Another busy week, but no pictures

It has been really yet another non-stop week, but somehow I have either forgotten to take any pictures, didn't think there was anything to photograph or didn't even take the camera.

After last weekend's orienteering and geocaching most activities this week centred round town. As a result of the Skerletz Ivan memorial meeting on Friday, Roy resumed his research into Ripszam Henrik, the founder of Hungarian orienteering. He just found Henrik's UK naturalisation papers and rewritten the working document on Henrik's life slightly with my help. As Skerletz Ivan was keen on the history of Ripszam Henrik, Roy's work might find its way into the book about Ivan, which would be quite interesting.

I went to the baths three times this week and found that the new masseur, recommended by my favourite guy who is not doing massage any more, is really very good. He can do stuff more in the line of osteopathy, rather than massage, although he's good at that as well. The only hiccup was that on Friday he got stuck in traffic and was late, which was unfortunate, considering I was close to my 3 hour deadline on my visit, after which I have to pay another £6, not to mention my appointment in Parliament, which I was trying to get by 3.30pm (more about that later).

Cultural activities have taken up most of this week: A visit to the Opera to see Don Giovanni. It was great, even though the critics panned it. What do they know? On Wednesday I saw a fantastic organ concert where Professor Bossert and his pupil Balazs Szabo played Liszt and Bach. It was superb, if somewhat long, as I didn't get home until about 11pm. One total fluke at that concert was finding myself sitting next to the wife of the president of my orienteering club, who is an A1 first class witch (or was it bitch?) - who cares? Thankfully madam switched seats with her husband, who was a bit more user friendly for the rest of the evening.

Last night's Mozart and Haydn was also sheer joy, this time in the Italian Institute. It made me realise how much I love both those composers and this time, other than Haydn's Clock Symphony, the pieces were totally unknown to me. Tonight is the last one for this week: the first one of a series of four concerts centering on the violin.

Other events included making trruffles with a good orienteering friend and attending the launch of this year's Democracy Academy in Parliament. This latter initiative is interesting, but I am not yet sure if I want to get a long term involvement with it. We'll see! Finally, the culinary treat of this week was a visit to a Japanese restaurant which I have been eyeing up for months and finally managed to get a lovely sushi meal at. It was really good, if somewhat expensive.

And this morning I had another little chat with my resident little monster from across the pond. He was watching his favourite cartoon on line, so while I could see his little mush, he didn't bother to see or talk to me, while he was watching it. At the end he played car races with his mum and during all this I managed to get some snapshots of him. I know I wrote that there would be no pictures, but now there are. Enjoy!!

The delights of geocaching and, of course, orienteering

In line with my latest hobby we went geocaching on the way in to BP on Friday. The nicest one was a gorgeous nearly 1000 year old church, which we couldn't see on the inside as it was closed, but had a good look around it, just for luck. The cache was easy to find, but the whole thing reminded me of the also 1000 year old church in Escombe in Country Durham in the UK, as the contrast between such antiquity and the modern houses in its close proximity was sacriligous and disturbing.

We did another three caches, so my total was up to 25 - half way to my target. We also picked up a letter for my nephew from Hehalom Mayor's office, visited an odd, but nice old chap for an air filter for Roy's lawnmower and finally I went to a meeting at the Orienteering Federation. On Saturday we went off to the South again orienteering, this time staying at a lovely place where until now we have only ever ate in the restaurant. The food was absolutely gorgeous again and the room OK. The environment with its lovely big lakes and homely decor is definitely to our liking.

The orienteering was great. The weather turned very cold and I had to put on lots of layers, but both runs were very enjoyable. We were back to the juniper jungle of a year ago, and unfortunately I did make one fair size booboo on control 2 on the first day, but the second day was probably the best run I ever had at this place. Not that it was without mistakes, I don't believe the person that can run on Kaskantyu without mistakes has been born yet. But I was without large howlers on Sunday and seemed to have the place to myself most of the time, which I love. My brain was mostly in gear and I could even run most of it, which is quite something from me these days. On Day 1 I forgot to start the Garmin again, so the first leg is hand drawn.

