The Sixtythird week of the pandemic

A somewhat eclectic week, in which there were many activities, not all enjoyable. I promise, I will concentrate on the enjoyable ones, but to start with I have to mention the continuing saga of Roy's vaccination. Or more precisely the lack of it. Delays upon delays are derailing what could otherwise be a simple, straightforward procedure. I don't want to go into details, but it is now beginning to look that the constellations are never at a favourable position for us. Just a letter that I posted now seems to be stuck somewhere in the bowels of the postal service, and nobody knows when - if ever - it'll come out of thrre. When I heard that, I really didn't know whether to cry or laugh. It is now beyond the absurd and it is really fortunate that I am not religious or a fan of conspiracy theories, otherwise I would certainly be convinced that the gods have condemned us to endless hassle and toil.

The event banner

On that happy note above, I need to mention a few really good happenings as well. The geocaching festival/competition is on the first Saturday of June, and I am planning to attend. Not for very long, just as long as I can be seen for a while to prove that I was there and thus entitled to log the event cache. The event is in the Mátra, so I don't need accommodation, I will commute from home. Marianne is caching with a friend who lives locally and I will attach myself to them on Friday for four caches. They are all hiking ones, but hopefully will not be too much for me. 

Spring woods in the Mátra

On the day of the event I will meet them again and accompany Mariann to one of the three she is intending to do before going down to the event centre. After our sojourn at the event centre we will go our separate ways. I am thinking of doing another four caches, two of them by narrow gauge railway, the other two on foot. It'll obviously depend on the weather and my energy levels, which I have to conserve, as I have to do the driving as well.

Narrow gauge railway in the Mátra

Other caching plans in the meantime include a car based, so called "drive-in" day South of town with Feri and Karesz, and then a variety of hiking ones in the Mátra and/or the Börzsöny. I hope the weather gets a bit better than it has been of late, as most days have some rain, and it has been like that for weeks. Unfortunately, the planned  cycling cache tour had to be abandoned, as having recently cached in the Mátra, I don't think I am up to it.

Alex speaking at the Congress

Other pleasant events in the last week included concerts and the congress of the Canadian section of the IMT, of which my son Alex is the leader. The one troublesome aspect of the Canadian congress was that it started at 5pm over here. The organisation is growing exponentionally and now they have a branch in Vancouver. To include them, they had to start at 11am, which is 5pm here. I managed to stay awake for the morning session on all three days, which was great, but missed all the rest of it. Still, it was very good indeed and I am seriously impressed with the political, organisational and theoretical level of all of them.

Dráfi Kálmán

Concerts were mostly organised by my usual agency and I didn't have to pay for any of them, as for us, subscription ticket holders, they are recompense for the conerts we have already paid for and never had due to the pandemic. There was one last Thursday and another one on this Monday. The first one was by the retired head of the piano department at the Music Academy. He played Liszt, Chopin and Schubert and had a lovely chat with the Director of the Music Academy present. The one this Monday was by Ránki Dezső, who is a brilliant pianist and whose scheduled concert had to be cancelled last November. He played Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert and I enjoyed his brilliance to the full. 

Ránki Dezső

Last Thursday was also a very exciting day, even before the concert in the evening. In the few days before Thursday, we had some frightening experiences, during one of which we even called the police out. Roy and I were woken up by some racket coming from the Bunkhouse. It sounded like somebody was thrashing around inside the house. Roy wanted to go out and tackle him/her, but I argued that he shouldn't. Needless to say he went regardless. At nearly 80 and disturbing a burglar, he might have been attacked, but his foolish notions did not include that possibility. So I went out with him and we thankfully saw nobody outside or inside the house. 

My lovely new printer

However, as soon as we came back the noise started again, so the most likely version had to be an animal, but the racket was so loud, I wouldn't have known what. Eventually Roy consented to me calling the Police, but by the time they arrived, there wasn't even a noise. Perhaps eventually whatever it was escaped by then. Unfortunately, some more noise followed the following night, so we both thought that we must buy some stuff that would deal with whatever this unwanted visitor was. That is why we decided to drive into Pásztó on the Thursday to buy it and pick up my new printer that apparently arrived earlier.

