Starving, hiking, caching and hospital

Well, the gastroscopy and colonoscopy on Monday was not the favourite day in my life, but I tell you about that a bit later. On Friday I had my pre-procedure blood test and an ECG which were all normal. Afterwards we went to the Panasonic service base to have the camera I dropped repaired. They said it should be anything between 1 and 2 weeks and about £60. I suppose that's not bad, assuming, of course, it will not have to have a new lens.  In that case I think I buy a new one.

The Chateau at Nagykovácsi

On Saturday, by which time I started to lose my strength to do anything energetic due to the starvation diet for Monday, I went to a hike which we attend once a year in memory of the sister of my friend Andor, who died on that day 15 years ago. Thankfully, the average age of the group is now so high that nobody could do more than about 5 miles, so even though that there were two mountains en route, (one small and one bigger) I managed OK. On top of the first mountain there was a cache, which Andor found and we all logged. The views from there were gorgeous too.

The view from the top of the first mountain where the cache was

I also went geocaching on my own before the hike in Nagykovácsi. As the hike only started at 10 o'clock I left home at 8am, arrived at Nagykovácsi just before 9am, found the c ache in the park of the chateau and even managed to catch the bus to arrive at the hike's meeting point by quarter to ten. 

Andor and Gábor, his grandson

Unfortunately, once we went back to our friends for lunch, I started getting quite rattled.  I suppose I must have started feeling very tired, but also the awful Hungarian habit of insensitive questions about your health and the non-acceptance of a NO when offered food and drink, made me rather tetchy. Still, I had a lift home from a couple of people, which was convenient. Unfortunately they were not particularly gracious and chucked us out some way from our flats. Luckily I was quite close to my trolleybus line, so I caught one and was home in good time.

The Trap Cafe, where we went on Sunday

Sunday was spent at home, because that day I was not allowed any food, only water or clear soup.  As we didn't have any of the latter I was on water only. We did spend a short amount of time around midday when Roy and I went to one of his favourite bars for a beer for him and a bottle of still water for me. He likes to sit by the open French doors, looking out to the shops on the opposite side of the road and watching the passers by. It was very hot that day, so it was nice to be just inside, out of the sun.

Our hiking group

Then at 6pm I had to take the first dose of laxatives that are compulsory before one of these procedures. Confusing advise leaflets and terse or non-existent instructions from doctors, coupled with contradictory ones when asking different people, didn't make my rattled nerves any better. Needless to say I didn't sleep very well and spent the time after 3am on Monday in accute discomfort. I had these things before, but I have not remembered anything this uncomfortable. We both started getting dissatisfied with this clinic, which served us well in the past, but seemed to have gone downhill in the past year.

Around the trig point

One of my objections was that in the last few days they have changed the time of the appointment twice, once by half and hour and then on the morning of it by one and half hour. I didn't make a fuss  because I was trapped by the virtue of the last 5 days and you had to be grateful they didn't cancel altogether. Even though, I was fuming that something that you pay about £450 for, is this disorganised.

Our foreign visitors

Once we were there I was really happy that we arrived almost an hour early as they produced the usual myriad of forms to fill in, which is a daft idea just before the procedure when you are nervous and can't concentrate. Then an interview with the anaesthetist was hurried and totally inadequate compared with the one Roy had at the other clinic last month. I was getting more and more pissed off.

Climbing up to the first mountain

And then came the real frustrating punchline: I was told that I should have stopped taking my blood thinners a week ago and why didn't I? Cos nobody told me to - was the answer. Now that was serious negligence, especially that they had the chance to do it on several occasions. First the gastroenterologist last Monday during my appointment, second the lady who rung up on Friday to put the start of my procedure on by half an hour and whom I did ask what the situation with my medication, as I wasn't told which ones I can carry on taking and which ones I have to stop and when. She answered 'no problem, keep on taking them!' And then on Monday when somebody else called to put the start on by a further hour and a half.

The senior contingent who went round, not up and down the mountain

Finally they did it, but were unable to remove a polip, which would have been dangerous by causing serious internal bleeding. This adds a potential £250 expense, as I will have to go back to have it removed at a later date. There was no mention of this at the debrief, which was hurried anyway, as I was the last patient there before they all went home. So, we are not going back there ever again, that is for sure, exept for the three-month check-up with Roy's urologist who is a lovely guy and who had done right by him, so we might as well. This whole thing cost £495, so I think the quality of the service was probably worse than in a poor, badly equipped state hospital. We are definitely switching to the one where Roy had his operation and hope that is a somewhat more adequate outfit. Judging by Roy's experience, that is very likely.

