Corncrakes

I've had to do a quick ( as in two days there) trip to Romania, as my incredibly valuable signature is required on a EU document to enable me to get my hands on Eur150,000 of EU cash.

Some months ago, the Gnome ( you can guess why he's called that) came across some Corncrakes on our land.

Now Corncrakes are on the red list and we should all be doing our utmost to keep them with us. Naturally, we do rather more when our palms are crossed with silver.

So the EU is providing me with money to expand the area where the Corncrakes are and to create a sort of "corridor" for them to flit to and fro between.

We can only use the land for hay thereafter, but as this will add up to about Eur 100 per hectare, and we get the EU subsidy of a further Eur 67 per ha, this will represent quite a nice return on our net costs per ha of about Eur250 after the EU grant. The Romanian government is supposed to be lobbing in a few quid as well, because they should attract eco-tourists.

It's a long term project, but what it does do is underpin and secure our business in Romania for the long term.

The Mayor has been very helpful in leasing us some extra land to cover the loss of agricultural land this will entail.

I did have to promise him that he could be the first to see them... once we find them again....

A miss is as good as a mile

I'm seriously busy in Romania, catching up with all the stuff I should have done last time when a) the weather was bad and b)I spent a couple of days in bed.
It hasn't prevented everyone ( and I do mean everyone) laughing like drains at the England - USA fubaw match that ended in a draw, after one of the classic goalkeeping blunders by some overpaid stiff called Green.
I am,of course, not English, so the joke is even better as far as my Romanian friends are concerned.
I did hear a joke that superseded the match.
The new British Government is seriously worried that men's penises in the UK are becoming too small to perform properly.
As a result they have asked that every man with a penis of less than 3 inches in length display a white flag with a red cross on it either as a flag on their car or out of the windows of their houses.
If you've been in England recently you will know that there are literally millions of poor chaps in a dire state.
Can't say I've noticed any such flags in Scotland - or Wales for that matter.....

Plus ca Change

I apologise for being away for so long, but I have had a great many problems to contend with - not least having to change my email which rendered this account inoperative for some time.
Romania finished off well apart from the weather that was poor for the time of year.
The wedding went well and instead of the bride being ransomed it ended up as the bridegroom ( Nicou) who was more than bemused with the whole thing. I managed to get candle wax and honey all down my jacket, so it is presently residing in the specialist cleaners.
In the meantime, I see we now have a coalition government. It remains to be seen whether it will be strong enough to force the banks to stop lending to it, and start lending to the poor benighted punters. I had a discussion with the regional director of RBS today, whose brief is:
1) Do not lend money on property
2) Where you have lent money in the past, claw it back
3) If you can't get it back, up the charges, margin and fees.
4) Er, that's it.
In effect, whereas bankers used to get bonusses for lending money,they are now getting bonuses for getting it back in. It will all end in tears, as all things with the banks do in time.
I am gearing up for Gurkha Highlander 2010, which is actually named "The Seven Sisters", the idea being to do 7 Munroes in 7 days. Fortunately, I am only driving again.
In the meantime, I was on the Somme again for a boy's outing, which was great fun, even if a bit chilly. It culminated in an excellent lunch on Sunday in Arras at a restaurant that had just opened two days earlier. The food was excellent as was the ambience - but we were somewhat surprised to discover that the Chef was from Swindon.
I sort of think the level of his food was a bit beyond the good people of Swindon...
As an aside, the spell check suggests " Swindlers" for Swindon...
The most extraordinary thing about the battlefields is that when the war ended there where literally thousands of square miles with nothing in them - just mud, holes,metal and bodies. These bodies keep appearing - we saw several new graves in some of the cemeteries with addenda in the registers. The thought at the time was that no one would ever live in the area again, but good land ( especially owned by a Frenchman) is precious, and the villages all grew up again quite quickly.
One of the more interesting things to do is visit a German Cemetery. There are very few as most bodies were taken back to Germany, but there are a few here and there.
Complete with Jewish headstones.
The thing is, the non-Jewish corpses have a simple black metal cross with the name, rank and job of the interee.
The Jewish ones were removed during WW2 and melted down to make bullets - so at least the Jews could be useful. The bodies were removed from their Aryan colleagues.
Now, the headstones have replaced the gaps and the bodies have been returned.
In Schlaflige Ruhe

Gie us Peace..

