Samm and Andy

Kiss this!

2012-01-24T08:54:00.001+01:00

Watch this video

Who would have thought that Gene Simmons could speak Hungarian so well? Who else knows what else lies behind the Grease paint?

All Quiet on the Blogging front

2012-01-22T09:43:00.002+01:00

There has not been a post for ages - Sorry!

This week there will be lots of updates as we are going to get one of our piggies butchered.

We'll have lots of meat as the pig is about 200kg!!! I'll post updates/photos/etc

Right off now to bake some fresh bagels to be served with fresh butter and fried eggs :)

Wonderwoman II

2011-09-21T15:06:00.001+02:00

And if by magic, the internet comes up with this!

WonderWoman

2011-09-19T22:49:00.000+02:00

I've been watching loads of justice league unlimited(JLU) and thoroughly enjoying it! For those of you(s) who aren't geeks DC comics have rebooted their universe (started from a Blank canvas again) and one of the comic review caught my eye. It basically said Wonder woman is one of the most important characters of the DC universe (Batman and superman making up the holy trinity) but there are no decent stories/comics with the classic tale which involves wonder woman. This kinda of idea creeps throught out the whole of the DC universe and eventually leads to the bigger question "what do we do with Wonder woman?" Do we make her into a female superman who is strong and tough but not superman, so he can save her; do we make her a man-hater a strong feminist or do we make her into the token eye candy(when was the last time you saw a flat-chested, non-curvy plain wonder woman)

Now you might think I am crazy to dedicate a blog episode to this but as I was thinking about these Issues, I realised that maybe these issues aren't super hero related but for all of womankind. Take for example sport, Woman athletics have to be glamourous for them to be taken serious Sepp Blatter thinks that woman's footballers should be more "femamin"(http://tinyurl.com/6z3mmxk). Beach Volley - Everyone watches because they love volleyball! If they did, indoor volleyball would be so much more popular and taken off.

This questing of the role of women in churches is another example - Every good pastor needs a trophy wife, but as long as they are not causing problem/headlines it is ok! Heck, we can even give a job which isn't that important! The The idea of a woman leading in a new direction is dangerous and what would happen if she had a new story ....

So would the real wonderwoman step forward and show us all the way?

Thoughts about the current world

2011-06-14T14:19:00.000+02:00

You bring up war, poverty or famine in a conversation you'll find a barren vacuum of opinion.You announce what kind of phone you have and you 'll spend the next hour enduring an obnoxious holy war

Shamelessly stolen from theoatmeal

After Love wins

2011-04-04T10:23:00.003+02:00

What happens after "love wins"? After the hype/reviews/discussions? When we've sat in judgement? If the Marshill grows after this episode, the sceptic can claim it is based on heresy and thus a cult. If it reduces in size, they can claim God's judgement is in action. If Rob Bell repents (if he needs to?) what will happen? Can we now cross Rob Bell of the list of "Evangelical Messiahs" as he might have done something questionable and now start the look for the next John Wimber/Billy Graham/ ?

What happens if the book is immaterial (Not finished reading it) but it is a catalyst for bringing to the surface the worldwide churches true agenda? Reading the New Testament highlights that the hallowed early churches were full of lots of problems much heavier then this?

It seems a Zugzwang - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugzwang and Does Love Win?

Marmalade

2011-02-28T16:48:00.003+01:00

I've created the first batch of marmalade from 5kg of oranges and 5kg sugar. It took about 6 hours to boil to the right consistency :)

Anyway, we've another 10 kgs of oranges to use so we will be doing some small ( <2kgs)>

First Sermon

2011-02-07T15:44:00.005+01:00

Below are the Notes from My first sermon at Sion. I've made some grammatical changes to improve the read.

Introduction - English

Jesus is the center of our faith - He is everthing. Christianity is not about the church, helping people, being good, following rules, our sin, theology, getting into heaven, making us feel better but it all about Jesus and knowing him. The apostle Paul wrote that he is "the author and perfecter of our faith."

I want this time for us to a time of discovery and/or rediscovery of the real Jesus - let us put aside our images of Jesus, the baby, the sin sacrifice, the good teacher, the revolutionary, the person we do things for or how we want to think of him and let us together meet with the Real Jesus - the invisible God within human skin. So when we look at Jesus, we see how God is; When we see how Jesus acts/feels/talks/things about things we see how the God of the universe deals with Issues.

This time may not be easy or painless as we may have to leave behing things which we have held onto for a long, things which may define us but have faith that as we seek to know God more, he is a good father and he won't disappoint or hurt us. Remember, This God came to earth be immanuel - God with us and that is what he seeks

C. S Lewis wrote about Aslan - the God lion in the narnia storys. "He is a wild lion, you can't control him, he goes were he wants to" - So, we are going to pray together (in english sorry) but we are going to ask Jesus to uncage himself and release himself from the boxes which we have put him in. Then in this teaching series, we will be looking at Jesus and more particularly, what Jesus said in one to one conversation in John gospel and discovering the real God-man!

Jézus áll hitünk középpontjában - Ő minden. A keresztyénség nem a templomról, gyülekezetről, egyházról szól, vagy arról, hogy segítünk másoknak, hogy jók vagyunk, hogy szabályokat követünk. Nem a bűneinkről, teológiáról, a mennybe jutásról, vagy arról, hogy jobban érezzük magunkat, hanem Jézusról szól és az Ő megismeréséről. Pál apostol írta, hogy Ő “a hit szerzője és beteljesítője”.

Szeretném, hogy ez az alkalom számunkra az igazi Jézus felfedezésének és/vagy az újrafelfedezésének alkalma legyen - tegyük félre elképzeléseinket Jézusról, a csecsemőről, a bűnért való áldozatról, a jó tanítóról, a forradalmárról, a személyről, akiért tesszük a dolgokat, vagy azt, ahogyan gondolni akarunk Rá, és találkozzunk együtt az Igazi Jézussal - a láthatatlan Istennel emberi alakban. Így amikor Jézusra tekintünk, látjuk, milyen Isten. Amikor látjuk, Jézus hogyan cselekszik, érez, beszél és gondolkodik dolgokról, látjuk, hogy a világegyetem Istene hogyan foglalkozik problémákkal.

Ez az alkalom talán nem lesz könnyű vagy fájdalommentes, mivel lehet, hogy hátra kell hagynunk dolgokat, amikhez hosszú időn át ragaszkodtunk, dolgokat, melyek meghatároznak minket. De legyen hitünk, hogy ahogy arra törekszünk, hogy jobban megismerjük Istent, Ő jó apa, aki nem okoz csalódást, és nem sebez meg. Emlékezzünk, hogy Ez az Isten azért jött a földre, hogy Immánuel legyen - velünk az Isten - és ez az, amire törekszik.

C. S. Lewis írta Aslanról - az Istent jelképező oroszlánról a Narniáról szóló történetekben.”Ő egy vad oroszlán, nem irányíthatod, oda megy, ahova akar.” Tehát együtt imádkozunk (én angolul, bocsánat), de arra kérjük Jézust, hogy kiszabadítsa magát a skatulyákból, amelyekbe raktuk Őt. Aztán ebben a tanításban Jézusra tekintünk, és még pontosabban arra, mit mondott Jézus négyszemközti beszélgetésben János evangéliumában, és fölfedezzük az igazi Isten-embert.

John 3: Read the story out loud

There are three sections (all good sermons have three points) - Born again, Love and Judgement)

1) Born again

"Rabbi we know that you are a teacher from God for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with them"

Nicodemus was a great teacher of the law - He was one of the best of the best. He was the leader of the Jewish teaching. He knew his bible and he knew the law (literally, he had memorised the whole of the Old testament) but there was something missing/challenging in Nicodemus' mind. Maybe the why? Remember that the reality for Jews was that they were in their land for ~400 years, there had been no prophets or major words from the Lord. And then like a bus, along comes two people, John then Jesus. And Jesus was doing miracles.

