How to deal with stress when moving to Hungary

SimonTrew wrote:

It always says @The BBC code is incorrect@.

This is you quoting me quoting you.

I can fit your hob next weekend. Despite being stupid (just learnign the tools) I have actually spent the last two weeks here fitting a kitchen in my own house. I can give you some pictures as references. I am a good carpenter and plumber and qualified sparks and a better painter than what you will find on the street (from the many houses I have lived in in Hungary). I  have too many kitchen countertops left over, I counted at 4m a run and then it was 3m and the18-year-old who sold them to me couldn't do the difference so sold me three times three instead of it would have come out of three. These are 38mm counter tops shorter is 1152, the rest is not much longer I think about 1148, but twice the length of your hob. We have a 60mm base unit going spare if you want cos Mobelix sold us the wrong style and it was not worth taking it back, if you want it mounted in there, we have lots of the spare Mobelix countertops we didn't want to buy all in original wrapping but they come in 50mm or  60mm mostly, largest is 100mm. You would have to do transport but I will do the work for free to get your hob in. My real name is Simon Trew my email address starts with trewsm and ends after the at sign in a well known free email provider who also does search services.

Simon, thanks for your offer of help but there's no need.  I'm quite used to doing this kind of thing and we've got everything we need.   You couldn't help with our worktop anyway as it's a specialist job requiring specialist tools.  It's made out of a kind of artificial stone sourced from Italy and we were very specific that the supplier had a computer controlled cutting machine and the ability to make invisible/hidden joints.

Agreed, people are losing their minds, what little they had to begin with!!
Too self centered and non caring  is the problem world wide
Like they saying goes, "can't fix stupid" but in this case it's ,"can't fix selfish".

amalka44 wrote:

I was born in Budapest and moved back to Hungary after 4 years in the US and 23 years in Canada. One source of stress is that things that I took for granted in Canada don't exist here, like efficient banking, payment by credit card, health care etc.
Bureaucracy is overwhelming, after one try I used the "elintezzuk.hu" company to deal with it. Wasn't cheap. The largest problem is the attitude. Long ago friendly Hungarians are extremely hostile against foreigners. I was yelled on the metro for reading an English book. If you don't understand Hungarian you will feel better -- you won't understand it...
There are few expat activities as compared to e. g. Vienna or Madrid.  After 4 years I still feel the culture shock and gave up trying to adapt and will move to Vienna.

You might be better off going somewhere else.  Vienna isn't that great either.  They are all xenophobes and the weather can be atrocious. If people have no ties, I usually suggest people go to anywhere like southern Germany (organised), southern France (excellent culture) or somewhere like Barcelona in Spain (nice weather, let's not mention Catalan issues).   

Things here may get somewhat worse over the next 4 years.  Mrs Fluffy always tells me I am lucky not to understand to any degree the number of very uninformed people here.    The liberal urban dwellers I suppose am in tune with I guess. OV's negative rhetoric goes down well in the countryside and with the voting "new" Hungarians in the near abroad.   Mrs Fluffy is both sad and quite angry about Sunday's result.  She fears for continuing erosion of the Constitution, rising autocracy and reduced freedoms and interference with free thought.  Not a good sign for the country.

You are lucky though because you could always pack up and move everyone to the UK.
Not a easy thing to do though with kids and having a house already set up, not fun to chuck it all and go.

My husband voted on Sunday as well, won't say how he voted but his guy didn't win.
He had no problem at the voting booth other then his name being mixed up with his cousins.
Voted and was home in like 10 mins.
Those long lines were something else though, people waiting up to 5 hours to cast their votes.
We were lucky we are registered where we are, no lines.

I do feel sorry for all young people, well most of them who are aware of what's around them that is. The freedoms we knew as kids are slowly going out fast.
Conforming seems like the new thing.
I have been watching "truther" shows and amazed that even the Hippie movement of the 60's was a CIA op.

Nothing is real it seems.

My cousin on my mom's side just moved back to the USA with his wife from the Philippines, just about one month ago.
He was gone for over 10 years, not really sure why they left there but his wife has a degree in forestry and is a bit younger then he is, think she wanted to experience life in the states.
He was doing missionary work over there for awhile,getting funds for school books etc.
Just got a message from his, he was sorry to not of answered me sooner but he developed a lung infection one week after arriving in NM.
Went in the hospital before taking care of details like health insurance.
He now has a welcome home present of owing the hospital $18,000!
Horrible, what a welcome home gift!
Wasn't all that long ago in Asia that he went into the hospital for some issue, they literally were holding him hostage to pay a $14,000 bill. His sister was asking everyone to send money to get him out of that fix.
Not sure why or how but finally they realized there was no money coming, at least not that much in hand outs.
He really hasn't learned that you never go into the hospital unless your on your death bed in some countries.
At least in his case, going home was a bad idea

zif wrote:

"It helps if you try to speak some of the local language but often some people may make light of your efforts if you do not pronounce a word the correct way."

zif wrote:

Yes! Now it may well be different with friends and colleagues, but in shops and restaurants there are sometimes people who just seem to go out of their way to make you feel uncomfortable, like you're intruding on their Hungarian space by trying to speak the language, as if you're engaging in cultural appropriation of some sort.

