Beetles, bugs and a railway line that doesn't exist

The change from a mainly wet June to a hot July has brought forth a proliferation of insect life. My pool is acting as an effective trap so apart from lots of flies and a few wasps, two Colorado beetles have ended up doing breast stroke in the pool. These beetles are a pest, destroying potato crops, so both were quickly dispatched in a plastic bottle with a squirt of insecticide. Shield bugs come in many varieties and I have rescued some spectacular looking examples from the pool, mostly small ones with metallic colours which vary from green to brown as the light falls on them from different angles. The one pictured here though is larger and by far the most strikingly coloured to date. I have also removed some large orange bodied flies with ferocious looking mouth parts and the most amazing huge eyes which make up 75-80% of their head. Apart from the sheer size of these eyes, they are also beautifully coloured being dark blue-green with red and orange marbling. (Note to self: must find macro lens adaptor to get a good photo).

Sun continues to shine. Most days the shade temperature is 31C and most days also produce a thunderstorm in the late afternoon or evening. However, these are not always accompanied by rain and pass within 30-40 minutes anyway. I don't know if the thunderstorms are a result of just the heat or a combination of the heat and the local terrain as they usually roll in from the Tarnava Mare river valley to the north. They then work their way down one or more of the smaller valleys such as the Laslea river valley in which Roandola is situated.

Tomorrow (Friday) I am going to collect my Dacia Logan MCV from Odorheiu Secuiesc. The city is served by a branch line which leaves the main railway line a few kilometres east of Sighisoara. This branch crosses the road five or six times and although it looks disused, I know it is still open as I had seen a train on my way back from my first visit to Odorheiu in May. However, when I tried to find train times on the CFR (national railway) website, it kept telling me the branch line and station didn't exist! Other websites only covered the major routes so I phoned my English speaking friend Adi in Laslea and went to see him after he finished work. He got the same result as me from the CFR website, so he tried to phone Sighisoara station only to get a recorded message telling him of a problem with the phone. Next he rang Medias station and found that the reason we could find nothing about trains to Odorheiu on the CFR website was because the trains on that line are operated by a separate, privately owned company. Adi was told that the train starts from Medias and stops at every station and halt including Danes which is my nearest station at only 10kms from Roandola. Just to be sure we went to Danes station and the booking clerk confirmed the train runs daily, leaves Danes at 11:48am and arrives in Odorheiu Secuiesc at 1:35pm but I would have to buy my ticket on the train because it is privately owned and not operated by CFR. This morning I spoke to the sales director, Attila the Hun(garian), who told me to ring him when I get to Odorheiu station and he will pick me up. The cash to pay for the car was collected from the bank in Sighisoara this morning, so I am all prepared for my own left hand drive car which will make driving here so much easier, especially for overtaking!

On Monday I shall be flying to the UK to spend a few days, including my birthday, with family plus a visit to Grove, hopefully to meet up with some of you who have been following my blog. See you!

Buying a Dacia - Please don't tell Jeremy Clarkson

Sorry! Another long post but this has been an important day for me so pour yourself a drink first.

Six weeks after leaving my details at a used car dealer in the Hungarian area of the country, I was still looking for a Dacia Logan MCV Laureate, then, just like London buses, along come three at once! I had a specific requirement for an MCV with aircon and that meant Laureate or Prestige spec. My search was further complicated because I wanted the 7 seat version and preferably diesel. Seven seats because I want to be able to offer an airport pick-up/drop-off service for Casa Cristina Roandola guests; diesel because here the fuel is actually slightly cheaper than petrol - plus there is the obvious advantage of better fuel consumption. I knew diesel MCVs are more expensive than petrol versions but the extra euros I'll be paying for the above 1.5Dci model will be recouped in one year or less.

The sales manager, Attila Barazs, and yes, that really is his name which I suppose makes him Attila the Hun(garian), emailed me yesterday morning with photos of two diesel and one petrol 7 seat MCV Laureates. Rang him for prices and he said he would either call me back or email within an hour. Three hours later (I forgot that Romanian hours have 180 minutes) he emailed prices of around €7500 for diesel models and €7000 for the petrol model. By then it was too late in the day to get to the dealership in Odorheiu Secuiesc which is about 75kms away. A long way I know but used car dealers do not exist in Mures or Sibiu counties other than the Sunday "car markets" which do not, as far as I know, offer test drive facilities or servicing before you pick up your purchase. Bit of a lottery then!

