emiGrants: New doctor and some more geocaching

Last Wednesday I went to see the dermatologist, and while she seemed nice, I had a feeling that she could have been more thorough and informative. That clinic has never failed us yet, and neither did she, but not on the level of enthusiasm and thoroughness as I had from other doctors there before. The upshot was that she wants to take one of my spots off my back (nothing to do with the purpose of my visit) and thankfully she confirmed that no sign of the condition we were worried about could be seen on my skin. However, I want to be sure, even if I was totally satisfied with her diagnosis, so she promised to arrange for a quote to be sent about a genetic test, which is the only sure way of getting to the bottom of this condition. No quote arrived yet, I wonder if I should forget about her and do my own research into genetic laboratories? We'll see!

Blue Bloods cast

During last week I have finally caught up with my backlog of television, which is great as originally I thought I am so busy that it'll take several more weeks. The main event, however, was my trip to Pécs for the big geocaching hike that my friend Feri and I were organising. Towards the very end we had a slight falling out, which was my fault as much as it was his. The hike included a very dangerous cache, which was half way down a massive rock face. Feri organised someone to come and bring his rope and associated equipment to secure our descent to the cache. He was not very communicative about the details and when I quizzed him on it got a bit shirty. Needless to say I got all worked up too and he lost his rag and slammed the phone down. Male ego is an evil beast, and he has plenty of it. Still, I shouldn't have said that should anyone fall off the rock, that would be on his conscience forever.

Pecs comm and TV tower

I apologised if I upset him and left it at that. He never responded, so I went South with great trepidation on what he is going to be like. I should not have worried, he was as sweet as pie, as if nothing had happened. Phewwww!!! The hike itself was an enormous success. Over 60 cachers turned up, we had fantastic weather (even though it rained both the day before and the day after) and everybody gathered lots of new caches for themselves.

Group photo before start of hike

I went down by train on the Friday with my friend Mariann and her friend Gabi. We dumped our gear at the hotel first and then went caching by bus and on foot. We managed to get 5 caches that afternoon, including one that was the last cache on the hike, but this way we saved ourselves at least a kilometre at a stage in the hike when we knew we would be knackered.

The lookout tower

On the day we had 13 caches, plus a couple of mobile caches that others have brought, and I have found all of them. There was a wide variety of locations, all of them up steep, rocky and forested hills. We had to visit about 20 locations as three of the caches were multis. We saw some glorious views, incredibly high rock pillars, medieval monastery ruins, lookout towers, springs, a sylvan exercise course and a few others besides.

Muggins on the rock face with the cache

I managed to chat to many people, new ones among them, which was nice. Obviously, the highlight of the day was the rock climb, ably assisted by Zergi and his girlfriend ésKata. I think I was the oldest overall, but definitely the oldest woman that did the climb and got applause at the end. It was amazing, how rock climbing and scrambling skills will never die. It is at least 30 years since I was on rock, but as I started climbing down all the moves came to me automatically and easily. Zergi was quite impressed and I was really ecstatic.


Looking for the cache on top of a rock pillar

On Sunday my friend Gyuri went to get three easy caches before going home and took me with him in his car. That was fun. The first one was in a village that is famous for its Gypsy Mayor. He proved that even in a community which is primarily Gypsy and with unemployment very high among them, you can provide opportunities for everyone to give the best of themselves and ultimately gain the self-respect that would lead you out of poverty and give you a future.

The old monastery church

He established local democracy, everybody in the village has a say in what they do and how they do it. The atmosphere of the place was peaceful, tidy, clean and happy. If only others would take a leaf out of his book, there could be many more harmonious communities in villages up and down the land! The next cache was by a lovely old church and the last one behind a pretty stages of the cross up a hillside. We got all of them quite easily, took some nice photos and after that Gyuri took me to the station to catch my train home.

Lewis in pensive mood

On Monday I was having a rest, as the list of my parts that didn't hurt was a lot shorter than those that did. Also, I had to do the usual paperwork to do with the caches and finally watch the US Grand Prix which was quite crucial for Hamilton, if he wanted to secure his world championship for 2018. The race was pretty interesting, especially towards the end, when the first three were only seconds from each other in the last 10 or so laps, which is not normally the case. Unfortunately Lewis could not overtake Raikonnen and Verstappen, so he ended up third. This still gave him 2 more points than Vettel, his main rival in the championship, who ended up just behind him, so the final reckoning was postponed, probably to next week in Mexico.

View from our highest point towards BP

And today I went on another hike, this time only about 7 or 8km and 4 caches, with my friend Zsuzsi and Jutka. We have not hiked together for nearly a year, but today the weather was good, and both of them felt like getting out into the countryside. The first cache was by a lovely old spring, the second was Part 1 of a multi, but we couldn't find it, the third one was near a non-existent swamp and finally the last one on the hill was at the top with glorious views. After we got back to the car, we drove to a stages of the cross in Szentendre.