What is the question which Nicodemus is asking? The question isn't a question or is it? Did Jesus stop him before a but? When I argue with Samm, It is always best to be nice to someone before a criticism/challenge/personal attack. "You are looking very beautify today but ....", You are an amazing person but (not at 5am in the morning); You are very tidy but...

Jesus answers the non-question. "Unless one is born again, you can't see the kingdom of God." The again can also mean from above - it is deliberately vague. The answer Jesus gives is rather cryptic.

Nicodemus doesn't understand and thinks it is a physical - so Jesus expands the theme some more.

Who within in this room decided when they were going to be born? Was there kicks on their mummy bladders in Morse code to show the date - No!

Birth is a process which occurred to us, with us but something which we had little (0%) control over. So it is with the Spirit of God working in our and our friends/families/enemies lives, God is the expert midwife and we trust his timing and safe hands. I've never been to a birth but I'm assured that it is never quiet, predictable and the same for everyone. There is nothing which we can do to make this happen.

Everything is new with birth so it is with us. Also, Children tend to be like there parents - Humans can't give birth to goats, dogs to cats, et so it is like that with God and us, He gives us a birth from above means that we can access into the spiritual life from him and through him

***Example with a volunteer - We will have some boxing gloves and sparring pads. After a few punches, I will blindfold laci and ask him to repeat the exercise. He will fail - This exercise is to highlight how if we can't see, we can't do anything and we could end up doing ourself more damage ****

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Firstly, Jesus says his kingdom is spiritual and physical!!! The Jews thought it was Israel! They thought that the Kingdom of God would be a physical thing which would kick the Romans out of the Holy land and then they would be free. But Jesus means more... but it isn't just spiritual. He doesn't say to get the kingdom of Heaven you need to leave being this physical form and become a monk. Why would he? It removes the point of Jesus living 33 years on earth, he could have come as a spiritual guru for 2 months and dealt with everything

The image of wind is really cool - You don't know where the spirit of God will come from or will go but you can hear it moving. Don't we all put a box in which God's spirit can work (at church/homegroup/when I am holy/) but actually we should be listening to the sound of the spirit at work? Does this mean that God can work outside of our church, in dark places, people, before we got there ... YES! and We'll be like the wind. Not blown around but going where God wants - The wind seems random but it isn't.

Nicodemus just doesn't get it -Phew! You don't have to be a superman, This is the chief teacher and he does not understanding things. Jesus challenges him about this because if he can't see, how will the people he teaches? But Jesus explains and expands some more. He is so patient with Nicodemus and he is like that with us, If you don't get it, ask him for help and he will explain....Don't give up!

2) Love LOVE LOVE LOVE

John 3:16 The cliché verse Love LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE - God's motivation was love, Nothing More, nothing less, love is the best (it must be love - Madness). It isn't just for Football games, or downhill skiing - it must shape and form the core of our very lives.

3:17 God doesn't condemn the world but wants to save it (Adrian plass' thought about God being disappointed?)

All that is mentioned here is belief IN Jesus - Nothing more, nothing less. Jesus later teaches (we won't cover it as part of the series) to enter the kingdom of God you must be like a child. How is that so, by belief! Children want to believe in things and things have to be simple. There is no complex ritual, there is nothing secret to do - Just believe in Jesus.

We rejoice in that Jesus' death has paid the price for our sin but the true is that we need to believe in Jesus to walk in that truth. We need to believe in Jesus that he sees us as perfect. We need to be in Jesus because he is the only way. Jesus is very clear it is only through belief in him

3) Judgement

*** The kingdom of Marmite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmite) :) I'll have three volunteer from the church and one of them will be an english person. They will all be given a piece of bread with a piece of Marmite on it. I am sure that the two Hungarians will HATE it whilst english person will like it. I will then suggest a holiday of Marmite and I am sure that the two Hungarians will reject the idea, whilst the other will be interested ***

Why Marmite? in England it was sold with the advert "Love it or hate it" Jesus presents judgement as being the same thing in this passage, people will be attracted to the light or detest it. That is God's Judgement in action. God's light/goodness, unlike Marmite which is is a personal preference and not a requirement for the kingdom of God, is something which will draw people to him.

Jesus ends with a warning - People who do evil avoid the light because of fear of exposure but people who do good are drawn to the light. This is the judgement of God, not the the big fire from the sky but a subtle polarisation. Our job is to enable people see the light rather then preaching doom and gloom. We should not be the holy spirit and try to do judgement but instead let the light shine so God can use this to change them. Fear and exposure are the opposite of love and we should do everything to avoid generating them

Conclusion

So, In order to see God's kingdom, Let alone be a part of it , we need to be born from above - Children look like their parents so we, who are born from above should look like God, in nature. So, Are we motivated by love, Do we love, are we like God in that?

So you can't do anything, it all about Jesus and belief in him and its motivated by Love!!! So the best thing to do when shown love is to respond. No one has a marriage proposal and then walks off, No one is told "I love you" and then stays quiet.

So this is our response

The worship band will play "Több eros, több szeretetet" and if you know you need more love - Come and let us pray for you. We won't ask any questions but just ask God to show you more love and more of his spirit in your life.If you need to experience for the first time the love of God for you - Come! If you need to rediscover God's Love for you - Come! If you have been doing for God but not be with God and have no Love - Come! Are you a condemner not a lover? Come and let God's love change you! We won't talk to you but just pray for God to show you his love - Don't let pride get in the way! Come!

What do you believe in? Is it something other then Jesus? Come! let us pray for you (Sit at cross?) lay it before Jesus' feet and walk out of here a free man/woman Are you a cynic who can't believe, Come and let Jesus help you overcome your heart and be born with a believing heart.

Indian Conference 2011 - Day 1 -The start of things

2011-01-22T07:34:00.002+01:00

Zoli ( the student accompanying me on this travel) and I slept well for the first night with the ariconditioning making the room fine. We awoke at 6 for breakfast at 6:30. The food was 1/2 english 1/2 indian with scrambled eggs, sausages, cereal, toast(from sweetened bread) and curry. This was very nice however the coffee was like brown water, weak as gnat's pee.

We and the rest of the westen delegates promptly filed onto the bu at 7:15 and then waited in the heat for about 15mins for another indian couple to arrive. The bus looked like the muppet hippy trail buss with lots of worn leather and the drive obliged the muppet theme by driving like crazy harry! Everything which moved was overtaken and the whole trip was like a rollercoaster (I've never had "air" whilst sat in a bus before!) into the mountains.

The conference started late(of course) with a prayer and the lighting of an oil lamp! My talk was in the first morning session and went well with good audience feedback and later the chairman congratulated me for doing a good talk. It always surprises me the number of people who have 30+ slides for a 15 -20 mins talk. 30 slides would need a slide change every 20s!
The conference is being hosted at the local university which si nicely air-conditioned but in the middle of nowhere. The climate control means that most of the day is spent in comfort and I try to sit close to the wall mounted unit so that I feel the full effects of the cool breeze emanating from the device

It is a bit strange to see virtually every female in a sari especially in this heat. I guess I only see the dress as formal/smart rather then a day to day cloths. Lunch was served outside in the midday heat with only a couple of fans cooling the delegates. I succumbed to the temptation of fish curry served with pancakes, rice, dumplings.

The first day has been ok so far, there has been too many cancelled speakers and typically the cancelled appearances are the ones which I wanted!

