4 March

Well, as I am never one to desert my fans in a time of need... I have had someone ask me what a tile stove is.. here you are:

There you go. I have also been assured that the photos are welcome, so I will offer you some more tidbits from Budapest. Here are some rather lovely easter eggs from an eggshibition in a shopping centre. The owl one is especially for my mum, with love.

Hmm... would you like more photos of Budapest? I thought so.

View from Fisherman's Bastion	Door of Museum of Music	Lovely lady built into a building	the sole remains of a medieval chapel

I think I will have to put together a zip file or screensaver of the other photos from Budapest.. some other day!

Easter... once again I feel pangs to be away from my friends and family. Strange to not be at a Rowany Festival, dusty and tired but happy.

Instead I consoled myself with a visit to an exotic new country - Hungary! Budapest to be specific. The visit was only a few short days but I did my best to cram everything I could into my time there. The architecture of the whole city is extraordinarily stunning. Even Parliament house looks like a cathedral!

Parliament House	St Matthias	Fishermen's Bastion

At various times the city has been bombed and consequently Buda castle has been partially destroyed multiple times. It is still well worth a visit, and the museum is great. There were a remarkably large number of stove tiles on display - I have seen many of these giant tiled stoves around, but this is the first time I have seen the tiles separately. I hadn't realised that they were so, well, 3 dimensional! These were also the first tiles I had seen where they had cutwork (for want of a better word)

Even more interesting were these 15th century spectacles:

The 14th century shoes were also interesting, and in amazingly good condition:

In one of the squares, there was a spring fair, with music, craft and foodstalls. There I bought a few odds and ends including a few gifties. There was a stall making what I suppose is some hungarian speciality. Dough is wound on to a cone of wood which is pierced by a metal spike. This is then cooked over hot coals and rolled in sugar or coconut. Let it rest for a bit, bang it up and down and it falls off to be wrapped up for eating later.

I am never sure how much you will be bored by having reams of photographs on a web page. I know they slow things down, but I take so many photos of all sorts of interesting things that I would love to share with you.

There is nothing like a little weekend jaunt to England to get you prepared for Easter... lots of hot cross buns bought! I had bought a cheapy ticket a few months ago and forgotten about it until last week when I opened my diary! I was flying into Luton airport... where to go from there?

Cambridge of course. The weather was far from ideal, but since when has English weather been ideal? Consequently I didn't take many photos, but here are a few.

I also bought a slow cooker; I did own one back in Australia, but it is amongst the things that I had parceled up to be mailed to me - I left them in the hands of Adrian, and they have never arrived. He's moved house since and I have no idea where he, or the stuff, is. I did find out that he has gotten engaged; congratulations whereever you are. (Yet again my gift for making men perfect for the next woman has worked!)

This weekend is Easter, and to comfort myself because I am not going to be at Rowany Festival, I am going to Budapest. Watch this space for all sorts of exciting new photos after that trip!

Mixed metaphor of the day. ".. the premise that has recently been excessively used by ... as his most beloved pearl in the toolbox of brainwashing".

Yesterday I saw a sight that only a few people in the world have ever seen. The lovely Una, daughter of my dear friends Danijela and Mark.

I have a wee page set up to show photos of the happy family.

5 March

This weekend my cousin was supposed to be visiting me but sadly it didn't work out, so I am at rather a loose end.

I have moved my site map/timeline to its own webpage, here as it was taking up the whole of this front page! So if you want a kind of oh-so-brief overview of my previous travels, go there! hmmm I may well move the links table currently at the top of all my pages there... what do you think?