Please excuse if I get the quote stuff wrong. (I am used to doing it in the old days of newsfeeds in plaintext) I see this is a bit like XML/ but not XML. Brilliant. Let's Invent Another Markup Language, BBCcode.

I think kinda the opposite. Most Hungarians who do not speak English too well are happy to practice their English on you. i.e. you are desperately trying to speak in Hungarian and they keep trying to speak back in English.  Now you are both speaking in the language you know lesser of.

I met an Hungarian teacher of English this morning on the train back from my country place. We had a good hour discussing the ins and outs of the language. She is teaching a near-deaf child English. But only verbal English not British Sign Language or American Sign Language. I showed her the British Sign for Prince Charles, which is two hands behind your big ears and waggle them. I hope that will be funny in her class this morning and he will be the centre of attention for learning a new (innocent, funny) sign. He is quite an introverted child, she told me. Quite understandable when you don't understand what is going on.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My husband voted on Sunday as well, won't say how he voted but his guy didn't win.

I am glad that he had a vote. My missus had a vote and voted, her lot didn't win either. The important thing is to vote. I can vote in UK nationals and EU votes and local elections, but as not being a HU citizen can not vote in National votes/General Elections. We had a busy Sunday with fixing the kitchen up but hoined her in a not-very-long walk to go to vote. (I stayed outside of course, to see all the women coming out from voting. Unfortunately someone must have rigged the vote cos I got my own wife back.)

If you have a vote, use it. Don't care how you voted, but if you don't vote, don't complain. If you haven't a vote then you can still complain, but if you did and you didn't use it, you can shut up. I am not saying Marilyn is saying this, I think I am agreeing with her.

In Hungary, before 1918, it was your Count that voted. Now it is your vote that counts.

You have Bush to prove that it counts. You got Trump to prove that it counts. You got Brexit to prove that it counts. You got Angela Merkel to prove it counts. You got Orban Viktor to prove that it counts. Now people grumble that he changed the voting system. Like Theresa May didn't completely get rid of the Fixed-Terms Elections Act to hold a snap election where she.. er... came off badly.

Quite right anyway that her husband gets to vote and she doesn't. I knew it would happen, I told them, Sid, women will be wanting the vote next...

SimonTrew wrote:

zif wrote:

"It helps if you try to speak some of the local language but often some people may make light of your efforts if you do not pronounce a word the correct way."

zif wrote:

Yes! Now it may well be different with friends and colleagues, but in shops and restaurants there are sometimes people who just seem to go out of their way to make you feel uncomfortable, like you're intruding on their Hungarian space by trying to speak the language, as if you're engaging in cultural appropriation of some sort.

Please excuse if I get the quote stuff wrong. (I am used to doing it in the old days of newsfeeds in plaintext) I see this is a bit like XML/ but not XML. Brilliant. Let's Invent Another Markup Language, BBCcode.

I think kinda the opposite. Most Hungarians who do not speak English too well are happy to practice their English on you. i.e. you are desperately trying to speak in Hungarian and they keep trying to speak back in English.  Now you are both speaking in the language you know lesser of.

I met an Hungarian teacher of English this morning on the train back from my country place. We had a good hour discussing the ins and outs of the language. She is teaching a near-deaf child English. But only verbal English not British Sign Language or American Sign Language. I showed her the British Sign for Prince Charles, which is two hands behind your big ears and waggle them. I hope that will be funny in her class this morning and he will be the centre of attention for learning a new (innocent, funny) sign. He is quite an introverted child, she told me. Quite understandable when you don't understand what is going on.

Off topic a bit but in Erd I had a wonderful exercise instructor who was HUngarian and deaf but spoke in English. She read lips.
I had a deaf exercise instructor in New Mexico as well.
I didn't realize she cold hear us unless we were facing her because her language skills were so good one wouldn't of guessed she was reading lips.
She has her home set up for the hearing impaired with some sort of phone that flashed lights or something. Very impressed the way people can overcome difficult situations without making a fuss about it.
Thought something might of been up though they way the blasted the music during classes, had to remind them that some of us could hear. Neither of them ever missed a beat either, the could feel the vibrations on the floor.

Well I flipped through the above conversations and did not find it stressful at all.

fluffy2560 wrote:

amalka44 wrote:

I was born in Budapest and moved back to Hungary after 4 years in the US and 23 years in Canada. One source of stress is that things that I took for granted in Canada don't exist here, like efficient banking, payment by credit card, health care etc.
Bureaucracy is overwhelming, after one try I used the "elintezzuk.hu" company to deal with it. Wasn't cheap. The largest problem is the attitude. Long ago friendly Hungarians are extremely hostile against foreigners. I was yelled on the metro for reading an English book. If you don't understand Hungarian you will feel better -- you won't understand it...
There are few expat activities as compared to e. g. Vienna or Madrid.  After 4 years I still feel the culture shock and gave up trying to adapt and will move to Vienna.

You might be better off going somewhere else.  Vienna isn't that great either.  They are all xenophobes and the weather can be atrocious.