Indian Conference 2011 - Day 0 -Getting there

2011-01-13T13:52:00.008+01:00

The following posts are extracts from my journal which I started to write whilst away - I hope that I (Andy) will be able to this maintain following my return to Hungary

Day 1 1:30 am local time

I've been awake since 5am CET and am currently waiting for the third flight from Dubai to Cochin. The travel so far has been good; The Malev flight was bascis yet functional and the Emerates flight from frankfurt to Dubai was nice and smooth. The 5 hours flew by whilst watching "The Expendables" and 3/4 of "Interception" with the highlight of the film coinciding with the landing of the plane. The food and service was very good with good quality and quantities of things to munch and slurp. However, the overzealous stewardess prevented the theft of a blanket - It would have been for samm (honest!)

Zoli(chemistry Ph.d Student and co-worker) has been an excellent travel companion; well humoured; generous and fun despite us spending 7+hours in airport longues together. The final flight sees us seated separated by 40 rows with me buried in the last row of the plane.

I'm interested to see how this week in india pans out as I'm looking forward to a life with less technology. This reduction has come voluntary as I'm travelling without a computer and will have a wifi-less phone which will be used sparingly for SMSes. It is hard to believe that mankind has survived for the last 2000+ years without the need to facebook or to look for that all important email. I remember receiving my first email address from University back in 1997. I never would have thought that it would explode into my life in the way it has. The strange thing is that only apple and amazon email me with offers and the overal quality of the general email communication I receive is rather poor. A few lines of poor english haphazardly thrown down. I know, I am the most guilty one of this.

I am hoping that the extra time which I will have will also enable me to (re)discover prayer and mediation. I know that whilst on holiday, it is rather easy to relax, focus and make time for contemplative things but the times that I need it the most is when i feel my time is pressed the most. Retrospection reveals that I'm too busy with not much and too many unimportant things. Times to streamine. I'm also hoping the conference isn't terrible; that I'll be able to plan ICF and enjoy the hotel's pool.

I hope that Samm is sleeping well and that Milkda isn't mooing too loud. I also hope that Crunchy is rehoused ASAP. It is a little sad because she has become aggressive towards other animals and this lifestyle isn't compatible with farmlife. Only the other day, she saw the cat through the windows and jumped 1 meter into the window to get the animal!!! She hasn't been bad (Only killed 2 Cats, 1 sheep and countless hedgehogs) but she is very agressive. For example, she has tried to chew her way into the pig house!!!! On the other hand, she is gentle and very kind natured dog towards other humans. I think her problems start from when she was a small puppy till she was 1 year old. She was very poorly and couldn't play/see properly. Now she is better, the problems have appeared but we couldn't discipline her during her early days as she was soo tired/unmotivated.

4:35 am

We made it! A trip from the airport to the Hotel feels like a victory when you suvive! The final flight was on a massive 777 which was packed to the rafters with people. At the last moment, a large indian(with a GB passeport) sat next to or virtually on top of me and then promptly spent the remainder of the flight fidgeting. I managed to get off o sleep but did get to see the end of interception (Good film but tried too much at the end of the film) and the "The A-Team" ( Not too bad film - Could have been a great action film sans the poor portrail of the 80s legends).

Once landed, the fun had only just begun - the 3/4h wait at the border with MORE paperwork.(Thank you EU for making reconciling this part of travel to the 19th Century) was followed by a 20min search for our pre-booked taxi which magically appeared after phoning the conference.

The 1.5h taxi ride was intense - Breaking distances, passing space and other highway code niceties are optional and actively encouraged to be broken. Going head to head with a bus isn't nice but part for the course. The road which we travelled on are single carriage pothole laded roads which meander through the mountains and bisects the bright red soil. Travel is accompanied by the ensemble of car horns every 2 seconds.

Arriving at the hotel, we realised it looked better on the web! it would have been nice 20 years ago and needs dragging into 2011.

Conference registration went well(With hindsight, that was about all that did!). These few positives need to be highlighted. We finally got breakfast moved early so that we didn't have a 10min breakfast munch before leaving for the conference. Most of the delegates (including us) thought that the conference was happening at the hotel but was instead being hosted at the local uni in the middle of nowhere.

Went for a 1/2h sweaty walk into town over broken pavements, rubbish and other undescribable things. The smell was refreshing too. Dinned in a local tandorii restuarant and had cauliflower (rantott?) and veggies. I hope it stays down and in!

Time for a quick blog

2011-01-13T12:54:00.002+01:00

Oops, We've not posted anything for a while!

This will change - I'm editing my journals from my recent india trip and will start posting them soon

Alcohol

2010-11-26T09:26:00.005+01:00

Since moving to our farm, Andy has been dabbeling in the black art of homebrew using a mixture of equipment and recipes. Our results so far

Pumpkin wine - Reasonable success, a tasty dry wine but required a lot of effort and generated a lot of mess. Storing for a year was a definite requirement
Rose-hip and hibiscus wine - Terrible! The teabags weren't strong enough and there was a dominant yeast taste from too much Marmite!
Ginger wine - Overall Good! A strong wine can be made cheaply from household ingredients and is comparable to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_wine. Have had one bad batch
Green walnut liquer - Nocino - Recipe from here. Dark and bitter and mellowing - Next year we will make as many liters of this as possible!
Cherry vodka - Cherrys, vodka sugar- sweet, simple and very yummy
Potato wine - This should have been terrible but atm is brewing and is very very nice!
Home-brew Bitter - This came from a kit from the UK and is AMAZING! A taste of England in Hungary
Home-brew Cider Kit - Not so good, too weak and not an amazing flavour - Homemade cider should be better :)

Proper farm one week later

2010-11-22T09:16:00.003+01:00

A week later, the excitement of having animals has slightly worn off and we are getting into a routine with feeding and egg hunting (No more tweets/facebooks posts about finding an egg)

Crunchy dog has calmed down a bit but whenever she sees the animals, she goes crazy. At the moment, the chickens are in a big barn and the pigs are out of sight.

We are are hoping that if we move the animals out of her sight and keep two fences between her and the animals, everyone should be happy. If that fails, we might have to find her a new home :(

Proper Farm

2010-11-14T18:32:00.004+01:00

Months of hard work has finally paid off with the arrival of Piggy and Pinky.
We with guest helper Swedish Erik meet Zolibacsi and eventually found a trailer and cage to move the piggies form Szatymaz (local viallage) to our farm. Their new accommodation has been constructed from wood from our own trees and under the masterful guidedance of Zoli turned into a a beautiful home for the two new piggies. Within two hours, it looked a mess!!!

When Zoli arrived (with Laci), he also had 11 chickens and a cockerel for us which we moved into an empty room(we've lots of these) so hopefully we should get some eggs this week!

The worrying thing is that the dogs seems a bit stressed about the new arrivals, hopefully they will calm down with our new additions

Mushrooms

2010-09-19T12:22:00.004+02:00

The weather this year has been awful. It feels like the neighbouring fields have been under water for all the year. At the moment, the rain is pouring and doesn't look like stopping for a while :(

Anyway, this current weather has been rather good for relocating our acacia sprouting bits which are too close to the new fence.

Also, We've have various mushrooms of sizes, colour and shape appearing in the garden and field The picture below shows some of the various forms - are any edible? I'm not going to take any chances but if you can identify any, it would be appreciated - It might be easy to browse the folder here

A whole blog post with a cheap mushroom pun, maybe i'm just a fungi or there wasn't mushroom for any humour!

I quit

2010-09-05T09:50:00.004+02:00

I, Andy, this week quit my job working in the physics department. The very undramatic moment is due to me getting another job within the University's chemistry department all of 500m away from the current office.

the New Job will be for 4 years( and more I hope) looking at me making carbon nanotubes.

The old work is cool with me going and have even asked me back to do some lecturing in English. We will have to see what materializes!

I'm also taking a month off between the two jobs, to do some computer work; do some hard work on the farm and to entertain some lovely guests.

Roll on November!

