Xmas day Pictures & a Happy New Year

Xmas day was spent with the family and due to the unexpectedly mild weather, we even managed a Xmas walk. Mid morning, we had some friends from the village call round with gifts of cakes, a self caught Pike-perch (lake fish) and some home made blood sausage. It was totally unexpected and in my panic to give them something in return, I grabbed Nicole's bottle of Rose wine - not understanding why she was standing behind me saying "give them the red, give them the red - sorry!!"

Gifts from our Hungarian friends

Not sure if i mentioned our Xmas tree in my last post? My requirements were; at least 6 foot tall, not dropping needles and nice and bushy. Now nowhere in that description does it say 8-10 feet wide and yet that is what I got! Not that I noticed when Rab brought it home as it was tied up and it wasn't until we dragged the decorations from the attic and gathered the children for the "tree decorating tradition" that we discovered the tree took up a quarter of the room. It seemed sacrilegious to start hacking branches off of it and so we ended up having to squeeze it into the corner with it's lower branches pushed upwards, the children said it is the most sorrowful, scraggly looking Xmas tree we have had yet but I like it :-)

Despite my best efforts, every year the children insist on prawn cocktail for their starter! Though this year I managed to make a duck liver pate as an extra starter so everybody seemed satisfied. For the main course we had the usual Turkey, pork and all the trimmings which was followed by trifle and the Xmas cake I had been soaking for weeks with brandy and amaretto :-)

Prawn Cocktail

Trifle

Kids table for 2 :-)

As mentioned, the mild weather enabled us to go for a walk along the small stream and into the forest and when I say a family walk, that's exactly what I mean - cats and all. Sunbeam & our new arrival Poppy followed us from the house and about 200 metres down the road we picked up Fig who was stalking mice or newts down at the little water board property. From there, all three of them stayed with us during our walk and returned home with us though little Poppy was somewhat slower than the others. Fig is not the friendliest of cats, completely independent and lets you know if she isn't pleased about something or if you try to overstep the mark with her (bit like myself ;-) but she really is amazing in so many other ways. Whilst on our walk, we noticed the animals becoming slightly stressed, Fig then sat herself down and stared at a hill a couple of hundred metres away whilst at the same time making a strange meow like noise to Sunbeam (her son) who turned and ran like the wind - for Sunbeam that is unheard of as he is such a lazy and spoilt boy -but run he did and didn't stop until he reached the building where we initially met up with Fig. Poppy was getting really stressed and so we picked her up just as Fig started growling and looking across to the hill we saw an enormous fox running through the back gardens of the houses opposite us. Fig continued sitting there until she was sure it had gone before calling Sunbeam who came plodding back (danger was over now so he certainly wasn't going to run) and we continued our walk. I for one was amazed having firstly, never known cats to go a walk with their owners and secondly, never seen them interact in the way that Fig and Sunbeam did :-)

2 cats, a dog and lots of children

Little Poppy bringing up the rear

Sprint

Besides Xmas day we have been quite busy - enjoyed getting about this Xmas and not being snowed in! We went ice skating again in Heviz, caught up with friends in Lispeszentadorjan which was really nice and even better, I might have found a metal detecting partner there. Had a nice meal out at the Giraffe Etterem in Letenye and had a lovely drive round some villages we hadn't visited before. Well, I must go as there is shortbread, mulled wine and a steak pie to be made, fireworks tonight and not too much to drink as we are having friends up for dinner tomorrow and there is nothing worse than cooking with a hangover! Happy New Year to you all