Cock pheasant

The outing was actually quite pleasant. We picked up the printer, shopped for food in SPAR, then en route home bought some rat poison which upon arrival home we put into the front and back eve of the Farmhouse. We haven't checked it whether there has been some of it nibbled, but thankfully had no more noises since. To be quite honest, I am beginning to think that the original loud racket was probably an extremely stupid pheasant, as a guy breads them in his garden up the road, and we have had them in the garden before. What or who was the quieter noise above Roy's head the following night I have no idea, but I don't care as long as we can have a decent night's sleep from now on.

Not me, just a sample! :)

Some time during the last week my new driving licence arrived. It is classical Murphy: when you apply early, it comes in no time at all; should you apply in the last minute it will be delayed and you have to drive around with an out of date licence. 

Max Verstappen in Monte Caro

 

On Sunday I watched the Monaco Grand Prix from Monte Carlo. From my point of view this was an unpleasant experience. Lewis had an awful qualifying session with a crash and started from 7th place on the grid. In the race he was doing quite well, when his team committed a serious tactical error and called him in too early. He then dropped two places, and could only get himself up again by two. His main rival won, so now Lewis is no longer leading the overall race, but hopefully, he can remedy that in future races, as I know that he never gives up.

The chapel in the woods

Then on Monday Roy and I were going to go to the Mátra on an outing, but we changed the venue before we left. On a Bank Holiday Monday the crowds could have been tremendous, so we just went North for a spot of geocaching near the Börzsöny. Even that was not without its hassles. The first cache was around a chapel and calvary in a forest. That was really lovely. The next one had 4 locations, the first three of which were great. Beautiful big church, an impressive Baroque Holy Trinity statue and the sarcophagus of a medieaval castle captain who fought the Turks from the castle high above the village.

The church in Drégelypalánk

The trouble came when I started heading out of the village for the fourth place. There was an enormous, electrified fence stopping me and no amount of walking round it solved the problem. Finally I gave up and asked a friend for the fourth part of the password. The next place was an even bigger problem. We were heading towards the car park, when we found that the one car wide road started having cars parked on either side. Not a good sign, I thought. Obviously an event was taking place there. That means hundreds of people, no thank you! We turned round and ran. The last place was better, but it did mean a steep climb up and the view of the ravine I wanted to see. Unfortunately the vegetation grew up so much, it covered most of it. I should have come in the winter, although that steep climb I would not have fancied in winter.

Szondy György the castle's captain

 

Both lovely restaurants that we love in this part of Nógrád were closed, so poor old Roy didn't even get a beer for all his driving. As he is not yet vaccinated and has no Immunity Card, he wouldn't be able to go inside anyway, but in the summer, perhaps we can go out to eat and drink sometime and sit on the terrace or garden. Not this time though, as they were both closed.

Baby plums

On Tuesday the weather got positively lovely, even better than on Monday, so we decided to mow the garden with both tractor and petrol mower. I was on the tractor, Roy was on the mower. It barely took us an hour, which is good going. What was left for today was the Cottage and the edges. Roy did the Cottage and the top of the cellar today, and the edges will be done sometime by a guy who finally came with a team and strimmed the lane in front of us, which has not been done for at least a year. He seemed willing to do a bit of private work, and hopefully should turn up at the weekend. We also checked the fruit trees, and with the exception of the apricot tree, which lost all its blossom due to sub-zero temperatures in April, the rest of them seem to be doing OK. 

Our little orchard

And finally, the best news by far of this week was that our dear friends Ros and Ian have landed on Sunday, and are now in quarantine. Hopefully, they can shorten it by two negative PCR tests, one yesterday and one tomorrow, and if they are all negative they should be free by Friday. 5 days instead of 14 was probably worth the expense, but as they have come over for 2 months, I suppose even two weeks would not have been the end of the world. We hope to see them sometime, possibly for a hike or some other form of outing. Just seeing them will be the main event, as we have not talked with them for any length for 9 months.