Brief Catch-up

2010-08-18T02:32:00.009+02:00

It was 2:30 am and Andy couldn't sleep so he thought he would drop a line or two about whats been going on in our world. So in no particular order and rather briefly

Farm works

We are currently having a fence built so that the dogs can run about freely outside with more space without the fear that they will escape. This has turned into a big job with an friend from church doing the work. Will post photos when complete

We are going to get piggies and Chickens!

We are also trying to keep the farm a bit (more) organised. September is the time when trees are pruned(I've an extendable tree trimmer from lidl which is awesome) and planned to plant some berry bushes(blackberry/raspberry) and new trees. We also need to service and get our irrigation system online.

Our Farm life has been revolutionized by the appearance of a sit-down lawnmower. This device dramatically changes Andy's life as he can now cut the majority of the grass on the farm in under 2 hours instead of the 3 weeks that the old method took. Please come and have a go!!!!

Doggies

They seem to be doing ok, they have more and more energy and daily chase each other round the garden at a seeming faster and faster pace. Crunchy had to have a major surgery to remove her uterus as it was infected due to a hormone imbalance and since then she has become a different dog! Before the op, she seemed lethargic and tired and now she is a slimmer Duracell bunny of a dog! She still could at for England though she would have to wait a few years to qualify for Hungary under residency rules ;)

New Term

University restarted at the beginning of Sept and the new academic year means more teaching for Samm and some more Hungarian lesson for me! Also, we restart ICF (International Christian fellowship) in Szeged for all students. This is an group of school and uni students and extras who meet together to journey together deeper into the Christian faith using English. We are first get together of the term last Friday and it was really lovely to see everyone and catch up with each other :)

Andy is also returing to rugby training after 9 months of resting. the pain will come!

Church

We are both getting involved in the local(ish - it in the local big city) Pentecostal church called Sion. Samm is helping run the girls group whilst Andy has become the church's worship leader/coordinator. Church is undergoing a change as the time we used to meet was no longer possible from the people we rented from, so we are now meeting for lunch before church and then doing the "church" bit afterward. It is hoped that the lunch will serve as a means by which we can help to build community with each other and also to invite others in as well.

Overall we are doing fine and are rather healthy. Andy has become more friendly with the Hungarian Hospital system and feels like he has spent the summer on antibiotics firstly because of a foot infection from an embedded piece of grass and also from stabbing his left hand with a sickle. He is all fine now!

Please come and visit - You will be welcome especially if you bring marmite, jellybabies and roobish tea

Samm and Andy

Monor Sunday Market

2010-03-15T13:45:00.004+01:00

This sunday morning started very early (3:50am) for Andy as travelled with Zsoli from church and a friend and a daughter from the local village

View Larger Map

The journey went well as I was asleep for a larger percentage of it and the sun rises about 5:15ish in the morning. We arrived around 7 and then proceed to set up our stall of three cages of pigeons, chickens and a couple of rabbits. (The first Picture in the slideshow). Walking round the market was quite bizarre as there were virtually every kind of bird on sale, I saw Quails (Zoli bought about 15), chicken, cockerels, more breds of pigeons than I thought existed, Geese, Parrots, finches, turkeys, peacocks. There were also puppies (V. cute) and goats!

We wandered round and refuelled on langos and the left the market about 1. Drove home whilst I slept, Jumped into bed and was asleep till 7. All in all a Nice Day trip

Goodbye Winter, hello maintance

2010-02-20T20:47:00.005+01:00

For the first few weeks of february, the farm has been coated in a layer of snow. But in the last week the temperature has rocked to 10C and the snow has vanished into the past leaving a farm in need of some love
The evapouration of the white carpet reveals holes under concrete and fences and lots of doggy poo! So, today we pressed onwards clearing up the farm. Today was spent clearin' out the rubbish from under the mulberry, I've dug out most of the metal left by the previous occupant(2 large trailer full) and added it to the garage of scrap metal. Also, we recycled a (literal) carload of glass bottles and other crap which was dug out of the ground. Just before the rain came, I managed to uproot a few massive trees from the Veg patch. Hoepfully, we can plant some peppers, tomatoes, squashes

Stryper

2010-01-24T21:27:00.012+01:00

A while back, Andy saw that Stryper were going on tour to celebrate 25 years! like an excited bunny, I frantically search to see if there was a European tour and after too many emails, i found out that they were going to play Prague our close city.
So, on Thursday the 20th, we (Andy had just assumed that Samm was coming and didn't actually ask her!) left work at 4:00 from Szeged and head to Budapest on the train. Here we spent the night, drank beer and hung out with matt brennar before we left the following morning at 9:30 to prague.

Skipping boring travel details and trying to get tickets, we arrrived, burgered up and then waited for the gig to start. On the way in we were asked if we had guns, knives or drugs! A first for a CHRIStian Band! Samm was dreading the size of the venue, with us being squeezed into an ocean of moshers but when we got inside, we discovered it was a quite small club and we squeezed into the the front row. There were about 5 rows of people and then the rest of the club
The Age demographic was Bizarre 8 - 70! I kid not!
Stryper were damm loud (my ears stopped ringing on sunday) damm good with the all the harmonies and guitars nailed. They also were also rather fit and non fat! They launched into the gig with 6 monster hits non-stop and they rocked hard with numerous rock posses. They did lob the bibles into the crowd!
We crashed at the czechinn hostel( most excellent and highly recommended) and then on saturday we meet Mark and Joanna for pancakage for breakfast and the start of a cool friendship
Tried to sleep on the 9.5 hour journey home, we eventually turned into bed at midnight!
A most excellent event

First Week back to work

2010-01-10T08:16:00.006+01:00

On the 4th of Jan, Samm and I started the struggle to get back into a work routine after a couple of weeks off on holiday.
The morning rituals starts at 6:30am with the alarm going off and then two Zombies stagger around in the dark, trying to feed the dogs and get out the door by 7:15ish so that Andy can get to work for 8ish and have a car parking space near the university. This routine is disrupted by snow, fog and general tiredness.

Today We go to the gym, church and come home and bottle ginger beer and rosehip and hibiscus wine

GingerBeer

2010-01-02T14:53:00.003+01:00

Just about to dive into the kitchen to start making our Home-brew of ginger-beer.
As there are thousands of recipes online all offering different advice, I'm starting with this recipe from http://www.selfsufficientish.com

Ginger-Beer

1/2 oz dried yeast
1/2 pint water
sugar
ground ginger
juice of 2 lemons

Put the yeast into a jar, add the water, 2 teaspoons sugar and 2 teaspoons ground ginger and mix well. Cover the jar with a lid or cling-film. Each day for 7 days add 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon ground ginger. Finally, strain the mixture, add the lemon juice to the liquid and reserve the sediment. The liquid is now ready to use. For future use, keep the sediment and divide equally between 2 jars. To each jar add 1/2 pint water, 2 teaspoons sugar and 2 teaspoons ginger and proceed the process all over again, as previously.

I think that after the first stage of fomenting, the ginger-beer could be transported into a demijohn and we might be able to make some ginger wine!

Cool Discoveries!

2009-12-30T13:09:00.007+01:00

We have made some interesting discoveries whilst living here in Hungary and in no particular order, here they are ...

The Mars hill podcast series on the beatitudes, this has been amazing!
Szalona - Hungarians live on pork! Even in the vegetarian meals! Szalona is a very fat bacon which sometimes has no meat in it but it is smoked! The traditional way of cooking Szalona is to use an open fire and cooking a large chunk on a stick over the flames. you drip the melting fat onto a piece of bread and eat! DIY pork dripping! Very nice, very tasty. very good with beer and very bad for you. Its is also a great bacon substitute when cooking the full English breakfast. Its rather good in cooking as you can cook every thing in the melted pig fat rather then adding oil!!