This morning I made the journey to view the cars. Attila was out on an errand when I arrived so I was able to nose around without any pressure. First one I looked at was a metallic dark grey diesel version. However I noticed it had five or six very small but nevertheless noticeable dents in doors and bonnet and front tyres would need replacing fairly soon. Crossed that one off the list. Next was the above car in metallic "bleu extreme". First registered May 2008, no marks or dents, five good tyres and the underside was very clean. And it's a diesel. Finally had a look at the petrol engined version which was metallic mineral blue (sort of blue/grey) but the poorer economy made it very much a non-starter for me. Meanwhile Attila had returned so he reversed the "bleu extreme" car out of the compound for me to have a test drive. Despite being a diesel, the Renault 1.5Dci engine is remarkably quiet, even with the bonnet open. Car drove nicely, light clutch, precise gearchange and good acceleration from the turbo diesel. The aircon cooled us nicely on what was a very hot morning - 31C according to the car's computer read-out. Front brake pads were worn out so had to allow for that when braking but the car will be serviced and front brakes replaced. I didn't bother with test drive of either of the other cars for the reasons already mentioned. Price for the car of my choice was €7400 and I've paid €300 deposit.

Car buying in Romania is complicated by the fact that when a car moves from one county to another, it gets a new registration number. Currently it carries "B" plates from Bucharest but will eventually have "SB" plates as I live in Sibiu county. There is also the small problem of the fact that cars can only be sold to Romanian citizens or companies. As yet I have neither a Romanian ID card nor is Casa Cristina Roandola SRL fully registered due to the slow workings of the company registration system. But, as always in Romania, there are perfectly legal ways round these problems! I can either get a Romanian citizen to register the car on my behalf - which, just as in the UK, makes him the car's "keeper" but not necessarily its legal owner, and later, for a small fee, he would transfer the car to my name when I have Romanian ID. The other alternative is for the dealer to register the car in his company name and the car will then get "HR" plates for Harghita county in which the dealership is located. They already have quite a few cars on their books for others who, like me, are waiting for their company to be registered. Once I have a company number and the official certificate, they raise an invoice for the price of the car (already paid of course) and transfer it to me at which point I will then have to go to Sibiu for "SB" plates! What a performance! If I go for option two, by the end of next week I will have a left hand drive car which consumes less than half the amount of fuel my Audi guzzles into its 2.6 litre V6 petrol engine! And in time to avoid having to renew the tax on the Audi at the end of July. What to do with the old girl is a bit of a problem. It would cost as much, if not more than the car is worth to drive it back to the UK, put it on a ferry, sell it and then fly back to Romania! I shall probably be able to sell it here, either to someone looking for a cheap 7 seater (5 adults + 2 children in rear facing seat) in need of a bit of bodywork repair or just for spares. Apart from the damage sustained in a minor accident in Turda on my way to Cluj airport to pick up Louise and family (broken headlight/bent front wing/cracked plastic front bumper) the rest of the bodywork is in good condition for a 17 year old car, the 150bhp engine is still smooth and sweet, gearbox faultless and it has two brand new tyres on front wheels. It is worth €900 under the Romanian car scrappage scheme and people pay up to €500 for cars like mine as the system allows an individual to "cash-in" up to three cars against a new car! This was pointed out to me when the local Dacia dealer was trying to persuade me to buy a new Logan MCV Laureate diesel, list price €12,550 but only €9,750 with a dealer discount plus three scrappage vouchers - one for my Audi plus two more "bought" from others who have scrapped old cars but are unable to afford a new vehicle! Probably not in the spirit of the scrappage scheme but not illegal.

By the way, DACIA is pronounced dah-tchia, not day-see-uh as James May seems to think, and will probably verbalise on next Sunday's Top Gear when he will no doubt say "Good news! I've driven the Dacia Duster which will be coming to the UK". Ho hum, will someone PLEASE tell him!

"Up in the Roof" (with apologies to The Drifters)

Sorry in advance for this being quite a long post!

Two objects found in the roof space at 130 Roandola. The lethal looking "brush" has two rows of seven 125mm nails driven through a hand carved wooden handle. My best guess is that it was used to comb the thatch layer when topping off a stack of hay. These haystacks can still be seen in many gardens and are winter food for any cattle, horses etc kept by the owner. Second object is a tray carved from a single piece of wood. It is just over 1m long and 430mm wide with two carrying handles at each end. Best guess on this one is that it was used to gather and carry corn cobs which would also be used as winter animal feed. In some areas of Romania you can see timber built corn stores, usually about 2.5m high, 3m long and 1m wide with open sides and ends constructed in such a way as to contain the corn cobs but allow maximum airflow. This is achieved either with thin wooden lathes or sometimes metal bars. A roof of wood shingles protects the corn from the rain. However, in my house, as was common in the Saxon villages, the corn cobs were stored in the roof space and there is plenty of evidence of this from the remains of cobs under the eaves and under the floorboards where the gaps are large enough to allow smaller dried-out cobs to slip through. I have seen similar wooden trays on display with other agricultural items on the wall of an inn at Saschiz (about 40kms east along the E60) although those ones were either half the size or somewhat larger and all had a pouring lip so may have been used for other purposes.

