Nursing the knee, reading, Callum is 10, the CRUISE and the Bocanova

Apologies for the hiatus, but life is a bit hectic again and with my gammy knee, I am not necessarily a happy bunny either. I have still not been to a doctor with my knee and it looks that I will not go now either. It is getting better, I have been icing it, then treating it with a cream and massaging it. I feel it is getting better, but will be a long time until it is back to normal, if it ever will be back to normal. No swelling, no bruises, it really looks the same as the other one, and yet, it still hurts. Not much, and a lot of what I feel is more like stiffness than a pain, as such, but I will go for a knee brace now, if I can get one.  That is a big IF. Nothing is user friendly around here, when it comes to accidents. Either 2 mile queues, or no A&E or no doctor all week etc.,etc. I am heartily sick of it. The only consolation still is, that I have to rest it and during that time I am reading Alan's Bolshevism book.

First edition of a masterpiece

Since I posted we spent a week in Bér, before that the boys didn't ring, so I left it, now it looks like only one of them is free today, but I would put money on it that either he will cancel at the last minute, or not turn up. I presume you can feel the frustration, that has been a major feature of my life lately. Down in Bér I was mostly resting the leg. We had one evening when we went to have supper with Rosa and Barnabas, which was lovely. Currently they are on the Adriatic island of Krk on a well deserved holiday.

The big boy with his favourite present

There have been lots of hassle in geocaching circles.  Because of the heat, the pain and frustration of the knee etc., etc., I have been more affected by the awkward squad on the moderating body than average. There are no written rules, but as they think that their opinion is the rule, one gets into hot water voting differently from them. Arrrrrrrr!!!

Our ship

And after all this frustration, here come several good news:
1. Callum is now 10 years old. He had his birthday on 14th and I watched him through Messenger opening his present. He looked pleased.
2. Peter, our lovely friend from London, whose ancestors were Hungarians, recommended us a lovely lady at a cruising club, to see if she could come up with a cruise for next August. She was lovely, took our particulars and requirements, and promised to come back to us when she found anything suitable. In the meantime she started sending us the club newsletters and this fact leads us to the exceptionally unexpected, but lovely news. WE BOOKED OURSELVES A FORTNIGHT'S CRUISE TO THE CANARY ISLAND IN JANUARY 2020. It was such a steal (£850 per person for 14 nights) that we could pass it up. Its purpose is two fold, to celebrate our golden anniversary just between us and also to suss out this cruising lark to see if we like it.

A rare selfie in the Bocanova

After this, of course I had to throw myself into other travelling requirements, like flights, insurance etc, upshot of which is that now we have the flights. We'll go on 16th January, the cruise is between 19th January to the 2nd of February and then come home on 5th of February. Let us hope that we will be OK then, including my knee!! We are still going to Szekszárd, as planned, although I am not quite sure how much of the geocaching my knee will tolerate. It'll be hit and miss, I suppose, but if my knee can't take too much, then we will do less. Such is life!

My delicious pizza

Finally, now we are in BP again and yesterday we had a lovely dinner with Hilary and John in the Bocanova. Strangely, for a restaurant that is quite a way from us, we also had our tea there the day before last. To cut a long story short, I left my phone in the car and as Roy does not have a mobile I couldn't ring him to find it and bring it with him after he parked it up in the XVth district. Once he got home and did not have the phone with him, we jumped on the trolleybus, all the way to the car and found. En route back we jumped off the trolleybus and had pizzas at the Bocanova. Last night, however, I had tiger prawns, Roy had a spag bol, Hilary had chicken and John a seafood risotto. I love that place, it is not cheap, but worth every penny. Next time, I will have a tagliatelle aiglo e olio as I love that too.

Roy with his, equally delicious pizza

Today we are off any minute to do a bit of shopping, picking up my medicines, try to get a knee brace and then have a lunch in the Jelen, if all goes well. At 6pm I ma due to meet Levi, one of the two guys that I have been chasing with no success so far, but who knows, today might be the lucky day.