Back in England for Christmas (Part Two)

On Sunday morning, December 19th, I awoke to a watery sun trying to break through the light mist. After a nice hot shower and breakfast, I started the car and cleared off 5cms of overnight snow. As I carried on westwards along the Hungarian M1, I could see patches of blue sky ahead and indeed by the time I reached Austria there was clear sky and bright sunshine. Traffic was very light (I think trucks are banned on Austrian autobahns on Sundays) and most of the time I could cruise at the speed limit of 130kph. Stopping at a Raststation, I fancied a coffee and went into the restaurant. I had plenty of food in the car and intended to eat something after my hot drink but once in the restaurant I couldn't resist one of their large, freshly made waffles with maple syrup, strawberries and cream - yummy!

With the sun still shining, I continued into Germany and made good progress towards Wurzburg. Around 4pm though it was clouding over and by 4:30pm light snow was falling. Soon afterwards I passed an overhead information sign which was warning of snow ahead and advising HGVs to park up. Soon every Raststations I passed had a queue of trucks stretching back to the start of the slip entry road and many of the Rastplatz areas were also beginning to fill up with trucks. By 5:30 the snow was quite heavy and with speed down to 60kph, I began to look for overnight accommodation. By now the snow was settling quickly on the road and when I saw a bed symbol on the next Raststation sign I pulled off and parked up. Enquiring from the staff there, I was told that the hotel section was the other side of the autobahn but I could drive there across a bridge. They told me however that the hotel was expensive and advised me that if I got back on the autobahn there was a small town just a few kilometres away with a good hotel at a better price. Once again the food in the restaurant tempted me to have something to eat and after a big homemade hamburger with mushroom sauce and sauteed potatoes I felt ready to battle on for the short drive to the next exit.

When I set off again everything was covered by a few centimetres of snow and, because of the lack of wheel tracks, I thought I was driving on a long slip road but when another car overtook me, I realised I was in fact back on the autobahn! Five kilometres down the road I turned off at the exit for Weibersbrunn and easily found the Hotel Brunnerhof where I spent a very comfortable night and even caught up on my emails and Facebook posts via the hotel's free Wi-fi service.

Next morning I enjoyed a long, hot soak in a huge bath, then a large breakfast to keep me going and finally asked one of the hotel staff to fill my flask with boiling water to make tea on the journey. The hotel was only 50kms south-east of Frankfurt-am-Main which had been put into my satnav as the target for Monday afternoon so this meant I was actually doing extremely well in spite of the snow. I thought I might like to visit Bruges as there was time to spare so I reset the satnav accordingly and pressed on.

Arriving near the centre of Bruges around 5pm, I parked the car and crossed the road to ask at a filling station whether they knew of any nearby accommodation. There was, they thought, a small B&B in a nearby side street so I set off on foot to check it out. After walking 200 metres or so down a rather dreary looking street with mostly boarded-up houses - slipping over once on the icy pavement - I decided to drive further into the city. Back at the car I set the satnav to find nearby hotels and an Ibis came up about 1km down the road. After parking in an underground car park, I located the hotel but discovered it was somewhat over my budget. As it was only about two hours to "Tunnel sous la Manche" I decided to carry on. Bruges can wait until a daytime visit on my way back to Romania!

Stopping only to fill up with Belgian diesel at £1.10 per litre before crossing into France, I arrived at the Channel Tunnel terminal in heavy snow. I was booked to travel on the 6:20pm train the next day so I drove up to a manned kiosk and enquired whether I could get on an earlier train. No problem said the lady in the kiosk and I was booked onto the train leaving in just over an hour at 9:20pm. Brilliant! There was time to get something to eat at the terminal building so after texting my son to let him know I would be arriving on his doorstep around 10:30-11pm GMT, 21 hours earlier than expected, I tucked in to a Beef Extra meal at the "Quick" fast food outlet - a French version of McDonalds but with better food! At 9pm I was loaded onto "Le Shuttle" and ready to head for English soil.