Ros and Ian in August 2020

 

Must finish now, or I'll go to sleep by the monitor. I am really sleepy, so I must go now and leave you. Further news sometime next week. 😀

The sixtysecond week of the pandemic

I was right in suspecting that neither of my caching hikes would happen last week. Friday, because apparently we moved that one to next week some time ago, just I forgot. Saturday because Anna didn't answer, so I assumed she was too busy. As it happens, this last week since my last post has been a bit on the sad side. I am beginning to feel rather abandoned and/or being taken advantage of. My new friend Anna has somehow gone off the boil, my good friend Feri seems to have family problems, details of which I don't know. Mariann might condescend to let me go caching with her around the time of the Festival and Race in the Mátra, but she is not being very cooperative either. 

The new door screen

The vaccine saga has stalled, with me not even knowing if my last letter got there. My fault, I posted it registered, instead of confirmation registered. The latter is more expensive, but in return for the extra money, they actually send you back a signed card acknowledgeing receipt. With this dreadful uncertain feeling of not even knowing if the letter got there, as well as no means of contacting the department dealing with it, as you can't phone them, you can't e-mail them and the only thing to do is to book an appointment, which I did and the date they gave me was the 9th July. I suppose if nothing had happened by then, I will go and ask what they have done with my documents. If then they deny receipt, then I am stuck, but let's try to be positive and hope things get sorted before the 9th July.

Singer at St. John's Passion at the Sheldonian

Most of you know my love of classical music, and apropos of that I had some lovely and some less lovely experiences this last week. Suddenly there were lots of online concerts, none of them costing me any money at this time. Partially because the Bartók Spring Festival had started, totally online and totally free. The other part is also a series of online concerts, and these are in recompense of all the cancelled ones on my subscription tickets. Presently the tickets cost between £4 and £6.50. Those of us who have subscription tickets from both 2020 and 2021 will get these concerts free for quite a while yet. They are deducting the cost of these concerts from the value of our subscription tickets, so in a way we have already paid.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner

The negative experiences were partially problems with bandwidth, which mucks it up on occasions. Others were the ticket agency website being utter crap and crashing every five minutes. Very frustrating when the concert is due to start any minute, but most of the time I managed to sort it, I only lost one concert. Composers covered last week included Mozart, Bach, Chopin and Liszt. The performers included Sir John Eliot Gardiner, conducting Bach's St. John's Passion at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. That was heavenly. So far, miraculously, there have been no clashes between the two series of concerts, but this weekend, unfortunately, one of them has been moved from Sunday to Monday, and therefore there is a clash there. I haven't yet decided which one I will listen to, but I will have to soon, because they are only available at the time of the concert.

The Sheldonian Theatre

I have a friend who every week sends us a list of things we can watch online, these include theatre, opera, concerts, musicals, old films, book readings and a few other events. Perusing one of her e-mails I came across another free performance under The Shows Must Go On, a very old performance of Cats. It was superb. I think the date was 1998, Elaine Paige was still in it and a brilliant multicultural cast. I saw Cats in London in the 1980's twice: once with the boys, once with Roy. It was superb watching it again after all these years.

The cast of Cats

I am still reading Shelley Winters' autobiography, currently I am on the second volume, which is even better than the first one. She was a very naughty, but very lovely, talented big mouth, who had also a very big heart. I like her, all that name dropping, jumping into bed with a different bloke quite frequently etc. amuses me.

Shelley II - old paperback

Another trauma that hit us a few days back was a night time fright of strange noises. First we thought we must have some animal in the attic, but then the noise moved to the Bunkhouse across the yard and became so noisy that we were beginning to think that it might have been a burglar. Roy wanted to go out to look and I screamed at him not to. He could have been attacked, but he was too stubborn to listen. I went with him into the yard and we found nothing. But the noise carried on.

The Bunkhouse, source of the noise

Finally we called the police and they came, and they couldn't find anything either. Finally, we reckoned that one of the pheasants, from the rearing pans nearby, must have escaped and got through to some tight place in that attic using a hole in a broken tile, and was unable to get out, therefore started flapping in panic. That could have made all that noise for sure.

