Day 144 Happy New Year

Happy New year to All of the Lovely readers of this blog. I feel exceptionally blessed that you have all taken your precious time to click on it and read it. Since I started beginning of August I had more than 2200 clicks from more than 15 countries around the world. Thank you so much for all the encouraging words, the e-mails, facebook messages and comments on the blog. This has been an adventure and I am grateful to be able to share with you all my personal and professional journey of writing the MA thesis: The Effects of Policy Making on the Decreasing Number of Hungarian Artisans.
Coming home for Christmas and New Year’s Eve has given me a wonderful opportunity to reflect and plan. I would feel very encouraged if you could carry on following the blog, where you could read daily updates about the re-launch of Vondores the ‘Timeless Love Affair’ fashion brand, the publishing of my novel: The Perfectly Imperfect World and the development of Glocal Trinnovation Local Lab workshops in preserving and transforming fashion related traditional craft.
Happy New Year to You All once again, may 2012 would be a real blessing in your and your loved ones life. Amen!

Day 143 Nature

I went to the last hunting of the year with dad. This is something we do every winter. Getting up early in the morning, walking on fields and in woods, picking up the pheasants and breathing in the fresh country air. The fog hovered over the blackness of the earth and hid amongst the trees. Over the fishing lakes the skein looked like dots on a giant, white canvas. I used to go hunting with dad every Saturday when I was little, copying him and having almost the same hobby of my own on cold winter days. Chasing pheasants in ditches covered with reed and getting stuck in woods amongst weed taller than me. Nature.

Day 142 Important Moments Wrapped in Short Dialogs

There was a very important moment today, when encountering the importance of the realisation: consciously experimenting with controlling the thought processes is the way forward in adding value to the mystery of wholeness.

Day 140-141 Salt

Yesterday a good friend of mine came to visit. We talked from 9-5. Lots to catch up with. Today other good friend popped over and we chatted from 8-12. And I am waiting for a train to arrive to bring other friend. Friends are the salt.

Day 139 Becoming Whole The Best Christmas Present Ever

As I am working my way through the memories of the past 11 years in The House with The Garden as the cupboards and the wardrobes, the draws and boxes become tidy with that rigorous order they have never seen before, I am experiencing that long awaited beauty of becoming whole. I am able to see the reasoning behind the reasons of whys, why I moved to England and the healing power of victoriously struggling in a foreigner country, which struggle on its own right became glorious in my being of a 36 year old woman. I returned here to my little village after the long journey of apprenticeship in searching for the person I always wanted to become. The person I saw myself as a child. And by now I am not afraid of any more what I`ve seen in the future as I was sitting on my bed, the side portrait of a woman with an ecru antique lace high neck blouse and a black velvet jacket with a standing collar and her long hair combed back in a banana shape bun talking about the importance of journeys as individuals and as nations. I am not fighting against that picture of a woman, who is content in creating and content being alone. I came to the end of my battle of loneliness this Christmas. I am happy. I know with the birth of baby Jesus, I have every right to be happy and live my life in wholeness with or without a husband and family I just have to trust and lean on God for guidance, because only He can show me the path of the journey He prepared for me.
I remember the endless pain of the past 6 Christmases when I was on my own in England. No matter where I was invited to I didn’t have my family around me, I didn’t have my feet on the land I am from. I had no comfort of my own culture, but trying to escape from loneliness in rented rooms, halls of residence and house sitting by trying to recall the missing kindness of home and cooking numerous meals enough to feed a regiment. By last Christmas I had enough of calling my family crying and dwelling in the bitter-sweet sea of self-pity because not being able to be with them. I took action and bought a Christmas tree as tall as myself. I could hardly pull it home from the place near Brick Lane. I remember the kindest postman of East London ever, who helped me pop it on his trolley as he saw me struggling in the snow and pushed it to the nearest bus stop I could get it home from. He knew so much about history, I was amazed. (He reminded me of Spiller, whom I always looked at as an extra Grandfather. He was one of our neighbours and we often went fishing together when I was little. I had a dream if I ever make a lot of money I would buy Breda Castle and make a creative home for the lonely and have Spiller there where he could fall in love with one of the employees and live happily ever after. He died many years ago and Breda Castle has been sold.) The Christmas tree was so fat it hardly fit it into the front room. I got bags of decoration on the staff charity sale at work. I got special Christmas tablecloths, towels, kitchen towels, candles, spent a fortune I didn’t have on food, cooked up a 5 course meals including Julia Child`s famous beef Bourguignon (nearly burning it as Julie in the movie) I was up until 2am if not longer and invited 9 guests, including a friend from Georgia, a Kiwi, to whom it was the first Christmas away from home and English friends who were away from family and wonderful Sarah and Steve. Sarah is great in stand-up comedy and gave us a show. We had a wonderful Christmas! Lesson learnt: take action to make Christmas in a foreigner land special.
This Christmas I cycle over to mum and dad’s every day for lunch and I give plenty TLC to The House with The Garden. I love this Christmas! Lesson learnt: make sure to go home for Christmas even if it means changing jobs.
One of my neighbours told me the other day I must be doing something very wrong in England, if I am not a millionaire yet. I have been there for 11 years, supposing I should have a fat bank account, by now a brand new car, new furniture and extended The House with The Garden with a landscape garden. I mean he didn’t give me the full list, why I am not doing things right, but this is what a successful person, who works abroad ideally, should have after such a long time. When people ask me here in Hungary how my life is in England, I always say it has positives and negatives, which is true. They reply, but you must earn more. And I say yes, but it is a very expensive place to live. Than they normally give me an example of someone they’ve heard about who said they earn a lot of money. I say I have been studying and they ask why? I say it is very important for me. They ask if I could use it if I move back. I say hopefully. And they want facts and I am not sure yet what is going to happen (if I do do a phd at some point or not, so I don’t give facts). And they normally say they don’t understand me. Well, that is ok, it is quite enough for me if understand myself. After being in England for so long studying and working at the same time I became quite realistic about the pros and cons of living abroad. I am not blinded by the higher wages and stories of earning lots when I know people who only eat eggs, bread and potatoes in England to be able to flash out on a new car when they come home. And what does success mean? To me it means becoming whole. It took me 11 years, plenty struggle, working very hard, studying at one of the best fashion institutes of the world and that is more to me than any fat bank account and any new cars. I am proud what I am and I am humbly honoured to be able to help the Youth Ministry in Chiaqualane, Mozambique. It gives me more joy than any new furniture. And that is the best Christmas present I have ever got in my life: understanding what it means and the process of becoming whole!

