Hazlehead Park

Hi Everybody :)

Sorry for the long silence. I will catch up with the things that happened with us during these couple of months, but before that, I would like to share with you Today's adventure. The Hazlehead Park..

This is a large public park in Hazlehead area of Aberdeen. Roughly an hour and half walking distance from our home. I have spotted it on the map for a fine time now, but I always thought that area of Aberdeen has nothing special to offer (just like the rest of it). But I have never been more grateful to be mistaken than this time.

Today was started as an average cloudy warmish day in Aberdeen. It happened to be our mutual day off, and as someone who has a very high demand for walks, I insisted on taking a nice walk to somewhere new. (Maxim proposed to take a walk to Aldi just to combine the useful with the pleasurable..)  So, trying to reach an agreement, we decided to go to Lidl to have some ice-cream/cake/snack in order to survive the serious ordeal of taking me out for a walk, then continue our way to Hazlehead park, which is pretty close to the Lidl. So, Maxim prepared the essentials (spoons for the ice cream) and we were off. :)

Just a visual representation of our travel..

This is our treat from Lidl. This and a couple of cheese twists. We always thought that this is a 1-person-cake only and we are doing so great when we split it between us, but today I noticed, it serves 6.. ( It must be the calories that are meant for 6, and not the portions apparently.. )
Unfortunately, there were no suitable ice creams for our taste, but fear not, we went to a different lidl just 4 ours ago to get them. :P

The cheesy twists didn't last long, but we managed to save the cake for the park.

On the way to the park.. We saw a couple of nice houses, and a lot of green spots everywhere..

And that's it, we arrived. First thing we noticed was the flowers. Loads of flowers, with nice flower scent everywhere..
The park is not that big as it is shown on the map, because the majority of the park is a golf club (Of course, what else could it be? ) and divided into smaller sections. Unfortunately the memorial garden and the rose garden were under construction, but the rest was a wonderful experience.



There was a pet corner, which we have not visited, but we heard that they definitely have a donkey.


There was another garden with full of colourful flowers (see pictures) and there was a Maze.. I read somewhere that this is Scotland's first maze, and was opened in 1935.
For those who are not familiar with Maxim's ideas, He is very fond of mazes, He actually would like to build one in his (our) garden for the kids, He has a complete idea how the maze will look like, and honestly, his idea of having an Easter egg hunt in the maze for (with) the kids sounds very entertaining.



Near the park entrance there was a cafe, which was (being Monday morning) full with wives with small children. It was a bit noisy, but otherwise charming place, but we decided to have our cake at a more quiet area where we can have some discussion as well.

I regret not taking a picture about the layout of the park, but maybe next time I won't forget it..

 Here the park in pictures.

This is the rose garden. still a bit grey. :(

I don't really know what this is, just thought it looks nice.

 These were the flowers I was talking about. They were beautiful, and had very rich colors. Probably the yellow ones were my favorites. (Maxim actually did not order them according to his taste, but he says 'there were plenty of lovely flowers'.)

 And a fountain. Interesting thing, the fountains are not working here. We don't really know why it is, we think that maybe they try to save water, but seeing a fountain like this makes me feel sad, like all the joy and life are just passing away from it.

This is already the MAZE. Here Maxim explains to me his plans of how our maze will look like.

 Taking an .. khm.. illegal shortcut..

But no worries, I caught him red handed. :D

Maxim really enjoyed the Maze, though we managed to got lost a couple of times before we found the right way out :D

We loved the colorful benches, the bright  flowers, the nice scent, and pretty much everything in the park, which, by the way, has a Margit Sziget atmosphere, just more compact. 

We will definitely come back another time for a picnic. :D

During our way home, we took another detour to check out a small lake (you can see it on the map). Well, it turned out that the lake is a quarry, and closed down from the public. All we could manage was a picture of the lake.

Expanding our culinary talent - because today is the day of big eatings anyway

Hi everyone :)

Believe it or not, Maxim can cook. During his Uni days in Godollo, he cooked for himself, mostly soups (I assume all the street food 'quarry' were far away). I thought it is a good base, we can do something with it until I saw how he really cooks. I still remember, tho it was more than a year ago.. He made some sort of Russian mushroom soup, not cream soup but with a lot of mushrooms and other veggies in it (so far so good). Then, he started adding the spices and herbs (V: which herb do you need? M: Parsley. V: that is dill in your hands. M: Oops.. ). Let's just say my liver also has nightmares when we talk about it.. The soup itself was delicious, but he used khm ALL of the herbs I had at home.. 