Any large city you will have some trouble but Vienna is nothing compared to other places. Even out outside cost of living is cheaper and no problem at all. I am the only English person in my town and never had a problem.

anns wrote:

Well I flipped through the above conversations and did not find it stressful at all.

Yes, because that is how we deal with stress in Hungary, bitch about them behind their backs  in English on an expat forum! Takes all the stress away...

It is my birthday today so you can sing "Happy Birthday" to me if you want, or "Boldog Szuletesnapon"

Happy Birthday Simon Trew.


I accept I will never be able to graduate beyond basic Hungarian. But then I accept full responsibility for being a duffer at language learning anyway. Since working a little in a language school I have become more settled and feeling home from home but less able to coverse in Hungarian because I speak english all day.
Ive got the best of both worlds, living in Budapest and enjoying my country cottage. I couldn't afford either place in the uk so I am grateful and pleased I had the sense to make the move before I retired. In the countryside everyone is busy doing their own gardens so not much chat going on anyway. You dont need any  language to swap a jar of jam for a few veg anyway. Or to sit in the local bar with all the other scally wags.

Official looking letters will always stress me out but my tip number one is to make a few good Hungarian friends because they won't mind helping you out and you won't mind them knowing about your private business.

Hungarian banks charge you for having an account using it or not using it. I closed mine and just use my uk account which is much less stressful than seeing your balance going down and not really knowing why or having the pleasure of spending your own money.

After three years Im still hoping to get my bathroom refurbished. I am avoiding the stress of employing a Hungarian company and the possible stress of them making it worse.
However everything in it continues to  work so thats my mantra "everthing works".

anns wrote:

Happy Birthday Simon Trew.

I made me a cake.  I got some liszt and vaj and whacked it all in a pot, threw it in the oven at somehting or other stupid centigrade, and stuck 46 "big hit"the Aldi version of Smarties on it. Put in some cocoa and stuff, melted the butter and whatnot, did all that.

It is a nice cake but a shame there is no-one to share it with. I am fed up with being a single husband. Your partner probably don't work eight months of the year abroad. I only see her at weekends. I am pretty sure, I have the certificate, I did not marry Ford Motor Company.

Thats another stress being so far away from close friends and family . But the internet creates a wonderful illusion. I have even got sporadic internet at my cottage now.

Well Happy Birthday to you Simon!
I spent several of my BD's alone only getting a card from mom in the mail with a few bucks to buy myself a little something.
It's lonely but then again there will be more BD's to come.
I think I wrote recently about me blowing myself up with my oven on the 19th BD while baking a cake for my friend and I.
Silly teens that we were.

My husband dislikes making a big deal out of BD's.
I have to remind him weeks ahead of time and he usually forgets anyways, hands me a few bucks and tells me to buy something because he can't decide what to buy.
My last BD here I surprised him and didn't ask for anything , went to dinner here and bought a couple of practical items instead of going crazy.
Thinking of not doing BD's anymore, too much stress and as one ages, everyday should be a party.
My step-dad passed away on one of my sisters BD's and my son's BD is on the same day our fave aunt passed on.
Talk about killing the mood.

SimonTrew wrote:

....It is a nice cake but a shame there is no-one to share it with. I am fed up with being a single husband. Your partner probably don't work eight months of the year abroad. I only see her at weekends. I am pretty sure, I have the certificate, I did not marry Ford Motor Company.

Hippy Birdy.

Get yourself some kids. 

Then you won't have any time to worry about anything else.

Kids, yes they will keep you busy.
It never ends either...

It's probably a good idea to write down any and all projects or goals on paper and cross them off as you go.
That's a good way of dealing with stress.
If you keep it all in your head then it could make your head spin.

I get stressed in crowds, always have, not of fan of too many people around at once.
Worked in huge casinos but only was keeping track of my own table and never let myself worry about what was happening anywhere else but right in front of me.
Yesterday I was a bit "stressed" on our little stroll.
Just walking along minding our own beeswax when bang, some women just walked into me from behind full force, like a tank.
I was surprised a bit and let out a 4 letter word.
She said sorry, dam cell phone users get lost in the heads and can't see where they are going.
I just looked at her, I tend to either get mad or clam up, better to clam up and not say what I am thinking sometimes...
It's only going to get worst when the 5 G comes out and everyone's mind is microwaved into fantasy land.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Kids, yes they will keep you busy.
It never ends either...

...

Small kids, small problems.  Big kids, big problems.

Kids are a full time job especially when they are small.

Driving them around, entertaining them, keeping them fed and watered, cleaning them and their stuff up, helping with homework, shovelling food into them, giving them some counsel on this and that etc.   And that's just them, you have to do your own stuff as well.  I keep telling Mrs Fluffy that it has to be worth it in the end.   But we have doubts sometimes.   The days can be long.

I think it doesn't stop with the worrying about them but it does reduce as communications fluctuates.  My very eldest kids are almost 30 and  their  involvement with us fluctuates with the state of their love lives.  If it's up then they are  engaged elsewhere and if it's down then we're part of  the fallback. 

Not complaining about it all but just saying.  We take it on seamlessly. 

Having kids might seem intimidating.   Everyone knows how to be a parent in some way. Even those who say they don't know how. All humans will have instinct for it (apart from psychopaths and sociopaths maybe etc).