Day 138 Merry Christmas

Finally it is Christmas Eve in The House with The Garden! I’ve spent Christmas during the last 6 years away from my family. Maybe it was a conscious decision, but early this year I thought I couldn’t go without spending another Christmas without my family and I didn’t want to spend Christmas on my own either, meaning being in a foreigner country and I changed jobs. I am home with my family. I remember every single year I had that emotional rush, coming out of the blue, which made me miss my home land, family, food and even the Hungarian TV.
We had traditional fresh water fish soup and carp schnitzel with home-made chips fried in goose fat and French salad. It was all delicious. Even though it is Christmas I am still organising my stuff. The fact that I can be home and do things is more important than watching TV whilst eating chocolate. This Christmas carries no less than thousands of pieces of pure beauty and that is more than enough for me.
Traditionally we decorate the tree tonight, but instead of rushing it, we are going to do it tomorrow. No rush, it is not a race any more to celebrate and what is in our hearts deep down towards the meaning of Christmas what counts not the number of tinsels we wrap around the tree. Bethlehem in the small village church and the Midnight Mass that is what really count and that there is no complaining if the soup is a bit cold and that we talk to one another with love and encouragement no matter what, because today is special: Jesus was born.

Day 135-136-137 Tribute to Those Incredible Women Inspired ‘From Your Hand’

I have to confess I got totally consumed by the House with The Garden in the past few days. Well, more The House than The Garden to be honest, but it has been a joyful and long awaited bonding from both sides. Now, that Monsieur Thesis is not between us no more and neither any kind of third parties in connection with education, we can fully blossom our admiration towards each other. I had so much to write about, but it was 1am during the past three days by the time I got to switch on my laptop and fall asleep straight after opening the page only typing up ‘Day 135’, ‘Day 136’, but today I made sure I set down during the day and finally write. It is almost 3pm.
It’s incredible how much stuff I horded together during the past 10 years of studying. I have more beads and threads than some of the haberdashery shops. I have been meaning to sort my arts and crafts stuff out for years, but finally I started yesterday. I have a 3 door wardrobe to go through, several boxes and suitcases showed under the staircase and the tables. I started to put everything in order: beads, threads, ribbons, buttons, so on in separate boxes and clear plastic sleeves. I even keep little pieces of fabrics and threads for the textile art pictures I so love making and haven’t had a chance to do so during the past 6 years at uni. Finally, I also started to change the curtains and alter them to the right lengths. I still had those ones I got from the neighbours when I was an Au-Pair years and years ago, after they changed theirs. When I came home for a gap year I put them up on the windows of The House with The Garden, but because it has incredible big windows it looked like I shrank the curtains as they were short on the length and narrow on the sides.
Couple of years ago during my spending spree I bought new curtains for The House and finally I started to put the winter ones up. They make wonders in the insulation and they do block the sun out, so if I don’t set my alarm I just sleep until lunchtime. But this is what holidays are for, isn’t it? It starts to get really cold outside, which sets the scene for a perfect Hungarian Christmas. Dad came around and cut out a pine tree from The Garden, which is going to be my Christmas tree and he also helped me to change the furniture around. These little encounters are quite significant as we have not much relationship built up. I made sure I praised him for his help and reminded him, that there is no swearing in The House, which made it really easy to get on with the jobs. We talked about his mum a wee bit as he got a group photo of a play she was in from his uncle, who knows how much I long to know more about Granny Fodor. Apparently, as dad and other people who remember her told me, I totally resemble her even with my talk and gestures. She died when dad was only 4. It was a tragic death of her generation ruled by government policies of child birth and a hard loveless marriage oppressed by being on the village rich list at the dawn of communism, which was the dusk of the strong and hard-working village farmer class branded as ‘kulaks’ from one day to another. Dad very rarely speaks about his mum. First time just over 10 years ago we both cried when I asked him questions, he was very drunk and told me when she died he was looking for her everywhere even under the bed, but he couldn’t find her. As I am getting older and going through my own struggles I become more understanding with his sorrows, which shaped that formless attachment between us (mum, brother and me) and him. He said today, sober, he remembers his mum laying on the bed sick and being cared for, a piece of clothes being soaked in cold water on touching her face, but it was too late. It always makes me very emotional when we talk about this and I am so grateful for God for my mum, who was sitting in the middle of craft boxes with me yesterday as we sorted the reminders of the past ten years.