Back in England for Christmas (Part One)

I am currently enjoying Christmas and New Year with family and friends in England. Back in the summer I decided to drive all the way thus allowing me to bring lots of presents/food/drink without worrying how to carry four suitcases and how much the airlines excess baggage charges would be. After booking a place on the Channel Tunnel Shuttle, I felt pleased that my journey would not suffer delays if the English Channel was whipped up by gales or if the Calais dock workers decided to go on strike yet again. However, when the snow and ice hit southern England, I remembered that last year trains were getting stuck in the tunnel because their electrical systems were packing up under extreme low temperatures!

Before leaving my home in Roandola, I prayed not only for God's protection on my house and possessions but also for safe travel since most of the countries I would be driving through had forecasts of more snow.

Having turned off the water at the pump in the cellar (which was incredibly warm despite an outdoor temperature of -6C), I opened all the taps to drain water from the pipes in the house. Gas bottles for cooker and portable heater were turned off, a final check made around the house to make sure I had loaded everything into the car and then the front door grille was closed and padlocked. My Dacia Logan MCV was warming up in the courtyard while I loaded it up - no worries for me about leaving the car running and unattended. Once out on the road, I closed the big gates and then bolted and padlocked the pedestrian gate, finally leaving the village at 10am.

The road journey between Oxfordshire and Transylvania can usually be done in three days (around 26-30 hours driving time depending on traffic and with two overnight stops). This time I allowed four full days to reach "Tunnel sous la Manche" as the whole of Europe was covered in snow to varying degrees. It was at least not snowing on Saturday 18th when I left Roandola, although the 8 kms of minor Road 143A to main Road 14 was covered in a layer of packed snow requiring gentle braking and slow cornering. Once onto the E60 at Sighisoara all was completely clear with no snow or ice thanks to the frequent passage of gritting vehicles. Although Romanian drivers are usually noted for ignoring speed limits and most other traffic laws, they do seem to exercise considerable caution in bad conditions - except for one completely mad artic driver who barged his way past with horn blaring in some totally unsuitable places. After overtaking several other cars and trucks in front of me at speeds well over the 50kph limit as we passed through villages, he was gone into the distance - and good riddance too!

At the Romania/Hungary border I purchased "vignettes" for Hungary and Austria and then with just a brief look at my passport, I was waved through into Hungary. Around 30kms down the road I ran into light snow which slowed the traffic quite considerably on the mainly single carriageway road. In one Hungarian town with an unpronouncable and unspellable name, the mad Romanian artic barged past again! I know it was the same one as I had made a mental note of his number in the hope of having the satisfaction of chuckling to myself if I saw him stopped by the police for speeding or overtaking in a "No overtaking" zone! He must have stopped for a check by Customs officers at the Hungarian border which I had crossed an hour or so earlier.

Eventually I reached the motorway network around Budapest and progress improved to being able to cruise at 100/110kph again. The snow continued for the rest of the day until I reached a motorway services with accommodation some 30kms west of Budapest. The room was basic for 31 Euros including breakfast but comfortable enough for this tired traveller!

Bad evening at Sibiu Christmas Market

Arriving at the central car park in Sibiu last Wednesday evening, I was full of anticipation for a great evening exploring the Christmas Market and buying gifts and Christmas Fare for the family. As I picked up my mobile from the car's centre console, I noticed two missed calls from Mihai who I was supposed to be meeting (car stereo on too loud to hear mobile ringing!). I called and told him where I was but he was still at his apartment, ten minutes drive away. Mihai said I should carry on to the Market and he would find me.