I'll follow up on Anything else...

anns wrote:

Thats another stress being so far away from close friends and family . But the internet creates a wonderful illusion. I have even got sporadic internet at my cottage now.

Oh no... what is the point of having a cottage to get away from it all if it has internet so you can't get away from it all?

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Off topic a bit but in Erd I had a wonderful exercise instructor who was HUngarian and deaf but spoke in English. She read lips.
I had a deaf exercise instructor in New Mexico as well.
I didn't realize she cold hear us unless we were facing her because her language skills were so good one wouldn't of guessed she was reading lips.
She has her home set up for the hearing impaired with some sort of phone that flashed lights or something. Very impressed the way people can overcome difficult situations without making a fuss about it.
Thought something might of been up though they way the blasted the music during classes, had to remind them that some of us could hear. Neither of them ever missed a beat either, the could feel the vibrations on the floor.

Nah, I know what you mean. I had a very deaf maths teacher who was as sharp as a button. He wanted a very quiet class but that was the rule for all classes anyway, if you gossiped to your neighbour he would look up and say "I can see someone talking". i.e. he couldn't hear it but could get it from being rather acute etc. I am not sure if he could hear throgh the floor, that one, but certainly of course it is quite common. Piss them off playing something with a lot of bass... EXTREMELY LOUDLY. WHAT SIR? IS IT TO LOUD? WHY? YOU''RE DEAF WHY DOES IT (off goes the what are they called that people had on their shoulders, boombox?)

I learned quite a lot of British Sign from a deaf friend but only conversational. I quite like watching See Hear on BBC as a compilation of programmes, and I picked up some sign from there, but like with any language you have to practice it, so I am not very good at it, as I don't have anyone deaf to practice it on. I wonder, and this is another topic, whether deaf children are bilingual? I mean their sign language and spoken language. I would call that bilingual but I don't think the academics do, probably wrong. I have never seen a linguistic textbook that says deaf people are bilingual (as such, i.e. sign and the spoken language, not if they happen to speak/sign other languages too) Because British Sign Language (BSL) has its own grammar and stuff quite separate from British English, I would regard it as two languages. (Or ASL and American English, Spanish sign and Spanish language, etc)

SimonTrew wrote:

....I learned quite a lot of British Sign from a deaf friend but only conversational. I quite like watching See Hear on BBC as a compilation of programmes, and I picked up some sign from there, but like with any language you have to practice it, so I am not very good at it, as I don't have anyone deaf to practice it on. I wonder, and this is another topic, whether deaf children are bilingual? I mean their sign language and spoken language. I would call that bilingual but I don't think the academics do, probably wrong. I have never seen a linguistic textbook that says deaf people are bilingual (as such, i.e. sign and the spoken language, not if they happen to speak/sign other languages too) Because British Sign Language (BSL) has its own grammar and stuff quite separate from British English, I would regard it as two languages. (Or ASL and American English, Spanish sign and Spanish language, etc)

Sometimes we have fun with the kids trying to guess what BSL signs are for certain things.  No-one is deaf here - my mother is very deaf and nearly blind but she's no chance of learning BSL as she's almost 90.   We find it like playing charades as BSL is a bit of a mime really.  We were prompted by a radio programme I heard where someone asked how new words enter BSL.  Since then we've been messing about with it, usually over dinner.  Kids need entertainment.

However the oldest Fluffyette has decided she wants to speak Grounder (from the TV show The 100). 

This morning I tried to persuade her to learn Klingon or failing that Dothraki.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Sometimes we have fun with the kids trying to guess what BSL signs are for certain things.  No-one is deaf here - my mother is very deaf and nearly blind but she's no chance of learning BSL as she's almost 90.   We find it like playing charades as BSL is a bit of a mime really.  We were prompted by a radio programme I heard where someone asked how new words enter BSL.  Since then we've been messing about with it, usually over dinner.  Kids need entertainment.

what a fantastic way to have fun over dinner. At least you and the fluffiettes do actually sit down to dinner at a table. Most people don't seem to these days, they eat off the sofa or whatever. The idea of playing British Sign Language Charades is just way too funny and cool. Like Sound Charades on I'm Sorry I haven't A Clue (do you listen to that)  I wouldn't say BSL is mime in the sense that obvously there are signs for counting and letters if a word doesn't exist yet in BSL, and has to be spelled out, just that yes it is kinda quite expresive if I can put it that way, and funny to watch. That is not at all offensive to the deaf community, I do not mean it that way, but they are waggling their hands around like a Frenchman (I can be offensive about the French, right?), at least if you teach and play it is a game.

fluffy2560 wrote:

However the oldest Fluffyette has decided she wants to speak Grounder (from the TV show The 100).

I don't have kids. You think I have ANY idea what that show is?

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Well Happy Birthday to you Simon!

((dot dot dot)

Thinking of not doing BD's anymore, too much stress and as one ages, everyday should be a party.
My step-dad passed away on one of my sisters BD's and my son's BD is on the same day our fave aunt passed on.
Talk about killing the mood.

