Last week

This should be a shorter than normal post as very little happened in the last week.  And that in spite of the fact that it contained Christmas.  This year the plan was to have a  rest, be away from people and no fuss. By and by the plan worked. While we had company the weekend before, Christmas Day itself was very peaceful and quiet.

Cheers!

We had some really nice food and drink, and even managed a candle on the table. Roy had his usual fillet steak (the first two slices of this year's whole fillet), and I had king prawns. Roy even had a couple of my prawns to make it a 'surf and turf' meal for him. For drinks we had a bottle of dry BB champagne plus fruit salad, like last Saturday with Laci and Márti, for dessert. Drinks carried on to port and pálinka, so we were very merry indeed.

Gran and Grandad's presents

Strange colour, but what do I know?

The family was good to us and we had phone calls from both Hassocks and Toronto. It was delightful to see Heather, looking good after her operation. Callum showed us what we got him for Christmas and so did Elian and Xander later on in the afternoon.

The title on the post I got this photo from said: Merry Xmas you bunch of weirdos! No comment!!!

Unfortunately the weather got rather slushy in the meantime, so even if my cold was better (which it wasn't and still isn't!), we would not have gone out at all. That was a shame, because interspersed with miserably dark days, there were a few really nice sunny ones as well. Never mind, I'm sure I'll get better one of these days!

Elian, Stephen and Xander

Unfortunately our little birdies, whose food we went to get risking our necks last week, have practically disappeared overnight as soon as the thaw arrived.  As I wrote before, they only come non-stop when it is very cold.  With the milder temperatures they were not much in evidence.

After Christmas, due to not much to watch on terrestrial TV, I took to Netflix. I discovered Designated Survivor, which was originally an ABC series, but has now become a Netflix Original.  ABC cancelled it after 2 seasons, but season 3 will come out later next year, commissioned by Netflix. Netflix is a real success story, proving that if you have an idea which nobody else had thought of (or if they had, they didn't have the capital to develop) you can make billions.

Binge watching is a North American concept which I could take to easily.  I was practically out of commission for 4 days, watching 43 episodes back to back. The only pain that it cost me was in my bum, as I hardly got off the chair. I haven't seen Kiefer Sutherland since he played Jack Bauer in 24 and I still think he is a good actor. The series is full of reasonably big names, but the stories are hilarious, if you understand how US imperialism works. Any work day for the president having only 12 disasters was getting boring, they got you used to at least that many in every episode. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the patriotic pathos that really sticks in your throat, but for a mindless switch off, it was perfect.

Kiefer Sutherland

The other vaguely exciting thing was (and still is) the election of next year's moderators for the geocaching club. The leadership, realising that the moderator body has hardly had a change in 15 years, tried to introduce earlier in the year a compulsory 1 year off for every moderator after 4 years service. This caused an absolute revolt by 5 moderators who threw their toys out the pram and resigned en masse. Now if I was the president, I would have said: "So what?" Not that lot. On the whole nice blokes (yes, no women anywhere!!!) but with a slightly less than sterling backbone, they instantly caved in and withdrew the proposal. Following which, the 5 instantly unresigned!!!??? ONLY IN HUNGARY - I can tell you!

Hungarian Geocaching Club banner

Anyway, come the end of the year, they had another go at it, namely extending the voting from full members to include supporting members as well. This increased the electorate from 98 to 319, which, I suppose is a step in the right direction and fortunately this rule change was not followed by a revolt by a truculent hard core, like last time.  The results are due out tomorrow morning, I am looking forward to them with great excitement. Reason 1: because I would really love to know whether this measure would help new blood into the body, like it was intended and 2: because I threw my hat in the ring and put my name forward for moderator too.