Day 134 Christmas Decorations and Home-Made Cheese Schnitzels

I woke up during the night and suddenly didn’t know where I was. After a few seconds I saw the wallpaper on the wall and realised I was back home in The House with The Garden and it made me happy. Everything felt so good today. I suppose the fact that I have no Monsieur Thesis in my life any more, no uni deadlines, no briefs to decompose and spend weeks and months working on them, life tastes sweeter. Every time I spent holidays at The House with The Garden before I had one or two deadlines hanging over my head. This holiday is different though. I am free and spent most of today with changing curtains, putting up Christmas decorations and eating. I had mum`s amazing peach soup with cream, peas sauce and home-made cheese schnitzel with egg stew and for dessert chestnut pure with cream. So delicious!

Day 132-133 London, Munich, Budapest

2am London Heathrow

I am sitting at Heathrow airport waiting for my flight to go home. This past 10 weeks was a one of a kind adventure. I just had one of the busiest weeks after breaking up with Monsieur Thesis. I remember thinking about all the things I was going to do once I finished with him. In reality, I had so much to catch up with and jobs to do, that it hasn’t even hit me yet, that I handed it in.

Strangely enough, on the way here sitting on the tube I realised how detached I got from advertising. Since I joined Mission Year, I walk wherever I can and only get bombarded with smog, but not as much direct advertisement as on the tube. Whilst walking I can look anywhere, I don’t get fixated on adds, just because of lack of space. So on the way here I had a brief encounter with the `Mysterious` Lady Freedom when I looked at the adverts, I was captured by idea of me being able to read a book if I want to , sit around on park benches and visit lovely old ladies to listen to their capturing oral history. Also I might even be blessed with the man of my life. Shortly after that, I thought about the next term, seeing myself running around well-above the recommended speed limit and end up being very tired and very hungry, because I forget to eat and sleep. This has been the pattern of my life for so long, I do need to find an accountability partner for eating and sleeping. I found myself being caught up by old habits, drinking hot chocolate instead of a meal to save time and eating anything sugary for quick energy release. I had the far too familiar dizziness and constant adrenalin rush due to lack of food. I need to look at my notes from New ID, the knowledge gained fades over time and not accessible either for emotions or reason. I do remember the shock the talk had on me about the brain releasing fat to the body when starving and this process creates that high, which so easily could become addictive. I do remember the shock of realisation what I was doing to my body by being so busy that I kept skipping meals and ended up 48kg one and a half years ago. I just weighed myself and I am a happy 69kg for 170cm height. I gained 30% of my body mass in a year and I remember telling my flat mates once to hold me accountable if they catch me dieting. I think I am going to be well over 70kg by the time I come back from holiday. I normally have 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and 2 dinners when I am back home and of course sleepless nights. 8pm this evening I am going to have dinner with mum in The House with The Garden: Hungarian potato soup with eggs and steamed fried cabbage with fried duck. I can`t wait! I am so excited. I am also very excited about the time when I will be able to do my first food shopping end of January. It is going to be so great! I can start cooking for people again!

I had such an amazing 10 weeks in learning and trusting God for provision. It is very easy to slip back to old habits, but I really would love to keep in mind what I`ve experienced. It is amazing to experience, that my shopping habits completely changed. I am very considerate what I buy and why.

10.15am Munich International Airport

My connecting flight is 15min delayed. It doesn’t matter there is snow at the airport and the freshness of continental cold fills me with the warmth of familiarity. I love the dryness of this cold. Its sharpness is safe and resembles those rosy cheeked memories of childhood, wrapped up in a thick winter coat, woolly hat, scarf and gloves, when I almost couldn’t move, but I was cared for. Here the many continental faces make it less obvious to be branded ‘Eastern European’ we all simply resemble Europe.

2pm Budapest Franz Liszt International Airport

Drinking the nicest tea ever Tisane Du Berger Damman Freres with honey. I just missed my train and trying to draw some energy from the tea to be able to climb those steps with the suitcases, there are at least a 100 of them if not more. The lifts are broken at the train station. I better hurry up before missing this train as well.

Finally, am going to have time to do all the bits and pieces I’ve been waiting for so long. First of all, I have to make sure I have plenty rest in The House with The Garden. This is my first Christmas there in 6 years, which makes me appreciate it more than anything. This two and a half weeks have to be about learning to rest. I remember the time when I made candles with Katica there and all the baking and cooking with Szilvi. Let this holiday be the gentle reminder of those days in a new

2.24 am

In the The House with The Garden I had the delicious Hungarian potato soup with eggs and steamed fried cabbage with fried duck and a lovely long chat with mum. It is so good to be home JIt is so good to be home J

Day 131 Saturday Night Fever

I must do something wrong: I worked all week, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday evening. And I can’t wait until Christmas

Day 130 Angel wings and the House with the Garden

I just finished making a pair of huge angle wings for a performance, retelling the Eclessia on Monday. I was so tempted not to write today. Three days before travelling everything is so hectic, but good hectic. I can’t wait to get back to The House with The Garden and write again.