Adam and Joe! This is a bbc6 radio show which goes out on Saturday morning and the music is terrible play-listed junk! However, the best bits from the show (sans music) are compiled into a podcast and you have the ramblings of two 40 year old Englishmen which is extremely fun! Think 95% blue peter, 5% naughtiness!
Samm (Sammcheese) and Andy (Vancheese) regularly twitter about random stuff and please check out our feeds - they do get posted as well to Facebook and Andy's feed are conglomerated at http://vancheese.livejournal.com.
After much battling, it looks like we have a working sky box - we can't get the BBC/ITV/Channel 4 programs but we feel connected to the world!
Turo Rudi's! These are the best healthy chocolate option that ever existed, they are chocolate coated cottage cheese with some kind of jam in the middle, the are delicious :)
Turo Gomboc, these are cottage cheese balls, covered in naturaul yoghurt, bread cumbs and powdered sugar, YUMMY we get there at the local milk bar in Szeged, Boci a MUST try!
Mensa meals. These are fantastic depending on where you buy them. They are basically like school dinners but better. You get soup, a main meal and sometimes a pudding of some description all of roughly 600 forints! Excellent if you are going to be out late and won't have time to cook dinner in the evening these have been a life save for Andy and I at times. The only downside is that the veggies and fruit are a bit on the slim side.
Pickled Veg. We have now truly graduatated to the lifestyle of Hungary! We have to have our pickled oninons, cabbage and gerkins for lunch or it just doesn't qualify

Snow and gone!

2009-12-30T13:07:00.002+01:00

Whilst the UK suffered under millimetres of snow, We had about half a meter of snow appear whilst we were helping at a friend's CHRISTmas nativity event (right on the other side of Szeged to us on roads that are not gritted very often etc.) reaching out to the local children in his community and their families in his back garden in a gigantic tent with no heating!

Despite the Arctic conditions, the event was a hit with 50 people, singing songs in English and Hungarian followed by the best homemade donuts EVER washed down with mulled wine or tea. For once, the people of Hungary drove slowly (Hungarians are well renowed for their formula 1 style driving unfortunately without any of the skill) - the home journey took an hour instead of twenty minutes. Fortunatley that very morning we thought we'd better get our act together and put the winter tyres on, so we were really pleased we had when the snow started to chuck down. We ended the evening hanging out a friend's house whilst waiting for friends from America to arrive from Budapest which normally takes 2 1/2 hours by train it tool them 5 hours because of the bad weather.

Unfortunately, we did not have a “white” CHRISTmas as the weather went from being -11 to being plus 13 in a week so on CHRISTmas eve it was like spring! We had a really fun CHRISTmas, a friend Matt who teaches English in Budapest stayed with us and we had fun cooking food (goose and turkey) and spending time with other friends from all over the world. A bit shattered now though as started going to bed at 2/3 in the morning :)

Church stuff.

2009-12-30T13:05:00.005+01:00

Church move.

At the beginning of our move last year we started attending the church that I went to when I lived here, it was good to have a base. However, it just did not seem to sit right and we felt that it not the place that we are suppose to be so we started looking around for somewhere else that God might want us to be. We hopped around for a bit and have now begun settling in with a penetcostal group here in Szeged. We have connected with a few of the people there which is good to feel a connection somewhere and the encouragement from others and support to branch out and do stuff with them and also have them be involved with any future plans we have. Andy has already been asked to share something as part of a talk at the end of January. I got involved with the Children's work and the girl's group which I have really been enjoying. As with everywhere you go, nothing is perfect but this where we feel we should be for the time being. This move has helped in making us feel more settled and at home spiritually.

ICF is an International Chrisitan Fellowship mainly made up of students from high school through to the medical University to teachers here at the Szeged University. It is a motley crew of fun people coming togehter to eat and share life together. The group has been around in Szeged for a couple of years but some of the “founding” members have moved on to do other exciting stuff elsewhere in Hungary or abroad, so there is still a core who know each other pretty well with new people enriching the group. We changed venue to meeting at Erik and Sara's flat which has really helped to facilitate more of an intimate and friendship building environment with people meeting up outside of ICF and I know that I have grown in my frienships with people might not have otherwise done. So as we go into a new academic term we are really very excited about continuing on getting to know each other better and Jesus, we hope to draw in more new people and reach those who would not otherwise have the space to know Jesus in a new and creative way.

Hospitality
Andy and I love having people over, playing games, staying just generally looking after people we love it. We have already had a few people stay with us on our farm and is has given us a real glimpse (a taster) of what we would love to see happen with the farm. We both lived in a community house whilst in Bristol and even though it had its highs and lows. Since we have left we have both said how much we miss the sharing in lives of other people. So, as space permits and money we will continue to have people come and stay with us. Ultimately, when we have the possibility to invest into and renovate the farm we would like to have people live with us.

Joint Youth Unity Meetings.
Recently over the last two months or so there has been a movement amongst the youth leaders of various churches here in Szeged to meet together to plan to do a monthy or bi-monthly joint youth event. It came out of the realisation that we know very little of what each other is doing and that if there was more communication and sharing hopefully there would be ways to work together. We have had one joint youth event so far with many more (I hope) in the future. Andy and I are hosting a get-to-know-each-other-fun-evening at our farm (this links in with the above vision) with the hope of people chilling and enjoying each others company and friendship. So watch this space and see what comes of it.

Farm Life.

2009-12-30T13:04:00.003+01:00

Farm wise, this has been a mixed year for us. Animal wise, We lost a piggy(escaped through the fence) and one of the sheep was getting weaker and weaker and recently(December) the poor thing just died. A very sad day :( .The poor sheep was cremated Darth Vader style ably assisted by petrol. We also lost our cat who walked into the dog compound. We are looking to expand our animals next spring with Chickens, rabbits, pigs and a barn cat. So hopefully, this time next year we should have lots of fresh meat and eggs and maybe some smoked hams in the pantry. The one thing which Hungary lacks is decent affordable cheese and Andy has been recently taken with the idea of making cheese. We are NOT getting cows to milk but we might try to make some nice cheese in exile!

The farm itself is quite amazing, we've found fruit trees (apples, Cherry, pear, apricots , mulberry) all growing organically without much help. However, the farm hasn't been well maintained for the last few years, and we are slowly putting things back together. this seems a long and daunting challenge but I am thinking we are slowly getting there. The Vegetable patch has a few trees growing in! We are hoping to plant pumpkins, peppers, butternut squash, sweet potatoes. We also are hoping to get some raspberries/blackberries established in the orchard as well as a few more trees.

For some reason, one corner of the garden is literally filled with rubbish. Andy has removed over 200 glass bottles from this area and there is still more! We have filled a garage with scrap metal excavated and we are only touching the surface! The interior and exterior fences are also not in good shape, so Andy with his cool American friend Matt, have been slowly lining the existing fence with pig wire and it seems to be holding well. The fence situation is always improved by old trees blowing over in the wind and taking out large sections! The stihl chainsaw has been used extensively and we have a nice pile of wood for heating the house and the kitchen. We hope to get a new external fence in the spring and then plant thorns close to the fence so eventually we will have a thorny hedgerow which should keep our dogs in and other animals out. Talking of other animals, we regularly have deer walk past our garden, these are beautiful animals which are so graceful and delicate. Andy will in the next year, hopefully join the local hunting club and then we can have fresh Bambi!

Out kitchen is unfortunately falling apart as the building is made from mud bricks, covered with mud and straw. This traditional method of building is rather easy for mice to burrow into and the building is just crumbling away. This is forcing our hand to act soon as we might not have a safe kitchen in 2011! There is a 220kg wood burning aga lovingly moved from the UK which we use when it is cold to heat the kitchen and for cooking. We will attempt to cook our CHRISTmas goose in there too. Agas are wonderful things except they use a lot of fuel, which isn't problematic when you can grow your own. On the wall in the kitchen, is a beautiful orange stain from making pumpkin wine! We didn't have enough grapes to make proper wine so we bought a large cheap pumpkin and using an Internet recipe are attempting to make pumpkin wine!