Duna Medical, where Roy had his op back in 2014, 2 years before they opened

And just a postscript to the above: when I started eating solid food this morning I felt a strong pain in my throat. A strange pain I have never felt before, not like a common all garden sore throat. It then dawned on me that they must have managed to damage my throat and palate with the endoscope, which has never happened to me before, even though I had gastroscopies in the last 20 years, both in the UK and here.

End of moan! Today we are resting, but will have to go to the pharmacy for a medicine I was prescribed and buy some vegetables for a bowl of cream of vegetable soup, which I love and which, hopefully, will not hurt my throat too much. Next post next week, I hope, after we went home tomorrow and started mowing the grass (probably knee high by now) and do other countrified chores.

Election results, some gardening, the next two springs and some geocaching (finally)

Sunday, 8th April will go down in infamy as the beginning of the end, or more like the end of the beginning, of burying bourgeois democracy in post-Stalinist Hungary. This article on the IDOM website tells you the what, where, how and why of the recent parliamentary elections in Hungary, probaby better than I could put it for you.
Hungarian Elections 2018

My herb garden

The weather suddenly got like spring and the sunshine improved not only the look of the garden, but also the mood of the people. I have done some gardening, consisting of planting ten new roses to replace those that died over the last two winters, plus some weeding and tidying in the herb garden.

The Pitnye spring in Csesztve

Then on Thursday I thought that the weather was good enough to go and place two more caches in the spring series and off we went to Balassagyarmat. The first cache was placed by a nice spring at the far end of a village up a valley. Apparently many people (mostly poor gypsies) who can't afford piped water use it for their water supply. One woman I got chatting to has assured me that it is very good water which is comletely safe to drink. I still didn't try it, as with my recent troubles in the digestion department I wasn't going to risk it.

A picturesque lake en route to the second spring

The other one was in a really pretty place, although it had a bit too much religion for my liking.  This, of course, doesn't mean that for the very same reason many people might not like it indeed. Roy bravely drove on the dirt road until the road became a path, so I had to walk in. It was no distance, about 300 yards, so no probs. This place was discovered by a monk and it really had lots of springs, not just one. Finding a hide in a fallen treetrunk was taking a long time, but finally I did find one suitable.

Weird bark on a lovely old tree by the lake

We were hoping to find a pub or restaurant en route home to have lunch, but this being the poorer end of Nógrád County, we didn't. The rest of that day and the next one was spent writing the two cache pages prior to submitting them for moderation. I decided that I would leave submitting them until the following week, as I was going to be very busy over the weekend and would have no time to play "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" with the moderators.

Along the stream towards a footbridge on Saturday

On Friday we came into town and I picked up the little box from my neighbour, which was left for me from a geocaching friend. Zoli is a lovely man and he sent me mostly caching paraphanalia, plus 2 little books of his poems he had published over the years. I love it, he is quite a good poet and the poems are quite insightful and true.

My friend Gyuri

Saturday was the day of the geocaching club's AGM and Gyuri came up to attend it with me and then we went caching together in and around BP.  Unfortunately, Judith, our would be companion managed to fall off a chair and hurt herself, so she cancelled.

The romantic church ruin

The AGM was a strange affair, initially it all went very nicely and I managed to meet some more cachers whom I have not seen in the flesh before, but the most obvious member attending was the elephant in the room that nobody seemed to want to talk about.  The leadership recently and under pressure backed down from a decision, which I personally thought was a good one, and so did many others.The problem was that the 5 who resigned in protest and then threatened to leave altogether, are very long-standing members who have much sway by just having been around for so long. Unfortunately, the origin of the problem was the fact that they have been around for that long and the system of elections favoured them as against any new members who might have wanted to seek election. But there was no discussion on this, as the President and the members of the Executive have not tabled any agenda items on it. Also, the members present were (to quote a Hungarian proverb) "lying flat in the long grass like rabbits".