After we came to Scotland together, one day he jokingly said that when we will have a family, and I won't be home for some reason, he will ORDER the most delicious pizza in town for himself and the children. And I thought, oh no, you won't (bad memories from the time I worked in a piza-making company).  This was one of the reason we started cooking together. The other one was that whenever we visited his Mother, Olga (she is an excellent cook), she always made heavenly delicious meals, mostly authentic Russian cousin (I have some pictures, they could be found at the end of this post). One day we wanted to eat pelmeni (very similar to derelye), tho I had never made them before, but Maxim had (helped his Mother shaping them). So, this was the start of our regular Sunday afternoon cooking session together.

This was the first try. I had to documenting the whole thing, I wasn't shocked that he could make such cutie pelmeni, just it was an odd experience.

Here are the dumplings filled with meat, waiting for the others to be ready.

(I made the one which looks like a hat in the left hand side.. )

Here can be seen Maxim, showing off his skills in making the dumplings nicely and fast. (My pelmeni were neither good looking, nor made fast. :/ ) 

But we learnt how to do them more quickly and after the 3rd time in our 'pelmeni factory', mine were also good looking. 

We also gained a lot from trying to cook together, I learnt a lot of patience, and a couple of awesome recipe :D, while Maxim, I hope, learnt the basics, and will be able (in the future) to cook for our children, instead of ordering something) 

He is a fast learner by the way, here (in apron) he is making his own coffee mousse (with my instructions tho, but only verbally). 

I am really proud of him, he made a good job. 

I forgot to take a picture of the product, because we ate all without thinking twice, but this also a sign of the mousse being delicious.

Forget the monitor, because apart from that, everything you saw on the picture id food. Namely hamburger (as I said, I showed him the basic food :P), with homemade bun and meatbun.

He is greatly fond of tiramisu (like he could eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner too on the same day). 

I know, we forgot the cocoa on top, but the taste remained the same good without it.

Kakaós csiga, that we made on a gloomy Sunday afternoon.

We also started to experience with different sides, which don't contain any or that much gluten, or high in fibres, has a low glycaemic index. This is how we ended up eating couscous, barley, millet, oath and buckwheat.

Haha I remember a while ago, he said he doens't like any of the above, and now, he does. 

Deer stew in red wine with barley pearls. Although it doesn't look promising, it was very good.

We tried out a couple of savory muffin recipes, this one with poppy seeds, 'served' with yoghurt, because on that day the weather was sunny, I thought it is a nice spring lunch.

We (Mostly Maxim, he made the pastry for them) baked some with  spring onion and cheese.

These (füstölt sajtos, fokhagymás-tejfölös lángos) are not gluten free, nor count as healthy, but I was longing for them. Maxim had them only with cheese. (Still couldn't make him try out meals that contains Crème fraîche or garlic so obviously as this one. :D )  

And last week's favourite, chicken gyros with veggies, homemade tortilla and spicy yoghurt (and with fries, but that was not important, as we just fried them, while the gyros was all home made).

No week could pass without having some sweet dessert.
On the left, there is an apple pie. Maxim made the apple filling, while I made the pattern of the top.
On the right, coconut oat cookie.

Here a couple of traditional Hungarian desserts.

On the left, what probably everyone knows, cocoa chimney cake. Tried out for the first time, but was not disappointed.

On the right, that thing is some sort of heritage, a typical Easter dessert from the area of Hungary I came. One interesting thing about it, that nobody knows what it is except the ones who also came from or have relatives in my county. Another interesting thing  is that those, who is not originated from my county, and had the courage to tried it, 99% disliked it. Unfortunately Maxim also is not much of a fan of this, which kind of breaks my heart, because I do think this is one of the world's best thing, but hey, maybe after years and years of trying it, he will actually learn to appreciate it. ^^ ( I did warn him that I will make this dessert in every Ester tho :D)

 This is our first true Easter together. Last year we were on a holiday, so I did not have the chance to cook traditional Hungarian Easter meals, but I thought maybe this year I show him something .. (even tho he mentioned he does not really like these kind of food, still I hoped he is just joking.. I mean how on Earth could someone not like Easter food..)

