Trekkin

Day 60 Wednesday 20 July 2016

Church bells at 7am again for a gentle awakening then another great breakfast of fresh bread, Hungarian sausage, smoked pork, fresh tomatoes, capsicum & cucumber, I declined the hot chilli pepper. Katica went walking to the hospital again for more treatment & Tereza helped Antal prepare lunch. Cousin Evike with husband Radovan & their 2 sons (they have grown so much since last time) called around, they had just got back from a 2 week holiday in Greece & were all nicely tanned & refreshed. It was so great to see them all again & we spent a lot of time chatting as we went through their Greek holiday photos.

Lunch was sumptuous with delicious lecso (one of my favourite Hungarian food) & pork with lots of talking & laughter with all 8 of us squeezed around the small table. Desert was another of my Hungarian favourite, floating islands. I ate so much I could hardly move & they kept on wanting me to eat more, typical Hungarian hospitality. We spent all afternoon chatting with Evike before we walked back to her house late in the afternoon.

At Evike’s house Radovan had collected all the quail eggs & was busy preparing pancakes for us for an afternoon snack using 20 quail eggs. The kids were excited to show us some puzzles they had completed at home after they left us & to show us the cutest Siberian Husky puppy they had. Lots more talking & I helped out on the computer for them to show how to set some things up on Youtube. A little bit of a challenge with my language limitations, the kids are amazing, they speak Hungarian, Serbian also learning German & English, a lot better than me with my limited Hungarian. The eldest son, Mate is also teaching himself Russian, using English as the base language & already knows 100 words of Russian. He has an amazing ear for music, he hears a tune & he can play it, he is going to the music school (where his grandmother, Katica used to teach violin & his mum is teaching piano) where he is learning to play classical guitar & now he wants to finish a 4 year course learning clarinet in 2 years. He is very friendly, a real chatter box. Younger son, Victor is also learning classical guitar & flute, he is also very interested in computers.

We sat outside on the verandah chatting & eating pancakes when we were very rudely interrupted by a very loud aeroplane which flew very low overhead & then it returned several times spraying insecticide. They think they have a problem with mosquitoes in Kikinda. We grabbed our food & raced inside from the stinking pesticide.

All too soon it was time to go & after our sad goodbyes we walk back to Katica’s apartment around 8pm & had a light supper (not because we were hungry).

The last 2 days Ron has been busy working out on the computer a format to put grandfather’s side of the family tree into some sort of semblance of order, he is so patient, no wonder I love him.

Katica & I finished our grandmother’s side of our family tree with a lot of gaps but we reminisced a lot about our childhood together & a lot of the relatives. Tonight was our last night here & we wondered if we would ever meet again, it is sad that we are so far from each other. As nice as it all has been, it is time to go, we are really missing our family at home.

Another great day.

Day 59 Tuesday 19 July 2016

Another lazy 7.30am start, no church bells this morning, or maybe the wind was blowing the other direction. Or we got so used to them that we tune out. Antal was off early to spray the grapes & fruit trees out at the little farm & Katica was off again to the hospital. Tereza cooked lunch today, a delicious cottage cheese & filo pastry slice. While they were away & Tereza cooking I took the opportunity to walk around town to hunt down free internet again & check emails, etc. I was lucky I got James on the phone & had a good chat & also organised our arrival at home on Sunday. Lunch was delicious & after lunch Tereza & I walked around town, tried again for free internet then collected some more fresh water from the town faucet. After all that it was siesta time again until the afternoon walk to Evike’s house & chook check. A light supper then Tereza & Katica made for tomorrow’s desert Floating Island as we will celebrate Evike & her family’s return from their holidays & also our last day in Kikinda as Thursday morning we will travel to Budapest. Katica & Tereza started talking about family history again until late. We got ourselves in such a tangle with names births & deaths etc. that we don’t even know anymore what our names are or even who our families are, (we do laugh a lot) we might do a bit more tomorrow as it will be our last opportunity. Another great lazy day.