10 of my spring caches in 2018

To be honest, I have been thinking of going for it for a couple of years now, but under the old system there was no point. With a small insider clique nominating each  other and then voting for each other, the chance of getting in was infinitessimal. However, this time, with 170 already having voted out of 319, those are not bad odds and as this is the first time, the result is anybody's guess. I'll let you know when I know what has happened. Personally, I am absolutely 50/50. I would like to get elected and try out what it is like, but don't really fancy the usual infighting, bitchiness and the hitting below the belt, which has so far been the hallmark of this august body. It is also a lot of work if you want to do it properly and I'm afraid I am organically incapable doing anything at half measures.  All in or all out, that's me. So, whatever happens, I'll be happy.

The route of the rival hike in the Bükk Mountains

Another quick job I had this last week was writing the web  page for yet another geocaching hike my friend Feri and I are planning for April 13th 2019 in the Velence Mountains. We have decided on the location (his idea) and the date (by mutual agreement) ages ago, but didn't want to start advertising it as it seemed such a long way off. So guess what? Somebody else decided to advertise one for just 2 weeks before it. I told Feri I am not changing it, as I am running out of dates that both he and I can do and as far as I am concerned this is not a competition to see who can have the largest numbers, but just a pleasant hike with friends, no matter how many of them. Since then I had a chat with the other chap and he mentioned that he might move it to an earlier date to avoid them being too close to each other.  I don't care, I'll be happy with half a dozen turning up and as it is located a long way from the other one, it should be a lot more than that even if the other one stays where it is now. Another annoying thing is that the date the rival hike is planned for is one I cannot make as I'll be in Mexico then, if all goes well!! (knock, knock!!)

The two little villains at Christmas

Xander and Elian with Father Christmas

Food-wise we are still doing OK, even though we have been here for nearly 2 weeks. The only thing we had to buy since we arrived was bread from the mobile baker. All other things are still OK in the fridge and freezer. We were also lucky, because Laci and Márti have brought a large bag of fruits of all sorts as a present and we have been munching away on those. Additionally, before we came I stocked up on nuts and dried fruits, so recently I revived an old habit I haven't practiced for years: The Christmas mixed fruit and nut bowl. I vary what I put in it, but today's bowlful has: dried apricots, figs, prunes, satsumas, apples, tiny pieces of dark chocolate, almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts in it. Lovely grazing food, which I avoid normally, but it is definitely one of the treats of Christmas.

Great aerial photo of the Mill complex

Lunch will be taken in the Mill up the hill today, partly because we haven't seen them for ages, partly because it's Feri's birthday, but mostly because we are expecting guests from the Mill for New Year's Eve and I need to know the arrival times and the numbers.  The Bunkhouse has been cleaned and the beds made by a couple of village ladies on Thursday and the heating has been on since then. I hope we will have some nice people again this year, as last year's lot were really delightful.

Happy New Year to everybody out there who happens to read this and the next post is now only due next year!! 💓

The pre-Christmas weekend

Long time no post - again. Life is hectic and I got a nasty cold that doesn't want to shift. Before we came out to the village I was in bed, going nowhere, resting - and still, that damn thing is with me. One of my lovely geocaching friends recommended the following tea: ginger, lemon and cayenne pepper. I haven't tried it yet, but I will today and report back next week how it worked - or didn't.

Last Thursday I went with Bozsa, Árpi and Robert to see Wajdi Mouawad's Incendies in the Radnóti Theatre, which was excellent.  I have seen it before with Jutka, but remembered that it was so involved that I might discover new meanings on a second visit. And I was right. Plus I thought that seeing it with other friends would be a different experience too.

Poster

Towards the end of last week I was asked to write an article for a London based website on the Hungarian anti-government demonstrations that were growing every day. I started feeling very unwell with that nasty cold I still have, so I agreed that someone in London will write it and I will just proofread and correct it/add to it, if necessary. The guy who wrote it is very young and not very experienced, so I did have a nice little chat with him and he was absolutely fine with my corrections/additions.

