Springs, moderators, concerts and moving caches

I left my last post at the stage when I was rushing off doing the recce for some of my springs for this series of caches I am putting together. There have been series like this in four other mountain ranges, and while our "moutains" are more like overgrown hills, I thought I might have a go at this lark.

The winter wonderland

Thursday was bright, sunny and not too cold, so off I went. Needless to say, that while the weather was great, the previous weeks' snowfall was still lying on the ground and got quite deep in places. The first one was in a deep valley, access to which was a very steep and rocky hillside straight down. Just after I started I met a guy coming up the path with his dog and I could tell his eyes showed concern about an old woman in the deep snow risking the wilds on her own. To be honest I had some concerns too, but I am an intrepid outdoors enthusiast and besides, I have been on that path many times before (even if not in deep snow on my own), so I trudged on regardless. It was physically quite exhausting, as after the initial 100 yards there were no more footsteps to put my feet in, but it was fun.

The first spring

The cache is going into a pretend bird box, commissioned by me from Roy, up a tree near the spring and its three cute little ponds surrounded by gorgeous forest, tables and benches.  A pretend bird box is a marvellous hide for a cache box, as hopefully the muggles will ignore it and it should have a long life up a tree without interference from vandals. The route back was straight up the hillside, but at least by then I had footprints to follow.

The second and third springs were on the other side of the village where I left the car, so I extricated my beloved Duster from a steep, slippery car park next to the castle covered in nearly a foot of snow, drove very gingerly down the steep road to the big car park in the middle of the village and made my way on foot from there.

The ponds

The walk to the second spring was in even deeper snow, but at least there the climb was minimal. First I arrived at a sylvan little spring, that was named after the great love of an aristocratic poet from the 16th century, whose family had extensive estates in the area, incuding the castle. The poet, Bálint Balassi was the first significant poet who wrote in Hungarian (not German or Latin) and published his poetry in anthologies. He was also a real cad with a womanising and hell raising bent. I loved doing the research on him while writing the cache page later.

The route between this spring and the next one went on a nice, albeit snow covered, but level path which once upon a time had the narrow gauge railway running on it transporting stone from the quarry to the railway yard. The third and last little spring was in a very sorry state, but I am assured by my contact at the Geopark that there are plans to restore it soon.  I hope so, as there was absolutely no sign of the housing or the pipe that directs the water out of the hill, and the only signs of it were the small indentation in the hillside and a trickle seeping through the grass.

The castle through the trees

The view, however, was very pretty. The previous spring was in a deep valley, while this one was on a hillside with gorgeous views towards some lovely mountains and the village I left the car in. This spring was named after a later poet, Sándor Petőfi, whose life story needed no research as he is reputedly the most famous poet that one learns about in school and remembers on every anniversary of the 1848 revolution and independence war, due to his involvement and patriotic poetry. The connection with him comes from his hiking tour in the area back in the 1840's when he was most impressed and wrote about his trip extensively in his journals.

The basalt outcrop under the castle

The following days were spent with researching and writing the cache pages for these three springs and having a hell of a lot of hassle doing so.  Correction: writing the stuff was very much enjoyable and I loved doing it.  The hassle came from the moderators (who else?) who didn't like them. I won't bore you with the correspondence I had with them, but the final upshot was that having told me that I can't have these springs in the series, because they are not in the Cserhát (they were about 2 miles outside!) and then when trying to submit them as stand-alones, telling me that they didn't look pretty enough, I lost my temper and threw my toys out of the pram, which eventualy got them to see sense. They agreed to the first one going through on its own and the other two together as a multi-cache.

In the meantime I had a brilliant idea all of a sudden, once these caches were out of the way, of organising a geocaching hike in the summer to celebrate my 70th birthday. The plan is to have this hike not too far from Bér, invite all our friends and the geocaching community to it and build a weekend party round the hike, but that for only selected, close friends. I first wrote an FB event page and invited all those of my friends who are also FB friends. They numbered exactly 60, a good few of which have already confirmed that they are coming.

The main tower of a snowücovered castle

Then the next step was to write an event page on the geocaching website too, advertising it as a hike with a good few caches along and inviting them as well. I had the idea of where the hike should be from one that happened while I was ill with the flu and therefore couldn't take part in. That was a massive 20km hike, I just copied the first half, so ours is 10km, but goes to most of the caches en route. The highest pont is at a privately built lookout-tower, which looks magnificent and I assume the guy who had it built is a multi-billionaire. As it is on top of a mountain to which you need to climb 1200 feet from the nearest road suitable for trucks, he must have had all the building materials delivered by helicopter. Apparently he keeps the tower open all the time, (not necessarily typical nowadays in Hungary), so that people can use it as a refuge and I am planning to have that place as the lunch spot.