I couldn't stand it anymore - I had to get away from all the politics and everyone asking me questions about what I thought. Why don't they just do their own thinking?
Anyway, here I am back in Romania again, ready for another wedding ( although it will be dry as far as I am concerned)and to do lots of work ( hopefully). The flight from Luton to Sibiu on Blue Air went without a hitch, and the moment we got back to Sighisoara Alin whisked me off to talk to several groups of people about all sorts of things.
The last few days have largely been taken up with changing over my email address. Our techy Ms. Lear ( Now Mrs. Rock God) had set me up about 10 years ago on Handbag.com, which was ( is??) run by Boots for females. But it was dead easy and I could work it.Unfortunately, it moved to Tiscali some years ago and has never been that reliable. Now, they are closing the whole system as of June 3rd.
Of course, changing over the address book was easy ( especially as Mrs. Rock God actually did it for me ( Virtual Assistants are marvellous), but ploughing through the hundreds of saved and sent emails to see what I needed to keep has been much more onerous. I cannot for the life of me think why I have an email telling me all about prosthetic legs which I have carefully saved....
Sighisoara is looking lovely, as they have now finally finished redoing all the cobbles in the citadel, and they ahve added lots of uplighters to make it look very smart. As I returned from lunch about 9:30 this evening, there where a goodly number taking photos of how smart it was.
Alin has the bit between his teeth about taking a test drive in the new Dacia Duster - but he is very disappointed to hear that the 4 x 4 with aircon and leather seats is not the mere Eur 10,500 he thought it was. That's the basic model - no aircon, no 4 x 4 and naturally no leather seats. With everything it's about the same again...
The more interesting thing is the Dacia Logan we bought nearly 3 years ago for Eur 5,600 is still worth about Eur 3,500, so we have had all that motoring for about Eur 2000. I call that really good value.

A singular man

Here's a tale to take your mind off bigots and the election.
Mind you, we all have prejudices..
Anyway, in Romania in the time of Ceausescu, there lived a man who didn't like the regime. Actually, lots of men didn't like the regime, but they toed the line.
This particular man, whose name was Tiberius ( and they have Trajan as well), decided he would "drop out" of the stranglehold that the regime had on it's people.
So he went off to live in the woods not far from a place called Apold. It was pretty chilly in the winter but he dug himself a cave and was fine.
The only problem was that he needed to feed himself, so he hunted a bit, stole a bit and general kept himself out of people's way.
The regime, of course, didn't like this show of individuality one bit, so they sent a few people out to throw him in jail.
Unfortunately ( or fortunately if you were Tiberius), they couldn't lay hands on him. They found the entrance to the cave all right, but when they went inside they started to be impeded by booby traps and disappearing floors into bottomless pits.
Tiberius had dug all these himself, and every time one of his pursuers disappeared there was maniacal laughter ahead of the pack.
The baddies eventually gave up, swearing to return.
Of course, reporting failure on something to the regime at the time wasn't a good idea, so there was a degree of fudge, delay and obfuscation which meant it was some months before anything further happened. Think Falstaff's description of his defence in Henry IV part 2.
They returned in force, with machinery and weapons, and tried for days to capture Tiberius, and always just in front of them was that maniacal laugh.
Eventually, they lost all patience and brought up artillery and explosives. They spent days laying charges, and finally pushed the plunger.
Tiberius had gone round disconnecting things.
By now, of course, he had become a hero, so the regime started at one end of the woods and cave and systematically blew half the mountainside to bits. Still they heard the laughter.
Finally, they poured hundreds of tons of concret and boulders into the caves, working all the way round like a hunter with a ferret after rabbits. Even as they poured, they heard the laugh.
When the work was all done there was silence. After a couple of days of no sound, they packed up their equipment and went away.
And Tiberius watched them from the top of the Church tower in Apold...

Elyssium

My enforced prolongation of stay in Romania is throwing up all sorts of wonderful things.

Not least is the fact that rather than 120 odd goats we now appear to have more than 150.

At this time of year they are out in the fields in groups of 10/15, being looked after by young boys, who might be described as Peter's descendants ( That's Peter as in Heidi). Quite how I own all these goats is completely beyond me. The good thing is that it is creating employment where there was none before and the cries of horror at the size of the herd have diminished as more and more people are taking care of them. I think there are now 14 in total, with the boys on about GBP2 per day, with the seniors on about GBP6. It is of course 7 days a week, so there are opportunities to rotate work as needed.In the winter they are all indoors, so far fewer people are needed to look after them.