Day 129 Vondores in the House of Lords and the Dramatic Mourning Over a Tube Ticket

Yes, finally I made it. I was there all dressed up and pampered. It was a couple of hours networking at the House of Lords in the River Room. I managed to network with all the canapés and just to make sure I got all the information right I needed from them, I had several rounds. I was fascinated about the food and the tour at the end, when we were taken to both the Lords and the Commons with a dramatic entrance to the Westminster Hall at the end. I was so tired, all I wanted to sit to start with and when I was introduced to a very enthusiastic girl who is just starting Mission Year in January, I just passed her on to Christina. Personally, I am just not at the right place to talk about it until January when my finances finally start to take shape and I will actually be able to not having to mourn after every single tube or bus ticket I have to buy. Personally I would have said no to the Christmas Party, but that would have been pushing the boundaries, because I haven’t been to any of the training evenings since we started. I can’t believe I just paid £3.80 for tube tickets, but seeing Pugin’s interior decorations was worth it.

Still, sadly no progress on translating the novel. Everyday life seems to consume me more, than Monsieur Thesis did.

Day 128 In the Praise of Wholeness

This is for all my single friends. Be the wonderful well that waters the garden of hope. No dryness shall be invading the secret chambers of your heart, let it be always light there, let there be no thirst in the deepness of your life. Let it be a place of overflowing living water, fresh with a cool breeze as the raindrops smooth over the pebbles in the streams of desires. Love the journey of becoming whole; love it with all your heart, when everything is just too much to bear and you feel the loneliness sitting on your shoulder so heavy that you can’t stand still no more. The whisper in your ears says there are resting places on the journey, be bold and enjoy the fruits of them.

Day 127 Counter-Productive Generosity

Since I handed in the thesis, I couldn’t really rest. I got to bed so late and there is so much to do. I suppose it kind of built up and now it is the sorting out time. I went to Connect Group this evening. It was great to see the people.

Something has been occupying my mind since I finished, but it looks like it is going to be solved. I haven’t started translating Perfectly Imperfect World yet and most likely I won’t have time before the holidays. I got commissioned to make huge angel wing, which is quite exciting, so that is priority until I go home.

I am just still so tired after handing in, that it is almost not real. I keep falling asleep with my hands on the keyboard. There is so much to write about. Feeding the ducks, getting into kids church more, finding my feet after breaking up with Monsieur Thesis, but the financial strains of the last few months just makes me physically and emotionally tired. But I cannot write about what has been happening. I just need the Christmas holiday now to be able to process things properly. Well, I did ask God at the beginning of Mission Year to show me the areas I need to change, however hard it was going to be. Over generosity and over compassion can be counter-productive and it is always difficult with people when it comes to finances.

Day 126 Tough Love

Some situations in life are just tough. To find solutions when you have to stand up for your beliefs and be truthful in meanings of courageous bonds. This is indeed the trying part of human relationships and those moments when in anger and rage you can still maintain your dignity are truly precious. I would love to say at this point I am fully aware of the lost meadows, but in reality I am just as others trying to cross that overwhelming field of difficulties with the least hurt and the most kindness of those who care, being cared for and are still remembered. It is a Perpetuum mobile of debates. What is prosperity of life on one hand the debate of reality on the other.

Day 125 The Battle of Justice: Families versus Singles and Santa on the Patio

I am always amazed when I find myself in situations where my status as a single person let alone a foreigner single woman `with no money or connections` (as Jane Austin would put it) gives the right to people to think about me as a less important unit, meaning not needing to have the security of financial stability the same way as those who are in families, have children to look after and protect their unity as such from burnout and financial instability. Especially doing mission year, everything that happens in the financial realm with me affects my team as well. Most people around us seem to have this romantic idea of us living like the early church sharing everything and be happy with the little we have to be able to serve the community. There is just a little bit of problem with that, whilst in the early church they could go and work on the fields and get some food in return, we can’t tell the cashier at Sainsbury’s that we just stay overnight and stuck the shelves in barter for the food we need. The best way for people not wanting that romantic picture to be ruined is whenever we cry for help, we are told you need to discuss it with your team that is the principle of mission year, that you help each other out. Yes, that all sounds amazing with one little fact that everybody seems to ignore. We are all severely overdrawn therefore can’t help each other out from high interest overdrafts. But because I am single that is ‘ok’, as I have no family to care for. Well, I do have parents who need my help and I do have dignity of a human being and I am just as worthy in God`s eyes as families, therefore my financial stability is just as important as theirs.

I would like to write about only nice things on my fist free Sunday. We had a great party last night with our one and only Debbie Heelan singing. The living room glowed in red with golden tinsels and fairy lights. My old half-broken IKEA lamp was covered with a piece of red material and set juts the right mood for celebration. We had pizza, cakes, tea and wine and lots of chats. I got the biggest Cadbury chocolate box ever from Matt and Ansa, which perfectly matched my purple and white psychedelic dress. At the end four of us talked about things we believed as children fairies, Christmas and Santa. I swear once I saw Santa`s cloak on our patio, when I was 3 or 4 as he leaped over the garden. I remember as if it just happened yesterday, I was standing behind the door between the pantry and the kitchen looking through the window, it snowed all day and I clearly remember the swinging red fabric with the white fluffy edge. Once I also remember seeing Little Jesus and the angles around our Christmas Tree. Jesus was a young child with beautiful angel wings and the angels wore white robes, just as like on Catholic paintings. Most likely I so wanted to see both Santa and Jesus that my mind turned the imagination into living memories. We laughed and as the most humble barrister I`ve ever met told her story we all swam in one of those wonderful moments of life when we seem to be able to recapture our childhood innocence once more. It came in the perfect picture of children running after a flying little bird and trying to catch it by throwing a piece of clothes over it. `We never caught it` she said and we all laughed with that special laughter of childhood innocence.