These setbacks are bit demoralising and Andy has found these problems wearing, it does seem that we are just fixing but not moving forward. We are hoping that next year we will see some fruits from our labours

1 year of dogs!

2009-12-30T13:02:00.009+01:00

Carmen and Kincso(German Shepherd and Beagle) are coming up to being 1 year old in January. They are doing well and full of energy and life.

Carmen is no longer a bundle of fluff but a small dog who runs so gracefully in our field. She can be a bit of a bully with the other dogs but she is definitely the leader and majestic one.

Kincso (Treasure) is the trouble-maker, She is allways looking to escape and whenever she is left in a room, she bayes very loudly whilst bouncing up and down. It is some sight to see a beagle appear through a window at regular intervals. Everytime we let the dogs out to play, Kincso runs to the fence and checks every (yes, every) fence panel for weakness in an attempt to escape. Andy has chased down the drive after her shouting “BELLY” in various stages of dress to stop her from getting to the road and when she hears the “BELLY” command, she obediently stop and flops over offering her belly to be rubbed in a truly cute way.

The baby of the doggy family is 6 month old Crunchie, who is a 31.5 kg horse of a Rottweiler. She is very beautiful but she thinks 100% with her belly! Watch your fingers if you offer her a treat! On the farm, she is very quiet and hardly speaks, but if there is another animal about, she rumbles like thunder and barks! This is extremely terrifying. She recently made her first trip to the vet for a poorly eye and was angelic until she detected another animal! Fun ahead as when she sits, she sits and doesn't move!

Samm has done wonders with the dogs and has been taking Carmen to dog school for training, She is quite remarkable with them and has even trained the beagle to sit for her food! An achievement!

Andy's 30th Birthday

2009-12-30T12:58:00.005+01:00

We threw a big party for Andy's 30th birthday on the farm and cooked a large bogrács (cauldron) of food for our friends who came! For the weekend, we were joined by Chris and Alex Jarred, my good old school friend. We celebrated the death of youth and the onset of old age and suitable grumpiness. Below are some photographs of Chris and I relishing our old age together :)

The weather was great and not too hot, less then 30C! People were very extremely generous with birthday presents and my wife came up top-trumps with a inflatable hot tube!!! Some of my work collegues came along and thanks to Csaba the camp fire kept us warm as we laughed, chatted and ate marshmallows. However, even though I was the Birthday boy another little guy stole the show somewhat!

Jobs

2009-12-30T12:45:00.005+01:00

I (Samm) moved jobs from Budapest (where I was working for an NGO for 5/6 months) to Szeged in June and started teaching at the Law School in the Comparative Law Institute. They have an “American Legal Expert's Training” and I get to teach undergraduate law (tort, property, drafting, case law analysis etc) to undergraduate and postgraduate students.

It has been fun but challenging in some ways in that I have to teach in blocks, so 5-6 hours in one go which is a bit weird for me as I am used to seminars being 45 or the longest 90 minutes. This has meant that I have had to really think about what info and how to structure the seminar etc. The other big difference is that the students are not at all used (or so it seems) to an interactive format! This meant that at the beginning of the term they were very quiet, just writing things down and only talking if they were asked a direct question as the term has progressed they have got better at it but I do feel as if though they are very much outside of their comfort zone. I now appreciate how frustrating and demoralizing it must have been sometimes for my own tutors in our tutorials when it was obvious no one had done the reading or very little, its such a waste of everyone's time!

Anyhow, I look forward to the next term I am also learning on the job how to teach better and how to convey complicated terms and ideas. I hope that I will continue to develop good relationships with the students. I have a possibility of teaching something that I am (more) interested in next year so that would be very exciting, just have to think about what I would like to focus on.

I have also had the fantastic and fun opportunity to do some human rights writing (and got published!) in the form of a booklet which is a user-friendly guide to a declaration. I have also being working on a guidebook around issues such as access, advocacy, adolescents etc and how to engage and make “rights” meaningful to them. So that has been fun, don't know where it will lead but have been learning lots.

Apart from the teaching I am also undertaking a PhD. I have felt very daunted by this prospect and the first three months I feel like I have not had enough head space to even think about it as I was learning the subjects that I was teaching and getting to grips with that! However, towards the end of November I got some time to think and write down some thoughts so I am starting to feel a little better about the situation now. I have a few article and conference paper deadlines on the horizon which will mean that I will have to start getting somethings down on paper. The other big problem is the library facilities here, not many of the legal text books are in English let alone touch on/cover the areas that I am interested in and the online journals are not really subscribed to unless they are in German etc. So, I have come up against somewhat of a brick wall in that respect. So come January I think that I will be trawling around the library somemore to see what is on offer.

Regional TV.
I had 5 minutes of fame on the local television here in Szeged! The report was about Szeged University and the different programmes on offer. I turned up as usual to the department to be told that I was going to be interviewed (they had mentioned something the day before but I wasn't sure if they were really going to interview me) in Hungarian, in about 5 minutes! The reason being was that they wanted to talk to the different “lektor's” (this means the foreign speaking teachers) and get their perspective, what do they teach, the pro's and con's of the legal systems etc. riveting stuff , eh?

Andy Continues as usual.
Andy has had his contract renewed for another 6 months (until June), we will have to wait and see what happens about that. We do feel at peace about the whole situation and are just excited to see what happens for him next here in Szeged.

Update

2009-12-30T12:36:00.002+01:00

This year is drawing to an end and the blog has remained rather empty and naked for too long so with the benefit of hindsight and the promise to do better next year, here are some of the events of the year which should have been blogged but weren't.

Pumpkin wine III - The transfer

2009-11-05T23:00:00.000+01:00

The Wine is transfered from the bucket to the airlock demijohns - The Wine tastes STRONG!

New Photos

2009-11-04T14:34:00.000+01:00

Check out the last shopping photos here

Pumpkin Wine II - the Activation

2009-11-02T20:25:00.002+01:00

Have now added Yeast to the pumpkin mixture. The Bucket of yellow-orange liquid has been relocated to the warmest room in the house. We are waiting for the yeast to do its magic- I'm too excited, I can't wait.

Pumpkin Wine I - the Prep

2009-11-01T17:26:00.002+01:00

Today I start my adventures in Wine brewing - Pumpkin Wine. I'm roughly following this recipe but with minor modifications and it should produce ~ 18 L of wine!

Prep:

I've 3kilos of Pumpkin so I've scaled the recipe accordingly and I'm boiling the pumpkin till its soft,mashing then adding the sugar moving to the fermentation bucket adding pectine and leaving overnight

Hope it goes well

Tree Felling

2009-07-28T09:46:00.000+02:00

Tree Cutting Szeged style

Maintenance II

2009-07-24T10:57:00.003+02:00

The trees are down - Will post video and link to Laci's blog. He is the master tree feller and fellow. With a swish of the chainsaw, three trees fell with minimal damage(15 titles, no fence damage and we are all in 1 piece). The chainsaw stopped oiling the blade(common fault :( ) so we had to stop. Lunch was a nice steak and kidney stew accompanied with cold beer in the fridge whilst immersed in a pool!

However, we look to have a bit of storm damage in recent weeks to the dry stores and the animal houses so we need to get our plans in gear for redevelopment.

Satellite Tv is coming on the 24th August!

Maintenance Mode

2009-07-20T12:38:00.007+02:00

The appearance of a stray dog in our garden has been a wake-up call for us to do some hardcore maintenance on the farm.The work has started with repairing the inner fence partition and install fly-screen windows. The inner fence has been secured by chickenwire tied to the remainder of the wooden fence. The hard work was mildly frustrating as the stray dog is still around (i think) but who cares when my birthday hammock works!

