The last week was full of what first seemed like a cold, but I am increasingly suspecting to have been a violent attack of some sort of allergy. I woke with violent coughing fits, then had half an hour of loud, non-stop sneezing, followed by a blocked nose, headache and sore throat. I am so fed up with being ill all the time, that I must do something. The trouble is that if it is an allergy, I have a cat in hell's chance of having it diagnosed. Ahhhhh!!!!
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| Don Giovanni |
Returning to where I left the last post off, the performance of Don Giovanni in the Erkel Theatre was a revelation. It was my friend, Eszter, who suggested to go and see this, a visiting company from Kolozsvár in Transylvania. They were brilliant. The lead singer was aged 28, which is amazingly young for this role, but his voice was superb and he could act as well. The whole staging, direction, and the quality of the singing were first class, so whenever this lot comes again, I'll be there.
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| Yevgeny Korolyov |
On Wednesday I had another concert at the Music Academy, this time Yevgeny Korolyov with his second out of four Bach concerts. He is such a virtuoso interpreter of Bach, it was a sheer joy to listen to, as always. Bozsa was there and told me that the reason why she missed the Opera last week was a two day course she had to attend too far from town to travel back from.
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| A wild iris on the plateau |
On Thursday the weather forecast was not too bad and I felt like going caching again, with the option of scrapping it should it start raining. Fortunately it didn't and it was a lovely, successful and enjoyable day. Roy came with me too, which is always great, partly because he has to get out of the house now and again too, and partly because this way I don't worry about the car, as he is sitting in it and guarding it.
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| The Walla chateau |
We managed to pick up 10 caches, ranging from a lovely plateau, a long shut museum, a tall National Flag, an old disused quarry, a nice wooded hill - all the way to a gorgeous lake, chateau and a stages of the cross. We had no problems all day until the last one, which was a two parter and we couldnt' find the second part. No great loss, as the lake was so pretty and I took so many photos, that I almost forgot about the annoyance of not finding the box.
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| Richard Strauss's Joseph Legend as ballet |
On Friday I had yet another concert, this time in the Palace of the Arts, and that was amazing too. I don't normally go out of my way to see dance and/or ballet. Still, if it is included in a subscription ticket, fine, but not deliberately. Well, after this performance I have to reconsider that attitude. The Contemporary Ballet from Szeged was in town and they danced a modern performance to Richard Strauss's Joseph Legend. Absolutely beguiling, magical and superb - I think are the minimal adjectives to use. Unfortunately it was very short, as they did it without an interval, but we both enjoyed it tremendously.
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| Orienteers starting from Start 2, where we worked. |
On Friday night we had an unexpected invitation from our friends Laci and Márti to spend Saturday night at their house, which is very close to where we were all going to be during the weekend. This weekend was the date of our orienteering club's annual big two-day event, where I wasn't planning to compete, just to help. Being quite close to town, the plan was to go home for the Saturday night. However, with this invitation we spent the night away and had a chance to see Laci's new home with Márti in the Pilis mountains.
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| Marti's lovely front garden |
It was situated on a very steep hillside, right underneath a massive rockface, which gave it a dramatic outlook. We also met Pedro, the boxer, who was first afraid of us, but got pretty friendly later on. The orienteering event went quite well, we were working at the No.2 Start, which is usually the job we get, and which we enjoy, as it is normally away from the chaos at Assembly and the people around us are usually very nice.
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| Another lovely lake with a cache near it |
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| An old mine wheel with the cache underneath |
On Saturday afternoon we even managed to squeeze in a bit of geocaching, as there were two nearby multi-parter caches that I have avoided in the past. The first one was in the town where the orienteering was based and with its 6 parts it was actually quite interesting to find out a lot about a place I have been frequently through, but haven't visited before. The other one had just 3 parts in a neighbouring village, but that finished on yet another glorious lake which was very photogenic.
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| Roy next to a 300 year old mulberry tree |
Unfortunately, I had another allergy (??) attack at the end of Sunday's work, so we had to scarper to get home quickly. We were also lucky that the half marathon, which was organised for that Sunday was in its last stages, so we managed to navigate our way through the city with minimal delay.
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| Gizella, St. Stephen's Queen |
Yesterday I spent mostly in bed, trying to get over the exertions of the weekend and the allergy attacks. In the afternoon I had to go to my old doctor for some prescriptions as I miscounted my pills and ran out of one of them. The bureaucracy of the health service is criminal, as I was refused any prescriptions by one doctor in the morning, when he said that my address comes under another doctor whose surgery is in the afternoon. The fact that I have run out of that particular pill the night before and should have taken one in the morning was neither here nor there. Ahhhhhhh!!! Finally I returned in the afternoon and got the prescription from the other doctor, so we are set to stay another week. Originally we thought of returning to the village for a few days this week, but we have too many things to do here and I am trying to rest this ailment so I can go hiking during Easter.
Next post due in about a week, if I am lucky! :)
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