My sister-in-law is originally from Transylvania (although now a longtime inhabitant of the US). Transylvanians pride themselves on being the nicest people in Romania. My cello teacher, from Bucharest, agrees on this point.
Wow! Did you (and this is a genuine question) have to take any precautions against bears?
One thing which did surprise us (but shouldn't have) was that the village where we were sayingh, about 30 miles north of Brasov, was 100% Hungarian-speaking.
Wow! Did you (and this is a genuine question) have to take any precautions against bears?
One thing which did surprise us (but shouldn't have) was that the village where we were sayingh, about 30 miles north of Brasov, was 100% Hungarian-speaking.
Yes, we had guards either side of the camp up all night watching for wolves and bears. There was a pig wallow in the middle of the camp and they occasionally wandered through the tents! The shepherd slept with his sheep nearby and showed great interest in the outdoor ‘showers’, moving closer as time went by 🤔
The journey there was the most ‘interesting’ - by coach from near Bucharest. He company had kindly cleaned the coaches and the seats were wringing wet through. I stood up for most of the journey!
I enjoy camping, but you wouldn't catch me doing so in a forest with wolves and bears. Or with 50 children...
Managed to get a walk this morning as it was sunny, before settling in to the day's marking mountain. I'm now having a chill with a matcha latte to calm down between batches (my post viral syndrome means that sitting down for long periods gives me a low pulse and brain fog, whilst typing appears to give me a mildly increased heart rate; my head is getting very muddled!).
You wouldn't catch me camping under any circumstances, never mind with bears and wolves. The only bear I want to share the wee small hours with is small and called Teddy. 🐻
Thanks to excellent info from @Baptist Trainfan, I have discovered that a bus goes from just along the road to Sainsbury's (which is just a few stops away), and more importantly, on the way back it stops right outside my flat. For someone without a car and limited carrying capacity, this is going to be a godsend.
There's now a pot of SOUP bubbling merrily on the stove, which will be consumed with bread and possibly some Orkney CHEESE for supper.
I know I've missed the boat a bit with names and mis-spellings/ pronunciations, but here's my offering: My perfectly normal, 4-letter, easily pronouncable surname (in the UK) - Wale - often causes problems in France, as the "-ale" spelling doesn't exist. Also, W at the beginning of words is pronounced "V" So while waiting for appointments, I am ready for someone who starts confidently, looks at the paper and then falters "Madame V-ah- ??Vei -????" and leap up, saying, "C'est moi, Madame Wale"
In the podiatrists, the same thing happened "Madame Vile?" I leap up, follow the podiatrist, and sit down
"What can I do for you?" he asks (in French)
"I'm here for my inner soles."
"No, I'm the chiropodist. For Madame Weil"
"Madame Wale?"
"No, Madame Weil"
I slink back to the waiting room. Madame Weil stands up, glares at me and goes to the chiropodist.
A couple of minutes later the podiatrist enters
"Madame Wale?" he says, pronouncing it perfectly....
I'm just back from a lovely afternoon with No. 1 nephew and his partner, who came over for a walk by the loch. We went up round the Palace, back a little way along the shore of the loch and then back to the main street and had coffee and chips in one of the Nice Little Cafés, of which Linlithgow has an abundance.
They also gave me a house-warming pressie of a lovely blanket-throw which looks very nice draped over one of the Orkney chairs, and will be deployed to warm the porcine legs if the storage heaters go on the blink.
All this talk of bears and camping reminds me of the American volunteer we had on an archaeological dig in the Lake District. She was quite casual about having camped in National Parks in the US where bears were roaming about - but when a moth got between the outer and inner layers of her tent, she freaked out completely!
Some years ago I considered going hill-walking in Romania, and bought a guidebook which gave a very favourable impression of the place for such activities (in the author's view, there's no need to worry about wolves and bears, as they never attack people except the occasional shepherd who goes after one with an axe), before spoiling it in half a page with a warning about sheepdogs -- apparently they have the most ferocious dogs which are trained to attack wolves and bears and will treat tourists in the same way if the shepherd isn't there to stop them. On the strength of that I went cycling instead, on the basis that dogs near the road would be more used to people, and only met one set of large sheepdogs (which chased me a bit despite the shephrd's trying to stop them, but didn't try and bite); I didn't see any bears, but I did wonder afterwards whether any bears had seen me.