The first of the Billys went off to market and fetched about GBP300 each, so it's all woking out quite well though my fingers are firmly crossed. At last count we should be selling about 40 so we are firmly on course for a small profit this year

Goats, of course, eat their way through everything, so we have had a policy of getting them onto the worst land that needs cleaning up. Once the goats have chomped their way across, planting or reseeding is a doddle.Yesterday was spent all day in the fields, and a serious suntan is now in place. The butterflies and lizards were also stirring, and Transylvania is back to it's magical best.

I have a new camera which is simply wonderful - I have lots of really good pictures of my feet or the sky, but not many of anything else. Naturally, I don't have the instruction manual with me, nor would I read it if I did - it's a man thing. Fortunately, Alin is always on hand, and spent the whole evening early last week working out how it worked. At least I can now take a picture, look at it and erase it too.

Out here, sometimes amazing things happen for no apparent reason.

Alin was approached a few weeks ago by a man who couldn't pay his gas bill, begging to sell us a piece of land.

It wasn't where we wanted it.

It wasn't near anything else we owned.

It wasn't that easy to access.

It hadn't been worked for some years.

There were title problems, inheritage problems ( as Alin calls them) and even a problem with his ID.

Elena, the Capo of the local food Mafia in Nemsa, asked us very politely if we would please buy it, as she owed the man a favour. Reluctantly, Alin agreed to buy it, after his usual " Mr. King, what you tink?" elicited a shrug of my shoulders down the telephone.

One of the magical things here are the picnics people have. Barbecue is almost a religion. The Mayor has a good spot, set in the trees, but without much outlook. I've been looking for a spot where I could have my barbecue. Two or three areas have come up, but all of them just lacked a little something.

So yesterday we went to look at the land Alin had reluctantly bought, and slaved over to get the paperwork in order.

To say I was charmed would be to put it too mildly.

The land sits above Nemsa, looking straight down the valley and across the village, nestling in a kind of hollow below a wooded hillock.

We both just stood there gazing about.

" Mr. King, I'm thinking this will be your picnic spot."

Cold turkey

There are perils associated with doing business in Romania, and I have been hit by two of them today.

The first concerns some land we have owned for quite some time. To cut a long story short, there would appear to be two pieces of land with the same reference number.

As far as the law and we are concerned, we own the bit we thought we bought. As far as the person farming our land is concerned, it is still his.

However, it actually works in our favour, ,as we have a specific requirement for another piece nearby, which is owned by the dispossessed farmer. Nothing could be simpler than to effect a transfer each way....which has therefore worked out very well in our favour.

The other problem is the Mayor , having had his birthday, has decided he won't drink until my birthday on 3rd September. The problem is he has roped me in to do the cold turkey with him. In fact, it won't be much of a problem for me as I don't drink in the UK anyway, but I am Godfather at another wedding in Romania on 16th May, and that will be quite difficult.

Still, it's in a good cause. The bet is a bottle of whisky - to be drunk by the loser.

I don't drink whisky, so I better not lose.

PS. You see what being drunk does to you....???

A badge of honour

Being in Romania makes me reflect on what the EU actually does.

Apart from giving farmers like me subvention payments, most of the time it's objects are Statist and regulatory.

For instance, last year when we did the contracts for renting the land to various people, we simply put all the bits one individual was renting onto one piece of paper and had it notarised. The Romanians ( who make French and Italian bureaucrats look like amateurs) have simply layered EU regulations on top of their own. Somewhere along the line, this has translated into having to do one contract for each piece of land.

So yesterday we took the notary with us to Nemsa and Alma Vii, clutching ream upon ream of paper, and as each renter came up he signed, I signed and stamped, in three copies.

128 times.

Times 3.

I was completely punchdrunk by the time we finished.

The only ray of light on the horizon is that this is the first year this has had to be done, and everyone is up in arms about it, so there is likely to be a modification for next year.

Last year we got goats and sheep as rent, but as we now own most of the goats in the area ( and having the sheep simply feeds the teethy wolves and the locals), we will receive a share in the produce in the autumn, or in some cases days work. This last is quite useful as it saves having to pick and choose who we want to work for us on the day.

Yesterday was the Mayor's birthday, so of course we had to go and wish him many happy returns. He is now 58, and although he drinks like a fish and eats all the wrong things, he looks remarkably young. I put it down to his not smoking at all and being effectively stress free. Everyone does everything for him.