Day 58 Monday 18 July 2016

A lazy 7.30am start & after another nice breakfast Katica is off for a walk to the hospital for an 8.30am appointment for more therapy on her arm. I collect a couple of large 6 litre plastic bottles & went for a walk to get some fresh drinking water from the community fresh water faucets. The reticulated water from the taps is artesian bore water & looks, smells & tastes bad, although it is safe to drink we have been assured. Having a shower & cleaning teeth is an interesting experience. The fresh water faucets provide filtered & clean non-smelling drinking water & I have noticed a couple of these outlets around the city centre where most of the population is in multi-story buildings, built in the communist era. There is a steady procession of people carrying large plastic bottles to & from the faucets. There are 5 outlets at the water faucets & it is only a steady trickle that drops into the bottles, the more people using, the slower the water drips. I get the 5^th faucet, the less productive one & stand for ages, it takes around 20 minutes to fill 6 litres. The 2^nd bottle takes slightly less as by the time it gets around ¾ full I am the only one left & the water trickles out a lot faster. People are collecting water all day & well into the night, mostly on bicycles & others walking. I don’t notice anyone pulling up in a car, not that there are too many places to park close by. It really gives me a better appreciation of the fresh clean water out of the taps in Canberra.

The fresh water needs done, we go for a walk around the shops & try for some free WiFi again to try & catch up on emails, bills, Facebook, etc & manage to find a spot with reasonable reception from Serb Telecom that gives 15 minutes free. After the phone runs out of time I use the tablet until it too runs out of time. We do also manage to use Viber & WhatsApp to talk to cousin Bela for a little to arrange our Budapest arrival on Thursday. Then an ice-cream treat, for a change.

Lunch is a delicious feast of bean soup with paprika, garlic chicken breast, cucumber salad & fresh bread from Itabej, interesting that the baker in Itabej sells bread in Kikinda. Siesta time again after such a big lunch, I am getting used to this. A longer walk to Evike’s house this afternoon for the chook check, this time through a large park full of mature trees & people running around a jogging track & kids playing. Another ice-cream along the way, this time 70 Dinar for a double scoop, around 50 cents Australian.

Tereza & Katica spend all night (not all night only half of the night) talking about family & writing notes about family trees & end up exhausted around 11.30pm. Another great day.

Day 57 Sunday 17 July 2016

We didn’t hear the church bells this morning at 7am, maybe they don’t ring that early on a Sunday. We were woken at 8am by Katica as we wanted to go to the Catholic Church to hear Antal sing in the church choir. I checked the car tire this morning & it is flat, so will deal with it after church. The Catholic Church in Kikinda is beautiful inside with the quality of painting to rival most churches we have seen. The church service started at 9am so we sat at the back & listened to the preacher drone on in Hungarian & interspersed thankfully now & again by the nice singing of the choir. The lead woman singing has a beautiful voice, apparently a lady that went to university school of music with Katica & then she became a nun, Sister Bernadet.

We walked back to the apartment with Antal after the service which finished at 10am & he then prepared a delicious lunch for us, soup, roast chicken, mashed potatoes & cucumber salad with a whole bulb of garlic in it (no vampires tonight). While Antal was cooking I changed the tire on the car & will get it repaired when shops open again tomorrow, light rain as I am doing it. Antal seems to enjoy eating the hottest chilli that he can find & slices it into his soup, I can’t even handle one slice it is that hot – Ron tried the thinnest sliver of chilli & regretted it after the first spoon full of soup. Antal sliced 2 thin slivers into my soup & I had to get rid of the chilli slices & hardly could manage eating the soup it was so hot.

Our life here is so sedate, we are not doing any work, it will be hard to get back to normal life at home. A lazy afternoon siesta then a walk in the cold to Evike’s house for a chook check & pick some tomatoes & raspberries. It started to rain lightly on the way back & we are thankful that we thought to bring our coats. It is so hard to imagine that a few days ago it was so hot & now so cold, around 14C. Tereza & Katica seem to have so much to chat about & they are always laughing.