... I did wonder afterwards whether any bears had seen me.
Algy saw the bear
The bear saw Algy
The bear was bulgy
The bulge was Algy
Dreichness has descended on Linlithgow - it's just as well we had that nice amble yesterday, as it's definitely not ambling weather today.
Instead, laundry has occurred, and I'm just waiting for the communal tumble-dryer to be free; the only exercise I'm likely to get today is trotting along to the laundry (all of about 100 feet away).
My husband got bitten by a Labrador farm dog in Albania. The bite wasn’t serious but the tour guide had a slanging match with the farmer, which ended up with her saying ‘are you not man enough to throw a rock at a dog?’ I know no Albanian but I think there were lots of swear words in there.
Now, my then-BiL got bitten badly by an Alsatian in the this country while walking on public footpath past the owner's dwelling. The owner encouraged the dog. The police did not follow up the incident officially due, apparently, to "the absence of a suitable doctor's report" and despite the photograph, which I have seen. One part of the jaw had left toothmarks on the abdomen, and the other part on the back. I don't trust dogs much.
Mr Nen has friends in Romania and knows that there are places you don't go for fear of the dog packs.
We're having a very Zoomy day chez Nen; I've finished my last one of the day and am now listening to our online recorded morning service. I think cheese and wine might be a feature of my evening. It has rained pretty constantly all day so I'm glad I got my iris bulbs into the garden tubs yesterday. We have a large number of squirrels around so I've covered the tubs; Mr Nen also put the patio furniture away and the garden looks under wraps for the winter.
It’s a zoomy day here for me today too. Doodle zoom then family zoom.
Lockdown here in Heidelberg is similar to England but ‘household’ means close family even if you don’t live together. Two households can get together indoors or outdoors. So that means we can all meet together with one friend or one household of friends. So life feels much more normal here.
People are very respectful of the mask and social distancing rules. Asks are mandated in all indoor public places. Some outdoor spaces are designated mask areas even outdoors, with signs. For example the Hauptstraße - https://tinyurl.com/yxvb92pa
Small shops are open but cafes and restaurants are take away only.
That's very nice, Boogie - indeed it looks strikingly like Venice with that lovely pond there, right in the centre of town. Do they have gondolas on it?
... Small shops are open but cafes and restaurants are take away only.
That seems fairly similar to us in Tier 3 in Scotland. Some cafés and restaurants* are open, but not serving alcohol, and they have to shut at 6 o'clock. But most shops, even "non-essential" ones, seem to be open.
* I suppose there must be rules governing which ones are and which aren't, but it seems rather arbitrary to me.
I've had my daily exercise via an amble down to Tesco's, discovering en route that I can't find the copying/printing shop that's supposed to be in the High Street, and that the Cashline machine beside Tesco's doesn’t let you pay cheques into your account. Oh well, those will have to be tasks for another day.
Linlithgow is a quiet sort of place: the nearest thing to excitement this morning was a few people sitting on benches watching as the Council put up the Christmas tree in the High Street.
Some cafés and restaurants* are open, but not serving alcohol, and they have to shut at 6 o'clock. But most shops, even "non-essential" ones, seem to be open.
* I suppose there must be rules governing which ones are and which aren't, but it seems rather arbitrary to me.
Round here there are some which only feel it's worth their while to open in the latter part of the week.
I think you can only pay in at cash machines which are actually at banks.
Drat and blast the buyer of our house has just pulled out. It is doubly annoying as it happened just before my husband went to see a property in the town we want to move to. He went anyway, and phoned up afterwards to say that he'd have put in an offer if he could.
So agree @Helix. Hope you get something sorted soon We've dropped the price in the hopes of getting a buyer sooner rather than later. I really want to be on to the next stage of my life sooner rather than later.
Oh @Sarasa - what a total pain! I can absolutely sympathise - we had actually offered on a house in Fredericton thinking we had a buyer for the house in St. John's, David had gone over and cleared the house out and then after asking for extension after extension (to which we foolishly agreed), the bastard toerag supposed buyer eventually withdrew from the contract.