So I made the other inevitable accessories of Easter are fonottkalacs, and boiled eggs.  I took the egg yolks and mixed them with cream cheese, then filled it back into the egg whites. These were our lunch today, along with cooked ham, potatoes in mayo and tomato cucumber salad. Looked very nice, were very deliciuos (according to myself :D). Guess who did not like them? :D Well, it turned out Maxim still dislike boiled eggs, even tho I tried my very best to make them acceptable. He disliked the sárgatúró, and find the potatoes only bearable because of the mayo.. Thanks God, he still liked the salad, ham and the pastry... and since I love these food, it was not a problem for me to eat them all :P but for next Easter, I try to make something which will win over this choosy boyfriend of mine..

Spring

Hi everyone :)

This year so far is mostly about the routines of everyday.. Both of us are doing our tasks, mostly for 6 days out of 7.. So as you can imagine, nothing really happens to us.. :)

The weather is not bad, but still doesn't good enough to go out for longer times, not to mention that most of the day is still dark, so going for longer trips, or longer walks are also not possible.

Sometimes, when all the stars are aligned, and we have a day off together and the weather is nice, we go to see the sea and have a nice walk in the beach.  Usually paying a visit to the sea, walking along the beach, buying cheesy twist and smoothie in the lidl, then back home triangle, a nice 2 hrs walk.
 once the beast from the east had gone, the weather rapidly got better, and soon we could put the winter coats back to the wardrobe ^^

 i  am always thrilled when I see the sun shining here, usually we go to walk. During one of our walks,  we noticed this beauty. The presence of any other flower apart from snowdrop officially announces the start of spring.







Of course, snowdrops still can be found and they are also pretty, just they were here from mid January too :D, not the most reliable sign of the warmer weather..

Flowers with a nice scent always made me happy, they remind me to my Grandmother's garden. My Aunt is also good at taking care of her flowers, and Maxim's Mother, Olga, also has a lovely garden full of scented flowers. Even my Mother has exquisite orchids..

Aaand here I am, who doesn't posses the ability of keeping alive her  plants. I tried many times but none survived with me. However, I transferred some of my poorly treated flowers to Grandma's garden, and they began to feel better, and actually come back to life.

When we started dating, Maxim had some principle, like he wouldn't give cut flowers to someone because these flowers are already dead. This is a rather cute point of view, but in my case it is irrelevant because of my incapacity of managing them.

Regardless of his principle, he came home with this charming spring bouquet on Valentine's day.

With their odor, they created the mood of spring inside the flat <3 ..

I also got a present for him on that day.  While I can't keep my plants alive, he badly treats his books (Like folding back the page instead of using a bookmark etc. ) So, I decided to save our books, and searched for a Maxim-like bookmark. This is what I chose. I think I got the good one, because for some mysterious reason he found it quite familiar, tho he has never had one.

Book hunt

Hi everyone :)

I have started this blog  maybe a month ago, so I think it is time to finish it.

Earlier this month (February) on a lovely sunny Saturday we went to a charity shop and found one of the books, what I have already read, but did not have a copy on my own, so I bought it. Couple of years ago I got an ebook reader, which came rather handy in those days, but it could not replace the feels of a REAL book. So I had this list in my mind about the books I have read on this ebook reader, and wanted a paper copy of them. And that was a start of a somehow crazy, but in reality an awesome book hunt in the charity shops. (In case you didn't know, we both love reading).

The result of the book hunt. I am easy to be pleased, I read almost any genre, Maxim is a bit harder to satisfy (reads mostly just fantasy), but in the end of the day even he found himself a book.

We might need to buy another bookshelf, the one we have now is a bit overloaded.. :D

Apart from the books, we found some other treasures in one of the shops, like this cute kitty brooch. (just the Cat and the Moon, the old fisherman is not part of the brooch :D ).