Katica & I watched Hungary’s beauty quest to choose the 2016’s most beautiful girl who will represent Hungary at the Miss World competition in Washington. The girls were all very beautiful, the clothes amazing, their talk & ambitions were interesting & clever – I am sure the jury had to do the eeni-meeni-myny-mo. Another good day.

Day 56 Saturday 16 July 2016

Still raining this morning at 6am when the alarm woke us, it must have rained all night as there are huge puddles of water in the carparks behind the apartment buildings. Another delicious Hungarian breakfast finished off with a few cold Gombocs, they really are tasty. Today we are off to visit cousin Bela in Subotica & taking Katica & Antal with us. It is still raining when we leave which makes dodging the potholes in the road that much harder as there is water on the road in a lot of places. Thankfully there are not too many other cars on the road this morning nor too many people about riding bicycles on the road or walking in the small towns we pass through, it is early & it is raining so that helps. I’m starting to get used to driving on the other side of the road now, I’m not trying to change gears with the door handle any more. Again we pass more endless fields of corn & sunflower with a little soya bean growing, here there is more empty fields where wheat has recently been harvested. Antal said that it is so lucky the wheat has been harvested because the rain would have destroyed the crop but it is great for the corn as the ears are only developing. We pass also a special nature reserve meadows area for the bird called a Great Bustard, we didn’t see any of those but we did see a few storks. On our way we also cross the Tisa River again, slightly in flood & muddy brown from all the rain, it is a fairly large river & joins the Danube River below Novi Sad. We reach Subotica in around 1 ½ hours & the GPS on our tablet guides us to Bela’s house, thankfully.

It was great to see the 3 cousins catch up & Bela’s wife Gyorgyi has been busy preparing another delicious Hungarian feast. I take the opportunity to use Bela’s WiFi to catch up on emails, Facebook & load some blogs with photos to get up to date with our travels. Before lunch Bela has to go & see a friend who is distilling some Palinka (Hungarian fruit whisky) for him from apricots & we drive just out of town to the small farm where his friend has a still in a large shed. It is legal in Serbia to own a still & produce Palinka. When we arrive Bela’s friend produces a bottle out of the fridge, it is his special brew & he offers us a taste. It is very nice tasting & very smooth, not like most Palinka that is firewater. I have no idea what the fruit was that it was made from after we were offered to guess what it is, mulberry it turns out & he was very proud of it. He shows us around his backyard operation & there must be hundreds of litres of Palinka he has produced in large plastic barrels stacked in the shed all made from a small copper still that perhaps holds 200 litres. There are another two Serbian men helping him out & taking shots of Palinka every now & then, they must be totally gone by the end of the day. We all talk, their broken English is a lot better than my non-existent Serb & they are very interested that I am from Australia & wondering why I would leave there & come to visit a place like Serbia. They tell me about kangaroos they have seen on TV & the internet, they are very interested in how big they are & how fierce & strong the big ones can be – I find it fascinating. Business complete it is back to Bela’s for lunch.

Lunch is an all afternoon affair, starting with soup (soup is something that is on every main meal) followed by roast turkey, chicken, roast potatoes & salad, delicious & more than we can possibly eat. There is much merriment, laughter, jokes, story-telling & reminiscing, everyone is having a good time all the while listening to some nice Hungarian music. Poor Ron only gets snippets of the conversation & my occasional translation but he likes the music & his body is swaying to it. He comments on how different Hungarian behaviour is at a gathering to the Australian, to greet each other, men, women kiss each other on the cheek 3 times, Palinka is drank, good food piled on the table, homemade wine is flowing, jokes, laughter & singing nonstop. We break from lunch around 5pm & retire to the lounge for some shots of Palinka (I refrained – driving) & more talking, joking & laughing, it really is nice to see everyone enjoying themselves. We depart around 5.30pm & thankfully the rain has stopped & the water has mostly drained from the roads so dodging the potholes is a little easier. Around halfway back to Kikinda I get a low tyre pressure warning on the dash & stop in the next town to check. The left rear looks slightly under-inflated & I decide to keep driving to see how it travels, the maximum speed limit is only 80km/hr. We reach Kikinda at 7pm & I check the tyre again when we stop at Evike’s house for a chook check, it doesn’t seem to have lost much more air if any, however on Monday I will take it in & get it looked at.