Young demonstrators in clouds of tear gas

I, however, was a lot less happy with the later corrections and additions by the editor who didn't ask my opinion about his alterations, just posted it straight away.  I do appreciate that there is always a deadline and a crazy rush, especially when the events covered are ongoing and what's news one minute becomes old hat in another minute.  Still, the actual sentence that got changed to something that meant the exact opposite definitely didn't please me. I have a feeling he didn't get what I meant, rather than disagreed with what I wrote.  Never mind, salutary lesson for the future. Close deadline? Get someone else to write it! If not, I'm willing, but not without final say on what it says. Here is the link for anyone who wants to read it.  It isn't a bad account and analysis, especially not by a young man who had no previous knowledge of Hungarian politics. However, it could and should have been a lot better, so thankfully they didn't put my name on it, after I asked for it to be taken off.
https://www.marxist.com/hungary-major-protests-against-slave-law.htm

Downtown BP filled by a demo the government says has no support

On Monday we had a lovely morning's chat with cake and coffee at Ros and Ian's, just to say good bye and wish them happy holidays as they were leaving on Tuesday.

And then we left town for the village on Wednesday. The weather was like pea soup fog, but not unduly cold. We were getting close to where we normally get off the M3 when we got caught in a tailback. It turned out that hours before there was a crash of an articulated truck and 7 cars  about 10km up the road, and the jam was that long and still growing. We started queuing for our normal exit and my little navigating program on my phone said that we should be at Tesco by 10.15am. Not fast, but adequate.

This was roughly the visibility most of the way

However, just before we got to the slip road, the traffic sped up on the main carriageway and we got suckered into thinking that the motorway was now clear and there was no need to leave. Well, we eventually got to Tesco around 12.15pm, so it was a stupid decision. We did our Christmas food shopping and then quickly travelled to our seed merchant to stock up with sunflower seeds for the wild birds, but got there about 15 minutes after he shut the shop and went home. Ahhhhh!!!

-6 Celsius on Thursday morning

Never mind, we said we would come back tomorrow, as it is only about half an hour's drive from home.  However, when we looked outside in the morning, it was snowing.  Not hard, but snowing. Roy suggested that we left at once, before it got worse, so we did.  And it did get worse. We were in a whiteout soon, as the temperature plummeted and the wind got up. Not having any de-icer with us (stupid, I know), we had to stop once to break off large icicles from the windscreen wiper blades. Visibility was crap and we had to go slowly not to hit anything, much to the annoyance of the average drivers in these parts, who were still going like there was a dry road and 100% visibility on the A21.  No wonder accidents are this frequent and this serious all the time!

 

Thankfully, driving our 4-wheel drive car with a bit of skill and care got us to the seed merchants and we bought a 30kg bag, hoping not having to come back again this winter.  It is amazing to think that the last 2 or 3 winters we hardly used the stove it was so warm and a 20kg bag of seed lasted 2 winters.  I am wondering how long this one will last? We also managed to purchase a bottle of de-icer, so the trip back home was much more pleasant, as this time round Roy could actually see the road ahead of him, unlike the way there.

Mass feeding frenzy

The first job after getting home was to fill the bird feeders, as I was sure that my little blue tits, great tits, finches etc. were jolly cold and hungry.  I was not wrong! Approximately 40 to 50 birdies appeared within minutes and started feeding. They carried on feeding non-stop ever since then. It is only this morning, with the thaw that the onslaught loosened up a bit. The reason why they feed all the time in the cold is to take on enough food for the night. The colder it is, the more of them come and the longer they feed. Until those days when it is so cold that they have to feed practically non-stop.

Roaring fire in the stove before shutting the doors

The second job was to fire up the pottery stove. The first lighting of it petered out, but it warmed up the chimney sufficiently for the second lighting to work.As we have pre-heated the house with the central heating and the stove took advantage of the wind and the cold air outside, soon everything was warm as toast. We have even since managed to keep the fire going overnight by putting on a very large log and then closing it down, so it can tick over very slowly but not go out. Early in the morning we put a new log on and it takes immediately.