Piata Mare is about five minutes walk from the car park and I did a quick circuit of the stalls to see what was on offer. Just after 6pm my phone rang but stopped again by the time I retrieved it from my jeans' pocket. It was Mihai again so I pressed the call button and a voice nearby said "Hi Laurie" - Mihai was right beside me! We wandered around the market for about ten minutes then I bought some warm slippers (for myself!) and three items as gifts for family. I gave the stall holder a 50 RON note from my wallet and put it back in my pocket. After collecting the change we had walked no more than 20 metres when I reached into my pocket again for my wallet and realised it had gone. I checked all my pockets and the two plastic bags containing my purchases but definitely NO wallet. We quickly returned to the last stall visited and checked on the ground - no wallet. It contained about 120 RON (£24) in notes plus some coins, three credit cards and a debit card. Less than five minutes had passed from putting the wallet in my pocket to realising it had been stolen and it was straight away reported to a nearby policeman. He advised us to go to the small police office just off Piata Mare but there we were told to go to the Police HQ. Uppermost in my mind was getting the cards cancelled but my car park ticket was also in the stolen wallet! Thankfully there was an attendant at the car park, even though it had payment machines and automatic barriers. After Mihai explained the situation the attendant said to me, in English, he was sorry about what had happened in his city and he would open the barrier for us. I still had 1020 RON in my jean's pocket and offered to pay for the time my car had been in the car park but he wouldn't hear of it and both our cars were waved out without payment! I followed Mihai to his apartment where I could get on the internet and find the "Lost or Stolen Cards" call centre numbers for my UK card issuers. There was only one number on the NatWest website, yet for some reason, after reporting my credit card stolen I was passed on to a different number to report my debit card stolen! Calling NatWest and Nationwide took about half an hour, including the inevitable "Sorry, all our operatives are busy at present. Please hold" after which my prepay Romanian mobile was down to just 41 Eurocents of credit. To call the third card issuer, I had to use my UK mobile and by the time I had finished all the calls, I only had 30p of credit left on my second phone! Mihai had kindly offered me the use of his home phone but knowing the calls would take a while, I did not want to run up an expensive bill for him. NatWest told me that one card had been successfully used at an ATM just under one hour after being stolen. The thief had obviously deciphered some of my PIN numbers written as a sort of code on a piece of card in the wallet - silly thing to do I know but as the cards were seldom used in Romania I could never remember the PINs. Attempts had been made to use a second card but the PIN had been entered incorrectly three times and the card automatically retained by the ATM.

Just as I finished making the calls, Mihai's fiancee Ioanna arrived and said how sorry she was to hear about what had happened. I decided I didn't want to spend an hour at the Police HQ that evening so Ioanna prepared a meal for us and then we chatted about anything and everything but the theft to keep it out of my mind! With the assurances that all my cards had been cancelled and once I had spoken to the banks' fraud teams in the morning my accounts would be credited with the stolen amounts, I was able to sleep on Mihai's comfortable coltar (bed/settee).

Next morning we went to the Police HQ where I filed a complaint and was given a Crime Reference Number. Mihai had to leave me at the Police HQ to catch a bus to Bucharest. However, the police lady handling my complaint spoke English anyway so there was no communication problem. In the event I was only at the Police HQ for half an hour and then headed back to Roandola.

Back in Roandola I rang NatWest from my home phone and spoke to the Fraud Team who were able to give me times and locations of the ATMs used by the thief. These details have been passed to the Sibiu Police HQ who will check the CCTV cameras at the ATMs and throughout the city to see if they recognize the thief. I'm not holding my breath though!

As a Christian I have forgiven the thief although, I must admit, this is easier to do when you receive a text message from the bank confirming the stolen money has all been credited back to your account!

Mihai's trip to Bucharest was to attend an annual railway industry ceremony and the Sibiu-Agnita Railway had been nominated for an award. Admittedly the SAR was the only nomination in the category this year but nevertheless it's still a big feather in SAR's cap! Mihai has since emailed me about the event, confirming he received the award. It was quite a prestige event and all the other awards went to large companies or international consortiums involved in multi-million Euro projects to modernise the Romanian railway's locomotive fleet and infrastructure so it was quite daunting for Mihai to be in such company! There is a report on the ceremony at http://www.railwayinsider.eu/wp/?p=12934

Over the next couple of days I shall be getting things ready for the 2500kms drive to the UK for Christmas and the New Year. My car will be loaded up with presents for the family and lots of food and drink for the festivities - plus a 90cm satellite dish which an English friend from Mana Church has asked me to take for a Romanian who now lives and works in the UK but is missing Romanian TV! He lives in Yorkshire but his job takes him all over the UK so we will arrange to meet, either at an M40 service area or at Chieveley Services depending on where he may be working.

