New Year's Eve et al

Last Friday the bed linen arrived from the Mill and we spent all of Saturday and some of Sunday cleaning the Bunkhouse and part of the Farmhouse + making 11 beds. I must admit, every time Anna asks us to have guests I agree and then bitterly regret it. I am too old for all this housework, I got totally shattered in about 3 hours. Still, finally it was done and we were pleased to see the guests arrive on Sunday afternoon.

The Atlantic Cedar

For once they were extremely nice, clean, quiet, pleasant folks, who came home in the early hours of New Year's Day so quietly we had no idea that they snuck in. They damaged nothing, were very polite and complimentary about everything and I said to Anna that I would have them back any day.  When Anna came to settle the account she stayed for a lovely chat, upshot of which was an invitation to them the week after next.

The bottom of the Atlantic Cedar

My cold is still with me and fluctuates daily. Recently I had an attack of dizziness and vertigo as well, but I think that was because the lurgy affected my ears. I spent a lot of time in bed as a result, reading or watching TV on the laptop. I watched the regeneration of the doctor into Jody Whittaker and I really look forward to the new series starting sometime. I am a lapsed Doctor Who watcher, but now that we have a female doctor I might return. Call the Midwife is still lovely. I know it is a bit too much 1950's, but I still think it is well done.

The bridge leading to the gate of the arboretum

The weather got a bit cold, rainy and foggy, although it has not snowed at all. The pottery stove has got some problems, we are wondering why it wouldn't light. Roy seems to think there is a blockage somewhere although having swept the chimney he is worried that there may have been collapse inside the stove.  That could be very expensive to put right, so let us hope it's not that. After filling the lounge with thick smoke more than once, we gave up and hope to get hold of the guy who built it to see what it is.

The Youth Hostel and Forestry Study Centre in the forest

The main event of the New Year so far was a little outing yesterday to the Mátra mountains. I have adopted a cache whose owner had given up geocaching and did not look after it. It has three parts and you have a walk of about 5km up (or down) a valley to get to their locations in order to mend or replace them.  I didn't fancy a walk of 10km, so worked out how to get by car to the highest point, when Roy went back down on the road and I walked down the valley I was supposed to go up in. This saved a lot of climb and 5km.

Csevice stream whose valley I walked down in

At the top where we managed to drive in to, there is a lovely old, slightly neglected arboretum with fascinating and rare conifers and some broad leaved trees as well. We saw their rare Atlantic Cedar, which is truly enormous. The countryside is really wild up there.

Dry oak leaves add colour to the greys and browns

It was really weird having the whole mountain with all its forests to myself for 2 and half hours on the way down. There was some mud, the sunshine went about 20 minutes after we arrived and at the end it rained and was very cold.  In spite of all this I enjoyed myself, saw a deer from a distance, a pretty little ravine, a large abandoned quarry and photographed a lot of it and by the end of it I mended all three parts of the cache.

Snow melt had undermined the roots of this  tree

We did a bit of shopping in Pásztó, mostly for fire bricks and bird seed, en route home and ended up in the Santos for a late lunch. We eat so little nowadays that the food we buy normally lasts twice as long as we think. Then if we eat out at least once, that makes it last even longer.

Low rock wall in the forest

Once home I had to set about updating the cache page on the website, which was also extremely neglected, being full of totally out of date information. I uploaded some new photos as well and it now looks pretty good to me I must admit. Mind you, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I will have to wait for somebody climbing up to the Mátra to see if everything is where it should be and easy to find.

A small ravine

Today I started preparing for our trip into BP on Saturday. I have two concerts, one of Saturday and one on Sunday, we will have to place a moving cache I picked up in the Mátra and later, sometime in the beginning of next week I might have a geocaching day with Gyuri.

The markings I followed

Today my cold has returned with a vengeance and I can hardly breathe. That cold and windy day in the Mátra obviously didn't do it any good, but I still think it was worth going. I'll post again next week, I hope, until then a Happy New Year to all of you, may it be successful, full of adventure, good health and lots of happiness!!

The massive quarry walls

Remnants of the old quarry buildings