Opera (the last one for this season), Bryson books, gardening, geocaching and watching TV

The day I last posted I went into town in the afternoon.  I thought I was going to try a novel way of getting in, as I discovered that I need not go at 9.05am with the last direct bus, as there is one at 3.55pm in the afternoon which will get me in by about 6.15pm with one easy change.  It worked like a dream, so there's now a chance to travel in the afternoon, which can be handy, provided I don't have a performance starting at 7pm that evening.

The Flying Dutchman

I stayed in town overnight as I had a ticket for the Flying Dutchman in the Opera the following night. After the last performance, Jenufa, which was totally new to me, this one I have already seen last year with my other subscription ticket. It was well worth seeing it again, because there is always something new that you can discover the second time round.  It was a great performance by all of them and I liked the production and direction too.

Bill Bryson

En route into town I was reading a book which came to pass through a new pastime I developed lately. My bookshelves are full of books I haven't read in years. I may have mentioned this little known fact on this blog before, but occasionally I get to rediscover books that I haven't touched for a long time.  Currently I am going through all of Bill Bryson's books, most of which I have only read once and about 10-15 years ago. I started with A Walk in the Woods, then read Notes from a Small Island, followed by Neither Here Nor There and The Lost Continent.  Currently I am getting through The Thunderbolt Kid, which is hilarious. I would recommend to people to do this periodically, it saves having to buy new books for a while or trudging to the library and as long as you read it at least 10 years ago, it will feel like a new one.

Morello cherry blossom

As the weather has also improved, the garden has been transformed considerably. One downside of the warm, sunny days is that the dandelions have appeared and the lawn is now looking completely yellow. On the other hand, Roy can do the mowing with the tractor, so it is not so much work. The peas started popping up and the fruit blossom is generally glorious.  Currently the garden on the right looks like a bridal bouquet. All I am keeping my fingers crossed for is the presence of insects, otherwise all this gorgeous blossom will not turn to fruit.

Hollókő Castle

And on Saturday I went geocaching with a new friend, Gyuri. I got to know him through Facebook. He has given up orienteering 25 years ago, but recently started posting on the orienteering FB pages, as he has a lot of old photos and maps, which he scans and puts up for the oldies to guess who is in them and generally to get nostalgic.  I mentioned geocaching to him and he started it a few weeks ago in town. He seems to have the fervour of a religious convert and in a short time got to over 50 caches. Now he wants to cache in the country, so I invited him to accompany me to a few on Saturday.

This shows the actual trek we did on Saturday. Starting from the village of Hollókő in the top right part of the map, we went to the top of two mountains with a cache on each and in between visited a nice spring half way down the first mountain where there also was a cache.  We covered 9 miles (14.5km) and climbed 475 metres vertically.  It was a bit exchausting, but the spring forest was magical and we collected all three caches. En route back to the car Gyuri collected the one in Hollókő which I have already had, but the three in the wilds were new to both of us.

A lovely path in the woods with delicate new foliage on the trees

Gyuri stayed overnight on Saturday and while I was looking after my aching joints he went off to get the nearby caches which I have already got anyway. I had drawn them onto the walkers' map for him and he had his GPS as well, so I had no doubts that he could do about 10 miles and collect at least 4 or 5 of them. He left at 7.30am and returned around midday telling me that he only visited one cache, albeit a three parter, but two of those were in the middle of the village.  What on Earth had happened? I asked.  To which he replied: "My GPS had gone crazy!" Well, I can confirm that my GPS occasionally does that, the last occasion was when I cached with Klari in town and the rotten little gadget chose to go barmy when we were looking for a tree stump in a thick forest.  I can't think of a situation when one needs one's GPS to be absolutely accurate more like one of those.  Eventually Klari and I worked out what the GPS was doing and with a bit of luck found our tree stump. Not poor Gyuri last Sunday.  He covered 10 miles going in all directions under the sun and found only the one cache. I suggested that next time he takes a conventional compass as well to accompany his map and uses it.

Rosalie and Kitty on the ward in The Crisom Field

Since he left on Sunday evening I have been watching TV, reading my book, writing an article for a web site and doing some translation for a friend.  Talking of watching TV: I discovered a brilliant program on the BBC on Sunday night, which goes by the title of The Crimson Field. It is taking place in a field hospital somewhere in France during WW1. Obviously early XXth century medical series are in vogue at the minute.  After Call the Midwife has recently finished, now we have The Crimson Field.  Oona Chaplin (on the right) is a spitting image of her grandfather and is extremely talented.  I am looking forward to the whole 8 parter series.

On Firday we are off to town together (Roy hasn't been in town for three weeks!).  I might do some orienteering at the weekend, I haven't yet decided and then our nephew is coming visiting for 6 days, starting on Monday, with his wife and daughter.