The Cottage, no noise from there (we think)

We have no idea whether it got out finally or it died in there, in which case we will have a rotting corpse in our guesthouse attic. Since then Roy seems to be hearing noises in the night again, but back in our own building. I really don't know if he is imagining it, or is it real? I think we will go tomorrow to Palotás and buy some rat poison. Put it out in the eaves and hope for the best.

Prawn and vegetable curry with all the trimmings

 

Needless to say that both of us are like zombies for lack of sleep. Every time I start reading I nod off. But I cannot really sleep for too long, so hopefully, by tonight I should fall into bed happily. Whenever we are a bit down, I try to cheer us up with cooking interesting things. This week had many interesting meals: prawn and veg curry with rice, dhal, puppadoms, naan bread and mango chutney. Then we had roast dinner on Sunday: Roy had roast pork with all the trimmings, I had roast Californian peppers with all the trimmings. Yesterday was leftover day, it had anything between braised marrow, roast potatoes and leftover pork, plus our usual dry red wine for Roy and dry white spritzer for me.

My vegetarian  Sunday roast

I have spent a fair amount on the phone this week as well. I managed to get through to Dr. Dános about my blood works, as I had written last week, but there is still no sign of that dreadful hospital management coming up with this year's version of the yearly health card. I know Dr. Dános said that I have nothing to worry about, but I still need her advice on quite a few things.

Roy's Swedish meatballs

 

I managed to talk to another geocaching friend, the one you may remember I went hiking/caching with in January when he also brought his wife with him. I have not talked to him since then and I wanted to propose a geocaching set of trips after the 20th anniversary caches are out next month. He seemed interested in it and I put together a few plans for him, to see if he likes them. He is a very nice man, whose company is very enjoyable, good sense of humour and fun to have around. He also has a rather large car, so if I won't have to drive myself, as I usually do, that in itself will be a bonus.

The geocaching club is 20 years old and we will celebrate with two lots of 20 new caches. 20 of them will be hikes in the hills and forests, one in each county plus Budapest. These will be 20km long and have various points en route to find. There will also be another 20, which are aimed at families, so they will only have a kilometre or so walking, but fun for the kids in the form of aerial walkways, playgrounds, narrow-gauge railways, lookout towers etc, It is these family ones I have tried to make into day trips. I think it will take about 4 or 5 different trips to cover the breadth and length of the entire country. It should be good fun, if me manage to find dates suitable for everybody.

Event Centre for Festival and Race

There are two official events run by the geocaching club coming up. On 5th June there is going to be a Festival and Race, which this time is quite close by. I am not entering the race, but might pop over on Saturday, which is the race day, to log the event cache and have a little chat with some people I haven't seen since last October. Hungary is opening up from lockdown currently, but those of us who understand that this whole game is, are not too happy about it. With the Indian variant close by, is it wise at all to open up now?

Cycling and geocaching in Kielder Forest

The other event is a geocaching bike ride in the Mátra, which foolishly I indicated that I might join. Looking at the profile of the ride, it has far too much climb in it for me to try it. I don't know, I haven't decided yet, but we'll see how I feel nearer the time. It is planned for 12th June, so I have about 3 and half weeks to decide.

Alex and his beloved BBQ

Another great and good thing was to get some photos from Alex, as finally this weekend past he and Meaghan managed to get down to the trailer park and see how their nice new deck looks like and put together the BBQ. They also took some stuff from home to make the trailer better. There is a small amount of relaxation of regulations in Canada now, so they might be able to go down thre on weekends, even before they can take guests. That, I suppose will come later. 

The Fire Pit

Looking at the world outside, one never knows whether everything is a continuous unmitigated disaster, or perhaps there is hope for people yet. The negative event this last week for me was the blatant racism, xenophobia, and downright brutal attitude of the British government and its immigration and border control. There were two events, one happened in Glasgow, where the Home Office did an early morning raid and picked up two Indian guys, the other at various airports, but most of the cases were at Gatwick.

