A busy fortnight

Six 1litre bottles of pear compote

Well, I wrapped up my last post with the rather overly optimistic promise of posting the following week. It is now nearly two weeks later, but better late than never, as the saying goes.

Transylvanian gate in a Nagyatád park

We were still in Bér when that last post was done and we stayed for another week until the following Tuesday. We did some pear harvesting and bottling, but the only mention worthy event in that time was the arrival of our slightly eccentric central heating man to clean and service two boilers. He charged about £80 this time round and he didn't really do any extensive checking of anything, he mostly cleaned the innards of both boilers.  Mind you, it was about time, as we all think he last came about 4 years ago.

Lovely old castle in Varazdin, Croatia

We departed on the Tuesday, parked the car up at our friends' place in the XIVth district and kept the appointment with Roy's urologist in the evening. He seemed a very nice bloke, who was prepared to explain to me what the matter was and then waited reasonably patiently until I translated it to Roy. I even had a cute hand-scribbled drawing of Roy's bit of anatomy that my modesty stops me naming, so that we knew what was wrong.

Cute little circular church somewhere in Slovenia

I will not bore you with the details, but thankfully he seems to think that there is nothing too drastic to worry about and there are medicines that deal with the problem.  Not that that makes you who at all happy.  Lucky devil who all his life had very little illness and what he did have was nothing too serious, now that he is in his dotage is pretty slow to get used to the idea of having to take pills. Tough titty, I say. :)

Isn't he cute on his bike?

The day after that was his 76th birthday and we didn't do anything too exciting as we were busy getting ready for me going away for 4 days. He did have one very pleasant surprise which he designated as a very nice birthday present. This came attached to an e-mail, which he opened on the morning of his birthday and felt really chuffed. It was a photo showing him aged 17 on his beloved motorbike. He doesn't have a copy of this photo, and he has been asking the old girlfriend who took it and his own sister to let him have a copy, as they seem to still have one.  No joy for years, but finally his sister Pamela came up with the goods. Typical of bike buffs the world over, when he put it up on Facebook, he had over a 100 Likes, but the comments were almost entire about the bike, not him. Such is life!!

Pretty flower in an alpine forest

On Thursday I departed South and Westwards for another extensive geocaching adventure.  While going abroad again, the distances covered were a more reasonable 600 or so kilometres, not like 1300km in 3 days, like last time. This time I went by coach to a small town in the South of the country, where I was picked up by my friend Feri and we did a bit of caching through Croatia and Slovenia, arriving at our B&B's in the evening. There was a geocaching festival and competition the following day, which we didn't take part in, but which we visited at the end of the day to see or be introduced to (in my case) to many cachers that I only knew virtually so far.

Signs of autumn everywhere

In the meantime we were caching every day and seeing some really lovely, interesting and/or curious places. On Saturday I switched friends and spent that day and Sunday with another couple of friends, doing more of the same. We finally started travelling towards our respective homes, me being dropped in a small town somewhere near the Danube to catch a coach home, which I did.  The total number of caches for the 4 days was 39 and I met and chatted with lots of people whom I can now call friends. My friend Gyuri, who carted me around with him and Judith at the weekend, unfortunately lost his tablet at one of the caches when foolishly he put it on top of the car and when we finished drove away without taking it off.  We did drive back there after realising, but didn't find it. :(

Kirchschlag Castle, Austria

Davis (Ian's brother, Ian, me and Roy at the Regős

Yesterday, after a pretty long sleep in the night due to being utterly and completely exhausted, we met up with Ian and his brother David in the Regős and had a lovely lunch and chat. David is 8 years younger than Ian and to describe them as chalk and cheese would not do justice to reality. Amazing how two brothers can get on this well, even though they are very different in looks, temperament, interests and many other things besides. We invited them for a day out in Bér this week, before David goes home, so they are coming on Thursday morning and the following day the two of them and my good self are driving to Visegrád to do a hike together, followed by returning by car to BP. Roy will follow by coach on Saturday.

So, as you can see it is not surprising that I was this long with this post and even now I am snowed under with sorting post, answering e-mails, doing the geocaching paperwork, downloading photos, planning the next hike, writing this blog etc., etc. Hopefully I should be back posting next week, but don't hold your breath!! :)

An inquisitive local at one of the farms we visited