living in the middle of nowhere

I live in the middle of nowhere. Literally the middle of nowhere. Right in the middle, slap bang in the dead centre of nothing.

Let me try and illustrate with some wordsmithery. Szerencs (ser-rench) is about 200km from Budapest. Hungary is quite unique in that so much of it's population is congregated in it's capital, one in five roughly, so no one is here, they are all there. We are also 100km from Debrecen, the next biggest city, with 200,000 people. Between there and here are hills, fields, villages, stray dogs, run down communist factories and the litter of gypsies. That's it. 

I have never dared walk out of civilisation yet - I fear the Hungarian wilds. Walk for 20 minutes north of Szerencs to Szerencs Ond, the nearest village, and the path stops. It just stops dead and all you can see is fields and old people walking round with firewood tied to their backs. I haven't dared to venture that far south as I'm convinced the path peters off down there too and that will depress me too much. I am also not brave enough to step beyond the petering path as I would probably just appear at the end of the other path, like a real life freaky episode of The Twilight Zone.

The town also shuts at about 4pm. That means in winter, for 16 hours a day, most of the town is in pitch-black darkness. Grim, enveloping darkness. It's OK, I'm getting a good 12 hours sleep a night now - thanks to Szerencs I have the sleep pattern akin to a particularly lazy new born child or an 85 year old asthmatic whose family never calls. I also have rickets thanks to a lack of sunlight. Living in Szerencs in the winter is like living in sack. But colder.

But not that cold - it's not quite the winter I was promised. I was told tales of piles of snow, -15C, jaunty sleigh rides and carol singers. I have the occasional snow bluster and chilly wind. It's colder than England for sure, but just a slightly irritatingly colder.

Oh yeah, and the old ladies. They are everywhere, like Hitchcock's birds, and they all have their beady old eyes on me. My girlfriend cannot do wrong, she is cooed at and stroked when she walks past. I get the grimacing gurn when I walk past, followed by some hushed Hungarian. And don't be fooled, these old witches are in control round here. So, inadvertently, I seem to have made enemies with the Szerencs mafia.

I shouldn't complain though, there are worse places to live. Baghdad, for example, is a terrible place to live. I joke - I get lots of exercise, fresh air and have yet to meet someone as obnoxious as a Londoner on my travels. I just wish I knew what the old ladies had against me.