 

The Grant family trailer

The most despicable thing of the last year at least in my opinion was, when I was reading in the Guardian that Border Control are deliberately fostering a hostile environment in relation to visitors from the EU. Anyone who arrives without a visa is deemed as an unwanted visitor, someone who is likely to come to work without a work visa and gets detained, occasionally put in cuffs and almost always locked up in Covid infested immigration detention centres, before removed from the country. I cannot think of any other reason for this, but to create a deterrent, that nobody comes in future. I suppose if I would have to fear for my life, just for wanting to visit friends or relatives, I wouldn't come either. This is so low, that after I read the article, I made a vow. I will boycott that country, until it mends its ways or I have no choice in going. I hope I will keep to it.

The other event, the one in Glasgow, apart from the nasty raid, had a fantastic corollary. As the van was leaving that part of Glasgow, with the arrested men on board, one local guy spotted them, and acted quickly. He threw his bike and himself under the van, to stop them leaving. In a few minutes large crowds gathered in solidarity with him and against the arrest and detention of those two Indians. In no time the crowd was enormous and chants of "Let them go!" were louder and louder. Eventually, they let the guys out, because they knew that if they didn't, the crowd would have overun both the immigration guys and the police present.

The Glasgow liberators

GOOD ON YOU GLASGOW! This is the only way working people can force the powers to back off. Salutary lesson for the ruling class. There's so much more of us than of you. Watch your step!

Sixty-first week of the pandemic

Seriously busy week, with two lots of geocaching: one at the beginning, the other one on the end. In fact, the first one was on the day I posted the last blog post, the second one yesterday. Last week Roy and I went round one of the Northern-most part of the County of Nógrád. We were so close to Slovakia that my telephone switched to a Slovak network. Initially we went to Ipolytarnóc, which is a World Heritage site, due to millions of years old petrified pine tree trunk they found there. Unfortunately, as Roy has not been vaccinated and has no Immunity Certificate, we couldn't go into the museum, but we had a lovely walk along a pretty valley and study route all the way to the geocache.

A couple of "Racka" sheep in Ipolytarnóc

The second location was a small, but wild ravine, which thankfully, this time was totally dry. You could see the marks that the ancient Pannon Sea left in the sides of the ravine, being deeply incised by the waves. The cache was straight up one of the sides, which was rather hard, but the whole experience was dramatic and quite exciting.

Roy at the bottom of the ravine

Thursday, Friday and Saturday was spent trying to recover from the physical exertions of the trip out, mostly on the computer, doing paperwork, organising stuff etc. Prior to that, on Monday my blood test results came by e-mail. It looked good, except in three bits where my levels were above the recommended numbers. Currently I am waiting for the private clinic deciding whether they will carry on with the yearly card, which gives discounts on many consultations, but they seem to be dragging their feet. Sooner or later I will need to show those results to someone, so it is either back to the state sector, (not recommended) or pay over the odds, hoping that the card will appear one day. 

Roy leading the way

I am a bit disappointed in this  clinic, as I have had very high opinions of it until now. Medically, I still cannot fault them, but business practices that keep potential customers waiting while their health deteriorates, is not exactly on the clever side. The main reason why I didn't chuck them is that delightful lady doctor I have written about last week. We really hit it off, and that is worth any money. I think I will ring her today, to see if she could help me over the phone about the blood test results and take it from there. (PS.: I rang her and she rang back, settled my worries about my bloodtest, in fact, she said that she would be very pleased if a 30 year old had one like mine. She also said that the clinic is only waiting for one more OK and then the cards will come out. Well, I'll believe it when I see it. Even if that OK arrives soon, then somebody will have to write it, then the IT bods will have to post it, etc., etc. It will not be soon, but at least I can be confident that: a) it will happen; b) the bloodtest is no cause for worry.😊)

Sandstone walls in the ravine

Our next lot of Nespresso capsules have come again. We drink one cup a day or less, so we are not hooked on it, but it is such a treat at 10am in the morning to get a really good cup of coffee and have a cake or biscuit with it. I can't have caffeine and I hated all decaf until I came across Nespresso. Very nice to enjoy the taste of coffee again.