Finishing with Monsieur Thesis has its very own ups and downs. Now I have time to think about things that need to be reassessed and resolved in my life and it is not easy. Facing the consequences of decisions I made yet again based on lack of time, being overly generous in situations I am suffering from now makes it hard to enjoy.

Day 124 ‘No More MA’ Party

Thank you so much for everybody who came to the party. It was great to have you all around. The best dressed trophy in the ‘Bright Colours and Psychedelic’ category (we can all agree) goes to Stephen!

Day 123 The Fine Line Versus the People of Gentleness

Something happened that turned my peace upside down and made me question many things about the fine line between being kind and generous and being used. It has been building up for a while, but today it burst out in the form of a 10minutes monologue over the dinner table. It is about the usual im/balance of what is somebody’s gain is somebody else’s loss. I had experienced many of these situations before and believed and still believing as I am in the process of learning and transforming the gained knowledge I am slowly but surely getting to the point, when it won’t happen again. This time it came unexpectedly came from a trusted situation. Words have more power than any weapon. They can destroy relationships in a split of a second and lose trust that been built and nurtured with hard work. I need to process and resolve this by the end of this year.

I went to a Christmas quite evening after I let the steam out and listened to Kerst playing on the piano and Helen singing. It was an island of peace and calm after the lurking stress of the day. It was just amazing to have a cup of tea and small talks with people of gentleness.

I haven’t started to translate the novel today, I’ve been far too consumed by the painful revelation of one small sentence.

Still, life without Monsieur Thesis is just a blessing in the sky. I finally have time to hang out with people and a great heavy chest has been lifted off my shoulders. I am really looking forwards to have my very first Saturday morning without him.

Day 121-122 Recommendations for a phd and translating “Perfectly Imperfect World”

Well, I can`t express how wonderful it is to wake up and not having to proceed to the kitchen with my laptop to have a hot date with Monsieur Thesis any more. Yesterday our 3 year relationship finally ended. It has stirred up many memories and brought shining bright light to the end of the tunnel.

The printer had just enough ink to print the last pages. Diana converted the document into pdf and wrote it out on a CD for me and by 9am I was on the Central line to hand in. Thank God, it wasn’t as packed as it is normally and there was nobody queuing at Reprographics either. I was the only one and it made me really happy that there was no last minute stress. I skipped around a bit while I was waiting for the thermal binding to cool down and told the always-smiling gentleman with the glasses that it was my last hand-in and thanked for his help in the past 6 years. He is always so patient and showed me and all the other students every single time how to use the ring binder before. By 10.20am I got my receipt from the Registry Office and skipped along to meet Marta for a coffee. I haven’t been out for a coffee since I came back to England on 30^th September. I simply couldn’t afford it and still can’t, but I decided to treat myself after hand-in. I had my favourite Pret All-day-Breakfast which I had walking over to our meeting and an eggnog medium decaf latte at Starbucks. It was so good to see Marta. She called me the day before and told me I should think about doing a Phd. I said never, she said never say never. Marta is in her second year of Phd and it was my humble person who talked her into it. Well, it was my humble person, who talked her into MA on the first place. We did our BA together, she did an amazing project on computer technology and fashion, which she carries on since then and getting ahead of things that are currently possible and available in fashion revolutionising processes with her research. I looked at local development on BA and carried on with the MA and as Marta says there is a lot of interest in my research area as well for improvement. So, after saying never and being promoted never say never, I decided to look into it and if I could get a full grant covering research I would love to carry on with my studies and do a phd in the next couple of years. This was my overall recommendation at the end of the thesis:

6.2 Recommendations

In line with the OECD recommendations to Hungary: “Higher priority on poverty and income distribution issues, promote active employment policies eco-industries and environmental services” (Environmental Performance Reviews Hungary, 2008). To be able to lobby for the lowering of high entrepreneurial fees and the bureaucracy burden in Hungary more in-depth research suggested:

Recommendations for the EU:

• Collecting data of artisan activity
• Researching and comparing the status of artisanship within its countries:
• Entrepreneurial policies affecting the increase or decrease of the trade
• Monthly fees
• Tax
• Administrative elements
• The economic well-being of the countries
• The historical and socio-cultural elements surrounding artisan products and artisans
• The internal and external factors of world economics and the changing face of fashion industry:
• The effects of fast fashion on artisans
• Supporting theories of sustainable fashion
• Conducting a consumer behaviour survey looking at:
• The need for artisan products: increase decrease, stagnating
• The amount of money in relation to the wages spent on fashion related products including home ware
• The amount of spending on these products if made by artisans
• The innovative opportunities and elements of artisan products that could potentially increase sales.
• Surveying the level of education on locally made products.

Recommendations for the Hungarian Government:

• Looking into possible ways of differentiating between industrial actors and artisans under the current policy making and in terms of high entrepreneurial taxes and the bureaucracy burden
• Changing the policies to create an environment where innovative product, skill, material or market ideas (including artisan) could have 6 months to 1 year period of organically growing to be able to become competitive on the market and potentially contribute towards the country’s GDP on the long-term.

Recommendation for the writer:

· Build a website purchased under the domain name of: www.glocaltrinnovation.org and bring together enthusiasts advocating local design and development based on traditional craft.

o Start collecting data for an “artisan search engine” of practising artisans by country, by craft skills and by product range within the EU to be able to advocate their enterprises for potential consumers.