Of course, it could just be the genes.

His father died last month.

He lost a leg in the war and refused ever to wear a prosthetic, which stood outside his front door for all to see. He hirpled about on his crutches until the day before he passed away.

He was married twice( his first wife died during WW2) and Eugen is the progeny of his second marriage post-war.

He was 92 when he died, a man who worked the fields well into his 70s, and a previous mayor in the Communist era.

So I expect at least another 25 or 30 years out of Eugen.

Goat Stew.

I've been very busy the last couple of days out here, and very boring it has been as well.

Hours spent with lawyers and accountants are just about bearable, but with officials who require upwards of 40 or 50 signatures and stamps is enough to make me want to shoot myself. Fortunately, it does eventually end, and one can emerge blinking into the sunshine again.

The Mayor is well. The house he is building for his son and daughter-in-law is progressing well, even if he has some odd ideas. He has decided it should have CCTV cameras. As everyone has told us,"For what he wants this? To watch his chickens pecking?" The house is in the grounds of his own house, which is immediately beside the police, so it is extremely unlikely anyone would attempt anything.

The centre of Sighisoara is no longer a mess - the cobbles have all been put back, although with true Official determination some of them have had to be dug up again. They had very carefully sunk some uplighters into strategic locations - the only problem being no one had laid any electric cables...

The new seasons cabbage is not here yet. This means that one does not order cabbage salad as it is a bit white and tough. Of course, foreigners and people from Bucharest are steered to order it, as they, of course, know no better.

But the overwhelming question of the day, on everyone's lips, is what are we going to do with the goats? You may recall last autumn we had about 60 - I say "about" as my calculation was less than the goatherd's, which, in turn,was less than there actually was.

Having been mated in November, we now have a string of baby goats emerging, which, in theory, will take us to about 120.

This is such an enormous number that people actually can't conceive of how we are going to deal with them. As Baldrick would say, I have a cunning plan...

It looks as if we will have about 25 or 30 male goats from the new crop, so these will be sold far and wide - we will only sell in our area if anyone wants one. Some may even find their way back to Switzerland to help their gene pool.

On 23rd May, a large delegation is coming from LeManoir near Caen in France to mark 25 years of association with Mosna. There is to be a feast for the whole (top echelon) population of the three villages and the French - about 300 people in total.

By my reckoning, this will use up about 30 kids. Of course, the Mayor has a budget for this, but Mosna City Hall also has a derelict orchard I want, so we have arranged a small swap. He will buy the goats from me and I will buy the orchard from him. More precisely, Mosna will give me the orchard and I will pay the Mayor....

But hey - that's the goat problem solved . For this year at least..

Kaka

The weather here in Romania is not of the very best, but it was still great to get into the hills and check the land that had most recently been bought. I had seen pictures and maps sent over the internet, but there is nothing quite like walking over one's own land, and seeing what the views are like from it.

We have huge amounts to settle in the next week or so, from what to do about the goats, which are beginning to take over everyone's thinking in Nemsa, to registering additional land for subvention payments, appearing before the land court and many more.

But today was Sunday, so it was more important to just get the feel for the area again.

This is the time of year that the snails are collected.

Every wet patch of grass has its own seeker or two, complete with sacks to pop the little darlings into.

I was most impressed to see this, and stopped to watch for a few minutes. I remarked what a good food source they were, after being hung in a sack for a week to drain them of any residual dirt.

"No, Mr. King, " said Alin." We Romanians are definitely not eating such things. We think of them as kaka ( a universal European term for poo)"

Apparently, snails go for about GBP3.5 per Kg. to the collector, and each village has it's own super collector who pays out, then takes a van load to the main town where huge lorries are waiting to take them to other countries. They are never eaten in Romania.

In the season, the ordinary collectors, after some rain, can make up to GBP30 per day - just about a week's wages in the countryside.

As we were going to visit the Mayor, we stopped in Medias flower market to pick up a bunch of roses. There were some lovely yellow ones, with red centres, and I immediately bought a bunch of 7 for GBP2.50. I raised them to my nose and sniffed.

There was a sort of plasticky smell. My thought was it was the paper around them, so I plunged my nose further in.

Still plasticky - indeed, rather moreso.

I turned to Alin.

"These flowers smell funny."

He looked at me and burst into side-slapping gales of laughter.

The red bits in the middle were not natural - they were spray-painted on.

And it had been comprehensively and expertly transferred to my nose and face.