My Brother printer (I hope)

Another thing that I am waiting for is a new printer. Finally I couldn't bear it any more and rang a shop in  Pásztó and he ordered me one. Needless to say that when we called on him yesterday, it still had not arrived. I did tell him that we will not be going to Pásztó for a while, but he wasn't bothered. I suspect he knows that it will be weeks before it comes anyway.

Tractor (mine), mower (Roy's)

On Sunday we did a lot of mowing out of a sudden impulse. The weather was great, we were stuck at home and Roy is getting itchy feet nowadays for activity. So he decided to do some and I insisted on doing the tractor work, while he got on with the petrol mower. We were too knackered to do the strimming, so he did that on Monday. The garden really looks a million dollars, although it will grow again like weeds (they grow too), because the forecast is for rain for the rest of the week. Mind you, a few days ago the forecast was for rain today, and there has not been a single drop. It will come, I'm sure, just a bit later.

Lewis, Mr. no. 44, wins again

Sunday was also very enjoyable for I watched the Spanish Grand Prix, which was yet another victory for Lewis. He is forever getting better, even though he is now closer to 40 than 30. Incredible guy, I love him ever so much. He also got his hundredth pole position this weekend and is only 3 away from 100 career victories as well. There are many rumours about him retiring at the end of the year. I do hope they are not true, as I will be heartbroken. Still, I am sure I can find somebody to transfer my affections too, as there are plenty of lovely, talented and fearless youngsters comingup.

My bike by the gate

 

Another interesting aspect of this week was the reappearence of my old bike. It is at least 20 years old, although there is not 20 years of use in it, as I am not an avid biker, by any means. I thought that I could start going on little bike rides as a form of exercise, just in and around the village and see how it goes. You can't forget how to ride a bike, but with arthritis and a variety of disabilities, I think I will have to take it very gradually.

The luxury hotel in Parádsasvár

 

And then yesterday I decided to go geocaching and Roy decided to accompany me. He was my driver and it was a very long and exhausting day, but I loved every minute of it. We left before 8am, which was a good idea, as this way we could squeeze quite a lot into our day. If I want to be honest, we managed that so well, that we probably overdone it a bit. Both of us were very tired and bit tetchy when we got home, but I don't mind, it was still a great day.

Glorious views in the Mátra

 

The caches were all in the Mátra Mountains, which are about and hour and quarter away. We started with a nice walk in a village called Parádsasvár. The cache was in a big tree, near a wooded path. We saw some lovely buildings and nice, friendly people. The second cache was my own moving cache, which needed to be checked out. In the mountains, the markings are not always correct and in some areas are missing altogether. I did find it in the right place and took it on by a kilometre, as required.

Spring in the forest

The next one was a memorial to a pilot who lost his life in an aircrash 46 years ago, which was very touching. Then we moved on to a very interesting bit of the forest where I went looking for a lookout place in a forest. I did find the cache, but the view was long gone. The trees and the undergrowth had grown up, so the view was not be seen. However, en route back to the car I spotted another place where the trees were so far down that I could see a very long number of miles away into the mountain, its valleys and villages beyond. It was very nice, even though the air was misty, so the very long shots were a bit hazy.

The lookout tower in Galyatető

Finally, we went to a village on a high top where there was a lookout tower. I was too knackered to climb to the top of it, but having found the 5th cache of the day, I was very happy indeed. We then motored to Pásztó to do some food shopping, fill up with petrol and try to pick up the printer, which unfortunately has not arrived. I also went to the organic shop and got some oat milk for me.

Final stop was Palotás, where we visited a hardware shop and a builder's centre. Roy needed bits and pieces for his DIY, we got some of it, and not others. Thankfully, he did buy enough gear for starting on his DIY mania, which has been lying dormant all through winter. He is a happy go lucky but when he gets the bug, he is restless. He finished my fly screen today and rearranged a corner of the kitchen which got a bit chaotic. He then had a sleep after lunch, which was one of our favourites: a hot salad of curly pasta, feta cheese, cocktail tomatoes, lemon juice, olive oil and fresh basil. Yum, yum!!