The second spring's outlet

Another bit of geocaching related happening came in the form of an e-mail from my new-found friends Zergi and ésKata. These are their geocaching names, otherwise they are called Gábor and Katalin. These were one of the couples I waited for when I found the Mill cache last week and they were very grateful. We chatted and became friends very quickly.  Still, I didn't think that they would later offer me to put out another moving cache with them, the one about the famous people, which I was really hoping to catch one day. They let me choose where it goes and in about a couple of hours I am going with them to place it opposite the birth place of Jenő Rejtő, which is only just round the corner from the flat.

Jenő Rejtő was a very funny thriller writer whose books are still very popular, even though he's been dead for over 70 years. He died on the Russian front as a forced labourer in the Second World War, which was a shame, but his funny gags, his hilarious characters and witty stories will live forever I think.

Shaun Evans

I also started watching Endeavour, as I have just noticed that it was on.  I really like these stories and am absolutely convinced that even though the original writer is long gone, so is the star playing Morse, if they were alive both would approve.  The music, the stories, the acting, the general feel and atmosphere of the times, is absolutely spot on, making the young Morse totally credible.  Well at least to me.

En route to the third spring on the old railway line

And then on Wednesday (yesterday) we came into town on the bus, having filled all the bird-feeders to the brim, covered up all my books and computer with a tarpaulin, turned the water off, set the heating for 12 degrees Celsius and locked the car up in the garage. We are not likely to be back for 3, possibly 4 weeks, so we hope we secured the house accordingly.  I even phoned the post lady to give instructions what to do with my post, so hopefully we will not be coming home to any disasters.

The ghost of the Great Plumbing Disaster of 2012 still hangs over me gravely. I spent weeks drying out my books due to broken pipes and this time there is another Siberian cold spell forecast. Apparently it will be 16/17 degrees Celsius below the very day we are off to Hassocks next week. Why does such weather always come when we are not home? I suppose, because we have the bad habit of travelling in February.  Brrrr!!

The view from the third spring

Last night I had another concert in the Palace of the Arts, this time with Arcadi Volodos, whom I have never even heard of, never mind heard in the person. I can't understand how I missed this guy, as he was brilliant. The program consisted of Schuman, Brahms and Schubert and he was every bit as good as his PR led you on to expect.

Arcadi Volodos

Currently we are dealing with a few things in BP, like visiting my hairdresser, picking up an ordered book from the bookshop, buying the next three months supply of my medicines and Roy's at the chemist, renewing my bath card, and other such delights. And, of course, the putting out of this cache with friends just round the corner. We have corresponded in the last few days over what to put on the website about Jenő Rejtő after we placed the cache and while it ended up a bit long, I think our communal effort is pretty good. The write-up included some biographical detail, followed by some extracts from one of his books. Very funny, indeed!!

The rest of the week includes two more outings into the world of classical music: first another concert in the Palace of the Arts and an opera performance of Offenbach's 1864 opera about fairies, war and other matters on the Rhine.  Never heard of this one and it has apparently been forgotten for 140 years before they have rediscovered it in the year 2000 and I'm going to its premiere on Saturday.

A parting shot of the castle

Will hopefully post before we disappear to Hassocks next week, but if I don't manage it, I'll talk to you from there. Taraaaa!

Earache and geocaching

Or possibly geocaching and earache in that order. This latter can be used in both senses: figuratively and practically. You may recall that I was in the post-viral fatigue stage with my flu last week, but it then developed into throat and earache. It kept coming and going, so I decided not to cancel my geocaching day yet again and then it developed into a serious bout of real earache. The only remedy I could think was to wear a light but soft and warm hat all the time and that helped. I looked very funny with a purple hat in bed, but the heat is always beneficial for earache, so I'm still wearing it.

My friend Gyuri en route to the troublesome cache

The figurative earache came in yesterday, or to be precise, this morning, when I discovered that a cacher who annoyed the hell out of me while looking for our last cache yesterday and whom I admonished very politely on the net, took exception to this with spurious arguments, untruths and accusing me of accusing him of various things that only exist in his furtive imagination. What is it with these touchy, oversensitive males in geocaching, that they can't take a small amount of very justified and politely put criticism without throwing their toys out of the pram? Ahhhhh!!