I quite agree wuith you. My late Mum's birthday was the day before mine,  my twin brother's is, er, the same day as mine, and my mum's mum was the day after.  My aunt's was on 16 April and my other aun'ts on 20 Aorill. There was jsut this huge cluster of birthdays in middle of April, I think my family tended to like August Bank Holiday a bit too much... why don't we just send ourselves a card and save all each of us a bother?  They were each all clustered in April so I couldn't go down the pub andd get pissed etc on my birthday like 18-year-old boys might like to do because it is your Nan's birthday tomorrow. (Not a question of being served a drink, they ahem assumed I was 18 already).

Having a twin brother kinda helps ground you I think. This is getting off toic bt "everything else"can hardly ever be off topic. He and I are really not particularly similar in many many ways, he is tall and handsome for example. But what it does give you, from literally Day 1, is that YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD. It gives you, it is taught into you, to share and to play nice and share toys and whatever, that you are NOT THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD. That is a good thing to teach, I think. Single children etc seem to struggle a lot thinking that the world revolves around them. Where I used to rent, the boy, I think this is a bit unusual, sleeps with his mother (he is eight years old) and the father has to sleep on the couch. Cos he's a mummy's boy and likes his mummy. And and only child. One day he has to get out there into this world and work out that Mummy Anya cannot protect you from everything, He is eight years old. He should be out in the world playing or exploring and geting scrapes on his knees and coming home with roadkill and things like that. Not sucking up to Mummy every night.

I find that extremely odd myself.

He helped me build some simple bit of carpentry I forget what it was but he took my saw and he cut the wood and I said (in Hungarian) now we hace to put this against that, can you do that? You have to be careful with this saw now it is not a toy. I was making some bit of frame for something, I forget what it was, and had it in the garden on my Black and Decker workmate. Now, here, now, put a bit of soap on that saw, because it its teeth need a bit of grease (incoming bar of Imperail Leather soap, grease teeth on saw). We then drilled it out, I have a hand drill, so he fixed the bits in the chuck and stood up to see down where he should drill. Of you go ChildNameHere there, look down there. So we had a pleasant hour making a bit of crap. He did a completely shit job of it of course but he got to learn a bit of carpetnry and how to use REAL tools. He was extremely diligent so when I said look, how do you measure this side is the same as that side? I get a tape measure. No, look there is a quicker way. You hold that one against that one, then you can see if they are the same length, qiucker than you can get a tape measure and more accurate. OHH YEAH I SEE THAT NOW.

So I had a very pleasant day with him teaching him basic carpentry but his mum and dad mollycoddle him rather I think, and that is not healthy for an eight year old boy,

For to put it in context, the landlords and we lived on the same property but in two completely separate houses with a shared garden. Very nice people, still on good terms but we wanted to buy rather than rent. We must have done something right in decorating there because now they get 170.000 a month instead of 130.000 off of me (this was suggested by us when we moved out, i.e. you are asking too short a pricee, you can get a lot more for it than what you charge us. The fact that I redecorated etc and we made sure bills were paid etc I thnk counted for a lot. We even ASKED them to increase our rent  because it was too cheap but they wouldn't have it)

SimonTrew wrote:

So I had a very pleasant day with him teaching him basic carpentry but his mum and dad mollycoddle him rather I think, and that is not healthy for an eight year old boy,

Maybe I had the worst parents in the world but don't seem so to me. My family moved from London to Stevenage New TOwn (at that time it was a very new town, the streets were not paved etc) when we were born. My father worked for British Aircraft Corporation, the olf BAC, and if you moved out of London you got a job and a council house. The BAC site in Stevenage was a mile long well now British Aerospace at least. That is where my brothers and I did our apprenticeships, four year apprenticeships, back in the days where jobs were secure etc and people had real apprenticeships not the mockery the UK government likes to think of. Go to school in the evening at evening classes to  learn electrical and electronic engineering, various bits and pieces, trade skills really. Because British Wasteospace of course now BAE Systems essentially RAN stevenege I don't mean that badly. In school we were asked in a maths class doing a pie chart or something about percentages,  who is the biggest employer in Stevenage? (This is before giving us any figures, just guesses from class). I put my hand up, miss, it is British Aerospace. She said, no, actually it is the council. They council employs twenty perecent and british aerospace employs eighteen percent.

So I learned very early on to mistrust governments. If they can employ more people than british wasteospace, then they are wasting your and my taxes.

But that was a proper engineering apprenticeship. And I nicked their toolbox, I stlll have it, from when I was firing bombs off the edge of essex. I really AM a rocket scientist. Rocket science is not tricky, give it a big shove up its arse and then tell it where to go, easy. It really is not very tricky at all. Managing a relationship is much harder. Managing a family I think probably the hardest. Far more difficult than rocket science.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Simon, thanks for your offer of help but there's no need.  I'm quite used to doing this kind of thing and we've got everything we need.   You couldn't help with our worktop anyway as it's a specialist job requiring specialist tools.  It's made out of a kind of artificial stone sourced from Italy and we were very specific that the supplier had a computer controlled cutting machine and the ability to make invisible/hidden joints.

Oooh sounds very nice I think you might mean arraznine, this is poured concrete to look like granite, but maybe you were being shy and got actual Italian granite.

