emiGrants: A few nice and a few infuriating days

We came into town on Saturday by car, as we realised that travelling too much by public transport is what is giving us all these lurgies we seem to be catching again. My ribs are getting better very slowly, but as long as they are getting better I am not complaining. The cold I have now is not fun, especially that violent sneezing sets my ribs off, but such is life! It should pass soon, I hope!

The cast of the Beauty Queen of Leenane

The play in the evening was quite interesting. My campaign with Jutka of visiting small, specialist theatres is ongoing, this time we went to the Central Theatre, which used to be called the Comedy Stage, but now it has a wider remit. Martin McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane was fascinating, if a tad depressing. Still, I enjoyed it and we could also tick off this theatre too, in addition to the previous 3 that were also worth a visit or two. We are actually going to the theatre 3 more times before next Friday, so this will definitely be a theatrical week.

My friend Koxi admiring the view

On Sunday I went geocaching with friends, which was both a good and a bad day. The good things were the beautiful sunny weather and the glorious views from some of the caches. However, the company this time round left something to be desired. My friend Zsuzsi brought her boyfriend, which was not a problem, as he is a nice enough fellow. However, our other friend, the one with the serious personal problems currently, was a different kettle of fish. Even last time when she came with us I felt that she just wanted a fast and long hike, rather than a leisurely looking for caches, taking pictures, smelling the roses etc., which is Zsuzsi’s and my style. However, this time her impatience started to spoil my enjoyment. Occasionally you can go up into the mountains, spend all day hiking and just find one or two caches. That’s fine, but this Sunday the plan was to pick up caches on the outskirts of town, some in built up areas, others in the hills. I felt under pressure to do more of it on foot than I planned and paid the price. First of all (and this happened half way through the day) I burned my face with tea, which was far too hot in the thermos, and by the end of the day I was totally exhausted, which was probably connected to my cold, rather than my ribs. I slept 10 hours overnight but in spite of that, Monday was a total washout. This, unfortunately led to other frustrations, but more about those later.

My three companions near the last cache

On Sunday early evening the internet disappeared. This is a very serious problem in our lives, as we practically come to a screeching halt whenever this happens. We live a busy life; we don’t just sit in front of our computers. My orienteering, hiking, geocaching etc. proves that, as well as Roy’s family history, local history, Jewish cemeteries project etc., etc., but it is also true that so much of what we do requires use of the internet (communications, information gathering, project work, family history research, translations etc., etc.) that it really bothers both of us when it disappears. As it happens, the ISP was in a mess, probably because the system broke under the strain of everybody trying to use it at once, but we had an additional problem. Our modem went bust and we didn’t realise it until everybody was back online except us. So the following day we were waiting in for the guy to fix it and in the meanwhile had to be content with very slow mobile internet on the tablet. Mind you, at least I had time to read World Perspectives, Canadian Perspectives and the Organisation Resolution, which is just as well, as Alex wants to talk to me about them. If I wasn’t feeling so physically shitty, I would have gone caching (with or without friends), but not feeling top notch really depresses me and then I just don’t want to go anywhere.

A decidedly mad looking Elizabeth the First

And here we come to the really aggravating bit, which was forgetting to go to the theatre on Monday. I missed Paul Foster's Elizabeth I, which by all accounts was excellent. Funnily enough, during the day I thought of it at least once, as I have been known to forget in the past, but for some inexplicable reason I didn’t do anything about it. If only I set my telephone to ring an alarm about an hour before or told Roy to remind me, he is always good like that, but no. I just forgot. I suppose it was the frustration and consequent depression and generally being off colour that made me just curl up at home and subconsciously not wanting to go anywhere. It was only when my friend rang in the interval to enquire what on earth had happened to me that the penny dropped. Aaahhhhhhhh!!

A map of all my finds as of today

And then, in the meantime I did other stupid things too. Last night I was working on my tablet to update my geocaching page with the latest finds when about ¾ of my personal profile page disappeared. It could have been a hiccup by the web page or (much more likely) I pressed something stupid that made it all disappear, so now I am awaiting a response from the guy who runs the website to see if he can get it back. If not, I will have to do it all over again, isn’t life fun? *Later update: had lots of help from a variety of people and currently I have practically everything back, except one map. Still, it's not that much of a disaster without that one map, although I wouldn't mind getting that back as well. Will keep you posted!!

Can anyone spot the ON/OFF switch?

Finally, the guy from the internet company came and fixed the modem. It took him about 2 seconds. Why? Because it was turned off. I was reasonably close to apoplexy when he told me that. Nobody ever told me it had an ON/OFF switch. Even though, I did think I might have accidentally switched it off, but could not find a switch. Neither could Roy. Do you know where it is? And how big it is? It measures just slightly under 1mm and it is immediately next to the power lead jack. So it is not surprising that it got turned off, as I have removed that jack several times to try to reboot the modem. Neither is it surprising that I couldn't find it as it is barely visible with a magnifying glass. The guy was actually really nice and he checked the TV as well for us. I found out that we no longer have Al Jazeera and Russia Today, so I had it put back for less than £1 a month, so we are happy.

The three versions of Ernő Szép in his The Smell of Man

Then I managed to remember Tuesday night's theatre performance, which was fascinating. The play was based on the memoires of Ernő Szép, a writer who got taken for forced labour during the fascists rule in 1944. It had the title The Smell of Man, it was well written, well acted and directed. I found out that the one I missed is only on once in April and once in May, and that I can't do either date. Hopefully there should be one more performance in June, but that schedule is not out yet. If I can't catch that one, there is always next year.

István Pukli, the current head of my old school addressing the crowd

On Wednesday I went to join the teachers' protest outside my old high school, where I have not set foot for 52 years. It was a good crowd of about 1500 people. The Head Teacher was brilliant, but he is a charismatic bloke, who is very popular and is much respected for his bravery standing up to the government, not being intimidated by character assassination, veiled and open attacks etc. After the protest was over I walked with some others over to the City Park, where a gallant little band of about a dozen people are trying to stop the bulldozers moving in on about 40 trees. Hopefully their action will bear fruit, although knowing this mafia government, I have my doubts.