Blossom

A beautiful old chateau, now a children's home

After the AGM the caching with Gyuri was fun. We only had time for 5 of them, but that was just enough to make it a lovely afternoon.  The first one was a three-parter, along a stream and bicycle route, the following ones were thankfully singletons, one on a wooded island in the Danube, a ruined church, the top of a small mountain (or big hill) and a lovely town forest in the Northern part of the city. Gyuri is always good company and the weather was reasonably dry and sunny.

In order to make up for a hiatus of at least 6 or 7 weeks in caching, I agreed to go geocaching again on the Sunday with a new friend who kindly offered to come with me. His name is Árpád and we went South East. Unfortunately, this part of the country is not too full of pretty places or views and we also had the misfortune of finding quite a few caches that were very old, not maintained and in one case nothing to see, because the lake that it was supposed to show got fenced off and a high embankment hid the entire lake from view.

Fishermen by the lake on Sunday

Still, we did find a few places which were pleasant and my favourite was an artifically created fishing lake where whoever built it had the brains to leave much of the original countryside intact. Many weeping willows had their branches  reach the water, giving very pretty views.

An old medieval bridge in the middle of nowhere

On Monday I went to see my doctor and I have got to go back next Monday for some investigations. I have had these before, but this time it is costing quite a lot of money.  Still, the conditions of some of the state hospitals (not only material but human too) gives you the incentive to find the money for private medicine. After the appointment I went caching in BP on my own and while it was a bit drizzly to start with, but it cheered up later. Two fairly new caches were my targets: one just above a railway tunnel, so you can stand there and watch the trains disappear under your feet, the other by the stages of the cross in Óbuda, which were quite pretty.

The Calvinist Church in Pesterzsébet

On Tuesday the weather was still nice and Roy showed some willingness to come with me caching, so we went to the Southern part of the city for a lovely walk along the river. There were two multies along there and it was very nice indeed. The third multi was in the CBD of that part of town, where along a lovely long traffic-free avenue we walked to see statues, a cleverly hidden cache in a postbox and an imposing Calvinist church at the end.  Poor Roy suddenly felt very tired, so I finished the last 2 locations on my own and then we came home on the bus. I think I walked about 5 miles, while Roy did 4 and half. Not bad for an old man in his seventies and less than 4 weeks after an operation.

The Danube

While all this was going on my last two spring caches, whose pages I have written last week, finally were submitted on the Monday. Amazingly most of the moderators were terse and just clicked OK. However, just to make sure that nothing ever goes without some hassle in this world, a woman, who has just joined the moderating body as a replacement for someone who has resigned at the AGM, produced a performance any new broom would be really proud of. She was making so many comments and requesting so many amendments that slowly, but surely, her submissions got longer  then my entire web page. Still, both went through with votes of 11 for and 1 against, so now I have only 6 left to find and do.

The Water Tower on Margaret Island

Wednesday was a slightly tiring, but brilliant day. It started with me hopping on a train to visit one of my caches that needed mending. The train journey took about 40 minutes and the cache was so close to the railway station that having done the improvements to the cache, I managed to catch the next train back to town. I then had about an hour of rest at home, before Roy and I went to one of our favourite nearby restaurants to meet a friend from Austria. She's a lovely girl, called Felicia, and I know her through my interest in politics.

Felicia by a 200+ year old tree

After lunch Roy went home (he doesn't like politics) and us girls went on a walkabout. She wanted to see Margaret Island and as there is a cache on there which is fairly new and I haven't yet got, I happily went along. To be honest, I can't remember now how long it is sice I visited the island in the spring.  We usually take our visitors there in the summer.  It was glorious. The 200 year old trees, the tulips, the lilac, the pansies, the blossom on some of the ornamental fruit trees and the silence which, of course, will not be there in the summer. The cache was very easy to find, now I only have two left on the island to look for sometime later.

My first selfie with the front facing camera in the pub with Roy and Feli

After the island we hopped on a tram and a trolleybus and went for a drink in a ruin pub. Roy joined us there and Felicia really enjoyed the atmosphere.  She said that she might come and study in Budapest and if that happens she would like to live in downtown VIIth district, where the ruin pubs are.

Tulips on Margaret Island

This gets us to today. My pre-procedure diet is in full swing: currently I can't have any seeds or nuts or muesli or anything that is difficult to digest. Quite to my surprise they listed mushrooms as difficult to digest. Why? Who knows?! In the last 24 hours I'll be on water, tea and perhaps clear soup. The last 4 hours - nothing. Oh what fun!!