You''re quite right something as expensive as that you don''t want a bodge job. Quite right. Not that I do a bodge job I should like to show you pictures of my kitchen but I can't do that here. Everything is square and level and in tune and stuff and all built by myself, the missus, sixteen fucks and thirteen baz-megs at last count. But yeah, you are absolutely spot on that you need specialist cutting tools for that. I hope they got the dimensions right cos you can't do it twice. My counters, my walls ar about 5mm over 3m out of square so I knew (before I got them) I had to do an angle at the end. Worked out very nice but it is 5mm over 60mm difference the wall, that is about 5 degrees I think I don't have my trig tables handy. So I have to kinda "lose" that. Which I did. Looking at it, it is spot on, but I had to lose it somewhere and it is better to lose it in the corner, i can't change that the wall is out of whack, old Hungarian walls six feet thick.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Simon, thanks for your offer of help but there's no need

If you want a British double oven like wot I got then GRX Outlet is the place to go. They do not seem to exist in Hungary, double ovens. GRX usually have cast-offs that I presume have fallen off a van somewhere in England with clumsy delivery. I am probably the only man whose new cooker fell off the back of a lorry.

Mine is a Hotpoint/Indesit made in Italy, shipped to England so that some idiot could hot do his job delivering it safely to customer. The handles are a bit damaged but that is all, and I can get new handles.

THe missus for the fisrst time called one of my tools a birmingham screwdriver i.e. a hammer. That was so funny to hear that coming out of her mouth. I bit my lip because I am kinda against that kinda bodge job, I do it properly, but I asked her for a small hammer to fix a plug in (just a tap) and she said rather wry handing it to me oh, this birmingham screwdriver. It sounds so fucking funny in her Hungarian accent (she has a strong Hungarian accent, speaks English excellently).

"Batten" (English) is the one she strggles with rught now. NWe put counter tops up and i tied them underneath with batten. She went and bought the batten. (PRaktiker is best, the shit at OBI is so out of square it is unbelieveable). She cannot say Batten at least to my ears. She says Button. She is wondering why I need a button. No I don't need a button, I need a batten.  Look we don't have nice distinct vowels in english. Perhaps didn't help that I swallow my T's i.e. glottal stop so it comes out as something like ba'en anyway. You know that bit of wood you got, that bit of two by one. What is two by one? well it is fifty millimetres by twenty five millimetres. I don't know what they call it, it is two by one. It is not even two by one anyway cos that is the unplaned measure I am not having an argument about woodmills. Now can you fetch me the plasplugs (rawlplugs in american) and get a bit of polyfulla (spackle), She is very good and proud of us fixing this place up but we have constant struggles in translation. Taps come in imperial sizes, 1/2 and 3/4, those are british standard sizes. But in britain they come in metric sizes, 22mm or 15mm etc. You will not get a 22mm tap onto a 3/4 inch fitting however hard you try. Moo, you won't. Cos it is 3/4 inch nominal it is not actually 3/4 inch. What is the hungarian for "three quarter inch?" Oh about 22mm. No no no what is the word for it. And so life goes on

I'm speechless...
Just kidding.

SimonTrew wrote:

THe missus for the fisrst time called one of my tools a birmingham screwdriver i.e. a hammer. That was so funny to hear that coming out of her mouth. I bit my lip because I am kinda against that kinda bodge job, I do it properly, but I asked her for a small hammer to fix a plug in (just a tap) and she said rather wry handing it to me oh, this birmingham screwdriver. It sounds so fucking funny in her Hungarian accent (she has a strong Hungarian accent, speaks English excellently).

"Batten" (English) is the one she strggles with rught now. NWe put counter tops up and i tied them underneath with batten. She went and bought the batten. (PRaktiker is best, the shit at OBI is so out of square it is unbelieveable). She cannot say Batten at least to my ears. She says Button. She is wondering why I need a button. No I don't need a button, I need a batten.  Look we don't have nice distinct vowels in english. Perhaps didn't help that I swallow my T's i.e. glottal stop so it comes out as something like ba'en anyway. You know that bit of wood you got, that bit of two by one. What is two by one? well it is fifty millimetres by twenty five millimetres. I don't know what they call it, it is two by one. It is not even two by one anyway cos that is the unplaned measure I am not having an argument about woodmills. Now can you fetch me the plasplugs (rawlplugs in american) and get a bit of polyfulla (spackle), She is very good and proud of us fixing this place up but we have constant struggles in translation. Taps come in imperial sizes, 1/2 and 3/4, those are british standard sizes. But in britain they come in metric sizes, 22mm or 15mm etc. You will not get a 22mm tap onto a 3/4 inch fitting however hard you try. Moo, you won't. Cos it is 3/4 inch nominal it is not actually 3/4 inch. What is the hungarian for "three quarter inch?" Oh about 22mm. No no no what is the word for it. And so life goes on

I have kinda given my wife's name away. I call her Moo cos she has beautiful big brown eyes like a cow. I rather like cows but she is less usufel for providing milk etc. She quite likes being called Moo,  as a term of affection, I shouldn't have used her real name er id that is what you call it, obviously her privacy is essential. I usually just call her the missus but I slipped here and called her Moo. Too late now, but please keep that to yourselves and the rest of the English-speaking world. Sorry about that

That's cute,my husband, Laszlo has several names for me too.
Some I can not repeat!
I sometimes forget where I am and in public I will say ,"Laszlo" and a half dozen men will turn to look.
I now use my husbands initials in public, if I can remember to do so that is.