In Roandola there is currently about 12cms of accumulated snow and the 8kms of road between my house and Road 14 is snow and slush covered but the main roads are completely clear. I am keeping a careful eye on the weather across Europe as this will determine whether I leave on Friday or Saturday morning to get to the Calais Eurotunnel terminal by 17:00 CET on Tuesday 21st. Driving to Romania in April towing a caravan at a steady 90kph (56mph) took a total of 32 hours on the road, including at least two hours searching off the motorway for petrol for my rather thirsty V6 Audi! This time however, I'll be driving my diesel Dacia Logan MCV which has so far averaged 4.2 litres per 100 kms (65+ mpg) over 5500kms of mixed town and open road driving. One tank full should get me over half way to Calais, especially as from Budapest on I will be driving on motorways and hopefully be able to maintain a steady and very economical speed. If I get to Belgium in good time I am hoping to visit Bruges, something I have wanted to do for a while but so far failed. I tried to book a coach trip from Grove/Wantage last year but it was already fully booked. If I don't get to Bruges on the journey to the UK, perhaps I will get there on the way back to Romania although the reason for visiting on the outward journey is to get some of the famous Bruges chocolates for family and friends!

Snow and Christmas Markets

Christmas in Romania is usually "white" and last year the Sibiu and Sighisoara webcams showed snow most of the time, at least on the rooftops. This year however, the forecast, for the next two weeks anyway, is mostly mild with a mix of sunny days and rain showers. Any snow showers in the forecast are at night and will probably turn to rain by morning. From the BBC weather forecasts I have seen over the last couple of days it looks like most parts of the UK will have snow this year before Romania. Nevertheless I bought a set of snow chains for my car today as they are compulsory for driving in heavy snow and the police can prevent you going any further if you do not have them. Also purchased today was the snow clearing device shown in the photo. Both will be in the car when I drive to the UK in just over three weeks time as it looks like I might need them to get from the Eurotunnel terminal to Hindhead, Newbury and Grove to visit family and friends!

Last year I watched the Christmas Markets in Sibiu and Sighisoara on live streaming webcams. This year I shall actually be visiting both of them! Sibiu's Market is a huge event, open daily 10am to 9pm from this coming Saturday (27th) through to Sunday 2nd January 2011. It has only been going since 2007 and the first one was held in Piata Mica (The Small Square) with 38 stalls but it proved such a success with public and traders alike that from 2008 it has been held in Piata Mare (The Large Square). This year there will be 65 stalls, an ice rink and a funfair, catering mainly for children who are very much the centre of Romanian family life. The stalls will offer, according to the website, such things as traditional sweets, hot tea, mulled wine, handmade Christmas decorations, candles, toys, clothing and much more. I'm hoping to find some Christmas presents for family and friends in the UK. I will be going to the market with some friends who live in Sibiu and one of them has kindly offered me a bed for the night. Apart from not having to drive home in the dark, it also means I can sample the mulled wine! Romanian drink/drive law has a "zero alcohol" limit and the police operate random traffic stops (I've been pulled over twice in six months) to check vehicle and identity documents so it's soft drinks only when I'm driving anywhere.

The Christmas Market in Sighisoara's Piata Cetatii is a smaller affair with around 20 stalls and to date I haven't been able to find out when it starts! All I know is that as yet there are no signs of the stalls being brought into the square. Last year the first indication was some blocks of polystyrene foam appearing outside the antiques shop opposite the webcam location. The blocks lay on the ground for two or three days and were then assembled into a five metre high snowman so I'm checking the webcam daily and hoping the same happens this year.