Very Cheeky..

I'm back in Romania after the winter break, and was greeted with a dull day. It brightened as we drove back from Cluj to Sighisoara, and I heard of the Polish airplane crash and the death of the Polish Prime Minister. Not over comforting, then, that I had bee flying with a Polish airline ( Wizz)

More importantly, on the flight with me were The Cheeky Girls. They of course come from Cluj originally.

Now in Romania, they are NOT known for one of them having been engaged to Lembit Opik. Indeed when I mentioned this to another passenger, they asked a) what nationality was he and b) what did he do. I explained he was a Lib-Dem MP, and the enquirer laughed.

"That" he said,"Is why I have never heard of him"

The reason they are known in Romania is because one of them ( I have no idea which one) supposedly had an affair with Tony Blair.

They are not known for their singing ability.

Drunks in Romania

From The Times
March 10, 2010
Drivers warned of drunks in road as Romania tries to reduce accidents.


Road signs warning drivers that drunken people may be in the road have been put up to reduce the number of accidents.
The signs read "Attention - Drunks" and show a reveller crawling along with a bottle in his hand.
Petru Antal, the Mayor of Pecica in Romania said his town had a vibrant nightlife. He said: “We are a border town and have lots of cars thundering through here all the time. But we also have a very vibrant nightlife and the two don't mix.
“We have to target the drivers because by the time they get to this state the pedestrians are beyond caring.”

This of course, is not something that we have a problem with in Mosna, Nemsa and Alma Vii.
The drunks are all driving the cars.....

Romania's very own John Prescott ( sort of..)

The last two days have been spent tramping all over the hills, and making sure all our plans are actually happening. The last job today was to go to look at an orchard as far away from Mosna as it is possible to be without being in the next Mayor's jurisdiction.
There are about 19 owners in total, and ( because we have to buy ALL a seller's land so they can get the extra pension from the government) we already own 2 bits of it. Some of the orchard was completely derelict and other parts were well maintained, and the access is mostly overgrown to keep the uninitiated out. Many of the trees still had apples that noone had bothered to collect, but many more of them were dead with huge balls of mistletoe having strangled them to death. I can feel an EU project coming on...
As we made our way back we saw the Mayor's car at the Forrest Man's house, and dropped in to say hello. The TV was on and there was huge excitement. It was a news programme, and they were about to show the film of Basescu hitting a small boy at a 2004 rally. We all watched fascinated as he punched the boy in the face. It has apparently been shown endlessly, which is understandable. The difference with our own JP ( as Tony Blair said at the time, Hey, that's John) is that the boy had only asked for his autograph.
The report went on to say that the boy, now older and living in Italy, had gone into hiding as he had had threatening calls - including death threats. Basescu at first denied it happened, then said it was a doctored video, and his latest is that he doesn't remember the incident. As Alin would say, we shall see.
As an aside, Basescu was a ship's captain, and was recently asked what he would do if he lost the election. When he replied that he would probably return to being a ship's captain, he was gently reminded that as Minister of Transport, he had completely sold off the Romanian Merchant fleet. This was very much akin to our own Gordon Brown's brilliant decision to dispose of most our gold.
We ended up having meatball tarragon soup and sarmale with them, whilst the TV endlessly debated the pros and cons of the incident. In the UK nowadays I suspect such an incident would immediately lead to prosecution and imprisonment, but this is Romania. As many people will now NOT vote for him as those who were not going to vote for him WILL.
We will see.
PS
I just heard a weather report on the BBC. Aparently there is flooding in Puddletown....

