A Fellow Citizen

Okay, first of all I must admit that these pictures are not shot by me. My (sort of ex) husband took them today, on his walk in the Castle District.

He found this particular resident of Budapest just beside the south gate of the Castle. For those of you who might not know Budapest, this is the very historic inner city of the town. In the late-autumn afternoon sunshine s/he was sniffing and hunting around, not bothered even by being photographed several times.

I simply love the thought that we share the city with fellows like her/him. I strongly support their further immigration. More hedgehogs to Budapest! Let's create hedgehog-friendly parks and gardens and let's learn to live together with them as they have obviously learnt how to live together with us.

And we don't even have to stop at hedgehogs.

Completely off-topic: my holiday cactus

This post is not about Budapest. This post is about a being I share flat with for almost two years now: a holiday cactus I would not even call this plant an “urban nature” being. My cactus is as much civilized as I am, and as weird and eccentric, too. Maybe it is because it is also a native alien here, in Hungary. As I learned here, holiday cacti originally came from the Brazilian mountain forests, but many of their present species were bred in England. And now, one of them took root in this city and lives in my home for almost two years now.
When it first arrived, there was two or three beautiful flowers on it, and lots of small buds. But none of them flowered – they simply fell off dry. We tried to find out where the cactus feels all right. First, it was in the living room desk, but I read somewhere that it does not like warm climate, so it was moved to the kitchen table. But there we lifted its pot a couple of times a day, basically every time we opened the window. Then we were told that this cactus is very much sensitive to the smallest amount of moving. So we let it rest on the top of the fridge. After all, it is a forest plant, it does not need so much light.

For more than a year nothing happened to it. No signs of illness or wellness, just existing. A bunch of green stuff in the corner. Then in the late spring we decided to put it out to the windowsill. There was everything this cactus does not like: light, warm weather and oen more moving of its pot. Well, this cactus definitely did not know how it should behave. It started to grow aggressively, then the first two or three small flowers opened on it– in the middle of June. It may have happened because it is my cactus truly: happy and blooming when everyone around is dying from hotness.

And now, back in its old place because of fear of frost, and it blooms and blooms and blooms. Almost at the right time, now.

Halloween at Cökxpon

The last night of October is the end of the year in the traditional Pagan calendar. This is the night of feeling the connections with one's ancestors and dead beloveds, as well as letting go of those fruits of the passing year that we do not need any more. So I spent Sunday afternoon in the forest, literally burying things from my past. But my evening was not about silent contemplation but about something entirely different.

With the veil between this world and the other being thin, there are not only our loved ones that can get through, but all kinds of negative thoughts and entities as well. Demons if you like, otherworldly creatures of darkness, or simply the gloomy thoughts of inevitable death. Halloween is traditionally about frightening all those demons and negative thoughts away, by mimicking them and disguising ourselves as vampires, zombies, witches or other creatures of the night, and by making huge noise and revelry. Well, the Psychedelic Halloween Party at Cökxpon Café Theatre certainly did both.

When I arrived at half past 9, the atmosphere of the place resembled more to a nondescript chill-out evening, although I had to admit that the new design of the place is quite nice. The Man O'Mantra concert started around half past 10, and by then, otherworldly creatures started to infest the place. When the Cayetana started to play, quite a number of zombies and dark angels could be seen among the average concert-going audience. And after the concerts creatures of the darkness completely took over the whole place. My dark-witch-self enjoyed immensely discovering that the well- (or sometimes not-so-well) known faces are turned into Constantinos the Demon Hunter, or the Tree With Eyes. I spotted an executioner with excellent dancing skills, and an Islamic terrorist on his day off as well. They were all a nice company on the dancefloor. Okay, I must accept that at one point I was contemplating to turn all of them into newts, but I realised that I don't want to be surrounded by all those reptiles, so I decided not to do any mischief.

The zombies fell first, probably they have not eaten enough brain to keep them all night. But the DJs made quite a big noise so that no demon could get even close to Cökxpon and we could dance without trouble until the first morning of the Pagan new year.