On a completely different subject, I have noticed while shopping here that "use by" dates are often much longer than those I was used to on fresh produce in the UK - at least in my experience shopping at Co-op and Sainsbury's. For example, the semi-skimmed milk in my fridge was bought on 30 June and is dated 16 July - and no, it's not UHT. I also have chicken breast fillets dated 12 July, eggs dated 25 July and smantana (sour cream) dated 21 July, all bought on Monday 5 July. This is brilliant for me as I can now have plenty of produce in the fridge without having to shop two or three times a week as was the case when I lived in Grove. Being the only person in the house, it was sometimes difficult to consume everything within the "use by" date which more often than not only gave me a few days before consigning it to the bin. So the question arises, do UK shops, especially the large supermarkets, keep produce in their warehouses for long periods and only put it on the shelves when "use by" date is within a few days? This can result in more food waste if consumers forget what they have in their fridge, or buy more than they can consume within the date - and more profit for the supermarkets when binned food is replaced. The obvious question you may ask me is do Romanian foods contain more preservatives? This may be true for some products although much of what I buy is labelled "no artificial flavours or preservatives". So it looks like Romanian supermarkets have more frequent deliveries and quicker turnover from warehouse to shelf. Both the supermarkets I use, Penny Market (Sighisoara) and Billa Zilnic (Medias), are owned by German REWE Group and perhaps their warehousing/distribution policy accounts for shorter time from production to sales floor. I have noticed on some meat labels a packing date which is only 1 or 2 days before the day I have made the purchase.

I have been eating lots of salami, something I didn't do in the UK. There are usually about a dozen types to choose from and because it is a product designed for long storage, they have "use by" dates giving many weeks for consumption - some varieties even come with a loop of string at one end to hang them up. I have three types, bought as a "special offer" pack on 30 June and all dated 7 August so even if I don't eat them all before I visit the UK again in two and a half weeks time, they will still be OK when I get back on 31 July. While still living in Grove, I bought some Italian salami which had to be eaten within two weeks! I ask you, how ridiculous when salami is supposed to be capable of long storage!

Another consumer "bonus" available to me in Romania is that all the electrical appliances I have bought so far came with a standard TWO YEAR guarantee. No salesperson asking me "Would you like to buy an extra year warranty for that sir?" as they do in Argos, Comet, Currys etc. This applied to everything from a toaster (made in China for a Hungarian supplier), deep-fat fryer (made in Czech Republic for Philips), food slicer (made in Slovenia for Bosch) to my large Romanian made fridge/freezer. In addition, the guarantee form was completed, signed and stamped by the retailer, who did not require my details - unlike the UK practice of expecting the consumer to complete and post off a guarantee registration card which is really only a way of collecting your details for a database to send out loads of unwanted junk mail!

Back on food - I bought some very tasty and crunchy celery in Billa Zilnic. That may not seem so amazing but from previous enquiries, I had thought my favourite vegetable was not available in Romania where they use celeriac instead for soups etc. Thank you Billa!

Finally, I have just come to the end of the first of 12 boxes of 80 teabags I brought with me from the UK - dated Sept 2011. English tea is a rarity here, Romanians prefer green tea and fruit teas. I have seen Earl Grey and English Breakfast Tea but these are considered expensive luxuries and are priced as such. Penny Market sells Belin Ceai Negru Indian (black tea) produced in Poland and I have some of this, but it is quite weak, requires 5 minutes brewing time and the bags are only enough for a small mug. As anyone who has made me a cuppa knows, I like a BIG mug - the one I use most of the time holds half a litre - almost a pint!

Mici and mamaliga

Feeling rather pleased with my first attempt at making mamaliga. Used corn meal given to me a couple of weeks ago by Ileana (from #132) and some goats cheese, cottage cheese and herbs bought yesterday in Medias. I followed a recipe on mamaliga.com and served it with mici (pronounced "meetch"), plus a salad of tomato, red pepper and cucumber. For pudding I had some homemade fresh fruit salad of yellow melon, nectarines and kiwi fruit with generous dollops of smantana (sour cream). Delicious! The meal was washed down with a glass of "Roandola 2009" made from last year's grapes from the vines in what is now my garden and given to me by Paul during my visit to Viscri on Friday evening. Not sure if it is a very pale red or a rose made from a mixture of grapes as there are both black and white varieties in my courtyard and garden. Either way, the bottle Paul gave me is clearer than the one we sampled in Viscri and quite pleasant on the palate.

