Attack Of The Hyperactive Children

I woke up to find that my aunt had prepared a big breakfast of eggs and mixed in with pork for me! Ermmm. I tried to be polite but could only manage a mouthful or two. I opted for the safer choice of cheese on bread (yes, bread became my saviour this morning!)

I also mentioned that I don’t generally eat breakfast.

The weather is very good; about 28 degrees and sunny. I slapped on the factor 30 and decided to sit outside writing this on my handy Toshiba laptop. It’s pretty cool, slim, weighs less than a kilo and is portable the way a laptop should be. Because of that it has travelled all over the world with me. I’ll transfer any photos I’ve taken onto it through the holiday so that I never run out of space on my camera’s little 256Mb compactflash card.

I actually went along to the local Catholic church for Sunday mass too. It’s weird being woken up at five in the morning by the sound of church bells, dogs barking and cocks crowing. But then this is life in the Hungarian countryside.

The church is quite a small, modest affair but nevertheless is a central feature of the old town. I think that my nephew and I were the youngest there as a prerequisite of the church seemed to me to be a head of white hair! I noticed that the mass had been modified as well to have a lot more sitting down than they have back home!

Today my uncle returned the favour and invited his best friend’s family over for an afternoon of outdoor cooking. Basically they made a traditional fire outside and hung a large metal pot over it. The dish of the day was wild deer (which I’d never tried before) and it turned out to be delicious. Mixed in with Paprika (a Hungarian stable) and with potatoes and off course bread, the meal went down really well.

Of course I’m now starting to think that all this bread and meat every day can’t be doing that much good for me.

How can they eat this every day!?

I guess that they probably don’t and that this is just something special over the holiday whilst I’m here. Plus none of my uncle’s family are fat, so this can’t be their regular diet.

I needn’t have worried though as I spent the next three hours running after six kids, lifting and spinning them around. They never tired out once! Afterwards I felt as if I’d had a workout in the gym!


It’s nice being part of a functional family unit again, even if it’s just for a week. Back in the UK there’s only me as I was an only child and my parents are gone...