SimonTrew wrote:

.....
Oooh sounds very nice I think you might mean arraznine, this is poured concrete to look like granite, but maybe you were being shy and got actual Italian granite.

..... But yeah, you are absolutely spot on that you need specialist cutting tools for that. I hope they got the dimensions right cos you can't do it twice. ....i can't change that the wall is out of whack, old Hungarian walls six feet thick.

It's called Silestone. This is quartz and therefore is not actual granite.  It's a lighter colour.   

It's not that expensive but it's incredibly heavy.  It's 3.8cm thick.  It's going to need at least 3 people to carry it inside.  They've said they'll have to make it in two parts and then have an invisible join. 

It took us a while to find someone to do this job.  In the end we had to travel to Gyal (South East of Budapest) to get it made.  When we arrived there we saw all the gravestones.  They use their cutting machine to do stone engraving for headstones.  They can even do pictures - presumably by laser.

One of the reasons we insisted they install is that if they mess it up, they have to do it again.   But they make worktops and so they should be OK.

We've got new walls here and none of them are straight.   The kitchen worktop guy said it was an odd shape. I think it's cm out of whack.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

That's cute,my husband, Laszlo has several names for me too.
Some I can not repeat!
I sometimes forget where I am and in public I will say ,"Laszlo" and a half dozen men will turn to look.
I now use my husbands initials in public, if I can remember to do so that is.

I asked Fluffyette1 yesterday how many Laszlos there were in the class -  only 2 so not as popular as it was.   There a few Daniels, some Peters, 1 x Levente and assorted others.  There are Vanessas, Jades and Petras too.   

Fluffyette1 has a very uncommon name and I doubt there's anyone else in Hungary with that name at all.  It means that people will remember her but Hungarians sometimes have trouble pronouncing it. 

My very eldest has an unusual name (for the UK) as well and she's told me that  people remember her and comment (nicely) on it.   

Well worth considering choosing non-conformist names.

Our son has  such a strange name it raised eyebrows.
I've seen his name used with only a few people.
He has a Hawaiian middle name.
His nickname is Air. Short version of his given first name.
My husband really wanted to name him, Sebastain.
Nice name but at the time I thought it was too much for a tiny baby.
It's not so easy to pick a good name that one can live with for life.
We told our son if he doesn't like his name he has our ok to legally change it.
My mom had a "thing" about given all her girls  the first 3 of us all middle names that started with J.
My dad is one of 9 kids, 5 of them boys, Of course for his generation and being from a religious family in eastern Europe, they all have Biblical names, John, Peter, Paul, Andrew, Michael.
Of course my bro had to be named after his grandfather and one uncle.
My youngest bro has a uncommon name for these time, Lon.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Our son has  such a strange name it raised eyebrows.
I've seen his name used with only a few people.
He has a Hawaiian middle name.
His nickname is Air. Short version of his given first name.
My husband really wanted to name him, Sebastain.
Nice name but at the time I thought it was too much for a tiny baby.
It's not so easy to pick a good name that one can live with for life.
We told our son if he doesn't like his name he has our ok to legally change it.
My mom had a "thing" about given all her girls  the first 3 of us all middle names that started with J.
My dad is one of 9 kids, 5 of them boys, Of course for his generation and being from a religious family in eastern Europe, they all have Biblical names, John, Peter, Paul, Andrew, Michael.
Of course my bro had to be named after his grandfather and one uncle.
My youngest bro has a uncommon name for these time, Lon.

Sebastian is not so unusual.   Shortened to Seb usually (in the UK at least).   We have a Sebastian in the HU side.

One of my siblings was born in the Pacific region and has given his son a Pacific middle name  with too many Js and a lot of Is.  Very unusual.  I don't know if he'll thank his Dad for that in the future.  Unpronounceable in my opinion.

Lon (maybe Lonnie) is pretty unusual but there have been some well known ones.  Remember Lon Chaney?  Or Lonnie Donegan (King of Skiffle - 1960s pop star)?

We didn't name our son Sebastain, was just a thought.
Yes, my mom liked the name Lon after Lon Chaney.
Me after Monroe, not sure what was up with these movie star names.
My Japanese DIL is called Miki  ( Mickey)for short, I actually don't remember her full first name, very long one.

Our Hungarian room mate in Hawaii actually came up with our son's name, based on his zodiac sign.
Sort of a big mistake though, it tends to "offend" some people although it is not spelled
or meant as what they think we named him.
I read somewhere that it is a Persian based name, it sounds good with our last name so that was one consideration.
I always wanted to change my name as a kid, always liked Patty or Paula.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

....Our Hungarian room mate in Hawaii actually came up with our son's name, based on his zodiac sign.
Sort of a big mistake though, it tends to "offend" some people although it is not spelled
or meant as what they think we named him.
I read somewhere that it is a Persian based name, it sounds good with our last name so that was one consideration.
I always wanted to change my name as a kid, always liked Patty or Paula.