Winter wonderland in the Pilis Mountains

Rant over, let's examine what we've been up to since posting last! We spent another 3 days in Bér before returning to BP. My main achievements for those days consisted of:
1. Starting the process of sorting out Roy's operation.
2. Writing the cache page for the first of my 11 spring/well series of caches and having it pass.
3. Writing the POI page for the Tihany geocaching hike in May.

Virgin Mary shrine by my first spring

The first included trying to pin down the urologist whose mobile phone number was finally given to me. It looks as if we should be able to have it fixed for March, to take place soon after we have returned from Hassocks.

The Manor House at Virágospuszta

The writing of the cache page was quite exciting. I have never done one of these without visiting the actual place just before I wrote the page, but this was the case this time. The weather turned horrendous and I still didn't feel like stirring outdoors, so I used my own photos from some time ago and my local knowledge - augmented by some internet searches - to put it together.  It went through pretty easily, although some of the awkward squad from among the moderators was picking holes all the same. I think it is nothing personal, it's just their bad habit.

The hiking/geocaching route in May on the Tihany Penninsula

Writing the POI page was fun. I finally had the co-operation of all but one of the people whose multis were the wrong way round, although due to the one that stayed totally intransigent, we had to make the walk clockwise, instead of the original plan of anti-clockwise. I have already had two takers immediately it went live, so hopefully this should be a success again. I couldn't check this morning the state of affairs on the POI page, as the geocaching website is down again.  Oh, it is about time to move over to the new server, as this is ridiculously frustrating, especially that the early morning hours are the ones when I am at my best and most websites usually the fastest, as everybody is still in bed.

The derelict mill where I got the moving mill cache

Then we came into town on the Sunday. En route we picked up a moving cache that has been in an outer suburb of BP since Saturday morning and nobody took it. I was very lucky. I found it in its little hide and about 5 minutes later several other cachers turned up to take it as well.  As I was there first, I could take it on, but I waited for both sets of people to log in the book and we had a lovely impromptu cachers' meeting as well.

Zergi and ésKata whom I met there

I also had a concert in the Palace of the Arts, which turned out to be an absolute delight. It was the last one in a series of concerts, called "Discoveries". The orchestra was the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra and the two soloists were two very young, but superbly talented guys. Remember the names of Krisztián Kocsis and Ádám Balogh, because your will hear of them later. Both aged 20, they showed such verve, technical brilliance and insight, that you could not believe their age.  Except, of course, that they both looked about 15, very thin and shy. The program was totally Mozart, which made me even happier.

Adam Balogh

On Monday I kept ringing Dr. Bécsi but he didn't pick up. Finally he did and we agreed that he would ask around and if I rang him the following day, he would have the details for me about who to ring to get the ball rolling.

Krisztian Kocsis

At 10am I went and saw Zsófi, my homeopath and we had a delightful 45 minutes, going  through my diet etc. I am now taking double the usual dose of my probiotics for two weeks, have to eat more animal fat and protein and less fruit for a while, take some interesting teas and 400mg of magnesium/day for a month. She could see that I was pretty tired, but after the weeks of illness that was only to be expected.

Stages of the cross in Dorog

After this both Roy and I went to the Electricity Board offices to make a complaint. Long and boring story you don't want to know. I personally felt that the service in that office is still as efficient and courteous as it was about 8 or 10 years ago when we were there last. Hopefully, the problem will be sorted, if not, I'll pay up what I owe (or so they say I owe) and cancel the contract.

Gyuri with the hiking stamp book

After this we took the car out to Szentendre to place the mill moving cache we picked up the day before. I found a really good place outside an art gallery, that once upon a time used to be a sawmill.

Panoramic photo of the monastery ruins

Tuesday was the day Gyuri and I went geocaching in and around the Pilis mountains. That was the plan and as I didn't want to cancel for the second time we got going. Gyuri came up from Békéscsaba and we braved the elements. We spent most of the day in a whiteout, it was snowing heavily, but at least the woods and hills looked magical under the carpet of snow. Good job I can switch my car to 4-wheel drive. For the first time I had it, that feature was most appreciated.  The tally of caches for the day was 8 and we both came home rather exhausted.

Snow laden branches

I also managed to get hold of Dr. Bécsi again and he gave me the name and telephone number of the lady who is in charge of arranging for surgeons to do operations.  I haven't yet called, as I wanted to talk it over with Roy first, but hopefully that should be done by tomorrow.

My beautiful bouquet on Valentine's Day

Today we left BP by 8.30am and did some shopping en route. We are now in the village for a week and I hope to recce another couple of springs one day this week. Hopefully we will also succeed in lighting the fire. Today we were singularly unsuccessful, but if it is windy tomorrow, we'll be laughing. Update: the fire is lit, I got some lovely flowers for Valentine's Day and I am off to recce 2 or 3 springs in about an hour.