Still to go:

Getting a metal gate to the pigsty and then get a piggywiggy
Getting the aga flue to the chimney Brest cemented in before winter, The aga should heat the kitchen and we should be able to cook on/in too.
Tree felling with Laci (Forest ranger to the stars) - We've 3 dead big tree which could take out the kitchen and/or a new fence. Chainsaw-tastic
Outer perimeter fence installation- The puppies are growing fast and need more space
Orchard tree trimming/planting - Time to remove the dead branches and shape the trees for better fruit in the new years
Setup up the veggie patch- we need to relocate some trees, fix the fence to keep dogs out and plant suitable winter veg
Weeding - We've a batch of nasty weeds which are full of a glue like substance. Hopefully piggywiggy will eat them all
Fix the potato store!

So we've a quiet summer/autumn lined up!

Today

2009-07-06T21:12:00.002+02:00

Today has been a hard day...returned home to find piggywiggy has escaped (after one day) and after 1 hour search, there was no sign of her! She has gone....
Then after tea, it took about 30mins to herd the sheep into the pen.
The evening's entertainment was trying to clean the rayburn so that we can put it all back together, I stopped when I smashed the dustpan and brush!

Today has been too frustrating, sad, long and tiring on all planes. I just want to give up!

Andy

Bloggers Block

2009-06-28T18:02:00.003+02:00

I think I've been suffering bloggers block. I'm not constipated or suffering from a terrible internet disease but I am just being uninspired to write at the moment. You know, 95% of the internet is full of people moaning or writing boring stuff (I don't know anyone who twitts about his daily food intake) and I guess I don't want to add to the noise on the internet. Well instead of wiating for a masterpiece to fall from the sky, I'm branching out and attempt to break through this period of dull creativity so please be warned, writings/playing/thoughts maybe awful but hopefull there will be diamonds amongst the coal!

And to start with I'm enjoying looking at my grape vines slowly ripinening. This autumn we will be attempt a grape homebrew wine

Andy

p.s do people actually read/care/comment/enjoy the blogging?

Famous Andy!

2009-03-17T14:43:00.001+01:00

I'm famous! http://tinyurl.com/cggn7x or the google english translations is here http://tinyurl.com/cca3hk

What ever next

2009-02-12T09:17:00.001+01:00

At your school?

New Car

2009-01-08T13:47:00.004+01:00

Here is the new cheesemobile. Its lean, green and clean!

SKYPE

2009-01-06T17:52:00.002+01:00

It would be a great thing to talk to you lovely readers and catch up with all that going in your world. So, Drop us an email with your SKYPE (or other VOIP name/number), check out our calendar for a space and We'll pencil in an time slot. This could work or it could be a disaster.

Please don't post personal information here

New Jobs for the New Year

2008-12-28T17:59:00.002+01:00

Believe it or not, we have both been offered new jobs which start in the new year.

Andy:
I'll be working as a physic post-doc in the university of Szeged working on the development of equipment to monitor the quality of Silicon wafers. Check out the employers at http://www.semilab.com/

Samm:
From January I am going to be working as a policy and advocacy officer with MDAC, a NGO based in Budapest. I am really psyched about this possibility check the website out at http://www.mdac.info/.
I will also be teaching a couple of compressed courses on trial advocacy (in March) at the faculty of law here in Szeged which should be fun :) YAH!!!!

All this is quite amazing/answer to prayers as we couldn't find anything in the UK but within 3 months of being in Hungary, we've both been headhunted for cracking Jobs!!!!

CHRISTmas 2008

2008-12-26T18:57:00.001+01:00

Our First CHRISTmas in Hungary was a WHITE one

Check out the piccies

if programming languages were religion s

2008-12-17T20:52:00.001+01:00

http://www.aegisub.net/2008/12/if-programming-languages-were-religions.html

CHRISTmas Markets

2008-12-05T14:47:00.008+01:00

Blogging has taken a nose dive recently due to the lack of time to sit in front of a computer and not be working and/or tired.
For Samm and myself, the last couple of weeks have been intense. We have been regularly getting up early (5:30->6:30) to catch buses into Szeged, or trains to budapest and then been getting back home late at night 8pm. Unfortunately, our days are a bit bitty, with a class or two here, a couple of hours wait, then other class. Hopefully this should all change soon.

Well CHRISTmas is coming, We know this because the weather is getting cold,( we had the first Snow of the year in November), the days are getting shorter and darker and the CHRISTmas Markets have arrived in the city centre.

On Friday the 29th November, We were killing time between lessons at one of these markets when we heard an noise! Surrounded by Medieval jesters, musicians, fire breathers and jugglers some on stilts, they were there to open the festival season by carrying a afire from one end of the city centre to the other by roping in volunteers. Despite protests that i didn't speak Hungarian, I was duped into to doing this and the fire is very very very heavy!!! Also, all the performers spoke amazing English... Very embarrassing!
There was a troll to be killed at the end of the walk and it was all much fun and games! We also ended up chatting to the bagpipe player who works at a children theatre in debresen. All in all an excellent evening of fun. Photos are here!

just a couple of random things from Hungary

2008-10-29T20:56:00.006+01:00

Today was a momentous day, I survived my first rugby training session with the Szeged rugby team! Lots of forwards work tonight with rucking and maul forming... I am sure that I will ache tomorrow but all good fun
Also, I had my fifth Hungarian lesson. My reward for doing so well, it to receive more work!!!
Hungarian is quite different from Latin based languages with suffixes doing most of the work in the language. The best analogy I could think of is that of tagging mp3 with possession, tense, plural status and much more being bolted together to form monster words!!!
I've also lost 10kg in weight in 6 weeks!!!

I wish to propose my first of many photos of hunglish, part Hungarian, part English (angol) all bad!
Enjoy!

Hungarian Bank holidays

2008-10-14T20:08:00.002+02:00

Thursday the 23rd of October is a bank holiday remembering the Hungarian revolution.
So the next Friday is an "unoffical" holiday to make the weekend 4 days long. However, this day has to be made up, so this Saturday I will be working(!!!!!) the day which would be the 24th!
Confused, you should be!

Half way there

2008-10-03T23:18:00.001+02:00

We've (Chris O'Shea and Andy) made it to Hungary in a large
The journey in 2 days a nutshell

1300 miles
13h / 10h on the road
no accidents
3.5 hours spent in traffic jams
Too many cans of coke and too much junk food

Now the return leg!

Wednesday's Nose

2008-09-10T11:37:00.004+02:00

... is sore and swollen

New Nose!

2008-09-09T11:57:00.010+02:00

Yesterday was interesting on numerous levels. After a night of non-sleep, Samm and I staggered to st.michael's hospital for 7:30am for my operation.
The Drs popped round at about 8am and then we waited till 2:45 for the operation ...boring, thank goodness for the laptop and Battlestar galactica!

Got down to the operating room, had a needle shoved in my hand and walked into theatre. Laid down on a bed which felt like a glorified dentist chair, had an injection in my hand and breathed in some oxygen and woke up later on from dreaming lots about battlestar glactica.

Back on the ward, I munched on beef and mushroom stew(first food for 15 hours...mmm) and then we waited another 4 hours to make sure I was ok. We return at 8:45pm all done and dusted and resting with 2 weeks off work

Before

After

Worse moment was finding out that I was 18 stone!!! 115kg ouch
Best moment not being in EXTREME pain.

This is me today after a good nights sleep

Rhino Pastry

2008-09-07T16:09:00.002+02:00

This last week has had its ups and downs but I think mainly up.

On Thursday, I received a call from the NHS saying that the operation for straightening the cartilage in my nose (approx date Feb 2009) would be able to occur in October (Just as we move). I called back on Friday and said

"Sorry, Can't make it due to new job, any cancellations for next week?"

They said

"Yes, can you do Monday?"

So at 7:30 am, on Monday, I'll be sitting in St Michael's Hospital in the ENT ward waiting for my 3o min operation .... Photos to follow

Skype fun!