The big com aerial on Kékestető

This Friday AND Saturday I am supposed to go hiking/geocaching. I have a feeling that at least one of them won't happen, partly due to the forecast rain, partly because I am done in physically for a few days, that I need to get over yesterday. Still, we'll see what happens and regardless of any of this, I should post again around midweek.

Sixtieth week of the pandemic

Last week was dominated by my visit to Budapest for 3 days. I had a large number of appointments, jobs, bits of shopping etc., etc. to deal with. Obviously, unvaccinated Roy had to be left behind, so that was another first - leaving him alone for this long. En route into town I had to do all my food shopping as the day of my return, 1st May, was a national holiday, with all food shops closed. As it happens, I eventually found that the fruit and veg shop in the block was open, but all supermarkets were firmly shut.

On arrival, by some incredible miracle I managed to find a parking space quite close to the flat. Since the city suspended parking charges, it is close on impossible to find anywhere to park. I dragged all perishables into the flat to be stored in the fridge and/or freezer and then tore off to my medical appointment at the Duna Medical Centre.

The lovely lady doctor, Dr. Éva Dános, was a real lucky find. By her age she was of the generation who is caring and comes quite close to you and even puts her hands on you, which in the current climate was also miraculous. Her manner was business like but very friendly, even chatty at times and with a good sense of humour. She was very happy with my list of ailments, prepared on Word and printed for her, with the list of my medicines and suggested treatments, but we'll have to wait for the hospital to come up with the new version of the Blue Danube Card, before any consultant visits and/or investigations can proceed. The only exception was for a full blood test, which was to be done on Friday.

In the afternoon I started all the shopping that I needed to do. I seemed to squeeze about 3 weeks' worth of shopping into 3 days, so as I am typing this now, I am not entirely shure what I bought on which day. And while this rushing around was pretty exhausting, it gave me great satisfaction that at least 90% of those things on my list were done. They included ordering Roy's homeopathic magnesium, which was running out, and which is never in stock, so you have to order it; a visit to the little Co-Op store for my cornflakes, which are pretty nigh on impossible to get anywhere else; go to our favourite stationery store for bits and bobs and another shop for getting a toner cartridge for my laser printer and some photocopying. I also needed a new scanner and headphone, which I went to the West End centre for, where we usually buy these things. These were all done in the first two days, when I had time in between my appointments.

On Wednesday I had to wait in for the arrival of the technician from the cable company. UPC was taken over by Vodafone and that neccessitated a new box. I was dreading this, as in my past experience, these changes will always wreck the use of the internet, TV programs and landline telephone. Well, I am happy to report that none of this had happened. The guy was knowledgeable, kind, very friendly and efficient. He assured me that he wouldn't leave until he was sure that everything worked, wore his mask and kept away from me at all times. One enormous brownie point to Vodafone Hungary for that.

Ferenc Deák on the 20000Ft note

 I also had to go and exchange some pound sterling for Hungarian forints, as in this country there is still a big chunk of life that is impossible without ready cash. We were getting low, so I did visit our usual exchange place which seemed closed. However, as I was peering in to see why the door was ajar, the owner invited me in and I did the exchange. The rate was no better than anywhere else I have seen in the district, so that bit of advantage is perhaps now gone. I was glad to have yet another of my jobs done, so I didn't bother to look for a better rate elsewhere. As it happens, a few hours later I saw one with 2 forints better, but, to be honest, I am no longer bothered about things like that, my time and effort is more precious that money.

Fire tender in the museum

On Friday I had to go back to Duna Medical for the bloodtest, which was done very efficiently. Afterwards, I had a nice brunch in the hospital buffet, and then walked off towards Zsófi, my homeopath. It was so nice to see her and she was very pleased that my condition was good according to the Vegatest machine. We had a good chat and I made a new appointment for 3 months' time. She prescribed some more trace elelments, which she suggested I am a bit deficient in, so later I bought some chromium, zinc, manesium and selenium tablets or drops.