Geocache placements, a concert and an opera

Last weekend the weather really cheered up and I was dying to get out. So, finally on Easter Monday we jumped into the car and went out. Needless to say that the outing had something to do with geocaching.  As I had started a series of caches consisting of 11 springs and so far had only done one (mostly because the dreadful late winter weather, then illness, then Roy's operation), it was about time to get out and do some more.

Hikers' road signs near the first spring

I picked two in the Cserhát hills on either side of a disused quarry which basically had eaten up half a mountain.  I drove, as Roy was still not really up to it, he stayed in the car and I went to place the box, take the GPS co-ordinates, do the paperwork in both places.

Where the water comes out of the first spring

The first one was near the end of an old disused road that went to the now closed quarry. We parked in a nice sunny clearing, Roy had a nice snooze and I found the spring. It is not one of the prettier ones, but the forest was nice and so were the views. Its name referred to tanks and there was a tank carved into the old spring housing, so it might have had something to do with the military in the past.

The old housing with the tank is and where the spring had dried up

Afterwards I drove around the mountain and parked up North of it in a village, where Roy had another snooze. There the walk was longer than at the first one, so I had to climb up about a mile and another back. That spring was quite interesting: it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and apparently it has pilgrims at times.

The view from the car park

En route home we were looking out for an inn where we could have had lunch, but nothing appealed and we had lunch at home.  We were both very tired at the end and had an early night. The following day I downloaded the photos, wrote the cache pages and submitted the cache plans for moderation.  Needless to say that one moderator started whingeing about the first one being ugly, then another said they were too close to each other and I should combine them into one etc., etc.  I was all sweetness and light when responding to all this, as I have learnt by now how to handle all this fussing.

The Virgin Mary shrine at the second spring

There are 12 moderators, only 10 offered comments and voted one way or another on my two submissions.  Eventally the Virgin Mary one went through with 10 yes and the tatty one with 8 yes and 2 no votes. I can't publish them yet, because these series usually appear all at the same time, so I have another 8 to do before I can publish all of them at once. I promised the moderators that I will finish them by the end of June, so let's hope nothing too drastic happens to us in the meantime.

An old wooden cross  at the shrine

On Wednesday we came into town as I had a concert in the Music Academy where Vadym Kholodenko delighted us with Chopin and Prokofiev. It was brilliant and while I was a bit tired, I loved every minute of it. Kholodenko has been unknown to me until now, but I am sure I'll see him again sometime.  He is Ukranian, not Russian, but he is as good as most of the also brilliant Russian pianists.

The spring in action

On Thursday  I went to see my doctor at the usual private clinic and she thinks I need some more investigations, so that looms over me at the moment. I forgot to take my diary, so I will have to go back sometime to fix some appointments in a couple of weeks' time.

Vadym Kholodenko

On Thursday I attended the AGM of the house committee of flat owners, which went off without too much hassle. Unfortunately the legal framework for getting maintenance money out of flat owners who don't pay is still a complete chambles, so we have lots owning us money and therefore some of the repairs or developments will have to wait until next year. Still, a part of the roof will be renewed and a metal grill in front of the main front door should be fitted sometime this year too.  The charge per square meter of flat floor has not gone up this year, which was good news. The only slightly bad news for us was that we will have to have a new water meter, as they are only calibrated for 8 years and ours is up.

The view en route back to the car from the Virgin Mary spring

Yesterday we went out to do some market shopping, which then got us very tired as we bought too much fruit and veg, which weighs a lot.  We should have taken the trolly, but we made it home finally. We also went out for lunch to one of our favourite little restaurants, which was nice.  The weather is still nice, so perhaps spring has finally definitely arrived.

The Magic Flute

Tonight I am going to the opera, Mozart's Magic Flute is on, which is one of my alltime favourites, so I should be happy. The Erkel Theatre where all the performances are this year, due to the Opera House being renovated, is walking distance from the flat, so I have to leave by 6.30pm and should be back just after 10pm. We are off to the village first thing tomorrow morning, as I want to vote in the parliamentary elections, which are a real crucial one this time round. I have not made any mention of politics in this blog for ages now, but you might get a report next time.