After such a big lunch none of us are all that hungry so supper is very light tonight thankfully, I had a couple of delicious cold Gombocs. Another great day.

Day 55 Friday 15 July 2016

A rude awakening around 2am this morning with a phone call & they hung up before I could answer – an Australian mobile number I don’t recognise & no message left. More rain during the night & a sleep-in this morning until 7am when the church bells woke us (they ring every day, on the hour after 7am & sometimes more). This morning Tereza & Antal made a Hungarian delicacy. We picked plenty of plums yesterday & Antal reminisced about the yummy gomboc (dumplings) his mum used to make. I told him I know how to make them but I won’t promise that they will be as good as his mum’s. The gomboc is made from mashed boiled potatoes plus an egg & some wheat flour. When the dough is finished a plum is rolled inside a ball of dough then the Gomboc are cooked in plenty of water. When they are cooked they are rolled in bread crumbs that has been lightly browned in butter then finished off with a dusting of sugar. (Ron watched us in amazement, he obviously knows how to make them now so he will be able to do it at home). It took all morning for Tereza & Antal to make the 40 Gomboc while Katica went to the hospital for treatment on her arm. Katica can’t make them with one hand plus she is too frail.

Lunch was a delicious treat of fresh Gomboc, they are sweet, tasty & filling. I manage 5, while Antal had 7 & Tereza 3, Katica had 5 because she was starving, they were very filling. Katica said that they were delicious but grumbled at Antal because he should have cooked us a decent lunch instead of desert & that he shouldn’t have made me work so hard – it wasn’t hard work just time consuming. Here, they have their main meal in the middle of the day. Tereza is really enjoying her time here, she is laughing & smiling & joking all the time, she is beaming with happiness. Antal can just roll the jokes out after one another – when translated they are usually not so funny. They think that we should open a clinic because we brought them good vibes & energy, they don’t feel the pain so much. I think it is only because they have to pull themselves together & have to look after us. After lunch it was siesta time to digest the Gomboc (to make sure they turn into body fat) while more rain came down.

We were woken in the afternoon by thunder & lightening as another storm came through with more rain, so no walk to Evike’s house this afternoon. Dinner was a combination of Hungarian sausage & smoked pork with fresh tomato followed by more Gomboc – for desert this time. I was very happy that I could manage 3, but Antal had only Gomboc & he managed another 7. I am worried about Antal because he is a diabetic but he assured me that he takes his tablets & this could only do him good – hope so. More rain during dinner & still raining, Antal is very happy as it is very good for the farms & his crops. Watched a good Steven Segal movie in Hungarian. Another great day. Tomorrow we will have an early morning because we plan to drive to cousin Bela & Gyorgy so that we can all spend time with them. Bela is Katica’s cousin as well & Antal went to Uni with him – good opportunity for them to see each other. We will try to send our blogs, but when we return to Kikinda we won’t have internet again.

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.

Day 53 Wednesday 13 July 2016

Up at 6am & an early start as we want to beat the heat driving to Magyar Itabej, a small village that is the closest civilisation to where Tereza was born on her grandparent’s farm a few kilometres out of town. We would have needed a 4 wheel drive to get to the family farm so we give it a miss, the farm house has been pulled down a long time ago so it is only the fields & we have seen many of those. More endless fields of corn, sunflower & soya bean with the roads in poor condition, apparently the local taxes are all going to Belgrade (Beograd in Serb) & not being spent locally. They are telling them that they will make Beograd one of the most modern cities in the world (ha, ha) by 2030. There is such a lot of poverty most people barely have enough to exist, many beautiful old houses are falling into ruin. The beautiful old Hungarian towns are planted full of Serbs & most of them don’t seem to have the knack, care or maybe it is just the poverty. The 2 nationalities coexist harmoniously. We pass through a few small villages & the old mud brick houses are in varying stages of neglect. It is only a bit over 30 km to Magyar Itabej & it is already warm, 28C when we pull into the driveway of Katica’s parent’s old house around 8am.

