The Heatwave

Well, nothing unusual happened, but as we are off on Saturday for the Hungaria Cup I thought I might as well write this week's post now. The heatwave is getting worse.  According to the Met Office the air in the upper layers of atmosphere is getting bone dry, so it will be quite a while before any cooling could be expected. We are hiding indoors mostly, trying to do gardening and any other necessary outdoor activity before 7am and after 7pm.

Glorious two-tone rose

Last Thursday I had Nelly come over for lunch as I wanted to share the rather large trout I bought in Tesco with her. She told me that she has never had trout before.  Strange, I thought, but she seemed to enjoy it. We had parsley potatoes and sprouts with it, which was also nice.

My vertigo, which first appeared in June, then went away thankfully, has returned. Luckily not as bad as it was then, but it is still a bit disconcerting. I will not see a doctor for ages yet, as they are all on holiday in August and I have no intention to leave my cool house anyway, so I need to walk by railings if I don't want to fall over frequently. As we are soon off for a 5-day orienteering event, that should be interesting in the forest, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it next week.

The squatting petunia

On Monday, 10th we also had another fun morning and half an afternoon, as there was no electricity.  Appparently this was a planned powercut, but our street - as usual - has heard nothing about it. No computer, no phone as my battery just died as the power went, no lights, no fans and no hot water. No gardening in the heat, I couldn't read outside for the same reason or even indoors as all the shutters were shut to keep the heat out, so other than sleeping there was not much else to do between 8am and 2.30pm. Still, in spite of 36-38 degrees of Celsius in the shade, I did manage to dash out for the odd 5-10 minutes to do some work in the garden. We managed to water the geraniums and the roses, hose down the pavingstones and take a few piccies. The crimson-pale yellow two-tone rose is producing a new flower and the petunia, which appeared last year out of nowhere, is also growing quite happily amongst the roses. I never knew that petunia is perennial!

My delicious Stanley plums

I also noted that one of the recently (well, not very recently, probably about 6-7 years ago) planted plum trees, the Stanley variety, started producing more than just the so far common 2 or 3 plums.  This summer it managed about a kilo and I quickly harvested it before they all turned to prunes in the desert heat outside.  I put them in the fridge and they are absolutely gorgeous in both taste and texture. These plums will never go into the cefre for palinka, they are for the table, or as this year, down my throat.

Tamzin Outhwaite and Nicholas Lyndhurst

By the way, Roy was considering not to have any palinka distilled this year as the fruit crop is pitiful again, but with the old plum trees having produced almost a barrelful, he changed his mind and now wants all 4 barrels full.  We are going to have a great grape harvest later on, but even with those we'll only fill one barrel.  So the great plum hunt was afoot this week. I tried the lady in the neighbouring village, but her trees are not producing either, so it was down to the guy we bought the 350kg from last year.  Unfortunately I could not remember his name or his telephone number, so I had to do some nifty detective work before that got sorted.  He promised us the same again and I will have to ring him again mid-September.

When the power supply was available, although rarely without the occasional blip, I have been watching TV this week.  New Tricks is back, but I gather it has been scrapped, so this is the last series.  Shame, I have always liked it, ever since the beginning. Last night Dennis Waterman was written out, but apparently he wanted to leave. Another program I have discovered quite accidentally is one called Flying to the Ends of the Earth on Channel4. It is presented by an ex-marine in a wheelchair whose charm, enthusiasm and sheer enjoyment of flying is infectious. He goes by the name of Arthur Williams and I am one of his fans now.

Arthur Williams

Another bit of good news is that Who Do You Think You Are? is back, starting tomorrow, with Paul Hollywood. That is one program that both Roy and I love, not only because our hobby of family history, but because they usually come up with some interesting bits of history that neither of us knew about.

Finally, we are off to the Hungaria Cup on Saturday, although I have my doubts about running any of it. What with this vertigo persisting and the heat, methinks a brisk walk will probably the best I will be able to manage, especially on those steep hillsides in Northern Nograd.  Never mind, I will enjoy it anyway and perhaps will do some geocaching as well as socialising with my orienteering friends.

Our little house in Salgótarján