2008 is the 100th year since my husband's grandfather and grandmother purchased the estate upon the 1908 birth of my husband's father. We've thought of ways to celebrate, both sensible and ridiculous ones. A ridiculous idea might be a dumpling-eating contest. Celebrations, in a low
key way, will continue for a couple years – first because our daughters and families cannot come this year, but also because the grandparent's family, consisting of the mother, father, infant son, and 7 year old daughter, did not move into the Zamek immediately. They added toilets!!, renovated the kitchen, added water-powered electricity, and the grandfather probably began thinking about the horses he would become well-known for raising.
Our son is ordering logo t-shirts, with lettering done by an artist, his brother-in-law. For the chapel, my husband has ordered granite plaques with his parents' dates and will order his grandparents'. I went with our son and his children to the village of the grandmother's family to visit the graveyard where the grandmother was buried in 1960, as we did not find any papers with her exact birth and death dates. [The communists would not allow her to be buried here in the tomb alongside her husband. Villagers there helped us find the family estate where she and her children had been born.]
Recently the abbot from the nearby monastery visited our woodshop. He ordered 100 smallish wooden crosses for the monastery. When he heard it was our 100th year he said he'd like to have a celebration mass in our chapel. There have been masses here, but never before by the abbot! I'll need to do some cleaning! A date has been set. Afterwards we'll grill lamb shish-kebobs for supper.
[Many sheep are still alive and walking around, but they've finally worked out the routine of WHERE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO GO! New this year, that's greatly appreciated by me!]
Long-delayed repairs are proceeding. We're working on the suite that was my husband's parents – large bedroom, veranda with tower, bathroom made from my mother-in-law's large dressing room. A tiny toilet room will be a linen closet. The adjacent sitting room is slated to be an Arab majlis with our collections from the Middle East. My husband had a enchanting curved staircase added to the tower. I've purchased light fixtures I imagine could be from the 1930's. The bricklayer is upstairs right now, plastering holes the electricians made.
The next BIG item needed is a furnace for this wing. But who knows: the carpenters or the agriculture department might decide one or the other really needs something else. Well, the Zamek was built over a number of centuries.....
