The week of the perfect days

Having discovered a concert midweek that I have forgotten having bought tickets for, we decided to stay in town for an extra week.

She is Japanese/Swedish and is in her eighties.  She played beautifully, I was glad I didn't forget to go. The next interesting, possibly even perfect day was on Thursday. As I have not been to the baths for at least 18 months, I decided to go, now that we were in town.  The weather was lovely and I was looking forward to it. Medicinal thermal waters are ever so good for a variety of ailments, of which I have many, arthritis being the main one.  After changing I felt a bit disappointed when I saw my favourite pool totally empty.  Of all the weeks, I had to pick on the one when they are doing maintenance on the adventure pool where I normally use the powerjets of water coming out of the side of the basin to massage my lower back.  Never mind, I thought, I go inside and see if any of my old friends are around.  And guess what? Imre, my absolute best mate, who took me into their group and is always such a lovely guy to chat to, was sitting quietly in the usual corner all on his own.  He was really pleased to see me and I was delighted to spend a good two hours with him catching up.

Far left corner where I soaked up the water while chatting to Imre

As I was leaving the baths I phoned Roy and we met up in one of our favourite restaurants where I have not been for at least as long as I haven't been to the baths. And something really magical happened there as well: Roy's favourite waitress, who frequently asked after me, Roy said, in the last year or so, spotted me and went into raptures. She stayed at our table for at least a quarter of an hour and we chatted and caught up, like I did earlier with Imre.  This day was really shaping up to be a memorable one, not only for catching up with old friends, but for the pleasure they gave me for being so happy to see me.

The Flintstones style decor belies the quality of the food and service here.

Friday was the day of my thyroid ultrasound, which, as far as I can tell, was also OK.  I haven't yet been to the doctors to discuss it, as we are back in the village, but will do so next week. Straight from the baths I went to another restaurant where Roy awaited and we had a lovely meal there as well.  There is some staff turnover there, we noticed, but the new boys and girls are as delightful as the old lot was.  It must be managerial policy to only employ sweet, friendly and very efficient staff.  I can't tell you whether I go there because of their delicious and very reasonably priced food or for the chatty, friendly staff.  Probably both!

Roy in the hills at the top of a steep climb

Glorious view looking NW

And then came the weekend.  The weather was positively summer-like. Sunny, warm and with a light breeze.  Perfect! Roy and I went to the Buda hills to mark out the route for Sunday's hash run and I noticed that there were a couple of geocaches near our route, so I attempted those as well. The main event on Saturday was the fact that Roy came with me, helped me and walked the entire route with me up steep hills, down steep dales, totalling at least 4 or possibly a bit more kilometres.

The "Lion Rock"

While I climbed up a massive rockface to the second cache, he sat comfortably on a bench right next to the "Lion Rock" below. This cache hunt was a bit hairy.  Basically, the problem was that I approached it from below. As I found out later (on my return trip), from above it would have been a lot less strenuous and positively less dangerous.  However, I always liked scrambling and while at my age my joints complain bitterly, I still loved every minute of it.  The view from the cache was breathtaking.  Unfortunately I was photographing into the sun, so the pictures ended up a bit hazy.

Sándor Jávorkai

Ádám Jávorkai

In the evening I went to a concert, which finished this perfect of all perfect days in superb fashion.  The soloists were two brothers  Sándor and Ádám Jávorkai. Sándor plays the violin, Ádám the cello.  They are both virtuoso players, for whom nothing is too hard. But, the magnificence of their technique was nothing to their personality, which brimmed with vitality, enthusiasm and reckless fun. It is a shame that they live in Vienna and are so much in demand the world over that they do not give performances at home too often.

On Sunday I had two main events planned: 1. an orienteering run; 2. the hash. As I volunteered to do some haring for the hash sometime, it was the details of the orienteering event that gave me the idea to offer to hare the hash run at the same place on the same day. On Saturday we put the signs out and on Sunday I was keeping my fingers crossed that they should still be there. Fallen leaves, naughty children and hundreds of feet that walk, run, walk the dog etc., etc. in that lovely suburb of the city, they are all enemies of fragile signs made of flour.  Still, both the orienteering and the hash went off very well.

2.3 km, 140 m climb = 50 min

 In the orienteering event I chose the shortest technical course, which was 2.3km but with 140 metres of climb. I totally missed the best route to control 2 and ended up climbing a massive hill, which I could have gone round at its bottom.  Other than that I think I chose good routes, but due to the steepness and roughness of the ground I did more than 20 min k's.  It took me 50 minutes and I wasn't last. My course was shared with the guys of the same age group and I managed to beat all but three of them!

Hulk, Run by Batteries and Genital Man waiting for lost souls

Parapenters on the other side of the airstrip

After I changed, had my sandwiches and my drink, the hash group arrived.  There were 7 of them, which nowadays counts as a well attended hash run. What, however, was very unusual, that the runners outnumbered the walkers.  Only 2 of them plus me walked at the back and the other 5 were runners.  Some of them got rather lost, but finally we got together for our circle time, which was hilarious, as usual, and was accompanied by the singing of ribald songs, much to the amusement of passers by. One or two (presumably the ones that understood our songs) looked expecially amused.

Baldrick, Titi Tata and Rabies waiting for their lunch

The final pleasure of an already seriously fun weekend, was spent in yet another one of our favourite restaurants, where all, but 2 of the hash group plus lazy bugger Roy had a delicious lunch and a few beers.

Roy and Hulk

This morning we departed into the countryside, via Tesco, where I have discovered a 50% discount on red tuna. I couldn't resist that delicacy, which even with 50% off was not cheap. This time the phone didn't ring, like last time I was cooking tuna, so it did end up nice and rare. Roy had a nice big chunk of pork fillet and we both had boiled potatoes, sprouts, while Roy had mushrooms and I a bowl of salad as well to accompany the feast.

My big chunk of red tuna looking gloriously pink in the middle

The weather is turning cold again, although it is still beautifully warm during the day. The sprout plants are getting quite large in the garden, although there is still no sign of sprouts on them; the cefre is still quietly bubbling away and the potted basil survived the 10 days we weren't here. On Thursday we are off for a very long weekend of orienteering in the hills, I'll post after we're back.