On the way home we fitted in one geocache, which was yet another old church ruin, this time one from the late 1200's. The whole place had a mystical atmosphere and it was totally away from civilisation. Even Roy liked it.

I think I ought to go to bed before I fall off the chair fast asleep. Roy has gone to bed ages ago and I think I'll join him!

Julianna's pride and joy

Finally I managed to put my new desktop computer together. It is definitely fast, although I have not yet had the chance to install everything I need and to truly test its speed. Dylan managed to get me a US keyboard, not a UK one I asked for and he also did not load any games on it for me, which sucks. I will have to tell him off tomorrow. The only hiccup during setting up was the persistent "No signal" message on the monitor. Finally I rang him and he told me that I should have connected the monitor to the slot with the video card in, not its original position. I am absolutely sure, and Roy confirmed this, that he never said a word about this when we fetched the machine, even though he insisted on the phone that he did. I know I am getting a bit forgetful, but that I would have remembered. In fact, I think he did a real rush job a la Stephen with the instructions and when I kept asking what goes where he told me more than once: "You can't go wrong, there is only one place for each cable, so it's simple!" Men!!! They are awful and incapable of giving comprehensible instructions about anything, never mind about computers!

Once I connected the monitor to the required slot, all was well. Since then I have been downloading software and putting all the saved data into its proper place on it. Long job, but has to be done. Now for a few more programs onto it and let's see if the printer works with it or not?

Roy's pride and joy

You can take one guess which is his pride and joy: the walnut crop or his 4 barrels of fermenting fruit, aka as "cefre", the raw material of his beloved palinka? The barrels are off to the still a month today and the liquid in the barrels is about - or just under - 400 litres. The ratio of "cefre" to palinka varies between 5% and 8%. The latter can be achieved in a good year, which this one definitely was. It depends on the sugar content and on how juicy is the fruit. This would mean that he might end up with 35 litres of palinka, which should last him for a while (one hopes!!). He has been looking at the gunge, sniffing it lately and looking worried. One developed a crust, another some white powdery stuff on top. Apparently none of it matters, let's hope that's true.

The next job is to design a label for his "Dragonfuel", which is what he has called it for years. Another plan involving the palinka is making some walnut liqueur, which is apparently quite easy. Alex and Meaghan have fallen in love with "Nocino", which is an Italian walnut liqueur on their honeymoon to Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian coast. So, he requested a bottle or two of it for next summer, when they are coming over to visit. If I manage to make some next summer, that will be entirely from our own produce. Let's hope there will be some walnuts, as the trees have a habit of resting for a year after bumper crops, like this year's. If only Alex told me earlier, I could have made some this summer, but as you need green walnuts for it, we have to wait until June/July next year. Also, the recipe I got suggests that it is best drunk after a minimum of one year in the bottle, as it is a bit too bitter before that. We'll see!

Now I have to go to lunch, after which I will try to put together my all singing, all dancing new desktop computer. I would have done it earlier, but the roses needed to be covered as soon as possible against the frost which has arrived with a vengeance this week. So did the tits, demanding bird seed in the feeders, which was fortuitous, considering we have just gone and bought 20 kilos of the stuff.

More geocaching, then monster pictures

En route home yesterday we decided to take in a few more caches. The first one was a little church somewhere in the middle of nowhere. We managed to drive to it all the way, even though there was no road. We ended up on top of a riverside embankment, which was hairy, but manageable. The next one was hidden on an old mining digger and looking for it was fun. I got really filthy and oily, but got it in the end.

The next one was under an ornamental bridge in a rose garden. That one was easy, the last one not so much. We drove up into the hills on an uneven, but nice and hard earth road. When we got to a T junction, Roy parked up and I went left. Unfortunately it must have been to the right, because after about half an hour I gave up and not wanting to take too much advantage of Roy we abandoned this one. No probs, it's not too far from home, I'll be back another day.

