Munchkins on the Yellow Brick Road, Christmas Party, New Year's Eve and the Last Mushroom Show

The road to our house through the forest is atrocious, and that is being kind. Everyone from the national park, to hunters, locals stealing wood, and people going to their wine cellars use it but no one takes responsibility. Inspired by the casual mention by the wife of the local construction material company owner that they would be willing to contribute some material to the fixing of the road if I would speak with the national park, I spoke with the relevant people at the park and the mayor's office. In a rare show of smooth cooperation, Dolomit Kft contributed some gravel and a small bulldozer, the local authority gave 2 teams of public workers as well as gravel, and the national park gave its permission to widen and fix the road. The work has been going by fits and starts, but it is almost complete. A layer of yellow gravel has been laid down from the cemetery to the wine cellars. All that remains is for the steamroller to come and then fix the remaining potholes. As the road work approached our house one day, I heard singing and a guitar and went to investigate. Our neighbour Csabi, one of the brigade leaders, had his guitar out and the rest of the crew were shit-faced drunk dancing around and playing air-guitar, air-bass, air-fiddle on their shovels and rakes. Apparently, while labour law demands that the public workers receive "protective" fluids, the form is not specified. There was a lot of cheap red wine flowing this particular winter morning. It was a great party at 8am on the yellow brick road.

Later in the day, the crew were impressed by my mighty wood chopping technique. Pisti yelled his favourite expression, "Isten fasza! We have been dumb all these years!" By packing logs upright in an old tire, they stay in place and you do not have to constantly bend down and risk injuring your back. There are many videos demonstrating this on Youtube. They were also kind enough to pour some gravel along our steep muddy driveway. In return they asked for 5000 Huf, but we gave them a couple bottles of champagne that we never drink and they were more than happy. Imagine, they mix champagne with energy drinks!

The company Christmas party was on our last working day of the year, December 19^th. A big dinner of wild boar something was provided to the staff. It was pot luck, but it seems only Kata and I cooked something - partly out of necessity. Kata made her famous purple cabbage garlic rolls, and I baked some pumpkin muffins. Everyone else seems to have brought their own homemade palinka. Kata and I danced for quite some time, but at some point I hit a wall. I did not drink a lot, but I still blacked out after a couple glasses of Lajos' homemade cherry wine kicked in.  Kata and an unknown colleague from the Zemplén Nature Reserve apparently carried me up to bed where I laid passed out until morning and Kata went back down to party.

Sányi having gone to Budapest to work construction, I was left on my own for the last weeks of mushroom hunting season. Luckily, the purple-stemmed wood blewit is impossible to confuse with anything else. I went by myself a couple times, the last time bringing back 3kg! While I was overjoyed with my individual success, Kata was not pleased having to find space in the freezer. Instead, she made a big wood blewit pizza.

Christmas Eve morning I surprised Kata with homemade churros, a Spanish treat she loved on holiday in December but we were only lucky enough to have once during our stay. Thanks Josey for finding me a pastry bag and bringing it from Budapest! These long donuts, more like éclairs, are eaten dipped in hot chocolate. Kata made a lunch of honey-mustard turkey, while I contributed my carrot salad with cardamom-coriander-mustard seeds. The tree this year was decorated with strings of popcorn and rosehips.

Christmas Day we took the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful sunshine and took a walk into town to make some surprise visits to friends. We had made a bunch of gingerbread and delivered a batch of mushroom-shaped (of course!) gingerbreads to Sányi and Attila. Of course we had to have a couple shots of házi palinka and some wine before moving on to Csaba and his family. More gingerbread and palinka, and I brought a bunch of walnut shell sailboats I had made for the kids using the glue gun we had bought for the wreath. The last stop was Margónéni from whom we buy our eggs every week. She is 85 and still sharp as a tack. We brought her some stollen Kata had baked - more or less a very solid fruitcake, and we enjoyed a couple more palinkas and some homemade wine.