I notice some round holes in the plum trees next to the driveway & Antal tells me they are woodpecker nest holes. Katica opens the house to air, Anti starts pruning & tidying the grapes & I prune the mulberry & other fruit trees down the back where there are dead branches & starting to get overgrown. Tereza & Katica then go picking fruit & also some corn cobs from the crops next to the house. Inside is a nice old pendulum clock that belonged to Tereza’s parents & was left behind when they fled the country. We would like to take it home with us but the case is wooden & is full of insect borer holes so that Australian Quarantine would not let us bring it in to Australia. I will have to do some research & see what procedures need to be done so tat we can.

We take a rest from the heat, it is 36C & only 11am, while Tereza husks the corn cobs & prepares them for lunch. Lunch is a feast of fresh corn on the cob plus fresh bread from the local Itabej baker & some local Hungarian sausage. After lunch it is siesta time as it is so hot outside, the thick mudbrick walls keep the house cooler inside (it is a pleasant 24C). Anti & I sleep for a few hours while Tereza & Katica chat. Before we leave I climb up into the attic to see if I can find where the rain is leaking in as the ceilings inside have a bit of water damage. I find that the chimney has a gap along the uphill side so that when it rains the water would just run straight inside the roof, so I think that is the major problem, unfortunately I can’t fix it, not enough time, material & too hot. There are a few other small holes but I don’t think they will cause many problems. It is stinking hot inside the roof & I fix a few loose tiles before I head back down, saturated with sweat. It is 40C outside & a lot hotter inside the roof.

The car shows 38C as we drive along the street to the cemetery to visit the graves of Katica’s parents & also Tereza & Katica’s joint grandparents, where they place some fresh roses they cut from the garden (they will only last a short time in the heat). We also visit the grave of cousin Bela’s parents & tidy that up a bit as well. They meet up with an old Hungarian woman that Katica knows, she is caring for around 30 different graves of relatives in the cemetery & has ridden her bicycle here in the heat. On the way back to Kikinda we spot a few pheasant in different spots picking at the side of the road, it is around 7pm & a bit of cloud is coming over, cooling the air down to 31C.

The apartment is warm, about 27C but cooler than outside so it feels pleasant. Dinner is hot soup, with a slice of very hot chilli pepper in hit, followed by a hot stuffed capsicum. It is all delicious & typical Hungarian, but by the end of the meal the sweat is pouring out of us, our shirts are saturated. They believe that in the heat one should still eat hot food. An early night tonight as we are all tired from the work & heat, so bed by 10pm. Another great, although very hot, day.

Day 52 Tuesday 12 July 2016

A real Hungarian breakfast this morning, smoked ham, home-made sausage, capsicum, tomato, home-made jam, local fresh honey from the acacia trees, fresh bread from the baker. We spent all morning chatting before lunch, then after lunch we drove to Zrenjanin with Katica to visit cousin Dusan & his wife Gizella. More crazy Serb drivers – downright scary when you see a car overtake 3 big trucks & they are coming straight at you & you have nowhere to go to get out of the way & you are braking like crazy & they just make it to the other side in the nick of time – but it is not that far away, a shade over 30 km (luckily). Zrenjanin is the small city where Tereza spent most of her early years until she was 11 before her family fled across the border after the uprising in Budapest. Poor Dusan, he isn’t well either, he has a lot of health problems & can’t work. His wife, Gizella is a music teacher at the school of music, she teaches classical guitar but at home she also teaches piano & piano accordion, we had a couple of hours chatting & catching up. We drove back to Kikinda, encountering a few more crazy Serb drivers.   Next was a late afternoon walk to Evike’s house to check the chooks & birds. We did stop for an ice-cream cone to eat along the way & that was welcome as it was fairly warm, around 34C & it was late afternoon. We whinged about the cold wet weather while we were on our tour, we didn’t realised that it was a blessing, if it would have been this hot I don’t think we would have coped with all the walking & activities. Another good Hungarian meal for supper & another late night, it’s starting to become a habit. Another great day.