Back to work

With my friend having left, it is back to the grindstone today with a vengeance.
Having had the long drive to and from Cluj last night we filled up with petrol. There, in the hut that serves as an office, amidst the various maps and papers, was the very latest monthly from JAMIE OLIVER - in Romanian, teaching them how to cook. I can't help but think his recipes don't start with.. " Take a pig..." or " take 20 litres of neat alcohol." I daresay someone must be buying it.
The second round of the Presidential elections takes place on 6th December. Today, in an effort to dislodge Basescu, the Liberal party ( nominally his supporters ) the PSD, the PC, the "Transylvania for Hungarians" party and the " Kill all Hungarians" party formed a pact which, with a bit of luck, might get rid of him and deliver Geoana. There has been skullduggery at work. A large Geoana poster, set in 5 cm thick metal posts and in concrete was rammed and destroyed by a politically motivated vehicle from downtown Medias. At least that is the story. I suspect it may have been a drunk.
They do go a bit further than we do. In the petrol station you can get Geoana adverts which are actually the smelly things you hang in your car to make it smell nice.
I was particularly delighted to see the corn mill at work today. This dates back ( in part) to the early 1800s, and still takes in the corn cobs from the locals, grinds the corn and gives it back for a fee in time-honoured fashion. Here, the fee is usually a percentage of the amount milled. There was a most picturesque queue of worthy sons and daughters of the soil, along with their carts and horses, waiting to have their corn dealt with. It is mostly made into polenta, and is also mixed with wheat flour to make the bread go further.
Our first call was to Mosna Town Hall. We had asked Vasily, the map supremo, to extract names and addresses against field numbers.
There was no sign of him. One of the ladies told us that he had worked all night, fortified by copious draughts of tuica, and had had to be carried home at 7am when everyone came to work. The Mayor had granted him official leave to stay there until Monday...
Armed with our list ( the first names were clear and legible, the later ones very squiggly and a bit unsteady) we set off to check the fields themselves against the maps.
Always when we do this we are followed by a gaggle of old men and women, all of whom know every blade of grass and who it belongs to - except none of it corresponds with the maps or the property titles. It was a glorious day once more and we walked a total of about 12 kms checking and cross checking - the property titles also tell you who is to the North, South, East and West, so it is easy enough to check correctly, just time consuming. In the distance we could see Toaderico ploughing some of our fields. It was a treat to see a small patchwork of presently unused land being transferred into one large piece that will hopefully be productive. I had had some deep holes dug at various points in an area we are interested in, and we checked how they were coming on. All were more than 2 meters deep, and all still showing deep black earth even at the bottom. I told the diggers to stop - the land is more than good.
On our way back we came across the Mayor supervising the re-erection of the giant Geoana poster, and told him of our discoveries. His face broke into a broad grin.
"Ah, da. Forte Bine - terren fromose."
The land is good.

Elysian Interlude

I've had a friend out here for the last few days. As ever, he has been bowled over by the place ( to be fair the weather has been superb and Transylvania is showing herself at her very best).
He has tagged along with everything we have been doing but we have curtailed the days so that we have not started before 9 and lunch has been by 6 each day with free time from 8. I'm sure he thinks this is too long for comfort but is only about 70% of what we normally do.
He likens the culture to that of Ireland in the 50's and early 60's, or Portugal until more recently, with a very agrarian rural economy. In the villages the number of cars is minimal, and the locals produce all they need to live.
Of course, he has had to drink the tuica ( which he quite liked) and eat some things which at home he would never consider, but even these he was quite taken with. We tramped some fields to show him things and his superior brain produced some good thoughts which we will mull over and possibly incorporate into what we are doing.
We had paparnash every night - the sweet cheese doughnuts with jam and sour cream that are so tasty. As we ate in a different place every night, we had four different manufactures, and the decision was handed down that the best are now at the Binderbubi.
The highlight of the visit was our "lunch" at the Pension Liana in Nemsa ( Elena's) when we had kid stew. I had been told it was going to be a special surprise but I had no idea I would be providing the ingredients....
Incidentally, there is now a flight from Stansted to Sibiu, which is only just over an hour from Sighisoara. This is operated by Blue Air, and is thoroughly to be recommended. Not only do you get to choose your seat, at the moment you don't even have to pay for luggage.
And they have a frequent flyer discount programme too...
PS
Apparently, despite eating one goat , we still have 62. The only conclusion I can come to is that it is something to do with people paying us rent late, but I am assured that everyone is up to date and we are not, nor have we been , owed any goats.
Perhaps they are just coming in to get out of the sun....

Walking the fields

Being out in the fields in the sunshine is one of the reasons I come to Romania, and yesterday was one of those days when we had to walk the fields in company and have fields pointed out to us and discuss what needed to be done to them. It was the most perfect day and I am now boasting a winter tan.

The day stared with Toaderico insisting we had some mulled wine against the cold ( it was about 17c in the sunshine) followed up with a ride to the further reaches of the empire sitting, emperor like, on a plank across the trailer.

Toaderico used to work in Germany but as he says he hated it. He made pots of money but was so so miserable he had to drink it all. Now he is back in the village of his birth ( Alma Vii) and happy as one of his pigs in the mud bath he calls his back yard.