I had a few false starts selling the Fredericton house too, but I got there in the end, and I hope you do too.
Thanks @piglet. I'm feeling slightly more cheerful this morning as we have a few viewings lined up and there are still several other properties we want to move to that I'm sort of interested in.
It's a grey sort of day here: not particularly cold, but at least not actually raining. There's a batch of French sticks baking merrily in the oven, and I'm just back from the offy with a bottle of cider, some of which will be used to cook a pork chop (I know, I know ... ) for supper, and the rest to wash it down.
I never used to be all that keen on pork chops, but when S. gave me some apples after she'd been to a farm shop, I thought, why not try that recipe for Normandy pork with cream and apples from the old Delia books? I did, and it was very nice; as there were two chops in the pack I got last week and I froze the other one, I'm going to do it again.
I will make you all jealous: we went to Madeira today. Well, not to the island itself, but to a very good Portuguese restaurant of that name in the city centre. It was fairly busy, which was good to see - this is only the second day since our "lockdown" ended, Excellent but filling Portuguese-style espetadas (kebabs), on large skewers dangling from the rafters. The wine was good too. It will be a light supper tomight methinks!
a bottle of cider, some of which will be used to cook a pork chop
It must be Pork Tuesday. I don't cook it that often (Mr F finds it a bit fibrous), but thought I would do an Asian-ish casserole - something between Korean sticky and sweet'n'sour. It has onion, garlic, chilli flakes, star anise, tomato purée, brown sugar, pineapple juice and nam plam in so far. I shall give it a couple of hours and then see if it needs more of anything and if so, what.
I will make you all jealous: we went to Madeira today. Well, not to the island itself, but to a very good Portuguese restaurant of that name in the city centre. It was fairly busy, which was good to see - this is only the second day since our "lockdown" ended, Excellent but filling Portuguese-style espetadas (kebabs), on large skewers dangling from the rafters. The wine was good too. It will be a light supper tomight methinks!
It’s really difficult helping someone whose email account has been hacked when you can’t see her screen and her devices are all on different versions to your own! My imagination is being stretched further than it ever has been before. It’s harder for her because her pc is 2 floors up and she keeps going downstairs to get warm.
@Firenze , your Asian pork sounds rather nice; not sure about the nam pla though - isn't that the really whiffy fish sauce?
My pork chop came out rather well; I added a couple of chopped potatoes, mushrooms and a carrot and they drank up the sauce nicely (and I'm still drinking up the cider).
Hope it doesn't give me a hangover though - I've got that job interview tomorrow at lunchtime.
Good luck piglet.
I was too fatigued to do my marking today so I did some writing for my studies and read forward on the new module I'm currently teaching.
Tea was toad in the hole with roasted veg - I'm now drinking a Japanese gin (Roku) and tonic.
Comments
One thing which did surprise us (but shouldn't have) was that the village where we were sayingh, about 30 miles north of Brasov, was 100% Hungarian-speaking.
.. and with how many bears and wolves? Eeeks!! Did none of the fifty children get devoured? Isn't it pretty wild out there?
Yes, we had guards either side of the camp up all night watching for wolves and bears. There was a pig wallow in the middle of the camp and they occasionally wandered through the tents! The shepherd slept with his sheep nearby and showed great interest in the outdoor ‘showers’, moving closer as time went by 🤔
The journey there was the most ‘interesting’ - by coach from near Bucharest. He company had kindly cleaned the coaches and the seats were wringing wet through. I stood up for most of the journey!
Managed to get a walk this morning as it was sunny, before settling in to the day's marking mountain. I'm now having a chill with a matcha latte to calm down between batches (my post viral syndrome means that sitting down for long periods gives me a low pulse and brain fog, whilst typing appears to give me a mildly increased heart rate; my head is getting very muddled!).
Thanks to excellent info from @Baptist Trainfan, I have discovered that a bus goes from just along the road to Sainsbury's (which is just a few stops away), and more importantly, on the way back it stops right outside my flat. For someone without a car and limited carrying capacity, this is going to be a godsend.
There's now a pot of SOUP bubbling merrily on the stove, which will be consumed with bread and possibly some Orkney CHEESE for supper.
I'm having a parma violet gin.
