Quite a long and hot week, when most of the time we were hiding indoors. Roughly about half way through the week the weather showed some willingness to change, but it only produced a few thunderstorms and then it was back to the heatwave. The grass grew like mad, as it was downpours at night and fierce sunshine during the day. Thankfully the storms did not damage the vegetables and we started harvesting the peppers and tomatoes. Even the sprout seeds have started sprouting. Roy gave me the old shower tray and I made three lines of them. Admittedly, after filling the first trench I realised that there were not too many seeds left, so the other two lines are a bit sparser than the first one. That sachet cost me £1 and I don't think there were more than about 2 grams of seeds in there.
The cefre barrel is still only about 80 litres full, so even with the grapes and the pears later we should only be able to fill one barrel this year. Thankfully, I managed to get hold of the guy in Guta whom Juci talked about and he said that his son-in-law has a big plum orchard, so when he gets back from his holiday I'll ring him and hopefully agree an affordable price for his plums. Half way through the week I managed to buy the air tickets for our next visit to Stephen & Co. They were reasonably priced and we'll be there for 6 days.
On Friday we went to Hatvan, first to the market then to Tesco. We took Nelly with us, so we had a jolly threesome. The shopping went off quite well, I bought lots of beautiful fruit and some veg at the market and all the usual stuff at Tesco. We even discovered that they keep oat milk, so that makes life much easier, not having to chase organic shops everywhere for it.
You must be wondering what these two pictures mean. I was going to call this bit "The flasher and the shoplifter", but didn't want to shock you too much. The story goes like this: As we were going into Tesco Roy was just ahead of me (he stayed in the car while were were in the market), I looked at his shorts and thought that they looked a bit funny, but then my attention was drawn elsewhere and didn't return to his nether regions. After we got home I heard him giggling his head off as he was coming out of the shower waving his underpants in the air. Well, the truth is that instead of putting on a pair of underpants and a pair of shorts he actually put on two pairs of underpants. Thankfully nobody picked that up in Tesco, or we might still be sitting in the police station trying to argue the toss about him not being a paedophile. The only mitigating circumstance is that he does have a pair of shorts that look very much like the underpants he wore as shorts!
The second picture relates to shoplifting. Well, actually market stall lifting. After Roy put away the shopping he asked me why I bought two marrows. I didn't! - was my answer. Oh yes you did! - he said again. No doubt that I came back from the market with two marrows, but don't ask me where the other one is from! Perhaps somebody else put one in there by mistake, or it rolled off into my bag and I didn't notice it, or perhaps (and this one is the most likely explanation, albeit a total guess) because the stall holder was at another stall and I had to walk over to pay her I somehow put in a marrow both before and after paying her without realising it. This just shows how easy it is for absent minded old ladies to get done for shoplifting. To this day I have no idea how two marrows ended up in my bag and I am just grateful that nobody else spotted it there. Interestingly, my sister was back at the car packing up her shopping at the time, as I am sure if she was with me then, she would have spotted it and told me.
And now to the star event of the week. This weekend Bozsa and Árpi came to stay with us and it really rounded up the week splendidly. They were supposed to arrive sometime between 11 and 12am on Saturday, and by midday the latest. When there was no sign of them by 12.30 I started to get worried. Finally they rolled in at 12.45 explaining that the GPS sent them into the hills above us to make the last 8k on rough, earthen roads full of potholes. They even got stuck at one place, but Árpi managed to get some branches to put under the tyres and pulled them out. Salutary lesson never to believe a GPS!!
After lunch on Saturday I walked them up to the andesite columns and managed to take this lovely picture of them, although Glenn, the dog did not oblige us with her best profile. She is, by the way, one of the nicest, best behaved, clever dogs I have ever met. She is a border collie, but unlike most of them, not black and white, but Australian red and white. Because of all the rain and the high heat the forest was full of mushrooms. We none of us knew enough about them to risk picking any, but I took a few photographs over the weekend.
On Saturday, while at the andesite columns I finally managed to investigate what happened to those ugly horrible concrete structures that they were building last autumn. Well, I have two reasonably good bits of news to relate on this topic.
1. the geological rock exhibition actually looks quite aesthetic, although any man built structures in the middle of a forest still bother me. I studied the exhibits and relating information tables and can see that there is at least some justification for educating the hiking masses about rocks. There were many examples, both volcanic and sedimentary. I recognised andesite, sandstone, limestone, basalt, riolyte and a few others. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, so that'll have to wait until next time.
2. The second bit of good news was that - as far as we could see - they have NOT built the planned look out tower above the columns. Obviously, even the prayers of an atheist are sometimes answered. Last autumn I was so hoping that due to the only likely reson why they built this whole thing (ie: the intention of stealing half the EU money they got for the project) they might get so greedy that they nick at least two thirds of it and there will be nothing left for the tower, which to my mind would have been an abomination, causing wholescale devastation on or near a rare geological phenomenon like our bendy andesite columns. And my prayers have been answered. All they managed to "build" was a small platform near the top of the rock field with a sign which told you the names of the mountains you could see from there. Totally unneccesary, as from the top of the columns the view is much more magnificent, being a lot higher and without interfering tree tops.
In the evening we made a fresh lecsó together from our own peppers, but with bought tomatoes and onions, as ours are just turning red. We ate outside in the pavilion as the sun went down and with Roy having rigged up an inspection light chatted until it got completely dark.
On Sunday we decided that Bozsa, Árpi and me will walk up to the Eagle's top lookout tower, while Roy stays at home and cooks Sunday dinner. This is an arrangement that suits everbody as Roy is not a great hiker and we all like his cooking. Thankfully the weather, while still well over 30 degrees Celsius, was a bit less humid today and occasionally we even had a small breeze. The route was my usual one, which I managed to totally miss last time with Pete, but we were spot on today both en route there and back. However, there were several interesting discoveries made by me, which will stay with me forever. As I have done this walk many times before, something new is always of premium value to me. The first was a magnificent bramble bush, which was already full of large, juicy and deliciously sweet berries. I had to stop making a pig of myself, or I would have been in trouble. Bozsa doesn't really like blackberries, but she still busied herself picking for me and Árpi.
I am sure I will be back there in the future, although it is doubtful that blackberries will ever be this early again. The second was an even bigger adventure. On our way back I heard a rustle across the path, Árpi said something, I looked up and saw a large stag with magnificent full antlers crossing the path. I was told that there is red deer in the hills above our village, but never really believed it. Now I do. He looked a prime specimen, I hope he manages to avoid the hunters!
After picking a nice lot of blackberries and what felt quite a long climb at the end - we arrived at the lookout tower, which was built as a hunting lodge in the 1920's and which has been renovated about 10 or so years ago. A lovely guy from Buják was there to supervise and take the entrance fees and this time I didn't go up to the top as I was rather tired and preferred to chat with him at the bottom. Bozsa and Árpi enjoyed the views and looked down on us from on high.
On the way home - after my sighting of the stag - we stopped at Virágos for some water, got Roy to come up with the car and drive us home after a beer, which, of course, made me drive the mile down the hill instead of him. Dinner was an absolutely delicious mixture of an English Sunday roast with Hungarian adaptations. Roast pork with apple sauce, but there was gravy as well, plus roast potatoes, roast peppers, onions and garlic, boiled sprouts and then lots of salad stuff, like grated carrots, beetroot, lettuce, cucumbers etc. We had some white wine (or at least I had) with it, and the feast was wrapped up by some strudel and gateau at the end for dessert. I could hardly move. Bozsa and Árpi left at 5pm and we both agreed that they are delightful people whom we must have again sometime.
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