105 to call the Fire Brigade

On Friday afternoon I picked up the toner cartridge and the magnesium for Roy and went to buy some sourdough bread at a local bakery which makes heavenly, really tasty old fashioned bread, no too far from the flat. En route back to the flat I spotted that the Chinese food shop was open, so bought some Nan bread and giant king prawns, both frozen, so I had to rush home to put them in the freezer.

Church in Árpádföld

In the meantime I also had some maintenance issues in the flat. Thankfully, the loo was not leaking, like last time, but I had to go round again putting water down all plug holes and drains, as they have evaporated and the smell was a bit unpleasant. Thankfully, that solved the problem. Also, the freezer was a bit full of ice stuck to the ceiling of it, so it had to be defrosted. That was done and now there is an amazing lot of space in there.

Some of the semaphores

And then on 1st May, a Saturday, I made my way home, via a few new BP caches, which needed to be picked up. I started with the Fire Service Museum, which unfortunately was closed, but I could get to the cache from the outside. Must go back some time, as there were some lovely looking old engines exhibited there.

Then I drove to a nearby district, where a 3 parter multi showed us the nice buildings of that district. The next cache was the best of the day, as it showed how mad about railways and collections even Hungarians get. In a fairly small garden of a suburban home there were loads of rescued old semaphores which, had not that guy who now owns them rescued, would have just  gone on the scrapheap. I even had a little chat with him, he was such a nice bloke.

Semaphore close-up

Last cache was yet another 3 parter, showing the church and a few nice buildings in another, nearby district, after which I made it promptly home. I was so exhausted after these 3 days that had to sleep for a couple of days to get over them. There were a few things not done, like the organic supermarket, having keys cut, the Hunyadi market, and a visit to the opticians. These will get done next time, I think, because as soon as the Blue Danube Card is out again, I will need to go to the hospital quite frequently, so I can fit them in then.

Lovely old villa in Rákoshegy

Talking of caching, there was a plan to do one cache with my friend Feri, after my visit to Zsófi on Friday, but it fell by the wayside, when Brigi, Feri's wife had a phonecall to get vaccinated, so they rushed off straight away. Apparently, the government has really gone barmy over opening up for mostly football, that being the Prime Minister's mania, so they announced that just that weekend, anybody who wants a Pfizer shot can book him/herself an appointment online. In about 15 minutes the website collapsed, due to the numbers that tried to use it. So they announced, that there is no need to book an appointment, just go to your nearest vaccination point, (these are usually hospitals), and queue. Brigi had this call from a friend who works at one of these vaccination centres, they joined a mile long queue, but were plucked from it by their friend after about 10 minutes. All right for some!

Church in Rákoshegy

Once at home I had to unpack, store the food where there was space, started mowing the garden again as the dandelions were out in profusion, and had to plant out the dill and parsley I bought at the veg shop in the block. Then had to try and connect the new scanner I bought, plus recommission the printer with the new cartridge. Unfortunately, that didn't work. I have no idea what was the trouble, but we can't use that printer any more. Initially we thought that the cartridge was the wrong size, but later we noticed that the printer was flashing like mad and started getting too hot. So, £20 wasted and a need to buy a new printer. Brrrrr!!! Next time, I suppose.

Bartók memorial house

Currently the weather is nice, but there was rain on and off earlier. I had two hikes planned for this week, and unfortunately both of them have been postponed. On Friday, Marianne, Gabi and I were supposed to go hiking and caching in the Börzsöny, while on Saturday I was supposed to go hiking with Anna in the Cserhát. The first fell through as Marianne is due for her second vaccine dose on Thursday, and she is worried about the after effects, while Anna had some family emergency in another city and will have to go there on Saturday. Never mind, both have only been put off by a week, let us hope that the weather is good then.

The Bull cast

Another interesting news is that I now find that albeit intermittently, but I can watch some US programs now with my VPN, provided I use Microsoft Edge as the browser. I managed to watch one episode of Bull and nearly two of NCIS. It's gone to the "This program is currently not available" notice at the end, which hopefully is only because too many people wanted to watch it, not because it sussed my VPN. I am going to try it in a minute, let us hope it works again.

Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS

Must go now, as my poor tummy thinks my throat has been cut. Time to have breakfast and I hope to post again next week!