Dentist (final), flowers, tomatoes (planted), a hike and a death

Last Tuesday at the dentist proved to be the last visit and while it took her some pulling and shoving to remove the teeth, even though they were only fixed with a temporary adhesive, once she fixed them with permanent adhesive all was well. I think we will stick with this lady dentist as she was very thorough, careful and attentive and even though Roy needed an extra £140 worth of temporary set of teeth while his gums were healing, it altogether only cost £810 for the upper set.  We'll see her in 6 months and then she can advise about the lower set.  I reckon Roy should carry on with the lower set as it is, until it becomes uncomfortable and she seemed to agree with me when I last mentioned it.  We'll see!

Nice mixed coloured box of geraniums

On Wednesday we journeyed down to the village via Tesco and a few garden centres.  We bought a good few geranium plants which needed immediate planting, but we put it off until Thursday as we were both rather exhausted from the shopping and travelling.

Lovely red geranium

On Thursday we planted the geraniums in several window boxes and the yard started to look quite pretty. While gardening we had to keep our eye and ears peeled for the post and the bell as we were expecting the burglar alarm man and a delivery of a new contract for my phone. Both arrived, I signed the contract which the delivery person took away with her and the burglar alarm man took less than half an hour to replace the battery in the central unit which fixed the problem with the Farmhouse alarm system.  We also commissioned him to purchase new sensors for the Bunkhouse alarm system, which got into a habit of going off randomly, much to the chagrin of the village population.  Especially when doing so at night!! That'll cost about £75, but hopefully then we can turn that one on again as well without falling out of bed most night for no good reason.  The last few months we lived without alarms, (one turned off, the other not working at all) which we didn't advertise, but we didn't feel too safe all the same.

Sturdy little tomato plant

On Friday I took Nelly to Hatvan, where we started at the weekly produce market, followed by Lidl and Tesco. I bought lots of lovely fruit and veg. plus a good few more geranium plants.  I also bought some tomato plants which the lady who sold them to me swore that were tough enough to risk late early morning frost.  She suggested that I don't buy peppers yet as they are much more sensitive than the tomatoes.  On our return we planted all those as well as the parsley seeds. Nelly gave me one of her dill seed packets, but those have not yet been planted as I can't decide where to put them.  They do grow rather tall, so I will have to think about them.

Andor looking superior

Lunch break on the hike

Forest flower

Lovely sylvan setting on the hike

A wood carving in a garden

Andor and his daughter Dora eating pasta

The view of the other side of the valley

The view from the top of the back garden

Saturday I jumped into the car and travelled to town and out through the other end to the West of the city to join a large group of friends (about 20) on a memorial hike for an old member of the group who died about this time of year 13 years ago.  Apparently they do this hike every year in her memory, but for me this was the first time I joined them for it. It wasn't very long, about 7km, and afterwards we went to the house of one of the couples for sour bean soup and pasta with curd and bacon bits.  It was very seriously delicious and the company enjoyable.  We even had good weather, so it was great.  Everybody asked after Roy, who decided to stay at home, supervising the last bits of building works around the garden.

Camilo Cahis

Today the weather broke, which I am sure I am responsible for by watering the garden last night. We also had some really bad news today: Camilo, a Canadian friend, who was Alex's close friend and co-worker died on Saturday by taking his own life.  He had been struggling with depression for years, but it came as a shock as he showed no deterioration in his condition recently. He was only 33 and while it is a tragedy in and of itself, it was also traumatic for Alex who discovered him and is now dealing with the fallout, making arrangements (his family are abroad) as well as trying to cope with the work all on his own. I know the saying goes that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but I am still worrying about him from afar.

Hopefully the rest of the week will be more cheerful.  We are off to town on Thursday as Alan is arriving for a long weekend. He'll spend one day in the village, then another day orienteering with us, followed by a day in town, going on a hike in the hills with an international group in the morning and attending a concert with me in the evening before going home on the Monday.  It should be fun, I hope!!