Plus, the inside of the house is pretty OK now and there is that much dust around so I'm hoping that the cleaner will be ok too.

Will be ordering the base cupboards for the kitchen too.  So, the house is shaping up fast now and will be a lot easier to manage and keep dust free...well a bit easier anyways!

Sorry about my personal pics not yet being available, but all these I chose are almost identical to pics I took...and are still locked in my blessed phone!

On Wednesday I'm going into town to get the computer guy to help me sort out how to get the pics out of my phone.

Next blog we are off to OZ again...crazy , but I figured I'd do this one while it was still fresh in my mind.

So, bye for now,
See you next week,
Cheers,
Mary
xxxx