In the podiatrists, the same thing happened "Madame Vile?" I leap up, follow the podiatrist, and sit down
"What can I do for you?" he asks (in French)
"I'm here for my inner soles."
"No, I'm the chiropodist. For Madame Weil"
"Madame Wale?"
"No, Madame Weil"
I slink back to the waiting room. Madame Weil stands up, glares at me and goes to the chiropodist.
A couple of minutes later the podiatrist enters
"Madame Wale?" he says, pronouncing it perfectly....
They also gave me a house-warming pressie of a lovely blanket-throw which looks very nice draped over one of the Orkney chairs, and will be deployed to warm the porcine legs if the storage heaters go on the blink.
The bear saw Algy
The bear was bulgy
The bulge was Algy
Dreichness has descended on Linlithgow - it's just as well we had that nice amble yesterday, as it's definitely not ambling weather today.
Instead, laundry has occurred, and I'm just waiting for the communal tumble-dryer to be free; the only exercise I'm likely to get today is trotting along to the laundry (all of about 100 feet away).
At least there's SOUP for lunch ...
We're having a very Zoomy day chez Nen; I've finished my last one of the day and am now listening to our online recorded morning service. I think cheese and wine might be a feature of my evening. It has rained pretty constantly all day so I'm glad I got my iris bulbs into the garden tubs yesterday. We have a large number of squirrels around so I've covered the tubs; Mr Nen also put the patio furniture away and the garden looks under wraps for the winter.
Lockdown here in Heidelberg is similar to England but ‘household’ means close family even if you don’t live together. Two households can get together indoors or outdoors. So that means we can all meet together with one friend or one household of friends. So life feels much more normal here.
People are very respectful of the mask and social distancing rules. Asks are mandated in all indoor public places. Some outdoor spaces are designated mask areas even outdoors, with signs. For example the Hauptstraße - https://tinyurl.com/yxvb92pa
Small shops are open but cafes and restaurants are take away only.
My son lived on this street for five years but now they live further up the river in Ziegelhausen - more suitable for their little family.
* I suppose there must be rules governing which ones are and which aren't, but it seems rather arbitrary to me.
I've had my daily exercise via an amble down to Tesco's, discovering en route that I can't find the copying/printing shop that's supposed to be in the High Street, and that the Cashline machine beside Tesco's doesn’t let you pay cheques into your account. Oh well, those will have to be tasks for another day.
Linlithgow is a quiet sort of place: the nearest thing to excitement this morning was a few people sitting on benches watching as the Council put up the Christmas tree in the High Street.
I can handle that lack of excitement ...
I think you can only pay in at cash machines which are actually at banks.
I had a few false starts selling the Fredericton house too, but I got there in the end, and I hope you do too.
It's a grey sort of day here: not particularly cold, but at least not actually raining. There's a batch of French sticks baking merrily in the oven, and I'm just back from the offy with a bottle of cider, some of which will be used to cook a pork chop (I know, I know ...
I never used to be all that keen on pork chops, but when S. gave me some apples after she'd been to a farm shop, I thought, why not try that recipe for Normandy pork with cream and apples from the old Delia books? I did, and it was very nice; as there were two chops in the pack I got last week and I froze the other one, I'm going to do it again.
It must be Pork Tuesday. I don't cook it that often (Mr F finds it a bit fibrous), but thought I would do an Asian-ish casserole - something between Korean sticky and sweet'n'sour. It has onion, garlic, chilli flakes, star anise, tomato purée, brown sugar, pineapple juice and nam plam in so far. I shall give it a couple of hours and then see if it needs more of anything and if so, what.
I didn't know that place was still open!
@Firenze , your Asian pork sounds rather nice; not sure about the nam pla though - isn't that the really whiffy fish sauce?
My pork chop came out rather well; I added a couple of chopped potatoes, mushrooms and a carrot and they drank up the sauce nicely (and I'm still drinking up the cider).
Hope it doesn't give me a hangover though - I've got that job interview tomorrow at lunchtime.
I was too fatigued to do my marking today so I did some writing for my studies and read forward on the new module I'm currently teaching.
Tea was toad in the hole with roasted veg - I'm now drinking a Japanese gin (Roku) and tonic.