· Start the “Local Lab” advocating talks on the importance of preserving and transforming traditional craft in the context of local skills, materials and markets.

o First Glocal Trinnovation “Local Lab” talk takes place in the Colchester Art Centre in February 2011

· Further develop the ‘The New Souvenir’ concept as a sample for the ‘Local Lab’ talks

We had a mini Love Shack dinner last night, Diana, Stephen and myself eating up all the leftover from the day before, which resulted in masses amount of food on our plate from chilli con carne to home-made veggie burgers. It was a real feast! Diana asked me what my plan was and I suddenly remembered I always wanted to translate my novel I wrote 15 years ago in Hungary, which is based on changes in governments and its effect on the state and the individual. It is a utopia called “Perfectly Imperfect World”, which makes me laugh and cry at the same time, with lots of imagination. From tomorrow am going to do that. So, I just answered that I wanted to translate my novel I wrote 15 years ago. There was a silence and after she said she wished she could drop something like that so casually over the dinner table. I know she has a lot of things like that to drop. I remember how astonished I was when she told us over dinner she lived in Cambodia with her family for 3 years when she was around 10. We all have a lot in us to astonish people with, I believe we are just not fully aware of it, because it is so casual for us.

Day 120 End of an Era and the Finishing Touches

Well, this is it. I am sitting at the kitchen table with Monsieur Thesis for the last time. Everything is set, the printer, the paper, the radio on Classic FM, hot apple and blackcurrant squash in the big cup with the blue star and it is nearly 11pm. It is going to be a long last night of an even longer journey. I am very happy!

Day 119 Thank you for the Encouragement and the Reality of Start-up Expenditure in Hungary

3.40am

I am still editing the thesis, but I need to go to bed and sleep a couple of hours. The whole Love Shack’s been helping me today with advice and encouragement and friends on text and facebook and e-mail. Thank you so much to All of You! It means a lot. From the thesis:

`Start-up expenditure 2008 for entrepreneurial activity in Hungary:

• Obtaining and entrepreneur ID: 10.000Ft
• Police check: 2.000Ft

Further fees: if the entrepreneur is a full t-time student or in full-time employment somewhere else or for some other reason the fees of national insurance and pension contribution is paid after the person in question, exemption of paying entrepreneurial monthly fees can be obtained.
If the entrepreneur cannot obtain exemption based on the above and does not have a job over 36 hours/week the following fees are payable:

Data based on 2008:

• National Insurance: 1.950/month
• National Insurance contribution: 6% + 5%m = 11%
• Pension contribution:
• Private pension system:
• Basic contribution: 24% + 1,5% = 25,5%
• Private pension contribution 8%
• Non private pension system: 24% + 9,5 % = 33,5%
  
  
• Entrepreneurial tax: 4%

These fees are compulsory to pay after the minimum wage which in 2008 was 69.000Ft regardless the business creates any profit or not. However due to the austerity measure the fees payable were from 69.000Ft being the base to 138.000Ft.

Further fees:

• 18% VAT is payable up until 1.500.000Ft income and 36% over that.
• Over 700.000 Ft 2% entrepreneurial tax
• 4 % szolidaritasi tax
• Other taxes can apply based on the type of business (cultural fees)

The above circulations are only those payable to the government all other expenses: bills, rent, materials, accountant are extra cost.`

Day 118 The Joy of a Conclusion and the Smashing of a Lindt Reindeer

11.54am

Today’s task is to finish the conclusion and start on the bibliography. Worry of the day: my eyes are already hurting. Hope of the day: only days now and I am going to be a free woman. Shall this be the light at the end of the tunnel! Am gonna smash and eat the Lindt Reindeer I got from Fuzz for looking after the kids in the crèche as soon as I finish the conclusion.

14.34pm

Conclusion finished praise God. Ruth prayed for the words to flow this morning again. I am loving the power of prayer.

I would love to say it ready, but still have to do the bibliography and the pictures. At the moment 50 pages and 20.656 words. And I desperately need to rest my eyes for a bit.

It is time to smash and eat the chocolate Reindeer J

Conclusion

The writer concludes that whilst climate change is already restructuring the face of globalisation and as new design development principles are implemented within the framework of local sustainable fashion the bases of policy making and its practical implementations need to come to a conclusion in line with the relationship between economic and business what its major focus for the next fifty years is going to be within the EU under the umbrella of growth: does it measured in profit (economic growth) or well-being (the opportunity of creating sustainable livelihoods)? If it is measured in profit, is it based on supporting local development to produce or supporting the current trend of consume, based on the availability of the global markets? If it is measured in well-being is the foundation of uniting policies within the EU to achieve that is being planned and how to they are going to be implemented? As the standard of living and wages in China and India are growing in parallel with that of the current phenomenon of cheap labour which is slowly shifting towards the end of an era marked by ‘over-consumed-needs’ the bubble of growth needs to be shifted towards local micro enterprises and SMEs. To take advantage on that niche could potentially become the competitive advantage of the EU as a whole and its individual countries.

Creating well-being on both the individual and the community that affects the economic growth of a country and the positioning in the wider economic area whilst preserving and transforming traditional craft helps to build on heritage and follows the narrative human history and development.

Creating well-being of the individual by increasing community well-being whilst decreasing the entrepreneurial fees and the bureaucracy burden in Hungary could give the artisans a chance to re-enter the ‘lost’ markets with innovative products and actively practice their skills in employment instead of reducing the possible economic value of the trade to a hobby.

KEY FINDINGS:

If the EU pushed The Hungarian Government the barriers of entrepreneurial activity would be reduced.

