holiday home: in the village

it was just a short weekend visit, but i think we checked all the requisite boxes: drive there in the morning, after stopping at kaufland for groceries and long complaints about the state of the roads in cluj county - check

weeding the flowers first thing and laughing at my mother´s special row of special trees- check

with a mention for our fir tree (planted specially so at one point we´d be able to adorn it for christmas) (which right now is smaller than the bushes surrounding it, the fence...pretty much anything)

because of the recent rains etc, any walk outside of the yard needs the addition of rubber boots. here´s where my red boots, bought in Montreal and reviled by my mum before, come in handy.  they finally found their place. so me and mum went to do the usual tour of the village

standard cemetery view, with mum weeding and me taking pictures (i declared that i was sure my grandma would hate certain weeds, but other free-growing plants, like simple grass for example, would be ok with her to have on her grave)

then i continued to take random pics, and mum continued to search for varieties of plants to collect and transplant in our garden,

then we took a much less travelled road, which i kept saying i hadn´t been on in at least 15 years, since i stopped going carolsinging in the village basically. it leads to a part of the village that´s completely deserted (i won´t even call it street, because no.)

some of those houses though are well-kept and it´s apparent that someone visits from time to time, pretty much like with our own house

as opposed to this sad sight very close to what is supposed to be the main village crossroads. who knows anything anymore.

 

except where there are people, there are pretty flowers. we stopped at our aunt´s house (my dad´s cousin), a model of good gardening. they have mounds of various summer plants, like these lilies

 

amazing roses

a veggie garden with everything, including the scarecrow (meant to scare the wandering deers that come and eat their beets)

and some original benches where they can rest at peace, looking over their property

ow, of course i ran straight to their raspberry bushes. then to the strawberry beds, mmm

but my absolute favourite from my aunts´household is this low stone wall that they built to offset/highlight their semi-wild growths of flowers

later in the evening, a longer family visit to my great-aunt and uncle´s home. as it happens on such occasions, i got bored of their talk (man, i´m 34!) and wandered off by myself, gathering raspberries in the dark, playing with hedgehogs in the road

alright, observing hedgehogs - cause i bet poor animal wasn´t playing

and trying to take candid potos of the rest of the people. here´s the men talking about the weather and the dire state of the land

and the women exchanging tips about insulation and indoor plumbing

and my father noticing what i was doing , and pretty amused (apparently they´d thought they were safe because they were in the dark, haha)

sunday morning breakfast: my great aunt´s cornbread

the recipe i tried to cook for the hispano girls and failed: this is how it´s done!!!!

 

and once again we aired the bedcovers of my dowry, trying to decide which one i should/could take with me to Montreal. this time around i really like the blue one, which maybe other times i would´ve considered too loud. i dunno, i´m really impressed by the patterns, the color combo, everything...though admittedly it´ll be hard to furnish a room around it

special mention for this bedcover, which was embroidered manually and was apparently part of my grandma´s dowry 65 years ago

dad´s morning expedition to the field resulted in a capture of medicinal herbs and nonripe apples

and some fresh basil for my mum, from my great aunt´s garden

then i had to go and take pics of the new chicken, because the other day my battery had run out by the time they were eating

the sadness of leaving and the gladness of belonging: while we´re away from the village, we leave our dog at my great aunt´s, and he lives there tied next to their shed in the daytime and free at night. when we visit, he stays with us very enthusiastically , i.e. running to our house as soon as he can, jumping on any of us, and messing around my mum´s flowers. now my dad has to take him back. the funny part happened at the tiny water crossing, when the dog obviously tried to cross through the water.
dad, in serious voice: " listen, i know what you want to do, but you have to cross on the bridge. when dogs walk with people, they walk where people walk."
and the poor dog actually obeyed.