Clear views

It has been a long time since we had such a mellow spring. In the last few years, spring lasted but a day surrounded by days of freezing cold and boiling hot. Now we have a nice, consistently warm weather. My parents argued if the lessening of car traffic or the cancelled plane traffic had more impact on that, but as I see it, they are both quite important factors.

We cleared out the balconies this weekend. The bicycle storage of our house is not exactly the safest, we got our bicycles stolen from there before, so we store ours in our balcony. We have three so they take up a lot of space. This spring we started storing them on racks so we have more space now but figuring out how to put the tent-cloth around them will be a bit of a challenge. We also grow a lot of herbs in different pots and vases. Last year we had chocolate-mint, lemon-mint, parsley, sage, rosemary, oregano and a whole bush of lavender. I finally had the chance to water them to see how many of the dry, dead-looking twigs actually have some life in them. Some of them already have some nice green leaves.

I also cleaned the windows of my room today. It is a fun process. I stuffed the dusty curtains in the washing machine, got the ladder from my parents' room, which got me some raised eyebrows from my dad and then I proceeded to wash the windows first with a wet rag because a lot of soot accumulates and trying to clean with paper towels from the beginning would take a bunch of them, so I guess this is how I try to be sparing. My room has a balcony door and a window right next to it, but the balcony does not extend under my window instead goes in the other direction where there is a door to my brothers' room. So cleaning the door is quite safe but under my window is a five-story drop. I have done some stupid things to reach the outside of the window frame like standing on the ladder on the balcony and leaning over. I guess I secretly traumatised my dad with that stunt because this time he passed by my room and asked me in a fake-nonchalant voice that I was not planning to lean out this time, right? I probably would have done it again if he had not asked me. I am just not that afraid of heights. I am careful to some extent but if I do not see it as dangerous, I do stupid things sometimes. The problem is that it is hard to tell if it is really stupid or I have it under control. I do consider physics when I have the time, but sometimes I just rush by that step.

Anyway, now I can enjoy the clear view I have of the huge, ugly panel-house in front of us until I put the curtains back again. Lovely. It is not all bad though our street also has a few tall trees and the tram tracks have a nice, thick grass running between and along with them. They used to be embedded in concrete that the ambulance and police cars could use that as a fast lane to get around the traffic. A lot of dust would always gather on the tracks because of the air currents the passing cars made on both sides and the rain, and all that dust would always be sent flying in magnificent dust clouds whenever an abundance hurried by. Now we have visibly less dust even in our flat, but the ambulance has to push through the traffic. Hungarian drivers are horrendously bad when it comes to giving way. Though I guess Hungarian drivers are just awful in general. It would be nice if that could be charged though.

Another thing people in our neighbourhood seem to have a problem with is staying home. It might sound a bit racist, but I saw a lot of gipsy families taking a Sunday walk together. It makes sense, they are more community and family-oriented than the other people who live here. I hope they don't get sick. The police have their work cut out for them, they have been soo busy trying to get people to stay home, that they hardly get to bother with the traffic. I have been hearing a lot more of cars going full throttle down our street. It must be fun to have the whole street to yourself. I would totally speed if I were them as well.