Day 54 Thursday 14 July 2016

We were woken by the sound of lightening splitting the air & the crashing of thunder, followed by heavy rain, the washing was on the verandah drying so Tereza jumped out of bed & got that in before they got wet. We lay listening to the storm for ages before dropping back off to sleep, only to be wide awake again at 5am. The rain is a welcome relief from the heat of yesterday. We doze off again.

This morning Antal drives us to his small farm just out of Kikinda, it has a variety of fruit trees, cherry, pear, apricot, apple, plum & nectarine plus grapes for making wine. There is a small weekender house on the block, a large single room with a huge bread oven made from mud brick, this oven serves to bake bread, pizzas, roast etc. also heats up the place (something we do not need in this weather) & a large cellar under. We start by picking the fruit that is ripe & that the storm last night didn’t knock off, there are a few broken branches. Tereza & Katica pick plums, peach & nectarine & I prune & tidy up the broken & dead branches before going out the back & helping Antal prune the rows of grapes. It usually takes him all day but we finish it all by 11am & that’s only because Katica & Tereza helped, they did the last row. On the way back home we drop Katica off at the hospital for some therapy on her arm. Poor thing sat there waiting for ages because the hospital didn’t have any electricity, after a while they sent them all home because even if the power comes back it will be someone else’s turn. When we complain about our health system, before we whinge we should see what is going on in some of the communist & ex-communist countries – they are so poor. At present the priority seems to be to send all taxes etc. to Beograd.

Tereza & I head out for a walk around the town to explore & find out any changes over the past 5 years. One of the things we notice is the number of ice cream parlours (costs only about $1 for a big scoop) cafes & bars that are now open with outside seating & umbrellas, the atmosphere is certainly a lot better (we wonder how come they have patrons in these places when they are so poor). There are also a lot of new banks, we have no idea where the money is coming from to support this number of banks, the town seems desperately poor. Back home to Katica’s & another great lunch. More chatting after lunch & then more welcome rain, today is around 22C. This afternoon Ron & Antal enjoy another great Chinese movie in Hungarian. Ron gets his kick out of hearing the Chinese speak Hungarian. Late afternoon we go for a bit of a walk around town & to the Post Office before walking to Evike’s house again for another chook check & picking ripe tomatoes. Back home we have a shot of home-made cherry brandy each then another nice dinner. Early to bed for all of us we are all tired. Another great day.