Our guests warming up by the stove

Thursday and Friday were spent tidying up and doing a bit of cleaning, making Laci and Márti's bed and pre-cooking some of Saturday night's dinner. On Saturday morning two things happened: 1. the weather got warmer and spoilt all the nice snow everywhere; 2. Laci and Márti arrived bang on midday. Due to the thaw as well as the late hour we haven't managed to go out for a hike yesterday and taking advantage of the new arrangements we had the roast at lunchtime, rather than for dinner.

Saturday lunch being prepared

In the afternoon and evening we chatted a great deal, as we haven't really seen each other since the summer. We sorted the world, our mutual friends and families and many other topics besides. Today we should go out if it doesn't rain, perhaps up to my favourite tree on the other side of the valley.  If there is reasonable visibility, you can look down on the entire village from there.

Laci and Márti by my favourite tree

Sunday dawned with sunshine and we had porridge for breakfast. The sun shone so nicely that about 10.30 we went out for a small hike and we indeed started with walking up to the big tree on opposite side of the valley. After that we crossed the big field behind the tree and climbed up towards the big rocks on the top. Unfortunately there were ugly, tatty plastic tapes fluttering in the wind up there, which made this glorious broad leaved forest look positively ugly. It is the fault of the Mayor of the village who organises cross country bike races up there and never bothers to remove the tape after the event.

Some of the ghastly plastic tape left our in the woods

After that we dropped down to the Virgin Mary spring, walked to Virágos and then back home on the tarmac road. The temperature was 6 or 7 degrees Celsius and the snow melted considerably. Roy cooked us a lovely curry with all the trimmings (dhal, mango chutney, poppadoms). I made a fruit salad with a wide variety of fruits, whipped cream, walnuts and a chocolate filled wafer.It was yummy.

Our beautiful hills

Soon after lunch Laci went to the barn to choose a big log, which he intends to use as a wood chopping block at home. I also gave Márti a jar of marmalade, which made her happy. These two are such a delight to have over a weekend, I wish they came more often.

Must go now as I have been up since 3.40am and need a nap. Next post after Christmas!

End of dentist, Robert, the old Jewish cemetery, walnuts, marzipan and a spot of proofreading

When I wrote the "End of dentist" above, I didn't mean the departure of Vivien. It just meant that finally I had my two crowns fitted and thus the end of 7 months' dental visits arrived. Correction: I still have to go  back in January for the hygienist, but otherwise I hope I can forget about the considerable pain in my mouth and in my pocket for 6 months, until the next checkup.

Robert at Volker's memorial

On Tuesday Robert came to lunch and we had such a marvellous time with him. Roy and I cooked the meal together. Roy was in charge mostly, but I did the sweet entirely on my own. First course was cream of vegetable soup with roasted pumpkin seeds, the main course was roast pork with all the trimmings, including apple sauce made with our own apples, followed by chocolate ganache cup with nuts and whipped cream.

Roy, Ros and Ian at the Jewish cemetery

Robert is amazingly good company and as he is a theatrical director and impressario, (now partially retired) and Roy used to be on the stage in his youth, they had plenty to reminisce about. He seems to be coping well with being alone, or perhaps he is just good at hiding his pain. I will see him later on this week when I'm taking two good friends to the theatre and he will be there too.

Old crypts in the Jewish cemetery

Wednesday we visited the old Jewish cemetery with Ros and Ian, as they have never been before and we wanted to see it, because we heard that they have started renovating it and making it safe for visitors. We were both afraid that having it tidied up by amateurs might make it lose its romantic atmosphere, where the dereliction of an old, neglected cemetery was one of its best features.

A Roman looking crypt and memorial in the Jewish cemetery

Well, we were both happy and not so happy.  True, it is now much safer to move about there and some areas have now been cleared of the overgrown vegetation so much so that you can see the monuments clearly, when before you didn't even know they were there. This was good. However, I was a bit upset, as the romantic air was mostly gone, and that is a shame.

