I’ve just had a rather exciting sort of weekend That is to say, Saturday was a rather quiet day which I mostly spent trying to tidy the mound of papers in my room and decipher the opening chapters of Gunther Grass’ “The Tin Drum” in Esperanto. But Sunday my boyfriend came to pick me up in his car and we went to Twycross Zoo for the afternoon

It was actually a bit of a risk going, because the weather seemed to be so appalling bad all Saturday. Sunday dawned a bit brighter, and I managed not to get rained on when I went to Mass in the morning, but there was a high potential for showers. As we drove towards Twycross on the M42 we were engulfed by a particularly vicious shower, and I don’t know how my boyfriend managed to keep the car on the road, because I could barely see it. Luckily it was just about lunchtime, and so we stopped at a fairly pleasant pub in Appleby Magna and I had lasagne and some rather tasty chips. (more…)

I’ve just been watching ‘The Painted Veil’, a 2006 film adaptation of the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. I confess to never having read the book, or indeed anything at all by W. Somerset Maugham, but it was one of my father’s birthday presents and we were humouring him by sitting and watching it with him It was actually very good, although not, I think, a film to go to bed on, because it was rather depressing and disturbing. (more…)

Yesterday was two years exactly since I met Babel. I hasten to clarify that I am not aware of that fact because I spent my free time counting the days since I have known Babel – I spend quite enough of my work life counting without doing it in my evenings too – but just because it was the day after my father’s birthday, and conveniently my father’s birthday is always the same day each year Of course, when I say that I met Babel, what I mean is that I saw him in reality for the first time, having actually “met” him three months previously in the JEB forums. It is an interesting question as to whether you can “know” someone when you have never met them in real life. My sister asked me about this this morning in fact, because one of her friends has just split up with her boyfriend, and my sister seems to think the failure of the relationship is somehow based on the fact that they bumped into each other on the internet. (more…)

This was a book which Babel lent me, and it took me an incredibly long time to read. I’m not sure why, because I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was bad. Perhaps after how good he had told me it was, I just found it somewhat of an anti-climax. The premise of the book, which is that Hitler won the Second World War and is still in power in the 1960s, is an amazing, mind-blowing idea; the amount of thought which has got into recreating this version of the 1960s which never existed is deeply impressive; but somehow, the actual characters and plot failed to grab me and by the time I got to the end I was left with the feeling that I’d just read a rather mediocre thriller. (more…)

Hmmm, how to describe the internacia vespero?! Some of it was exceptionally good and some of it was exceptionally bad. There were some incredibly talented singers, some stunning belly-dancing, and a few jokes which were genuinely funny. It was quite cool to see the Esperanto song Ska-virino performed in sign language too. But some of the acts were either out of tune, or simply went on for too long. I think as a general rule, people should only be allowed to sing one song, as opposed to three in a row, and there should be a limit placed on the length of sketches and the like. That way, it would be easier to enjoy the stuff which was genuinely excellent, and the stuff which wasn’t so much to your own personal taste would be mercifully shorter. Through no one’s fault, the temperature in the theatre building was incredibly hot and the whole atmosphere was so oppressive that once or twice I felt like I was going to pass out. It was a shame, because I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have done, and I could hardly wait for the group photo to be over at the end so that I could run outside for some fresh air. (more…)

As it happened, I’d actually drunk too much wine to get up and feed the ducks before breakfast. For the first time in my life I didn’t even hear the alarm go off, but luckily Babel woke me at 9am and we still managed to get to breakfast on time. Armed with our stolen bread, we set off towards the lake and the ducks. The lake has a little island in the middle and most of the ducks seemed to be congregating there, so we went across the bridge and started to feed them. I don’t think they get fed as much as English ducks because some of them seemed quite ravenous and were practically fighting one another for pieces of bread. With Hungarian bread seemingly being so hard and stale, we had to be quite careful to make sure we tore it into sufficiently small chunks and didn’t choke them. A further complication was added by the swarms of small fish who suddenly appeared at the surface and tried to grab the bread before the ducks got chance. I have got some photos of the ducks which Babel took on my camera, but unfortunately it’s not a digital camera so it will be ages before I can see them. (more…)

I was glad not to be hungover on Thursday morning, because I wanted to go on another excursion. Only a little one this time, which mercifully didn’t involve getting on a coach I hadn’t realised before I went on holiday that Szombathely (or, at least, the Roman town which used to stand on the same site) was the birthplace of Saint Martin of Tours (he who gave his cloak to the beggar). Generally my family spend a lot of time praying to various Saint Martins, on account of the fact that that was my grandfather’s Christian name, and so I found the prospect of visiting his birthplace rather exciting. (more…)

Wednesday was the day I had been looking forward to the most. I was so incredibly excited about going to Hungary that ideally I wanted to *see* Hungary, rather than sitting talking to a pile of Esperantists, so the chance to go on an excursion was one I relished. Unfortunately, I’m not a person who deals well with being herded around as if I’m part of a group of cattle, nor a person who enjoys being spoken to like a five year old, and for that reason the day failed to meet my expectations until halfway through I succeeded in getting drunk. (more…)

It wasn’t much surprise that my boyfriend overslept on Tuesday morning, and so I took the brave step of stealing a couple of rolls from the breakfast buffet in order that he not waste away. With his figure, I felt this was indeed a real possibility, but he seemed strangely unimpressed by my criminal cunning and expressed a desire to go to MacDonalds instead. It was another glorious sunny day, and we sat outside on the main street with our chips and milkshake, soaking up the atmosphere of our beautiful surroundings. Whilst trying not to look at the mayonnaise and assorted gunk inside the burger my boyfriend had ordered, my eyes alighted on the building across the road and it suddenly struck me that it must be the local tourist information office. Once our chips were finished, I insisted that we go across the road and take a look, because I was on a mission to acquire some postcards. (more…)

Monday… Monday… I think Monday was the day of dance, but I managed to avoid dancing

I decided I ought to make an effort to participate in some of the programme, and so I attended a lesson in Hungarian. I was genuinely interested to learn some Hungarian for obvious practical reasons, but the room was far too small to accommodate the vast numbers of people who had had the same idea, and it soon became a battle not to pass out from the intense heat. The teacher wouldn’t have won any prizes, but nevertheless I did manage to acquire the rudiments of vowel pronunication and a few basic words such as hello, thank you, and German so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. (more…)