The most important news since my last post is completion of the registration process for my company, Casa Cristina Roandola S.R.L. Hooray! As well as the colourful Registration Certificate for the primary activity of providing rooms for guests, I have a closely typed three page document listing all the secondary activities I am allowed to carry on. My lawyer, Ramona, spent quite a long time going through the list with me a few months ago and we ticked anything and everything relating to living in a rural environment and running a B&B so I can keep animals, grow vegetables, make furniture, do metalwork, repair cars, use my car to transport guests, hire out mountain bikes etc etc. There were very few boxes we didn't tick such as dealing in arms and ammunition, processing chemicals and refining petroleum products! However, I can repair aircraft and spacecraft - yes, really! I will probably never do 75% of the activities but it was easier to be registered now rather than go through another lengthy registration procedure if I suddenly decided to weave my own cloth or keep buffalo and produce mozarella cheese!

Is it summer, autumn or winter?

Yes, that's right 34C in the direct sun (21C in the shade) at end of garden today - 15th November! I've been told that it's the warmest November since the early 1970's but how much longer will it last? Next two weeks looking fairly mild according to Accuweather and mainly sunny with the odd shower, generally at night. However, I am preparing for winter with a second load of wood which was delivered by horse and cart. Some local men were recruited to carry the wood up the garden as my caravan prevented the horse and cart getting beyond the end of the courtyard. There was a bonus "delivery" left by the horse! I have also been informed that Romania is expecting the coldest winter for nearly 50 years so the extra wood may well have been a good decision. I thought I probably had enough wood already but when a local Roma came knocking on the door offering a cartload for 70 lei, 30 lei less than I paid for each of the first two cartloads, I said "Yes please". After all, if I don't use it this winter, it will be there for the next. Incidentally, I heard again yesterday that we can expect a very cold winter. It had somehow become the coldest in 1000 years but I don't think records go back that far!

Last week I painted the ceiling and upper walls of the en-suite and fitted the glass into the door so it is definitely finished now (see video). Cole has also constructed a new partition wall between the entrance steps and the kitchen which will go a long way to keeping the warmth in. The kitchen is the only unheated area in the house, unless the gas cooker is in use, and the main entrance is a pair of glazed double doors with a large fanlight above which resulted in rapid heat loss once the sun had gone down. Although the temperature in the kitchen area has, so far, not gone below 11C it always feels colder in the morning when I come out of my bedroom which is heated in the evening by one of three wood-fired stoves. Even though the house is 90 years old, the Saxon German builders knew a thing or two about thermal insulation and built the house with 500mm thick exterior walls, 300mm interior walls, wood floors, double (inner and outer) windows and ceilings consisting of 20-25mm of lime plaster, reinforced with reeds, applied to 25mm thick boards. It doesn't end there either - the roof space floor is more 25mm boards covered with a 25mm thick layer of lime mortar! Once the sun has gone down it gets cold very quickly outside and most mornings there has been a light to moderate frost on my car. If I light the tiled stoves in the evening and fill them up so they will keep burning for an hour or so after I've gone to bed, the room temperature by late evening is usually 21-23C. Because the tiled stoves act like night storage heaters and continue to give off heat long after the fire has gone out, the rooms will still be at least 17C next morning, even with night time temperatures falling to minus 8C as they did a couple of weeks ago. When this incredibly warm spell has ended no doubt the stoves may have to be kept "ticking over" all day and room temperatures built up to 25 or 26C in the evening but with my winter fuel stock now nearly 50% more than it was last week, I am confident that my 270 lei (£55) worth will keep me warm!



P.S. How do I get rid of the unwanted "suggestions" at the end of the Youtube video?

Fire and water

The "Family Room" is nearly ready! Once the building debris had been cleared, I fitted the new stove bought in September. I had already laid a tile base for it to stand on some time ago but the arrival of Cole and his team forced a halt for me while they constructed the en-suite bathroom. Now the work inside the house is finished, I will need to get the paint roller and brushes out.