Earlier today I cut the grass outside the front of my house and then dug out the drainage ditch to improve the flow of rainwater and the floodwater pumped from my cellar. Yes, I'm still pumping daily as groundwater level has only gone down by about 20cms. As I was finishing digging out the drainage ditch, neighbour Ioan came over and told me he'd heard that when the workmen had finished filling the potholes in the road through the village, they would be coming to repair our gravel road, lay a new pavement and dig out all the drainage ditches! Oh well, my labours have at least made the front of my house look neater and considering it has taken the workmen over two months to fix the potholes in the 6kms of road between Laslea and Roandola, it could be another month before they turn their attention to our road.

Pruned a lot of non grape-bearing growth from four of my eight vines so the sun can get to the rapidly growing grapes. Tomorrow I will prune the other four vines. So far it looks like a bumper crop this year and if anyone fancies coming over in September to help with the grape harvest and getting the juice out of them, I can provide bed and meals for up to four people at a very special rate in return for a few hours labour!

I mentioned above that I went to Medias yesterday. It was a shopping trip and I first went to DOMO (branch of an electrical chain store) and now have a vacuum cleaner, much better than a broom and a handbrush and dustpan! Also went to Billa Zilnic (Austrian owned supermarket known as Billa Heute in Germany and Austria) of which my son-in-law is a fan! When Louise, Chris and the kids stayed with me in June we went to Medias and, to keep Chris quiet, we went to the new Billa Zilnic store, on the road to Sibiu, which had been open for less than a month. It is the third Billa branch in Medias and yesterday I went to the original town centre branch. I spent ages in the store but came out with a lot of the things I had been looking for to fill my kitchen store cupboard. Well, actually I don't have a cupboard yet, everything is on one of the two tables in the kitchen! The goat's cheese, cottage cheese and herbs I used for the mamaliga came from Billa as did some fresh and tinned fruit and veg, smantana, sausages, pork snitzels, chicken breast fillets, some food storage containers, cleaning cloths, five towels to supplement the few I brought with me from Grove, car washing brush and sponge, some Billa own label "ice tea lemon" drink and two bottles of Murfatlar, my favourite Romanian wine which is sadly not available in England. I finished up spending more than I had intended (420 lei - £82) but my trolley was VERY full and I now have enough food to last through July as well as most of the sundries I had been looking for.

Now, what Romanian cuisine can I have a go at tomorrow? Sarmale wrapped in vine leaves perhaps? After all I have plenty of large vine leaves to hand.

Working on the railway

Spent a few hours on Friday and Saturday helping the Sibiu-Agnita Railway restoration team with the work on one of four carriages stored in a yard just outside Agnita. Three of us worked on Friday and five on Saturday and we removed quite a lot of old paint and filler using power tools. The carriage we are working on was built in 1985 of welded steel construction and is therefore pretty sturdy. Despite lack of maintenance in later years and being out of use since 2001, the steel is in fairly good condition requiring a minimal amount of patching up of rust damage. New windows are on order, seats have been removed and as they are glassfibre mouldings with no upholstery (bring your own cushion!) with metal frames, they will not take much work to refurbish. Interior panelling was plywood, much of it being beyond repair, but most of the interior fittings survive with varying degrees of restoration required. All the underframe and running gear is substantially complete and will only require rust removal and perhaps replacement of some corroded pipework. Lots of work to do but the team is dedicated and more volunteers are coming along as work progresses.

After the Friday work session, I drove to Viscri and spent a very convivial time with Paul and Maria, from whom I bought 130 Roandola. Paul told me he had seen a photograph of me on the Sibiu-Agnita Railway website together with a mention in the work report for 29 May that an Englishman had joined the volunteers and not only increased the numbers but also the average age by quite a bit! I'll have to have a word with Mihai about that! Latest report for 2/3 July is now on the SAR website and I am also featured in two of the new photos. Copy and paste the link at bottom of page into your browser to see me in action!

I returned to Agnita the next morning, this time taking on the task of removing the small lumps of filler with an electric rotary wire brush tool. The second photo shows the "lizard skin" effect which is left after chiselling off the layers of paint and filler. Quite why this speckled finish is there is not known. Perhaps, as the carriage does appear to have once been painted green, it was an attempt to make it look as if they were covered in lizard skin!

Finished work just after 4pm and got back to Roandola at 5:30pm, tired and covered in dust from the wirebrushing, but with a feeling of satisfaction that I was helping to put a piece of Romanian history back into use. I look forward to riding in the carriage behind a steam loco which once worked on the SAR. Or even being on the footplate of the loco!

http://www.sibiuagnitarailway.com/friends/actions.php?lang=en