The house was centrally heated with good kitchen and bathroom facilities really, and we always had hot water on tap. It was a good all-round family-sized house, really. When I was very young, I remember that we used to keep our car in the garage, but for most of my life the garage was so full of things that we never used, really didn’t need, and should have thrown away, that the car always sat outside, even in the snow and the rain. In the garage it was more important to keep boxes and boxes of old electrical equipment, and things like that. We had a coal-fire, which was a very nice thing, we used to be able to sit at night in the winter and watch the real fire burning in the middle of the room. We had a beautiful 3-piece settee, which was very comfortable. I think we spent an awful lot of time watching the television. We never had a video-recorder, but from the age of about 11, there was always a computer in the house, so we spent a lot of time playing computer games.
We had green carpets in most of the house and, as I remember, we had green curtains to match them. All in all we had a fairly comfortable life. There were normally clothes hanging out on the washing line, which we could see from the kitchen window at the back of the house. My mum spent an awful lot of time in the kitchen really, cooking for us, of course, cooking bread-and-butter pudding, or spaghetti bolognaise, or some plum crumble, or… Oh, I fondly remember a lot of the nice things that she used to cook then.
I’ve lived in many different types of accommodation really, many different types of houses. In my travels – in the last few years most of the time I’ve been away from England. I remember one very beautiful place where I stayed was an abandoned village, in Italy in the mountains, and for 15 years some people have lived there. They moved into this village, renovated it, and made an almost self-sufficient community there, growing all of their own food, apart from oil, flour, and other things that they didn’t really need like wine and tobacco. I very much enjoyed living this way, in contact with the elements, in contact with the Earth, living in harmony with the animals and plants, and the weather around us.
I feel a little bit lost in the city amongst all of these squares, all of the noise, all of the concrete everywhere. Everywhere there are many, many people in a very small space, and a lot of cars. However, I’m getting used to it. I’m finding a way to survive here.
At the moment I live with my girlfriend, Maria, in a 4-room flat, in Budapest. We have one room which we spend most of our time in, which is our bedroom. We have a big double bed, a couple of very comfortable chairs, and a lot of storage space for us to keep our books and music. Maria is also a musician. She plays the cello and viola da gamba. So we have the instruments here, and we can practice – it’s a very good place to practice because we have no neighbours on 3 sides of the flat, and the place where we practice is really at the other end of the flat to the side where we do have neighbours. So, we can even practice in the middle of the night, if we want to, as nobody is upset or offended by the noise. It’s wonderful for me, because I’m learning to play the violin at the moment, and this is not as fun for others as it is for me.
The flat’s quite warm. We have a couple of gas heaters which, if we turn them on, heat the rooms up very quickly, but as soon as they’re turned off, everything becomes cold again. We have a very good water boiler which keeps hot water for us all day long and isn’t too expensive. We also have a little hot water heater in the kitchen so that we can do the washing-up after eating. We have a fridge. We don’t have a washing-machine, unfortunately, so we have to do all the washing in the bath. The kitchen is OK. It’s a bit dark but what I like about this flat is that the ceilings are very high, so there is quite a sense of space in here. Also, for practising music, it’s very good acoustically.
However, we’re quite a long way from the centre of town – it usually takes us at least 20 minutes to get into town in the morning. My girlfriend has to go to school in the morning most weekdays, so we wake up early, I make porridge and then we go together on the tram. Normally, we read to each other on the journey, which eases the distance problem a little bit. Another great advantage of our flat is that we aren’t next to any big roads, so we get virtually no noise from outside. Well, there are two layers of glass separating us from the outside world, a kind of double-glazing, which is great.
Our windows look down on a playing field or football pitch, which is occasionally used by schoolchildren. If we get really bored, we can sit on the balcony, and look out over them playing football in the daytime. A lot of trees are visible from here, and we can see the tops of two churches. One of them is very beautiful. We can also see, very close by, a large synagogue, which looks like a great Turkish building with a dome roof, with little towers around the edge of it and many round windows. I think it no longer functions as a synagogue. It is maybe used as a church now.
Our immediate neighbours are a very nice, kind, gentle elderly couple. I can’t really communicate with the lady because she doesn’t speak English, and my Hungarian isn’t so good, but her husband speaks many languages, so when we need to talk about house bills and things like that, I can communicate with him. We have quite a pleasant relationship with them.
The walls of our flat are a little bare. It’s been quite difficult to make our flat homely, really, because there are such big white walls and we don’t have many pictures or things to put on them. It always seems a little bit empty. We’ve tried to solve this problem by moving most of our things into one room of the flat. One room remains almost unused. But we don’t really want to sublet this other room, even though we don’t use it, because we like our sense of space and privacy. We always try to keep some fresh flowers in the house. I like flowers very much and so does Maria. They make our home feel alive somehow. I would really like it, though, if we had a few large plants growing in the house, although we haven’t really had the time or money to be able to get any.
In Maria’s parents’ flat, however, there are lots, and I think they are happy, as they’re watered every day and well taken care of. It’s almost like a little jungle. Their flat is about the same size as ours but for some reason it seems so much larger, maybe because they seem to be able to get so many more things into it. I suppose it is from having been there for so long. They seem to have everything there. There is a little corner where the computer lives, they have a video, a very good hi-fi system, and a fantastic television, with a three-piece suite gathered around it. They spend an awful lot of time in front of the television.
The room where Maria stays when she is there has two beds, and many, many books around on the walls. All of the walls seem to be filled with books. There are shelves and shelves of Hungarian poetry, anatomy texts, books about different countries of the world, literature, and many other subjects, as well as files and files of written music, and CD’s and cassettes.
Their hallway doubles up as a dining-room, as the table opens out and is big enough to eat around. They always have fresh flowers as well. Their kitchen is also quite high-tech. They have a microwave oven, a sandwich maker, and many electrical appliances to help with the cooking. Their pantry and refrigerator seem to be constantly full of food.
They also have a piano. Maria’s father used to be a pianist, and Maria is now learning to play the piano. Her standard is improving very, very quickly – actually, she seems to be very talented at almost any instrument she puts her hand to.
There always seems to be delicious food ready to eat. But I don’t know how, because I never seem to see Maria’s mother in the kitchen. She is also a successful career woman, as is Maria’s father, in software design. There’s always a very nice family atmosphere there. In some ways, every little touch makes the place feel warmer. Every little detail, every little picture on the walls, every little vase of flowers gives the place a homely atmosphere. It’s something really special.
My ideal house would be situated in the countryside, well away from any large cities, maybe even away from roads if possible. I would love to live somewhere near running water, or near to the sea. Also, it would be nice not to have to rely on the central water system, but to have a well or a stream nearby with fresh drinking water. Maybe this is a bit too much of a luxury to ask for. I like trees very much, so I’d like to live near