Day 51 Monday 11 July 2016

A lazy start this morning, last night’s late finish tired us out, so packing again then another great breakfast at 9am, they really do have a good & tasty selection of food. We would like to try them all but there is just so much variety. We set the tablet computer up with our destination address for today on Google Maps, it does make driving here so much easier, most of the road & street signs are in Serbian using the Cyrillic alphabet, not knowing either (but Tereza can still read it) it is a lot easier using Google.

There are two things notable about this morning’s driving in rural Serbia. Firstly the farming fields are flat & the seemingly endless crops of corn, sunflower & soya bean extend to the horizon in all directions, with an occasional outcrop of trees & the odd river. We cross the Tisza River, a large tributary of the Danube & it is muddy colour. The second is the absolutely crazy Serb drivers & overtaking in crazy places & so close to oncoming traffic, I was very surprised we didn’t see some serious accidents, most of them are so impatient. There were a few slow farm tractors at times & also a grass cutting machine stopped then later an excavator stopped, both taking up one lane & no warning signs at all, I can’t understand how we didn’t see an accident. Google map isn’t infallible, it did want to take me down a dirt road along the banks of a river to bypass the small city of Zrenjanin, a suggestion I declined & enjoyed the bitumen instead. The roads are reasonable, equal to any secondary roads in Australia, if not better. The rest of our trip is uneventful, aside some more crazy Serb drivers but they seemed to be thinning out a bit by the time we reached Kikinda around 11.30am & then found cousin Katica’s apartment.

We spent all afternoon chatting, more so Tereza (my Hungarian is not that good), catching up with cousin Katica & husband Antal, it is 5 years since we were here last time. Again more delicious Hungarian food, again more than you could possibly eat. I needed a haircut & beard trim so at 6pm we had an appointment with Emile, the master barber of Kikinda. Last time we were here I also used his barber skills then. His salon is very close & we sit in his tiny salon with Emile chatting away & joking with his customers in Serbian & me having no clue as to what they are saying. He is very good & pays a lot of attention too, (Emile charged 450 dinar & I insisted giving him 500 dinar for 2 haircuts & beard trim, 500 dinar equals to about $4 Australian dollars). Afterwards we walk down the street to cousin Evike’s house & while Tereza & Katica pick fruit I water the chooks & birds as Evike is away in Greece on holidays with her husband & 2 sons. Later that night we have a delicious supper of home smoked pork & home-made Hungarian sausage. Another great day.

Katica & I have so much to catch with we talk non-stop, we were so close as children & had such wonderful times as we were growing up (we left when I was 12 years old, but always kept up our correspondence with my cousins, Aunts & grandparents, that is why I can read, write & speak so well Hungarian). Poor Katica is so unwell she is very thin, she had a mastectomy & now her arm is so swollen, her fingers she can’t feel, she can’t use her hand at all. She was such a talented Violin player & a professor at the school of music, it is depressing for me to see her like this.

Poor Ron, he is so good, he doesn’t complain at all but he must be bored. His Hungarian is getting better. He tells me to spend all the time I can with my cousin. He & Anti watch movies. Tonight for example he watched Jacki Chan & the others in the cast talk in Hungarian – he finds this hilarious. It was a good day for me, more so than for Ron.

Today it was 37C. We complained about all the cold weather on our tour & now we are saying how lucky we were because we wouldn’t have been able to do all the walking in heat like this.