We set off in search of a fabled lake, which Toaderico assured us he had used to visit when he was a child. We found it all right, but unfortunately the end had been dynamited to get the fish out by some shepherds years ago. Potentially it's a lovely spot, but, frankly,there is little of merit in rebuilding the end, because it is too far away from anything to enable a profit to be turned. But the ride on the tractor was huge fun, enlivened by Toaderico's 4-speaker mp3 player blasting out Romanian music. I would estimate it is at least 20 years old.

The walking started thereafter, and five hours later we got back to the tractor. The land we surveyed was more than good, and Toaderico's instructions in terms of ploughing, treating weeds and generally making ready for planting were all costed and agreed.

Nothing would do, of course, but that we should go to his mother's house for a drink and lunch ( by now it was 4:30 - bit early but still) where we fed the pigs and chickens with corn ( I'm almost sure it's mine but who knows) and ate a delicious dish which I could only describe as scrambled eggs with cheese and really thick very well cooked bacon. The only drawback was the two glasses of tuica I had to consume before I could get to the food. But the business was done and that was the major point.

In the meantime a herd of locusts had descended on the car, with people waving property titles at us and demanding we consider their land, particularly as it was especially good and productive, unlike their neighbour's which was rubbish. We have had to institute a policy that we pay the identical price everywhere, as otherwise it would be a spiral and create great ill will. As it is, people either accept or reject the price is it suits them, and we then have to do the hard work of registrating it ( as Alin would say ) and transferring title. In the event none of them wanted to accept the prices, but I have no doubt they will in time.

The day ended with dinner at the BinderBubi for 6 which worked out at GBP7 per head. Considering the wine, three courses, coffee and beers I though this more than cheap...

Very clever goats

Meanwhile, back in Romania, they have a Presidential election this coming Sunday.
If it was down to the number of posters, Mircea Geoana would win by a mile. But Alin assures me the present incumbent ( Basescu) will be the winner.
" You see, Mr. King, it's like this. If you are Coca Cola, you don't doing much advertising. But if you are Sighisoara Cola, then you must doing much advertising just to get little business."
I'm not 100% sure his argument is valid, but all the other candidates names end in "escu" .There are cases of mothers forcing their daughters into marriages with men just because their name ended in "escu". For some reason you are regarded as an important person. In fact, I was recently introduced as "Learescu" just to make the point...
The weather here is beautiful and warm - 17C today and the most brilliant blue sky. There is the odd wisp of smoke as the gloaming sets in, rising straight up, which is very picturesque.
This is the time of year when the ploughing has to be done so we spent most of today checking that the people doing it were in the right places. It's surprising how often our next door neighbours get their fields ploughed for free...
We went to the Mayor for a cup of coffee and ended up having special sausages made from goat and pig. I was slightly suspicious so we went to check on our goats to make sure it was only the sheep that the teethy wolves were eating. It looks as though the teethy wolves have been adding goats rather than subtracting them, as instead of 58 we now have 62 ( as far as I can calculate the absolute absolute maximum should be 56 and that's stretching it a bit), and all, I am assured, are pregnant. I find this a little hard to believe as it's only now that the billys are let lose on them, but we shall see, as Alin would say. We needed to build an additional shelter to house the new lot of kids, and this has been a major undertaking, with advice from everyone in the village as to exactly where it should be built.Also which way round. And how big, long, wide, high and of what. And what the party should be like when it is finished.
Whilst all this was going on the goat man , Dan and his two helpers had been quietly working away, and I was astonished to see a whole new building within 50 feet of the old one when I arrived there today.
I asked how much it had cost.
" Nothing," said Dan. Being Romania, this had not surprised me as much as it ought to have done.
It transpired the uprights and roof trusses had been donated by the forest man, in exchange for a goat and a pig. The roof was old metal sheets salvaged from cutting up a redundant water tank. The sides had been built using reclaimed block and bricks from various building sites round about. And of course the cement, sand nails etc. had simply appeared..
Now bearing in mind we don't actually have any pigs ( we ate ours this time last year), and it would mean we should only have 55 goats, and however you care to look at it most of the stuff was - how shall I put this delicately - stolen - I was a bit worried about the whole thing.
Dan assured me it was fine. Everyone who "donated" had been compensated. How? He had given them baby goats...and some sheep.
So my goat man steals sheep from my shepherd.
And the goats appear to have some form of alien reproduction as when we counted up the number of people who had been compensated, I reckon the most I should have is 48......
PS
You may be wondering about the pig as officially we don't have any. I'm reliably informed it had wandered into the goat pen and was then passed on to a third party...