The lost family grave is found again

We managed to get into parts of the cemetery we have never been into before, partly because they were impassable and partly because we didn't actually get that far. The upshot of visiting one of these parts was the discovery of one more Czettel grave, that of Gyula Czettel, my great-grandfather's brother, and his wife. Roy never even knew that they were there. His information source is a database, which we think only contains the burials prior to 1900, when the cemetery officially closed. As Gyula and his wife were buried in 1922 and 1938 respectively, there must have been further burials after that time, but perhaps those didn't make it into this database.

Roy and Ian eating pizza

Ros and her pizza

After our visit to the cemetery, we all went to Bocanova, our newly discovered Italian restaurant in the XIVth district for lunch. We all had pizzas, which were superb, especially that they were the traditional thin crust variety, which is harder and harder to find in restaurants nowadays.

Finally, on Thursday we travelled down to Bér, shopping en route, although we didn't make it to Tesco, as we were only going down there for 5 or 6 days, so a roadside greengrocer and Penny Market in Aszód sufficed. The main event of our stay this time was the appearance of Roy's pálinka, all 33 litres of it. Nowadays with fuel costs rising, tax and excise duty going sky high, the price is now 2 or 3 times more than when we started having pálinka distilled from our fruit about 7 years ago. And we still love it, because it is still about half the cost of buying it in the shops and tastes about a 100 times better.

My enormous side salad at the Bocanova

The house was OK, the little birds were making noises most mornings, suggesting that we start filling their winter time feeding bowls and we settled down to a quiet week, after much activity in town and elsewhere.  I was asked to proofread Lenin's Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism for my comrades in London, so I set about doing that. It is hard work, but it makes me re-read the classics of Marxism, which I should do more often anyway. And, of course, volunteering to do it helps to keep costs down prior to publication. The deadline is early January, so I have to get a move on with it through the holidays.

Roy's 33 litres of pálinka in seven 5-litre demijohns

I also started on cracking walnuts, as my nut stock was much diminished in Bér and also, I should crack them all and put them into the freezer before they dry up in their shells.  Frozen nuts stay fresh for years and years and defrost in a few minutes after removal from the freezer.  I never knew this until an old lady in the village told me. She not only cracks but also grinds down her walnuts in October, after harvesting them, and when she wants to make a walnut cake, just takes it all ready from the freezer for as long as her stocks last.

One box of pálinka in bottles

The other two boxes of pálinka in bottles

Ros, when they arrived a couple of weeks ago, brought me a slab of marzipan and I set about making petit fours. I used to make these very often, but somehow I have not bothered for quite a few years now. They are dead easy to make: you roll out the marzipan, dust it with icing sugar, so it won't stick and then use a small round cutter (I used an old film box) to make the base. Then I melted some high fat cocoa butter dark chocolate and tempered it on the marble slab I have. The little round marzipan bits then got covered with this chocolate and either half a walnut or some cherries were stuck into the molten chocolate.  Then they were put into the fridge to go hard and voila, marvellous little presents for friends in the festive season.

Petit fours ready to go into boxes

Then on Tuesday this week we came back into town. I had a concert at the Palace of the Arts, Piotr Anderszewski was playing Bach's Voltemperiertes Klavier and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, which were very good indeed. He is a nice young man from Poland, with a Hungarian grandmother, so he gets many invitations to play. I was feeling very tired last night, barely able to stay awake during the concert and not because I didn't enjoy the music. The cold I have been nursing for weeks, suddenly decided to go for me in a big way.  So much so, that when I woke up this morning I could barely get out of bed.

So, unfortunately, today's hike with Ros and Ian got cancelled, mostly because I wasn't really up to it, although I had a feeling that Ian wasn't particularly keen on climbing rocks on steel ladders in a ravine in December.  Whatever was the case, we didn't go, but are having a treat from those two, in the form of coffee with one or two Portugese tarts next Monday in a coffe house near their flat as a good-bye before the holidays. Mind you, Roy is concerned whether he is up to having two tarts all in one go, but we'll make sure he is only offered one.