Post-viral week

We have finally come back down to the village yesterday, after a reasonably eventful few days, after the inactivity of a fortnight while trying to get better.

A bit of the Medieval wall

After I last posted we were pretty much indoors for about 5 days without leaving the flat. I think I popped out for a short while to do some shopping again, but otherwise it was resting time to completely recover.

A little park and the big church

The first time we moved outdoors together was on Saturday. We went to do a little geocaching in town, en route to visiting an internet family history friend of Roy's. We only picked up two caches, but they were quite interesting, especially the first one. It was a 3-parter along the line of Pest's medieval town wall, remnants of which still survive in patches.

Another, this time much more complete, part of the wall

The other one was near the river, in a lovely park designated to the achievements of Hungary in the Olympic Games. We even met a young couple just logging at the cache when we got there, so it wasn't particularly difficult to find it.

The Olympic rings

Just as we left the park the skies have opened, so we darted into a cafe, which while rather touristy and very expensive, was still a nice place. Roy had a large hot chocolate and I had some herbal tea. It saved us from getting soaked, as by the time we left, the rain had stopped.

Finally we arrived at Roy's new friend's place which was right by the river. Our host's name was Agnes and she was delightful. She is a retired dentist from Sweden, who was born in Hungary, but left when reasonably young. Since inheriting her parents' flat in Budapest, she spent summers and after retirement 4 or 5 times a year a few weeks in the country.  We had lovely food and drink and above all, excellent conversation. We discussed family history mainly, and had a lovely time.

The Elysee Cafe

On Sunday I had 4 tickets for the Bernstein Marathon in the Palace of the Arts and had two different companions. The first two concerts I was accompanied by my friend Vera, and both the Music Academy students and then the Budapest Strings were excellent.

View from Agnes's balcony

In the afternoon my companion was Ian and the performances equally fantastic. We had Bernstein's Jeremiah Symphony first and then Three Meditations from MASS, which was totally new to me and fascinating to boot. The last concert was given by Amadinda, a percussion group of 4 fantastic guys. We sat behind them, just below the organ and had an interesting view of all the activities below us. All in all the day was fantastic, although I was pretty much done in by the end.

Otto and Roy in the cafe

In the meantime we had a bit of luck at home with the builders, who were doing some heavy renovations next door.  When they appeared in the little inside courtyard behind my kitchen I struck up a conversation with them and ended up having the back wall fixed, replastered and insulated.  We did have some serious ingress of water from that direction and I was so pleased to discover these guys. It cost £300, took them 2 and half days and hopefully the musty smell will finally disappear after drying out completely.

Before...

During the inactivity in the earlier part of the week, I started binge watching The Crown on Netflix. Fascinating, well written, well acted and directed, I enjoyed it a lot.  Whether the historical accuracy was as good as they wanted you to think, is questionable, but for entertainment I felt it was more than adquate. I am looking for other series to binge watch, now that we have Netflix, courtesy of Alex and Meaghan.

...and after

You may recall that I was rather concerned whether we would get back to the village in time for the delivery of my books.  Well, we didn't, but I sorted it by ringing my good friend Anna, who kindly took them in, paid the bill and when we arrived yesterday, we picked them up from her. I haven't had time yet to start reading them, but at least that is something to look forward to.

I made several purchases online this last week. First of all I bought our plane tickets for August, which are no longer as cheap as they used to be, but were still a reasonable buy. As Sheila's birthday was approaching, I also managed to buy her some fancy chocolates and a few book tokens for her 85th birthday. Unfortunately, the holiday dates for us this summer will prevent us seeing Peter and Lois, but hopefully we might see them in London later on in the autumn.

On Monday we met yet another online family history friend of Roy's, this time in a cafe opposite the Synagogue. His name is Otto and he was really lovely too. Fast talking, enthusiastic, very bright and friendly. He treated us to several cups of hot chocolate, tea and croissants and we parted good friends. He visits quite often, so we hope to see him again.

A bush going for a ride

Finally on Tuesday we went to see the urologist, who this time was very adamant that Roy will not be able to avoid having a prostate operation. He has been a bit glum since, but it's better sooner than later, as neglected prostate problems can become acute and dangerous. I am now looking in my diary for a likely date, so it will not interfere with our travels and other programs.

Another view from Agnes's balcony

We are not in the village long, as I have a concert on Sunday and a homeopath's appointment on Monday. There is also a day's geocaching on the cards for Tuesday, unless the weather is dreadful. We should be back in the village after that and I will post again then.