Firewood, a 23km hike, guests, F1 and seeing the cardiologist

Last Friday we left the flat in BP, having had a promise from the trader from whom we ordered 2 cubic metres of acacia firewood for ourselves and another 1 cubic metre for Nelly, that the earliest that it was likely to arrive was about 3pm. Just as we were locking up at around 9am, the phone rang and the truck driver advised me that he would be in Bér in about half an hour with the wood.

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After I picked myself off the floor I finally suggested that he starts with Nelly's stuff, as hopefully by the time he dumped that, went back to his depot to load up ours and drive to Bér again, we should be home. As it happens, we only missed him delivering Nelly's lot by a few minutes and we arrived to witness a rather upset Nelly who was convinced that she was cheated. The pile of wood that was dumped in front of our garage, did indeed look a small pile, but on further inspection I was absolutely sure it was 1 cubic metre in volume.

Zoli and Tibi, the heroes of the wheelbarrow

Once ours arrived that looked roughly double hers, so I was quite calm about the whole thing, even though the little truck had fairly bald tyres and the drive was soft due to rain earlier on in the day and previous night. Unfortunately, there was no chance of the truck reversing into our courtyard and had to dump its load in front of the gate.

Group photo at the beginning of the hike

I then proceeded to grab a wheelbarrow and with Roy we started the slow and arduous task of bringing it into the courtyard. In the meantime our first two geocaching visitors were on their way, as we offered them a couple of beds for the night before Saturday's big tour on the Medves Plateau looking for caches. When I mentioned that they should be careful of the big pile of wood in the middle of the drive, they immediately offered to help and that is exactly what they did. Roy was rather stubborn and wanted to do it all himself, but we couldn't manage even half of it, while Zoli and Tibi finished it off in 15 minutes flat.

Salgó Castle

Just a few more words about that acacia that arrived looking rather short. While I was not enamoured of the treatment I received from the merchant, especially vis-a-vis the delivery, I have no reason to think they shortchanged us on the quantity and/or weight of the wood. Nelly and Andris, on the other hand were outraged and convinced that somebody stole a lot of it. When I asked him what made him think that, he answered that it only took him and his son 40 minutes to put it away.

A nice sunlit path in Slovakia

I presume it took them a lot longer in the past. Initially Roy and I thought that was because in the past they had to drag it down the garden a long way and without a wheelbarrow, which this time Roy lent them to ease their labours. Since this initial thought, we also concluded that Pali, who used to deliver both our and Nelly's wood, must have been overly generous with the quantities, that is why they both thought they were short changed. I must admit, this was the first and last time I got involved with my dear sister and nephew in the provision of any merchandise, including wood. I had no thanks, but a large amount of hassle, when I felt attacked for what was real or imaginary wrongs committed (or not) by others and definitely not me. As the good old English saying goes: "No good deed remains unpunished!"

Lovely autumn colours

The two guys who turned up to shift the remaining wood off the front drive and into neat piles along both corridors were absolute darlings. I have never met them before, but I am convinced that they will turn up again, as we offered to put them up again should they want to come up to Nógrád to geocache in the future.

On the path

The following morning they left before me, saying they were picking up a few caches before we all meet in Eresztvény for the start of the hike. You may recall that I offered to organise a big hike on the Medves Plateau with 9 caches to pick up and a distance of about 17km to walk together. As I had a bad cold for weeks before this, I was quite concerned whether I was really up to it, but being the organiser I couldn't not go, although I was planning to cut short back to the car, should I feel bad.

Fungi

As it happened I didn't feel bad at all and the hike was seriously mis-measured by me, totalling  something in the region of 23-24km. As we gathered at the agreed meeting place, more and more cars drove in and even more people kept climbing out of them. I have no idea exactly how many people were there, as the crowd was so large that I couldn't do a proper head count.  However, later on in the morning at one place where most went through, I counted 55, so I reckon at one time or other there were at least 60 people on the hike. This is apparently a record, which made me feel jolly good indeed.

Some more autumn colours

The weather kept reasonable for November, and while there were a few drops of rain at the start of the hike, that stopped pretty soon and the sun came out about an hour or so later. There was very little wind, mostly because we were crossing forests most of the time, and I only felt a little bit cold in the wind on top of the highest castle, which was a bit exposed. I had plenty of chances to talk to many geocachers, whom I have only known via phone or e-mail. It was a smashing bunch and now I can put faces to the names.