The ravine we didn't go hiking in today

It looks as if we are staying in town until next Wednesday now, as Monday is now taken up with that outing with Ros and Ian and Tuesday the shop where we are planning to buy our next bagful of bird seed en route home, is usually closed, so it'll have to be Wednesday.  I'll write next after that.

Hajdúszoboszló and its environs

This trip to the East was prompted by a ridiculously cheap special offer arriving in my inbox. 4 days/3 nights in a small apartment with half board for 2 people for £60. I couldn't not take it.  We left on Tuesday 27th November and returned on Friday 30th November. The weather was OK, but during our trip there it suddenly turned into winter. It got very dark and finally we were looking for a little box in the tracks of a mining excavator, on the ground, in a white-out blizzard.  That wasn't funny, I can tell you.

Matyó Museum in Mezőkövesd

Thatched peasant long house in Mezőkövesd

We arrived at our accommodation in the dark, but the lady to let us in arrived only about 5 minutes after us.  The apartment was real

Dwerelict chapel in the middle of a field

First World War memorial

ly cute, in reasonably nick and with adquate space and good, fast internet. She was very chatty and friendly and assured us that should we have any problems we can call her on the phone straight away. There were no problems, so we never saw her again.

The following day the sun shone brightly and we looked forward to our day of geocaching with anticipation.  The only problem was the strong wind, which added so much windchill that we both shivered a lot. Still, we started with the caches in the town itself, fiollowed by a trip to the famous flatlands of Hortobágy, aka the puszta. Those vast distances and the fact that wherever you looked you saw all the way to the horizon, was mind blowing. We saw the bird sanctuary, the famous 9-arched bridge and a lovely old T35 tank from the battle of Hortobágy in the Second World War.

Mining machinery in a museum

Roy in the snow storm

Then we travelled back a bit, turned left and visited the town of Balmazújváros. Caching on that day was very successful and we enjoyed ourselves.  The following day, however the weather seriously deteriorated again and it felt like night all day. In spite of this we had our most successful day. We did a large circle around the town of Debrecen where we have already gathered almost all caches a year or so ago, this time our circle took us about 20 to 30 kilometres away from town and there were some amazing places to visit.

13th century ruined church tower

21st century train passing the ruin

The sites included the town of Hajdúböszörmény, several old medieval ruins, an amazing memorial to the heroes of 1956, the tracks of a cute little narrow gauge railway, which unfortunately only operates in the summer, but we will be back to take a ride on it next time and another lookout tower.

Hajdúböszörmény's central square

The last day was spent en route home in a roundabout way and the sites included a meteor impact ground, a derelict chateau, a couple of manor houses, this time is perfect order, another arboretum, the very small remains of a  13th century monastery, but undoubtedly the start attraction on the last day was a visit to a family of potters in the town of Nádudvar, who have made pots in that town for hundreds of years and I even bought a small vase from him.

Hajdúböszörmény's central square (2)

Graceful church spires

He showed me the process, how the pots are made by hand on the wheel, then allowed to dry naturally, followed by putting the pattern on by using a stone compacting the clay by pressure. Then they go into the kiln for a minimum of 16 hours of firing, followed by another day of lock down in the kiln, during which time the soot combines with the clay to give the Nádudvar pots their characteristic black colour.

Memorial to the 1956 revolution

The funny thing was that his surname is Potter, which I think proves how long his family made pots, as it was at least 800 years ago that surnames appeared and one of the most usual ways to name people was using their profession, craft or job.

Autumn colours

Lookout tower at Erdőpuszta

We got home just as it was getting dark and collapsed in a heap by 8 or 9pm. Fantastic little holiday with lots to see and visit and collecting 36 geocaches in the process!

Fazekas István the younger at work

Lots of gorgeous Nádudvan pottery

Wood-burning pottery stove 

C

DIning table beautifully laid with Nádudvan pottery