Recommendations:

In line with the OECD recommendations to Hungary: `Higher priority on poverty and income distribution issues, promote active employment policies eco-industries and environmental services.’ (page 162, Environmental Performance Reviews Hungary, 2008)

To be able to support and lobby that push with EU more in-depth research needed.

Further research within the EU:

• Collect data of artisan activity
• Research and compare the status of artisanship within its countries:
• Entrepreneurial policies affecting the increase or decrease of the trade
• Monthly fees
• Tax
• Administrative elements
• The economic well-being of the countries
• The historical and socio-cultural elements surrounding artisan products and artisans
• The internal and external factors of world economics and the changing face of fashion industry:
• The effects of fast fashion on artisans
• Supporting theories of sustainable fashion
• Conduct a consumer behaviour survey looking at:
• The need for artisan products: increase decrease, stagnating
• The amount of money in relation to the wages spent on fashion related products including home ware
• The amount of spending on these products if made by artisans
• The innovative opportunities and elements of artisan products that could potentially increase sales.
• Survey the level of education on locally made products.

Recommendations for the Hungarian Government:

• Looking into possible ways of differentiating between industrial actors and artisans under the current policy making and in terms of high entrepreneurial taxes and the bureaucracy burden
• Changing the policies to create an environment where innovative product, skill, material or market ideas (including artisan) could have 6 months to 1 year period of organically growing to be able to become competitive on the market and potentially contribute towards the country’s GDP on the long-term.

Recommendation for the writer:

· Build a website purchased under the domain name of: www.glocaltrinnovation.org and bring together enthusiasts advocating local design and development based on traditional craft.

o Start collecting data for an ‘artisan search engine’ of practising artisans by country, by craft skills and by product range within the EU to be able to advocate their enterprises for potential consumers.

· Start the ‘Local Lab’ advocating talks on the importance of preserving and transforming traditional craft in the context of local skills, materials and markets.

o First Glocal Trinnovation ‘Local Lab’ talk takes place in the Colchester Art Centre in February 2011

· Further develop the ‘The New Souvenir’ concept as a sample for the ‘Local Lab’ talks

Database of local artisans

To think about local production in a new refined way as a tool to interact with each other more as it could be learnt from the historical sole-traders in the local villages and towns by reconnecting the social aspect of local production with the changing face of economic growth and climate change. Small scale local production is environmentally safer and creates less carbon footprint. Climate change is already altering the way we produce crops, which is sooner or later will have negative impact on the way we perceive production at this time and age, but at the same time it could positively affect local artisans and boost their businesses. Thus it is down to the advocates of this age to raise the profile of ‘the getting ready stage’, when policies need to be put in place and based on the unique aesthetics of the surrounding countries by building out an artisan and consumer network within the EU.

Day 117 Discussion Losing Nearly 11000 Words and Rewriting Almost 7000

Can I just say I’ve written so many words to today, I couldn’t even count them not for a million pound. Even though I couldn’t get up at 6am as I planned it, only quarter to 8. I went over to the outreach and had delicious bacon and sausage sandwich for breakfast, whilst blowing some lovely read balloons up saying: Jesus is Immanuel if I am correct. I can’t remember exactly, all my thoughts are around Monsieur Thesis. Ruth prayed for me, which was really lovely and encouraging saying she had an impression of me writing very easily and the words opening up like flood gates. They did. The whole day was really amazing. I took regular breaks to keep my mind fresh and give a rest to my eyes. I realised after I got home from the breakfast, that the majority of my discussion (11.000 words) wasn’t relevant at all and I just opened those floodgates and praise God rewritten the whole thing (7000). I am down to 21.258 words and still have the conclusion to refine, which is about 2.700, but will shrink most likely a bit. I even told my mum today I was going to be very crossed if I wouldn’t pass. She laughed. I am so glad I didn’t ask for extension I wouldn’t get that far by this time and most likely would be very stressed that I have to spend all Christmas and New Year with Monsieur Thesis.

‘Policies generated black economy

It has to be noted the high cost and bureaucratic burden does not only makes it difficult for artisans to start up and drive to success an enterprise, but for the majority of the people with potential innovative business idea. As a direct result of that once an enterprise is started it is pushed towards the black economy by the very government which tries to whiten the economic activity. The complicated administrative burden gives many opportunities for SMEs, the entrepreneurs and the self-employed to hide income to try to make ends meet. For that reason most of the employers and employees in Hungary earn the minimum wage on paper and the rest is cash in hand. The more an employee earns, the more the employer need to pay to the government after that amount. Employers’ entrepreneurs‘ and self-employed’ view is that if they wouldn’t have to pay such high taxes, national insurance and pension contribution to the government, they wouldn’t need to hide their income to survive.

The myth of all enterprises being profitable

This goes back to Aghion`s theory about trust, the more legislation a country has because of not trusting its people the less its people trust in it. In Hungary the government and the policy makers’ point of view is that every entrepreneurial activity (regardless of just starting up or well established for years) is profitable and entrepreneurs hide their profit from APEH. It is important to note, that the success of an enterprise depends on many internal and external factors:

· Is it a necessity or opportunity based enterprise (the difference has been discussed in the litterateur review)?

· What are the internal and external factors of the country’s and the world economy?

o Is there a recession?

o How does export from countries’ with cheaper labour effect the price of the products the enterprise is producing?

· How does the unemployment rate of the country changes, decreasing or increasing buying power?

In reflection of these questions it is unrealistic to suppose that a starting up enterprise is successful and will stay successful.’