My good friend Gyuri

The group of 50 to 60 managed to stay together until the first castle, after which it broke roughly into three groups: the front fast bunch, who not only disappeared most of the time after that, but also covered extra loops to places they fancied climbing up to; the middle group, which was the largest and the slow group, which was up to an hour behind by the end, but still stayed in touch and didn't short cut at all.  As far as I know, the only person who did cut the last three caches out, was my good friend Gyuri, and I would not hold that against him, as even doing that many kilometres was quite an achievement for him. If we covered 23km, I think he had done about 18km. Jolly good for a guy with such bad knees, I think.

Somoskő Castle

At the end everybody was very complimentary about the route, the views and the caches. They thought I should do this again, and muggins certainly offered to organise another one in the spring. I think we will go to Tihany, which is a peninsula in the Balaton and close to Pityu, so we can visit him as well.

On Saturday, after the hike, we had 5 people come and stay overnight, and they were delightful too. It was a retired couple who spoke excellent English, so poor Roy could have people to chat with and a group of three young people who were also very sweet and companionable.

Somoskő and Salgó Castle from Slovakia

All in all a fantastic weekend, with me covering over 20km and while I am having a few aches and pains, it didn't seem to do me much harm. On Saturday evening we went to the Mill for dinner and I had a lovely prawn dish, which I don't think they had on the menu before. Roy had his usual Pancit, also with prawns and he loved that too.

Saturday dinner at the Mill

On Sunday I rested the aching limbs and forgot to watch the Grand Prix. Never mind, I knew I could watch it on iPlayer, because now that Lewis won the Champs, I no longer worry about jinxing it for him. It was the Brazilian, which is always fun and I hope he did well. PS: I have watched it this morning (Tuesday) and it was an absolutely brilliant, exciting, full of action GP, which I am glad I didn't miss.

Lewis Hamilton: red 44

Lewis, quite uncharacteristically, crashed right at the beginning of qualifying, which his team used to replace his engine, causing him having to start from the pit lane. I knew that would make for a good race and I wasn't wrong. He charged like a bull right through almost the entire field and was only a split second from the podium at the end. His 4th place gave him another 10 points and apparently the audience voted him the man of the race.  Quite right too!!

St. Michael's Church in Tar

Finally, yesterday we drove all the way back again to the county town, very near where the hike was, as I had to go and see my cardiologist. He is such a lovely man and such a thoughtful, kind and excellent doctor, that I really count myself lucky to have had that funny turn two years ago, when I presented myself at his hospital and had been under his care ever since. He listened attentively and advised to increase one of my medications and see what happens.  Finally he gave me his mobile number, so I can ring him up if I am worried about anything in the future. He did say that if this tweaking of my medication doesn't work, I might have to come into hospital for observation and for trying to catch the arrhythmia there, so an ECG can be taken of it. We'll see!

The ruin of the manor house of Tar

Afterwards we went and did a week's shopping at Tesco, as we couldn't on Friday, as planned, due to the kerfuffle over the wood delivery. We even managed to fill the tank, which is never too easy in the village, for the nearest petrol station is a bit of a drive away.  Finally, we even picked up a geocache on the way home, as there was one I didn't have, even though it was only about 10 minutes from Pásztó in a Northerly direction.

View of the fortified church from the ruin

It was next to the ruin of a medieval manor house and very close to an impressive early medieval fortified church, which we unfortunately couldn't visit as it was closed, but just looking at it from the outside was very interesting. When we looked it up on Wikipedia at home, Roy was proved totally correct with his guess of  about 1250 A.D. for its building date. He is a clever fellow, isn't he?

Panorama of Tar, the church and the mountains behind

Must go now, as I am getting a bit sleepy. I think I am still recovering from my 23km on Saturday. The rest of the week is going to be spent in the village, but we'll spend the weekend in town where I have several concerts and an opera performance to attend. Next week we are back again in the village when, hopefully, we'll fire up the pottery stove with the newly bought acacia wood and hope it doesn't smoke the house out.

St. Michael's from its churchyard

The builder of our stove advised us of a trick that might make it less smoky, which has always been a bit of a bother after it has not been used for a while. He suggested to light a large handful of newspaper in the chimney, which we can do through the inspection hatch in the bathroom, so as to warm up the chimney before we try to light a fire in the stove. I hope that'll work, if not we won't be worse off than we have been ever since we had the stove.