At home we had post. Meaghan sent a few more pieces of priceless art from my favourite little monster across the pond, but this time we also had his first school photo from day care, where he looks like a film star. There was also a fridge magnet with his smiling face on, Aahhhhhh!!

Today I have to cover up all the roses as the weather turned really cold. Most mornings it is below zero and it must be the same everywhere in the country as the news are full of massive accidents on the roads. That is the sure fire sign of icy roads as the typically headbanger driver that inhabits the roads in these parts refuses to slow down. :-(

Little monster in good fettle

I chatted with him for a full hour, during which we exchanged doggie noises, waved each others doggies about, he then took his pyjamas off and ate yoghurt in the nude (as you do), then came the preparation for swimming, which was a bit hard, but a bit of drawing made him sit down at the table. I quickly took some snapshots, but since Skype has improved itself, the taking of snapshots is a real pain and it crashes it more often than not. Such is life!

It's definitely busy this retired life

We are due to get back to Ber on Monday, thinking that nearly a week should be enough to get everything done in town, but don't you believe it!!!

First of all I needed to get some official stuff done with the bank (trying to stay solvent), then cancelling one of my dongles, as I do not need two any more, followed by affecting some changes to one of my saving accounts in terms of the beneficiary. Don't want to bore anyone with long winded, stupid detail, but these three took up nearly a whole day. Then I had to write an article for the BP O magazine and the deadline was Tuesday, then I promised some friends to do a transcription job on a speech (I haven't finished that one yet) then a friend rang to ask if I could do some proofreading for a project he is involved with and which also has a "Could you do it by yesterday?" type deadline. Thankfully that particular job looks as if it has gone to someone else. Phewww!!!

Also I promised myself that I would go to the meeting organised by the TrailO World Champs team at one of the disability insitutes, where they were reporting on their trip, their successes and trials in France last summer. This one I did manage, although it was quite difficult to find the place. Fruzsi is so lovely as well as an excellent Trail Orienteer and I met some of the wheelchair athletes that were part of the team.

Finally, the crowning glory of all the last few days was Roy and I spending 5 hours looking for control sites for a midweek event I am planning and organising on 30th November on Margaret Island. We were not particularly lucky with the weather, as it was bright sunshine both the day before and after, but at least it didn't rain. Both Roy and I suffer from bad backache when we walk slowly and hang around, ie. what you do do when planning. Roy got a bit cold towards the end, so we couldn't finish it completely, but did most of it. I am introducing the local clever clogs to an English Score event. I wonder how many - if any - will turn up on the 30th, but I enjoyed looking for control sites yesterday. The pictures were taken on the island, which looks magical in its autumn glory.

Needless to say, of course, that while all this is going on I am also visiting the thermal baths for massage and bathing as a treatment for my arthritis and today I also had to go and fetch my new computer from Dylan who kindly built it for me. I will only put it together in the village as it is for there, but hopefully it will be the fastest machine I have ever had with bells on. So he promised me!

A friend is supposed to come in about 5 minutes to return my Flip video camera that I lent him for his trip to Istanbul and I will show him how to make films with Flip Share the software that comes with the little machine. The gasman should also come between 5pm and 8pm tonight and after that the rest of the time is my own.

I still have the transcription to finish, as well as return to Margaret Island to complete the planning, then go to Laci to draw it, as I no longer have OCAD on any of my machines. Sunday is F1 as well as another visit to the baths and a free concert in the evening. I cannot for the life of me imagine when I had any time to go to work in the past, as I cannot keep up with myself even with supposedly having all the time in the world!!

More hills, geocaching and Roy's parachutist's roll

The second day of the Spartacus Cup was a bit colder, but both the map and courses were up to the standards of Day 1. My course was even longer than the day before at 4400m, but at least the climb was down to 120m. This time I remembered to take the Garmin watch but only thought of turning it on after the start. By the time it got all its satellites I was nearly at control 2, so the Garmin track starts at control 2. It measured that I ran about 4.73 from there, so in total I think I covered about 5.2ish.

The real mishap happened at control 7 where I was together with a nice, small lady. She followed me closely, but on a steep rocky bit I managed to badly turn my left ankle followed by a fall to the right. The lady behind first tripped up then promptly fell on me. If it was filmed I am sure it would have been good enough for a comedy sketch. I managed to finish the rest of the course, but hobbling a bit and a lot slower than until then. Due to this the Finnish lady, who eventually won overall, beat me again, but only by 38 seconds this time. We were actually looking for control 6 together, but I found it and left her there. I got a nice silver medal (again) and we left for home straight from the event via some more geocaching.

The first one we found was at the foot of one of the arches of a lovely XIXth century viaduct, followed by a slightly more exciting one at the next village. I even managed to get Roy to come with me, which provided some excitement when he lost his footing crossing a stream and did a textbook parachutist's roll on the (luckily soft) ground. I then proceeded to frogmarch him up a short but steep path to the cache with lovely views from the top of the hill.

The TomTom wanted to send us via the M0 and up the 2, but we thought better of it, came off the hills a clever way, avoiding most of the bottlenecks and journeyed home mostly before it got dark. We stopped for a bit of shopping en route and were home by 6pm. I was so exhausted by the weekend that I went to sleep on the sofa around 7.30pm. Roy had to shake me awake for Downton Abbey which would have been a shame to miss as it was the series 2 finale. It was as good as it usually is and I can't wait for the Christmas Special when poor old Bates should hopefully get off the trumped up charge engineered by his evil ex-wife.

Brain failure :-( followed by chat with the little monster :-)

Autumn Spartacus Cup Day 1 would have been great without a serious case of brain failure on my part. The day started with some geocaching where I found one quickly and another one not at all. Then we arrived at the event in good time and in spite of that I forgot to put on my Garmin watch. Funny that, especially that due to the later brain failure on control 10 I would have really needed it (for the first time) to tell me exactly where I went. As it is, I had to draw my route on by hand, so it is anybody's guess where my meanderings have taken me.

The course was long and hard. They cancelled W60 and put us in with the W55's. However, the W55 and W50 courses were identical, so we have de facto been upgraded to a W50 course, which in my case means 13 years. Never mind, I said to myself, I have often complained about mickey mouse courses, at least this is a dead serious one. From the Start to control 9 everything went beautifully. I took everything slowly and carefully and the controls kept popping up like good'uns. Then came control 10 and I still don't know what happened. I think it was a combination of oxygen debt and overconfidence. I couldn't possibly have looked at my compass once during this leg, otherwise I would have known that I was going wrong. Finally, I relocated off control 12 and then had to climb back up all the way to 10. Brrrrr!!!! This meant a full 10 minutes extra, although the only good thing was that I didn't feel completely done in after all this, unlike last Sunday in the Bukk, when I was close to collapse. The really annoying thing is not only that the lack of the Garmin robbed me of the information about my mistake, I also missed knowing the exact km's I went, which then gives you the true minute per km figures. Well, such is life. I was so cheesed off with myself that we left without looking up results or anything and went geocaching again. (PS: I came second according to the Internet, but 14, not 4 minutes down, which does make a difference!)

The cache I couldn't find in the morning was spotted by Roy in the afternoon in no time, after I dragged the pour soul up a steep incline into the thicket I was sure it was in. It was, but I was too blind in my hurry in the morning to spot it. Then we tried another one in Csakvar, but decided I did enough kilometres already in the day to go for another 6km hike. The one after that was a complete right off, as we couldn't even find the road to it off the main road. The next one, which was behind an Arboretum was OK, followed by another one in Etyek, the village of the Rokusfalvy Fogado, where after a lengthy foray into knee high undergrowth I spotted it at the foot of a tree. (not a bush as in the instructions!!) This gives me a total of 14, nearly 30% or 50 which is my current target.

Then we came home and just as I turned on the computer to enter my finds Alex rang. I watched my little monster eating, watching TV and generally being silly and funny as usual. That cheered me up, which was great.

Now I have to go to bed early as we are leaving at 7am for an early start time and then some more geocaching, shopping and going back to Ber.

Night, night!!

Dinner with Jeremy Irons

Last night we were taken out by our friend Ros to a restaurant of her choice. I have heard of the Gerloczy Cafe/Restaurant before, but have never been there. I vaguely recalled that as part of a series of posts on Facebook somebody reported that the breakfasts are delicious there and good value for money. Still, as it was downtown in a really cute little XIXth century square I felt it would probably be expensive.

We arrived just after 7pm and were taken to our table. It was right by one of the windows that looked out onto the covered terrace still in use, in spite the increasingly cool November air. We ordered drinks and then the food. All three of us went for the pumpkin soup with chilli prawns. For main Roy had a chicken curry, Ros mackerel with a bowl of salad and me a smoked trout salad with anchovy dressing.

We were stuffing our faces when the waiter asked if we were British. We said yes. Oh, then you would probably recognise the gentleman sitting no more than a yard from you on the other side of the window, he said. Oh dear, it was Jeremy Irons, which shocked Ros especially, as I have just told her that if she went to my favourite restaurant in Etyek, the Rokusfalvy Fogado, she might meet him there at the moment, as he is over here filming the next series of the Borgias at the Korda Studios. And then 5 minutes later the great man turns up a few feet from her eating pizza and smoking between courses. The latter has taken some of the shine off his presence, but we were still chuffed.

We had a lovely night and that had nothing to do with filmstars. Ros is absolutely delightful company and the meal was delicious, so we had a really good time. She is off to China next week to join Ian and unfortunately they will not be back for a while. Let us hope their love of the country will bring them back sooner than we think.

Geocaching

Today we went geocaching with Andor. The reason behind all this geocaching is that I suddenly felt like placing a cache, but I can't do it until I found 50. In the past I have been to lots of places where there is a cache, but either we didn't bother to find it or if we did, but took no note of the password and couldn't prove on geocaching.hu that we found it.

No more! I am taking this geocaching lark quite seriously now and today I got to my total found to 10 caches, which is 20% of 50. As the weather was unbelievably gorgeous, especially for 1st November, we also had a good time. Well, I have to qualify that: some of the finding the caches was great, others less so.

The first we went for were a set of enormous rock walls and we got there in a roundabout way, but returned via the actual rock walls, sliding down the hill on our bums in something that resembled a scree slope.

The view from the top of the rocks was breathtaking and another point of interest was that this cache was placed by some orienteers we know. Then we moved onto another rock wall, but this time no hiking of several kilometres was required. We drove to a village, Roy parked up both himself and the car and we climbed to the top of the rock wall in about 20 minutes.

Finding the cache got quite hard as the description of where it had been hidden was pretty useless. Fnally we found it and happily walked back to the car. We then had our lunch, followed by a drive to see a nice village stations of the cross. It was white and the cache was in the small copse behind the crosses. Finding the cache was very easy and the weather was still holding.+-

The final cache unfortunately was so dreadfully described and hidden away from the given co-ordinates, that it soured what otherwise had been a great day. The monument to see was the ruins of a 13th century church. However, the cache was supposed to be up the hill in a conifer forest. The GPS kept insisting it was where we couldn't find it and we nearly gave up when we had another last try, going into the woods from the very top of the hill and finally it was there. I thought the point of geocaching is to get you to interesting places where you can see, learn or engage with something that you will enjoy and which was worth visiting. Well, our ill tempered crawling on all fours trying to find the last one was calculated to achieve something like the total opposite of that intended. Probably the only saving grace of this cache was the view from the top and all along the path we took to get there or back from there.

We got home in the early evening, but I was so tired that it took quite some effort for my eyes to stay open. I am off to bed now. Night-night to everybody!!