2008-09-03T12:21:00.001+02:00

Enrich Skype-Text

No longer in a world ...

2008-09-03T11:17:00.000+02:00

A sad day for film goers

My Testimonial

2008-09-02T08:41:00.004+02:00

The 1st of September was day of destiny when Woodlands rangers gave me a testimonial game of football to celebrate my years off service before we head of to Hungary.
My mighty team of Cheese consisted of

Joel M
Joey Mitch Fluffy Jim Burns Tim Addy
Arnuad Drew Me Dave Jeal
Dave Corp Danny Arbon

Official Match commentator(s) : The Hall Tribe

We lost 4-2 but the game was so much fun... check out the pictures and the video and then we piled upstairs into the bar, ate pizza and chilled... A most excellent event and time. I will treasure the support and friendship shown that day for a long long time... and it looks like it could be my last game of footy in the uk ...(cue Next post)

Greenbelt thoughts

2008-08-28T08:41:00.015+02:00

Over the last weekend (22nd -26th August), We were camping at the greenbelt festival in Cheltenham race course. All in all, we came away refreshed, relaxed and revived.

Highlights for us were:

Seeing Iain Archer and getting his new album signed by the Northern Ireland finger-picking guitar guru. The new album is great and is getting rapidly listened too
Listening to the Ian McMillan Orchestra : the most amazing mix of poetry, folk music, bizarre instruments and northern dialect
Discovering that I like poetry (Andy)
Overall the music wasn't too great, Seth Lakeman, MxPx , Beth Rowley and Fightstar were the mainstage exceptions. MxPx show improved as they progressed through their set list, with the bass solo(!) in a swing punk number being highly impressive. However, this is topped by the change of the bass guitars! Whenever Mr Herrera felt the need to change between his yellow and red Stingray bass, a roadie would appear from nowhere and with a fluid rotation, he was back in the game playing the new low-end instrument. However, disaster was lurking when the bass player was located on the left of the stage with a newly tuned bass axe waiting 10m away! Instead of running across with said axe, both roadie and Mr bass player lobbed their resplendent instruments at each other simultaneously. Both flew pass each other with no twisting and Mr Herrera caught his bass with the trademark twist of the body and was playing again within a blink of eye to the amazement of Mr Jeanneret and myself.
The Mcs on the main stage were shockingly bad, like cringey youth group leaders but worse! Their crowning moment of glory was getting the crowded to chant the star part of Fightstar's name to build up the excitement ... It went like this

Mcs: I say Fight, you[crowd] say star, ok?
Mcs: Fight
Crowd: Busted!

Continuing the Northern Ireland theme was the most Mr(Sure a Dr as he has a Ph.d) Peter rollins from the ikon community/crowd/ring doughnut ... there was lots to unpack from this session and the nice man waited patiently to talk to the streams of people(including us) after his session. Lots of amazing ideas, which are still resonating, there will be more from here later and may even a reflective post!

For the next couple of weeks we will be reading the books by interesting people there (and the manga bible!) and Dog training!

New Job

2008-08-19T13:28:00.003+02:00

I've (Andy) been offered the position of ovóbacsi! Yah!
Ovóbacsi is a kindergarten teacher and I will be working in October as a part-time English speaking preschool teacher.
This is excellent as it pays; enables me to have intensive 1-2-1 Hungarian lesson; do other stuff like privately teach chemistry/maths/physics to uni students and work on the farm/Coding etc

Much bouncing commences!

2 weeks back, 47 days to go

2008-08-15T08:17:00.006+02:00

Well, lots has happened since the last blog post but unfortunately its not been of the dynamic exciting nature.

We, I think have come back down to earth with bit of bump the harsh reality of what we are really undertaking to do is upon us! That is slightly daunting as neither of us is particularly organised.

We know we are meant to be going so there is no question in that it is just the "getting there" bit which is the next mountain that we have to climb but as with most mountains once you've climbed to the top, there is (usually) an amazing and breathtaking view awaiting you but also a HUGE sense of achievement at the other end. So, come on amazing view I say :)!!!!

Have been procrastinating a little bit today and went out and bought some beads to make a bracelet of some sorts I just had an unbelievable desire to be creative. So, if you see me around sporting an unique bracelet be sure to compliment!!!!
Am VERY excited about going back to Hungary and the new life and all of the things that await us there:) Its a BRILLIANT feeling :)

Also we are heading off to greenbelt next weekend to see what it is likely, Hopefully we will catch Iain Archer (6pm friday at and the main gig is half three sat (in centaur) ) amongst others whilst not drowning

Rocking Monk!

2008-07-23T09:38:00.000+02:00

Check out this monk!

Hungarian barn dance

2008-07-21T08:03:00.016+02:00

Well, the weekend is over and we survived!
Saturday:

There was an early start at 9:30 and most of the morning was spent preparing food for about 80 people and getting the farm(not ours but the mother-in-law's) ready for the forthcoming invasion and building the fires for the babgoulash(sounds like Bob-goulash).
The British contingent of the Motley crüe consisted of Samm, Ben, Andy and Magnus(left to right)

Events started at 2pm and there was a slow but steady flux of people arriving and chilling out on the farm. The weather was a mild 24ish Degrees Celsius. The first round of dances were a bit painful with unique interpretations but as people got the hang of the movements, the quality rocked through the roof ... We roped in Agi a friend of Samm's Mum and she was an awesome Hungarian caller!

Once most of the people had returned home, the remnant gathered round a bonfire and watched a virtually full moon rise into the crystal-clear night sky whilst slurping ice-cold beer. Timeless.

Sunday

After awakening later in the morning, this day was spent in Szeged, showing Ben round the local area. The temperature was 32+ so we were all tired and hot. The first stop on the trip was to acacapella café which serves the best ice cream ever, 100s of variations from cherry/marzipan to honey/poppyseed via all flavours/colours. Armed with a three-scoop cones, we walked around downtown Szeged and then headed over the bridge to chill in the large but midly crowded open-air swiming pool(top middle). The day was finished off with a nice meal in the local fish restaurant with large plates of fried and grilled fish/meat munched by all. Magnus also mastered the fish soup, Szeged-style. Cocktails featured as the last drink of the night at the local pirate bar en route home!

Compost Heap

2008-07-17T08:26:00.004+02:00

With all the cleaning of vegetation which is forthcoming, I need to think about the location of a new compost heap.
There are two promising locations here or here. Both are free standing structures with roofs which are away from the sight and smell of the main house.

Does anyone have any suggestions and composting tips?

Busy Week on the farm ahead

2008-07-15T19:55:00.009+02:00

We've have the first look out our farm in the summer of 2008 and there is lots of work to be done.
Getting into the farm proved slightly more tricky then expected as a large fern tree has decided to grow over the gate and will need to be tided back. Between the front door to the main house and the summer kitchen the sweet flowerbeds of gardens has evolved into a jungle of 2m tall bamboo and large weeds. Outside the main garden area, the grass has grown long and unmanageable... It will take about a week mowing to get this down to a manageable level, which reminds me of my need for a lawnmower or sheep! The sheep option is tempting for maintaining the back mini-field between the summer kitchen and the back field

The Garden patch with built-in plastic domes, is just as wild as the rest of the garden
However, the Well is looking in working order except for the need for a new bucket.

However, all is not doom and gloom as we found the motorbike left to us by a previous owner and discovered the smoker (featuring Magnus and Kimbo), so we can smoke any meat and/or fish which we may have. I look forward to the first generation of Cheesman self-smoked bacon. The motorbike may take serious work to get it roadworthy and may just be destined for the scrap heap

First Post

2008-07-15T19:42:00.000+02:00

ummm, First post!!!!

Well this blog will tell all about our exciting Adventure relocating to Hungary and why/how/where things are going and much more

So here's to blogging and Magyar