Sányi reappeared after Christmas, and we went mushroom hunting again but with very little success for our efforts. Competition from other people, wild boar, and the weather left us almost empty handed except for a 1.2kg Hen of the Woods Sányi found on a stump downtown. This mushroom is widely used in Chinese and Japanese medicine to enhance the immune system and regulate blood pressure and insulin.

New Year's Gala in the Baradla Cave. We attended the New Year's Gala in Aggtelek National Park's Baradla Cave Concert Hall on December 30^th. The Blue Danube Salon Concert Orchestra and its guest stars performed selections of works by Imre Kálmán, Ferenc Lehár, Albert Szirmai, Jenő Huszka, Béla Zerkovitz, Strauss, Brahms and Offenbach.  Pieces were featured from the Csárdáskirálynő (The Gypsy Princess), the Marica grófnő (Countess Maritza), The Bajadér, The Merry Widow, Cigányszerelem (Gypsy Love), Mágnás Miska (Magnate Miska), Mária főhadnagy (Lieutenant Mary/Corporal Maria), Csókos asszony (the Kissing Woman) and Die Fledermaus (The Bat).

Although the setting was stunning, neither we nor our guests appreciated the music or the show which seemed more akin to the tourist folklore shows than anything else, with nothing connecting the pieces together into a cohesive show. The so-called "comic dancer" was very distracting. He seemed like a version of the Batman TV show's The Riddler who had overdone it at the tanning salon. All we could see was a set of bright white teeth scampering around the stage. In addition, the primas was on a high podium, making it appear as if the dancers and musicians were midgets. However, the more than 400 guests filling the hall obviously felt otherwise and clearly enjoyed themselves.

Performers: 5-piece orchestra, 4 singers (Ágnes Palotás - soprano, Eszter Sára Kővári- soprano, Eric Kollár- dancer, Béla Turpinszky - tenor), Móricz Máté and the Lehár Dance Group (2 couples).

The much awaited New Year's Party in Irota found Kata and I in a strange minority of non-Dutch speakers.The menu was Arab-themed this year, so Kata and I brought a bottle of Shiraz wine and Iranian/Turkish/Jewish rice pudding with cardamom and a caramelised topping. We played the traditional Dutch game of sjoelbak, a table shuffleboard game again to pass the time. Rockets erupted from the front steps at midnight, and then everyone retired from the -17C weather outside to the dance floor. However, Kata and I were barely keeping our eyes open and went off to bed. On the way home, we followed a group of the Dutchies to Rakaca Lake where the ice was a borderline 6.5cm thick. Most strapped on their ice skates and went for a spin. The last time I tried skating was in college when a cute girl invited me out. I remembered being able to skate on Fulton's Pond as a kid so didn't think anything of it. Unfortunately, I could not stand up on the blades and my ankles kept turning out. Disappointed and confused, I called my dad. He said, and I quote, "You idiot, that was on double-blades!" Jeroen and Kees assisted Kata to put some blades on her boots and she went off onto the ice pushing a chair. Bas later took her for a spin without the chair.

I was home almost all of December, having had to use up the remainder of my vacation days. I watched a bunch of episodes of The Wire, chopped wood, and cleared brush and climbing vines from the back garden. The climbing vines are a real problem. We have been advised that pouring 20% vinegar on the green shoots in spring should solve the problem in an environmentally-friendly way. I read: Peter F. Hamilton's Judas Unchained (good, but it was the sequel and I had not read the first book and lost the thread a lot); Julian May's Intervention, Louis de Berniéres' Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World (one of my favourite authors, but this was a waste of time); Anchee Min's Red Azalea (interesting account during the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four from a new perspective); Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser (the series still provides enjoyment, full of fun adventure and interesting historical characters from the British Empire); Eight Little Piggies by Stephen Jay Gould (way above my head. Unlike his previously accessible books aimed at explaining evoltion to the lay person, this was unintelligible to me).