The new stove can burn coal or wood, as in my case, and was fired up for the first time yesterday morning. It proved very easy to light and easy to control the rate of burning. Within half an hour it was providing plenty of heat and although the instruction booklet warned of a smell the first time it was used, this was not very evident. After adding more logs I let it burn for a couple of hours before allowing it to die down. Very satisfied with this new stove - German design, manufactured in Hungary. I may get another one for the back room as the ceramic tiled stove in that room has a few faults and is proving to be a so-and-so to light. As these tiled stoves are built in situ, it would probably be difficult to replace the broken bricks in the combustion chamber and make the warped metal stoke-hole door fit properly. I have tried to fill the cracks with fireproof filler but the gap is too large for effective sealing. Obviously a metal stove does not provide much heat once it has gone out, unlike the tiled stoves, in effect wood-fired storage heaters which continue to radiate heat for many hours after the last log has burnt out. However, ease of lighting and much more controllable heat output wins the day for me! The large tiled stove in the "Breakfast Room" will be retained as it is not only fairly easy to light and burns well but will also provide a feature for the room and a talking point for guests who have not seen such things before.

After Cole and team finished the en-suite I added a few fittings - towel rack, holders for toothbrush and paste, floor standing toilet roll holder with loo brush and a small pedal bin. I had to wait a day for the silicone sealant around the shower tray to harden before I could use the shower but at last I could have a shower. Unfortunately it was only a slightly warm one as there appears to be a problem with the instant heater. This is possibly due to the relatively high water pressure from the pump in my cellar pushing the water through the heater too quickly. The heater itself may be faulty of course and I will get Viorel the plumber to check it again when he comes to complete the septic tank installation. In the meantime I will just have a quick shower when necessary!

The washer/dryer is working superbly and has been well used in the first few days as I had collected quite a lot of dirty washing. Hand washing only really worked for lightly soiled small items up to T-shirt size. Although I had managed to wash some towels and jeans during the summer months when it could be done in the warm sunshine, rinsing out the soap suds usually required three lots of clean water and wringing out by hand was hard work! I really sympathize with people in Roandola and Laslea who have to do their washing either in the river or at one of the village wells because they do not have their own water supply.

Old vines and dying leaves

Over the last few days I have harvested white and black grapes from six of the nine vines in my courtyard and garden. This years yield looks pretty good to me and the grapes have also had a few frosts on them which I am told improves the quality of the juice whether it is subsequently fermented or not. Unfortunately one vine, which grows around the outside loo at the end of the garden, ripened in late August and most of the grapes succumbed to birds and the myriad of flying insects around at that time. Of the remaining eight vines, five bear white grapes and the other three, black. I have no idea what varieties they are but the three whites I have harvested so far are smaller than the black varieties which are large and juicy - and good for eating too!

The three white varieties yielded a total of 70kgs of grapes and the three black varieties, from smaller vines, totalled 43kgs. After crushing and pressing, the juice from both white and black grapes is stored in a collection of 5, 6 and 10 litre plastic bottles which originally held my drinking water. Once the remaining two vines have been harvested, I will spend a day crushing and pressing the grapes and then the process of turning most of the juice into wine will begin. Some unfermented juice will be set aside for soft drinks for younger visitors. One thing I have noticed is that the juice from the white grapes is more "rose" in colour, as was the bottle of "Roandola 2009" I was given earlier this year by the previous owner of No 130 and which I had thought at the time was a mixture of white and black grapes.

In reality making my own wine doesn't make sense economically as the crusher and press cost over £195 yet I can buy a 5 litre flagon of palatable Italian red or white wine for just over £4. So the money I spent on equipment would buy me over 230 litres of wine! However, there is a certain satisfaction in making your own wine from produce you have grown, whether grapes or any other fruit or even flowers! And of course the equipment is there for next years crop - and the next and the next.....

Autumn has sort of arrived. We are still enjoying clear skies most days and the night time temperature is dropping below freezing. Most mornings there is a heavy frost on everything until about 9:30am. However, once the sun gets over the hill behind my house, the temperature rises quickly to the high teens and even low twenties - warm enough for me to work outside in shorts and T-shirt again!

Most of the trees in the valley and on the hills are deciduous and the colours in the bright sunlight are quite stunning. I have taken some photos, one of which is reproduced here, but the camera doesn't do justice to the brilliance of the yellows, oranges, coppers, reds, browns and silvers of the dying leaves. There is very little wind in the valley and the leaves have mostly stayed on the trees, only falling off one or two species such as the pear trees which line the road through the village.