We bought a couple of games too. ^ ^

This painting has a story. previously I had 2 smaller painting hanging on the wall, but Maxim found them khm.. ugly. So when I made him kinda promise that he will replace them with something, he removed them. 1 week later when we did the shopping in Aldi, in the middle section I found this beauty. It was the last one, and it came back home with us :) 

We also found a delicious chocolate brand (divine chocolate, here is the link: http://www.divinechocolate.com/uk/). The guy who served us happened to be Belgian, and he recommended the cappucino one, and God, it was a good stuff. Probably one of the best of all the cappucino chocolates we have ever tasted. The only bad thing about it, that there is only small bars available of it (40g) and not the normal (90g).  ) Since then, we tried the caramel one, which was also good, but our hearts belong to the cappucino one.

In the middle of nowhere

or,

an entertaining short story of a lovely couple who walked far beyond the city boundary for a Wii..

A couple of weeks ago I accidentally started a (for us still) huge spending for home entertaining systems. It all started when I also accidentally came across with an Xbox 360 with a kinect in one of the charity shops nearby. My little brother had once, and I wanted one too for being able to play with this dance central game. It is very amusing, and help with my daily exercise, unlike the other very similar dancing game. Every day I passed by it, and I always thought, ok, today I will talk about it with Maxim. One evening when we walked home from the station, I showed it to him, saying, its still available and he replied, if it is a good price for it, then buy it, we can buy a TV later. So, I bought it. 

A week passed by and nothing happened, until I saw a very nice big TV in this facebook wanting-buying group. I showed the TV to Maxim, asking about his opinion with my big grey eyes.. We wrote to the seller, it was still available, but the location was about an hour walk from home.. OK. no problem, we could manage. We did, we walked there, got the TV, came back home, and now I had more or less everything I could entertain myself for literally forever. 

However, on the way back home Maxim was a bit (too) quiet, like when he is thinking about something serious. He asked me to invite him into this Facebook group.  Then , he sat down in front of his computer and started browsing the ads. 

When we started dating, he showed me his collection of games he wanted to play, he even mentioned a couple of times that he would like to buy a PS3 because of this games.. (not PS4 because the games he selected are not compatible with PS4 or something similar..) 

I honestly should have known.. But from that point, there was no turning back, I got mine, and there was no reason why he should not got his.. So, he scanned through the fb group, and found a PS3. Guess what we have now? Yep, we got a PS3 too, 4 days after we got the TV. He was soo elated at being able to play with his precious games.. Who could possibly thought his happiness isn't complete? 

Of course it was not, because still there were 2 (two!) games which were not operating on either Xbox nor PS platform.. These were Zelda games (yey) only available through Wii.........

He found a Wii too (on the same day), about circa 1 hour walk from home.. So, one day after we got the PS, we were on our way to get the Wii too. (Un)fortunately, when we were about 15 mins away from the seller, she wrote, apologized, but her partner was unwell, and now they are in the hospital. Maxim thought it is a heavenly sign to NOT buying (this) Wii. I thought he could let the this Wii idea go, we had already spent too much.. I was more or less right. 1 week after our missed meeting, on a beautiful, sunny Sunday, after having breakfast, he saw another Wii. 

You can imagine what happened after right? We contacted the seller. The address what he gave to us was hmm.. a bit farther to the north.. 1.5 hours of walk. The weather was nice, like a true spring day in February, so we decided to take a walk instead of the bus.

Even now when I write it down, it seems nothing. one and a half hour.. it is just a number, and  we are walking faster than what google predicts anyway.. I wasn't really aware of the rough terrain or what that 90 mins of walking really means, so I foolishly thought I could manage this 'easy' walk in high heels. (When I said this to one of my friends she replied I went crazy.. she was right) 

We literally went outside the city boundary and we crossed every hill this city possibly has.. The scenery was amazing though, but still, not meant for high heels. 

We passed a couple of footpath too, and made a note that we will come back here later and in appropriate clothing. :D 

Our adventure doesn't end here, on our way back, we thought about getting some lunch from Lidl, and tried a 'shorter' route, what was suggested by google.. 

Long story short, it did not work out very well, we spent about 30 mins in a woody area just to notice that the shortcut was a dead end, and the pathway was not continuing beyond a lovely bridge. So, we ought to go back on the way we came, unless we didn't, we chose the other side of the woods, which turned out to be steeper than what we originally came. 

At the end of the adventure, we managed to get back to the concrete road, and we haven't tried out any new shortcuts. :D 

Even my feet and high heels were survived, Maxim got his thingy (and now very happy I believe).

And all lived happily ever after. <3
The journey in pictures: