The last week

Well, we didn't twiddle our thumbs this week gone either. I know that the main reason why we are in town is my treatment in the baths, but we also managed to squeeze in so many other things as well, that I am really looking forward to some lonely isolation in the country to get over it all. And then we haven't had any yuletime festivities yet!! Let's start with Monday: It started with a visit to the Post Office to pay the fine for not knowing that you had to pay for parking in town last Saturday. (for details see last post!) Then we went to freeze our whatsits off queueing for theatre tickets by the National Theatre. Kushner's Angels is America is - I'm told - worth all this bother, especially that all tickets for the next 4-6 weeks usually go in about a couple of hours. They don't have it on very often either, so we managed to get 6 tickets for our little group.

After the tickets I went to the baths and only got home in time to grab a bite and tear off to the mobile network people to purchase a micro SIM card and shift my account with them to my all singing all dancing new Windows Phone. My Nokia Lumia 800 (since then christened to be called DIZZY, on account of having purchased it at a discounted rate on Amazon!) is smashing. Looks good, knows so many things that I will have to live for another 100 years before I learn how to use them all. The young lady in the shop was ever so sweet. Explained everything nicely and didn't charge me a cent. Now for Tuesday: my massage appointment was for 7am, so I had to get up early. By the way, that lovely group I mentioned in the last post was around on Monday and on Tuesday and I had such a lovely time hanging out with them up to our necks in thermal waters. However, later on the week when I went again there was no sign of them. I wonder where they got then?

Anyway, back to Tuesday. After the baths I went to see my friend Judit to pass her all those lovely magazines I bought her in Brighton and a pack of strawberry jelly for the trifle she is planning to make for Christmas. I have already provided her with a link to Delia Smith's Squidgy Chocolate Log, which she also loves and intends to make for Christmas. I did order myself a slice, if she could save me one. After that visit I walked to the Nokia shop to ask a few questions about my lovely new phone. A whizzkid sort of a young man assured me that I can find all answers to ever conceivable question about my Lumia 800 under the following URL: www.windowsphone.com. Of course! Why didn't I think of that? I mean a simple mention of this fact on the Nokia web site would have been such a boring stupid thing to do, wouldn't it? All my previous phones (being dead simple compared to this one) came with 2 inch thick booklets, but not this one. Well, if you want one of these you also have to be a thought reader. SIMPLES!!

The next call was to pick up a lovely old book from 1926 which I reserved on an antiquarian web site a year ago and which had just turned up. The picture you see here is that of Father Gapon who had a role in the 1905 Russian Revolution and whose face was drawn by Henrik Ripszam, a fascinating artist who is also the father of Hungarian orienteering. He died in Ockley, Surrey in the 1970's as an old man, but this book, which was about revolutionary Russia, was illustrated by him in the 1920's. Unfortunately, the communists have destroyed most copies after the war, so very few turn up nowadays and then they cost a lot. Mine is in middling condition and cost £45, but the Orienteering Federation had recently bought one at auction for £100. Still, that is in very good condition, so that is about right. By Wednesday the weather carried on being rather cold, so I was glad I didn't have to go to the baths that day, but I visited my doctor instead. She told me that the last set of bloodtests were absolutely perfect, she had not seen one this good for someone of my age for a long time. My mammography pictures were also OK, but she still wants me to go every year from now on.

Thursday we visited the City Archives where the system of looking at documents is very different from what we are used to. There are no freely available books anywhere and when they do find something on the computer for you, it takes anything up to a week for them to produce it. So we will have to go back next Wednesday to see my grandmother's divorce decree from 1911, but we were still very happy that with any luck we should be able to see it next week. When I found this picture of my grandmother in one of Roy's documents I was amazed how pretty she was. I only knew her as a rather old lady and being a kid, never concerned myself with her looks. After this, Roy and I walked together to the baths where Roy abandoned me to my chatty friends and the thermal waters. Shame that my friends were nowhere to be seen.

Finally, Friday dawned and I was off for a school visit, arranged by Judit's husband who is Head of Hungarian in the Miklos Radnoti High School named after a brilliant poet (see picture!) who perished en route to a concentration camp in 1944. This school was once a Jewish school and there is still a higher than average Jewish population amongst the pupils. It was very interesting to see three lessons, two of literature and one of English grammar. At 12 o'clock I walked across the park to the baths, where I had a great session with my masseur, the water was great, but no friends again to chat to.

Friday concluded with a fantastic concert given by a virtuoso Armenian violinist, Hrachya Avanesyan. The mirrored hall in the Festetics Palace sparkled while he produced a brilliant performance.

And finally, finally today the really severe winter arrived. All day the temperature didn't go anywhere near, never mind over, zero. We still went to the first of about 5 or 6 winter orienteering training events. As you can see from the map I did go off the straight line occasionally, but finished in reasonable time, albeit I only timed myself. En route home we went to one of my favourite restaurants near the film studios for lunch, where Roy had lamb and I had bream. Both were delicious and my white wine was so great we bought two bottles of it to take home. Tomorrow we are off to an early Christmas party with some friends up in the hills.