The visitor season begins

Having to furnish an unfurnished flat meant that we thought about how to transfer some of our belongings from the over-furnished Southgrove Road. One solution was for Helen to bring a load of stuff in the car, and she indeed did that, driving all the way from Yorkshire with her friend Bev.

We had planned to use a removals company to transport large items, but when Rachel announced that her boyfriend had a Luton van we offered to pay them to bring all our stuff out and have a free holiday with us. Which they duly did.

Rachel, moi and Joss on the Citadella

It was great fun having Rachel and Joss staying. They brought a tandem in the back of the van, and we had some big laughs riding around Budapest. Bikes in general are cool, but tandems are frozen solid, and we had so many astonished looks and warm smiles riding up and down the banks of the Danube and that it made me think that "I've got to have one of these".

Fishermen's Bastion

Rachel and Joss were joined a few days later by Matt, escaping from a festival in Croatia, and then also by Felix and Penny who had decided to have a short holiday in Hungary.

Matt arrives at Keleti palyaudvar

So for nearly a week we had a maximum of seven people at one time staying and had a real laugh. More on one night out in another blog.

Matt and Helen on the Citadel

Rachel, Matt, Joss, Helen, Felix and Penny

We had other visitors as well.

David and Karen, some previous neighbours of Helen's visited us one evening for dinner and we had an interesting evening talking about the current political situation back in Britain. Although I try to keep in touch through Radio 4 it's difficult to get much of a feeling for the vibe of the country, and I have to say that I felt somewhat relieved to be out of the country and in salaried employment at this precise moment.

Then we had Jill and Shayleigh. They stayed for four or five nights at the end of train journeys from Britain, and having them around offered yet more dimensions on the place. They particularly enjoyed the baths, and were pretty well the first people to stay with us who did not have to put up with a lot of rain.

So all in all, we had an interesting July and August with visitors.