In search of some excercise

For reasons I am not very sure of, every one of our advisers out here is female. In terms of age, they probably range from about 30 to about 60, and in terms of attractiveness, on a scale of 1 to 10, from about 0.5 up to a potential 10.

I say potential because Beauty is, of course, in the eye of the beholder, but I have it on good authority that our two legal advisers, as opposed to Notaries Public, are attractive enough to turn the head of a saint.

This has an unexpected plus - or maybe a minus.

Despite being a macho society, the female form and its allure is a subject of enormous interest. I often think that Feminism has killed both courtesy to women and a proper appreciation of them - which, despite what we are told, they might like to hear.

In any event the two Avocats are much appreciated by all and sundry, one being blond the other a brunette. Of course, they are well aware of the effect they have on we poor men.

Their speciality is land law, so we have quite a few meetings with them. Since the word of their beauty got around, we find that any male sellers are very keen to discuss their "problems" before committing to a sale. Naturally, these are almost non-existent, but the sellers go off with a happy smile and we get the land. I'm quite sure that a few bits have fallen to us because of them, even although one or two of the sellers abuse the system and try for a second and even a third meeting. In general though their expertise has been outweighed by their allure, and it seems to work in our favour.

The other thing that is definitely working for us at the moment is the fact that we have quite a lot of land, and it means we can offer not just money, but a swop or part exchange. We have also been able to tie up a deal to rent some land ( 3 Ha) to a farmer in exchange for giving us another piece - particularly cost-effective.Finally, through our connection with the Topograph, who does all our business and is the head of the University Topograph School, we have a cost advantage over anyone else. Recently, we were able to get a seller's house area surveyed ( he was wanting to sell it to someone, not us) and in exchange we got some land. His cost would have been about Eur 700, ours was only about Eur 150, so we effectively got .77 of a hectare for about one third of what it would have cost us normally.

As you know I am now officially a walker, and because it has been so hot here, I have done less than I should have done. So yesterday being cooler and with the odd cloud, I told Alin I would walk back from Alma Vii to Mosna - about 10 kms.

He was horrified.

"Mr. King! What happen if you get attacked? The Mayor he will not forgive me!"

I explained I walked all over Glasgow without any problems and felt sure a country road would prove no problem.

"No no! I will not allow it!" Ok, I said, drive along in front of me.

"OK! But you just jumping into the car if you see someone." Apart from the fact I have never seen any violence in Romania, my feeling that this was over the top was mitigated by the thought that I was his meal ticket.

So off I set with Alin driving along on front. After a short while I pulled up beside him and told him to go ahead a bit as the fumes were annoying me. Very reluctantly he complied.

A few minutes later, another car passed.

Now I suppose I am quite well known in the area, and the minute the driver saw my face he screeched to a halt and offered me a lift. Alin had spotted this in his rear-view mirror and had come racing back.

Explanations and hand shakes all round and best wishes and off I set again - to be stopped after another kilometer or so by a man driving in the wrong direction who offered to take me wherever I wanted.

This happened every time a car passed, so that instead of taking just over an hour nearly 95 minutes had gone by as Mosna came into view - when another car pulled up. By this time Alin and I were both fed up, and I accepted a lift for the last few hundred meters - which horrified Alin, who drove within 5 feet of the car all the way into town.

But I was just feeling naughty.

" Mr. King, I am not allowing you to do this again! You are giving me hearts attacks! If you are wanting to walk, I will get Gellu to come with you" ( Gellu is the number 2 policeman)
It's rather nice to feel quite so secure.

Let me give you something for free....

Yesterday was really busy with all sorts of things, not least an attempt to get something to mitigate the cold I have. The Romanian equivalent of Night Nurse seemed to keep it largely at bay ( although this morning it has deteriorated into a dribbly mess. Lovely)
Much to my astonishment, the maps that needed copying were in the back of the car, so we set off very early to get them copied about 40 kms away. They are very big maps and there is only one place in the whole of Mures county that can copy maps of this size. We got a couple of extras for Vassily as his were a bit falling apart.
With the maps, we were able to plot various purchases of recent times, and see exactly where we needed to fill in and who we needed to approach. The maps were RON15 each, about GBP3, and great value as far as I am concerened. The copier, being a genuinely nice chap, also gave us several of those tubes you can post things in to keep our maps in good condition.
Most of the rest of the day was spent discussing strategies with lawyers about a situation where a family fell out about 60 years ago, and where 3 of the remaining 5 members want to sell to us. People talk of Philadelphia lawyers being wily and obtuse, but I'm quite sure Romanian lawyers run them seriously close. And of course the cost of the land is a fraction of the cost of the legal wheeling and dealing.
So this morning it was with some trepidation that we went to another lawyers office with the Topographer. He is the man who draws up the exact location, sizes and areas of every piece of land. The reason for this particular meeting was the inability of one of our next door neighbours to stop planting his corn on our land. Last year we simply told him it was OK, please don't do it again, but this year I feared we would need to make an example of him pour encourager les autres.
Romanian topographers are very accomplished people, and this particular one is one of only 5 that is allowed to present evidence in the regional land court. Although the system is that the land records have a final,all embracing record in Bucharest, what the regional courts say goes. Logically, the local topographers will have lots of local knowledge, in some cases going back several hundred years, and the regional courts take that as important.
So I was quite pleased to discover that, not only was the farmer planting on our land, but actually, because the original title had been messed up when the land was reinstated after 1990, we had an extra half acre.
Which he had also planted on.
The Topographer had produced a ten page report, complete with plans and maps, and even I, in my Scottish miserableness, could see he had not only done a superb job, he had actually done it - if not cheaply - at least at a reasonably good price.
So armed with a court order and the report, we contacted Erne the policeman, and he led us through the village with his siren blaring.
Within about half a second the whole village was looking out of windows or round corners, as we drew up outside a house.
" Mr. King I am very happy to be going into this house", said Erne. " He stole two chickens, a cock and some cheeses the other day, but we had no reason to go into his house. Now I have reason"
Erne hammered on the door and shouted, and the door was opened.
" It's a fair cop" said the miscreant ( or the equivalent in Romanian) "I only took the chickens and cock because I needed to cross-breed with mine. You can have them back now."
"And the cheese?"
" I just ran out and I needed some - but I've got some fresh now. Here"
Well that was one crime sorted. Alin nudged Erne.
" Ha yes and what about the corn?"
"Well, Mr. King was so good to us last year when we plant by mistake, I plant for him this year."
It took me two goes to understand the translation.
" He planted on our land to let us have his corn?"
"Not quite," said Alin" But I tink he is making a gift to you."
And so it proved.