Day 116 Sleepy Ideas About R&Ds and Clusterizations

I kind of knew I was going to be very tired today, by the time I finish work. I set my alarm for 6am in the morning, but most likely just being very ambitious. Will see tomorrow. And I just remembered I have clothes in the washing machine to dry, oh no! I just want to sleep!

I would love to talk about some progression with my thesis, but I can’t. I hardly wrote anything today and I still have so much to do and only 4 days to go.

This is a very rough draft:

‘The country`s main export is high-tech, IT goods and pharmaceutical products. The government encourages regional service sector job creation and the clusterisation of the Hungarian industry (financed by the European Union`s Structure and Cohesion Fund), the Hungarian government identified four sectors, that are key to the country`s future: auto motor, drugs and biochemical, IT and electronic and logistic. (Gordon Bajnai, 2009).

20/10/2008 - Hungary should invest more in research and development (R&D) to make its economy more competitive and boost growth, according to a new OECD report. Investments by multinational enterprises have helped the economy diversify into more technologically advanced sectors, such as information technology, cars and pharmaceuticals. http://www.oecd.org/document/47/0,3343,en_2649_34273_41522799_1_1_1_1,00.html OECD Reviews of innovation Policy: Hungary ISBN: 978-92-64-05404-2 www.oecd.org/publishing

policy/studies/studies_innovation_management_final_report.pdf)

Although, innovation related research existed during the communism, it was driven by the political and economic structure of the Eastern Block focusing on reaching production targets amongst the communist countries in the field of industrial and agricultural competitions. This form of centralised ‘Research & Development’ in Hungary had a negative effect on the innovative nature of the individual and created a gap between government supported research projects taking places at universities and the problem solving human mind outside an institutional environment.

The writer argues at the same time the existing artisan skills could potentially help the economy on the long term. The more people could work, the more they can earn and spend and the less the government have to pay out in benefits. Even if one person in every village that could come off benefits and contribute to the country’s GDP, it would make a difference.

Could the government clusterize artisan activity as it does with innovative industrial players?

I fall asleep 3 times by the time I typed in the last sentence. Clearly time to go to bed!

Day 115 Migrating Lost Generation and the Tax & Administrative Burden Positioning

Oh, Dear! I am sitting in the kitchen with Monsieur Thesis trying to mend the bits and pieces of the Discussion part of our relationship. As usual when we get down to the nitty-gritty it turns out there are more things to discuss and some of our points are just not relevant. And a part of me just realising that maybe I’ve been trying to solve our problems far too early, when we were just started to get to know each other and even before we got to the Literature Review stage of our dating I had all these ideas about Monsieur Thesis, as if we were living and breathing together for years I just made assumption about him, without letting him to reveal his true personality. On the other hand I am surprisingly content with him, even though I have no idea how to start to restructure nearly 11.000 words in two days and I might have to lose the majority of it.

I had two dinners in the past couple of hours, an ice-lollied banana, several glasses of lemonade and a bar of chocolate to help me to concentrate. I am not sure it is working. I put on Kerst music, in case it relaxes my sugar intake to feel more energetic to get on with the Discussion.

Discussion

Looking into other reasons for the decrease in numbers

Unemployment

The large number of people made redundant after the fall of communism during privatisation created a new segment of society the unemployed. Whilst during communism everybody had to work to build the communist country, unemployment was socially unacceptable and punishable by law. With the great fall, the loss of communist markets and the pitfalls of privatisation unemployment were created almost overnight. The government set up a benefit system from tax payers’ money to ensure social security for the unemployed. Above all that the level of those taking early or occupational retirement due to the closure of factories and farmer’s co-operatives rose unexpectedly. The more of those with earning capacity were taken out from employment the more the government needed to provide for. This provision was the base of the rising taxes and the high entrepreneurial monthly fees. This created a vicious circle and the increase of black economic activity. As a result of this process artisans started to be classified as entrepreneurs and had to pay the same taxes as the opportunity entrepreneurs.

Lost Generation

The lack of employment opportunity for young professionals is low in Hungary. Those born in the 1980s are classified as the ‘Lost Generation`, who is escaping to higher education being still students in their late twenties and early thirties. This makes them overqualified on the job market without experience.

Migration

Due to the lack of employment opportunities mainly the younger generations started internally and externally migrate from the rural areas of Eastern Hungary to the capital and the western part of the country where the standard of living is higher and due to the infrastructural advantages, which attracted new investors and the job market is more promising. The external migration in the hope for employment drives young professionals towards Western Europe.

Tax and administrative burden positioning

Currently in Hungary to start up as an artisan full time, high entrepreneurial monthly fees need to be paid to the government, which is almost 20 times more than that in England. If the artisan is in full-time employment, where the employer pays these fees, there is an opportunity to work as an artisan as a second job only paying taxes after the profit.

In comparison to the EU average it takes 38-16 days to open and 2 years to close an enterprise in Hungary. (World Bank Doing Business, www.doingbusiness.org) Closing down an operation takes double amount of resources and more than 8 months longer than the OECD average. The start-up cost is 3.5 times and the capital requirements two times higher (55.1% vs 46% profit in Hungary. The tax rate and the administrative burden is significantly higher than the OECD average. Whilst in Europe banks are major supporters of SME in Hungary it was only 11.3% in 2003.Financing SME Growth – Adding European Value, Access to Finance: The Way Forward Comission Staff Working Paper, 2006.06.29)

To be continued…