Romanian Goats

Those of you who follow me in Romania may be wondering how the goats are doing.
Very roughly, we now have so many goats and so many due to produce babies that they are taking over the village.
What happened in the past was that people bred goats, sold some, ate some and then bred some more. No one has ever NOT got rid of any and kept breeding.
You might find it extraordinary but we spent a couple of hours discussing this particular problem, which is a problem not only for the people ( yes we now have 3) looking after them, but for the very terrain they inhabit.
Suffice to say we agreed to keep the maximum number at 100 and to sell ( or eat) whatever number more we had. We will also have to buy some more land to keep feeding them - fortunately this won't be a problem.
On the subject of crops, trefoil would appear to yield 4 cuts a year and each hectare is worth about £500. This will feed about 8 goats for the full year - so input = about £60pa.
Cost of looking after them is about £30 pa ( total costs divided by total numbers) so lets just say the all-in cost is £100 pa.
There is, of course, the by-product - the dung which gets spread everywhere, but ignoring that, we would expect to sell each goat for about £300. This may sound a lot, but these are special goats - and it's only for the Billies.
So lets just say the 100 goats produce 100 babies, and 50% are boys. Our total costs will be £10,000 and our income £15,000 - with an extra 50 female goats thrown in to replace any that die.
Or start a new herd somewhere...

Corn, Cabbage, Goats and the Post

Life in Romania is never dull, but what it is, is extremely busy. This being the time of year when the crops are "got in" I have been busy selling corn.
Actually, I haven't. I've been discussing the politics, economics and spiritual dimensions of selling corn - with a broad-brush occasional mention of the price, which would appear to be very good.
There is a move NOT to sell the corn but to hoard it and sell for more later, but as this is our first year we probably ought to just sell and work out how it has done, which at least would give us a benchmark for future years.
Various odd bits of land have been discussed and the goats are being readied to be mated and then produce more goats, which should mean that next year we can sell some.
The sheep exist - somewhere. I just can't get them to stand still long enough to know whether I have lots - or not. Noone seems too bothered either way.
Overall, though, I would say things have turned out pretty well this year and now the weather has turned sharply colder ( there was a flurry of snow today) people will be much more ready to discuss selling land.
This is the weekend of the cabbage festival, which is being led by one of the most famous priest/singers in Romania. People will be flocking to hear him from tens of miles away, all coming to Mosna, and the police have already put in place road blocks to direct incomers to suitable parking places. We locals have pre-ordained specific parking spots. The Senators and Deputies, nearest, then the other Mayors, then Councillors and so on. Our spot is immediately behind the stand,beside our Mayor and in front of the rest, and I have to eat the first plate of new season's cabbage salad, and say "Pofta Buna!" roughly translated as "eat well".
There is, of course, to be a celebratory lunch which I am looking forward to, except for the fact that our accountant ( who works FOR the Tax Office) has intimated she would like to visit the Festival. She will have to come to the lunch as well.
I've been intrigued with the potential postal strike in the UK. Anything more sure to kill off the Post Office in anything like it's existing form would be hard to imagine, but hey, maybe we'll all be better off.
Romania has a different attitude to this.
I noticed a very smart new yellow box outside a paper shop the other day, but was astonished to see it had disappeared by the time 9pm came round.
Fascinated, I discovered it had returned the next morning, and nothing would do but I should ask about it.
Very sensibly, instead of having expensive buildings, post boxes and the like, Romania now has a system of post boxes which are issued to suitable shops to put in the street. They do have to be chained down ( everything here is) and taken in at night to avoid damage or vandalism, but the expansion in the mail services has been astronomic.
Maybe our own PO should try increasing collections and deliveries rather than cutting them down in order to raise the throughput.
But then, increasing business is not something we Brits regard as quite the done thing nowadays.

Toodle Pip!

Just about to set off to Romania via Valencia. This new route should be an interesting experience as I have two overnights in airports.
Mind you a plate or two of tapas en route will go down a treat.
As one of the Ms. Lears opined:
"Between the worn out shoes and the quote below - is Dad in fact not in Romania, but moonlighting as Shadow Business Secretary??
"I only get overweight on good quality food. And I always avoid unnecessary exercise." - Ken Clarke in conversation with Andrew Rawnsley"
See previous post for refutation.