A geocaching and preserving week

Last Friday Roy had a doctor's appointment as his gout doesn't seem to be willing to clear. She confirmed that the medication he is taking is the right one and that he should carry on with it. She also prescribed a lower dose tablet of the same, so once it is totally OK, he can carry on with that daily to keep those pesky crystals at bay. He also had a blood test, result of which was due on Monday.

The market hall now

The market 40 years ago

After the appointment we decided to do a few chores in town, but some never got done, due to the heat again. Those that we did do included: a visit to what we call the "Crazy Market", due to its weird and colourful modern architecture. That is one of the most superb markets in the city. If you have not found something that you wanted there, it probably does not exist! We got some Brazil nuts, that my homeopath subscribed for their selenium content, we also bought lots of other nuts, like hazels and almonds, so that we could take some of them to the village.

View East from the Roman Shore

Just before getting home we also popped in to our local market hall for the heavier stuff, like potatoes and big peaches, which was a good idea, as they were gorgeous. And then, on Saturday, I went caching again. I took the car, because the ones I chose were all over the place and going by public transport would have taken forever.

As I had a moving cache to place, I went to Roman Shore, where I used to spend all my summers between my birth and age 22. This moving cache has a theme of "User's home". Once you placed it at your current home and perhaps one or two previous ones, you have to start getting creative, so I chose the place (not the building, as its long gone) where our cabin was situated, not far from the boathouse on the river, where I was very happy every summer of my childhood. Once having placed that, I went for a 3km walk along the river to pick up a two parter cache there. I also had a "lángos" at one of the cafes on the river bank for lunch. Not so long ago I did this same walk (only in reverse) with a friend in order to show him where I used to spend my summers as a child, but then never thought of picking up the cache, so I did it this time.  It was a delightful, relaxing time in good weather and I enjoyed it, even though I was on my own.

Panoramic from the plateau

After this I went to get a cache that was left some time ago due to it being on a sun drenched plateau and the day being 35 degrees Celsius. It was another 3km walk, this time in slightly  cooler weather with a bit of a breeze, and the views were delightful.  After this one I jumped back into the car and went back to the river, where two caches awaited a bit further North than Roman Shore.

On the ferry

The first one was a two parter, with the first part being near a large shopping centre by a small lake, and the second on an actual island that you had to catch a ferry to. The ferryman was a hilarious chap and while waiting for the ferry to leave I asked him to also take me to a sand bar on the other side of the island where there is another cache. He agreed, so after the crossing, and finding the second part of the cache, I had a private little cruise to the other one as well.  The island had an impressive avenue of plane trees, which are about 80 years old and are really gorgeous.  The architecture is mostly Bauhaus, as it was first settled in the 1920's and 30's by wealthy city folk.

The glorious plane avenue on Lupa Island

Finally, after my return on the ferry I travelled practically right through to the other end of town for a fairly recently placed cache, in memory of those that were randomly collected up off the streets by the Russians in the post-war years and taken to Siberia for "a little work", aka "malenky robot". That was quite a stunning memorial, on which I found out that even to this day they don't know for sure how many people were taken and how many died there.  Research is ongoing.

Muggins at her 1000th cache

On Sunday morning I was thinking that I ought to go out again to catch some more caches when I felt like going for a hike. Plenty of caches in the hills around the city, so I was just about looking on the website which ones to go for when I had an idea. Why don't I ring a friend to come with me? I tried and amazingly Jutka said that a hike in the hills is much preferable to decorating and decided to come with me.

Schwabisch couple in bronze in Solymár

We drove to Solymár, about half an hour from home and started from there. The weather was still quite warm, but the oppressive heat was gone and there was a little breeze again. The plan was for 7 caches, but finally we got just 5. The three at the furthest point was replaced by one nearer, but the other way. The locations were in a large village museum, by a cave (site of my 1000th cache found), on a dramatic look-out point in a pine forest, down a deep ravine and all the way round a lake and forest on a study trail. All brilliant places, with lots of interesting things to see and at the last one we even came across the  National Duathlon Championships in progress.

Dramatic limestone cliffs in the Pilis Mountains

In total we covered 12.5km with 400 metres of height climb. The final destination was quite near a bus stop and we only had to wait 20 minutes for a bus to take us back to the car only about 15minutes' journey away.  Mind you, on foot and up in the hills and forests we took about 6 hours to do that distance, inlcuding at least an hour and a half of stopping, admiring views, taking photos, having our sandwiches etc. It was a lovely, if somewhat tiring, day.

The lake round which the duathlon and the study trail went

On Monday we finally came down to the village for a bit of peace and quiet and recuperation. "Fat chance!" I hear you say and you would be right. The roses and the garden in general needed some attention. We also had to do some cooking and harvesting fairly urgently, before the ingredients and produce spoiled.  En route home we bought some liver, which I made into liver pate. We also bought some tomatoes, peppers and onions which had to be made into lecsó. Roy also harvested the grapes and I think he is considering making wine out of them, as there is no cefre due to no plum crop this year, so he can't put them in there.

The chef hard at work

A cauldron full of grapes

The pate ended up in two jars. I haven't made any in 30 years, but I used a doctored BBC recipe and it tastes great. A pound of chicken livers, butter, salt, pepper, garlic, fresh thyme from the garden were worked together and cooled.  I have already had two small meals out of them and there is plenty left.

A cauldron full of lecsó

The lecsó was a bigger undertaking, as we bought 2.5kg of peppers, 2kg of onions, as well as 5.5kg of tomatoes. Roy used the large outdoor cauldron on the cooker and all that filled it to the very top.  We used 15 x 1litre bottles and now we can look forward to lots of lecsó in the winter.

Our preserves in the Kotege

And finally, the last two days were mostly spent catching up with stuff on the computer, putting garden stuff away for the winter, deadheading roses, making garlic mayonnaise and such like. I also had to start thinking of making a plan for my trip to the South with my geocaching friend Marianne, as this time I will be driving, so the list of caches will have to have a driveable sequence. The only other significant thing that also happened in the last few days, is that the temperatures have suddenly really dropped, in fact drastically dropped to well below 20 in the morning and hopefully will not return to heatwave conditions before next summer now. Amen!