I got that you didn't call your son Sebastian.  One of my HU relatives is a Sebastian.  In the UK we have a sporting personality called Sebastian Coe (usually called Seb, now Lord Coe) who was responsible for setting up the Olympics not that long ago. 

Paula's not bad and Mrs Fluffy and I discussed that but she said "no".  Bad experience maybe with a Paula before.  One of my second cousins is a Paula - not seen her for years as she's lived in Melbourne for many years.

Patty should be (of course), Patricia.  Quite like that but wasn't keen on the chance that our kid as a Patricia could become a Pat which I was never keen on. 

There's always the joke names....Mr and Mrs Pipe calling their kid Dwayne or Mr and Mrs Green and their daughter Teresa.....I'll stop there.

Had one auntie named Olga, like that one allot too.
of course Olga sounds allot like Helga and not a fan of that name.
My auntie Jeannie passed away really,really young, the baby of my dad's fam.
She had one girl about aged 3 and a 10 day old baby boy when she moved on.
Now we all get the J' s for Jeannie, Cousins named Julie, lots of Jeans, Joans , Janes, etc.
I will have to re check my family history roots, had some really "whacko" names a few hundred years back.
I very much like the way Asians and native Americans gave names. They often gave a temp. name until the child developed a "personality".
My aunt , her husband and 3 kids were adopted into a native tribe on the east coast of the US. Not the tribes they came from, Mohawk since we are not enough of that nation and Nipmonk from my uncle's side.
I remember just  a few of the new native names, My male cousin was renamed,"Helping Beaver" suits him well.
My auntie was renamed, "Loving Deer" also a good fit for her.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My mom had a "thing" about given all her girls  the first 3 of us all middle names that started with

My Mum, although not particularly religious, insisted on us having simple Bilblical names.  What she would NOT have is "Another Fred in the family". Her husband (my dad) was called Fred, her father was called Fred, his father was called Fred, and his sister's husband was called Fred - his sister's middle name was Freida. When I found the tortoise in the middle of the cul-de-sac (39 years ago, he is still going) naturally we called him Fred! So she didn't really get her wish...

(My  parents are safely dead so no harm can come of me telling you his name).

It is strange how names come in and out of fashion isn't it. Fred now seems quite a fashionable name for a boy. My mum's name was Doreen and you can just kinda guess her date of birth within a few years, just from the name. (Although in Hungary she is still Doren. They got it wrong on the form, and I just couldn't be bothered to correct it. So on every form etc where I have to put mother's maiden name she is always Doren as it is easier just to copy the error rather than explain that they got it wrong and get everything re-issued).

Wish we had a few "Freds" in the family.
Try these tongue twisters...Athanasius, Onuphrey and Anisia.
Sounds more like Latin names for drugs rather then real names someone would actually give a child!
Yes, these come from my family tree, thankfully they have all passed on and I don't have to look the fool trying to pronounce their given names!

fluffy2560 wrote:

Simon, thanks for your offer of help but there's no need.  I'm quite used to doing this kind of thing and we've got everything we need.   You couldn't help with our worktop anyway as it's a specialist job requiring specialist tools.  It's made out of a kind of artificial stone sourced from Italy and we were very specific that the supplier had a computer controlled cutting machine and the ability to make invisible/hidden joints.

Terrazzo is what I was thinking of, anyway. I hace manic depression and one of the symptoms is not being able to find the right word. Terazzo I think is concrete/cement mixed in with some  quartz and other silica then highly polished but as you point out, extremely heavy stuff. I think some of the kitchen manufacturers do use that as a substitute for marble etc countertops.

Not surprising that you ended up at a stonemason. We finally tracked down my great-uncle-in-law and his wife in one of the big cemetaries in Budapest (the plot had kinda gone missing). He did a bit of stonemasonry and, you guessed it, he had pre-made his wife's headstone (with both their names and birthdates on it with 19-- and a little space. Since he predeceased her and (I assume) she couldn't finish his dates with a chisel it was a bit hard to track him down. He is not the only one, pretty common really for stonemason to make his own headstone I think, but true nonetheless. Makes a lovely birthday present I imagine - or not.

I think the oddest present my wife bought for my birthday was a steel mop bucket, which don't seem to exist in Hungary (the plastic ones always crack and split etc). Happy birthday, have a mop bucket. Does it have a cake or bunnygirl hidden inside? No. Just a mop bucket. Even had to get my own mop to go with it.

One thing you see a lot in Hungary is women carrying mop handles/broomsticks.  Because they just break all the time especially when Get a proper metal bucket and a proper wooden handled mop. (And it IS always women. Never seen a man carrying a mop handle. So you can take the sexism either way with that one.)

Another thing I only noted yesterday is that in UK, every cash machine has a little kinda litter bin next to it, to put your (compulsory) receipt into. They don't exist here. (And I asked my missus who worked for a well-known retail bank for many years, yes, they get emptied into the confidential waste.) No wonder there are so many receipts littered around the cash machine/ATM/Automata. You kinda don't notice these small differences at first, but that one has taken me five years not to notice. Although the Hungarian habit of littering in general is really quite appalling.