The sixtyseventh week of the pandemic

Last Thursday's hike was spent with my old friend Karesz, who is a bit younger than me, but has an equally dodgy heart as I do. I drove over to Gyöngyös and he came from BP on the bus. I parked a few hundred yards from the terminus of the narrow gauge railway that we decided to catch. I collect the caches from narrow gauge railways, and with this one I think I have now just over half of them. You have to find 25 and I have found 13. The other 12 are all over the country, but I am sure I will get to them sometime or other.

The choo choo train pushes us from behind

 

Green notes train caches I've got

We caught the first little train (there are only three a day!) which chugged along sweetly, first in town, then in its outskirts of scrub and fields, and finally it got to the forest, which was delightful. Once at the terminus, we got off to find our first cache. Unfortunately the turn around time was only 25 minutes and it was touch and go whether we get back and we didn't. The walk was only about 400 yards, but we took some time to find the cache. In the thick forest, the GPS is not happy and jumps about a lot. If only I read the description sooner, we might have found it quick enough the catch the train back, but we didn't.

One of the Mátra's glorious views

So, we decided that we would walk down, on the sleepers of the track, instead of the marked trail which happened to climb a mountain first and then came back down to the next station so steeply that we were warned against it. The sleepers and the stones around them were hard walking, but at least there was no climb in it. We got down in an hour, found a lovely picnic spot at the station and had our sandwiches and drinks.

Karesz on the track

We watched the next train go past us uphill and then it came back and we jumped on. Once back in town we got into the car and went to find a few more caches further up the mountain. Some had lovely views, one was at a spring, another by a reservoir and finally we caught a moving cache, which had to be moved 1km further on its way and then, of course, we had to walk back to the car. It was a lovely day and we both ended up going to bed about 8pm, we were so done in. Not just by the distance and climb, but by the heat as well.

Balázs Fülei

 

The day before the hike, I was lucky to watch and listen online to an absolutely amazing pianist Balázs Fülei. He was not only a great pianist, but a really nice guy as well. These concerts have quite a lot of chatting as well as piano playing. The director of the Music Academy, who is also a well known harpist, usually asks a few questions from the performer, about themselves, their views of the composers they have chosen etc. Balázs Fülei came across as a warm, intelligent and funny person, which seriously enhanced my enjoyment of his playing as well.

Balázs Fülei playing his own piano

His program included a wide range of composers, from Liszt, Ravel, Chopin and Debussy, all the way to Bartók and Kodály. He performed every one of these with great insight, feeling and technical brilliance. I have never heard him before, but hope to do so again.

Test of new phone. Not bad.

My telephone I mentioned before, a Samsung A12 has arrived by post, and I decided that as I was going into town later, I will not attempt removal and replacement of the SIM cards or doing the settings of the new one myself. A visit to the Telenor shop was being planned, to save me from all these hardships. As it happens, I did and for once was extremely lucky to arrive at a practically empty shop, (every time before the place was heaving with bodies and I had to wait a long time), and what's more, to get a delightful young lady behind the counter, who was patient, kind, extremely helpful and even chatty and funny as well. Since then I am learning the quirks of my new phone, which seems to be lovely.

Another phone camera test of 2 out of our 3 houses

As a side-effect of this, Roy now has a phone as well, although who knows whether he will be prepared to use it. I have tried before and failed miserably. Anyway, I bought a Pay as You Go SIM card for my old phone and the lovely young lady fixed that one up as well, so it has a new number and 3000Ft (£7.50) worth of call time.

János Balázs

 

Only 4 days after the Fülei concert, there was another one. In this one János Balázs played with his usual verve and skill. As an interviewee, however, he was not a patch on Fülei, at least in my opinion. He was playing Liszt in the original, as well as some transcripts.

The climber

I left for BP on Monday afternoon, and got back just before 1pm on Thursday. I tried to pack a lot into my three days, like I did 2 months ago, at the end of April, but the heatwave had beaten me somewhat. The city was horrendously hot, coupled with the pavements, asphalt surfaces and the walls of the buildings acting as radiators at night, so there was hardly any drop in the temperature at night either.

Another view from the Mátra

Two main goals I had and a few minor ones, most of which did not get done - well, at least not in BP. I had yet another visit from Vodafone to install a second digibox within 2 months. Why this chaos, who knows? This time, the technician had to run a new cable from the new modem to the TV. He was not a particularly happy chappie and I found him quite lazy and rude. About 5 minutes after he left, I realised that he completely forgot about the landline telephone and it did not work.

Recently renovated hikers's hostel

Once I managed to get through to them, they said that they couldn't send anyone in the afternoon, but would tomorrow suit? I said yes, provided he arrives by 10am. That's fine he said. No wonder, nobody arrived by 10am and I had to leave for my medical appointments. Finally, I managed to get someone come this morning, and he was a gem of a bloke. He walked in and with him so did the 1980's. In all its positive regards: good manners, decent attitude, nice and chatty and he knew what he was doing. He spent almost an hour trying to sort the problem, but at least half, if not more, of his time was spent hanging onto his mobile, trying to get across to his own HQ. Finally, the phones were sorted and he left.

Lovely wild flower in the forest

 

The other problem was my medical appointments, one of which was great, the other not so much, but I will have to be back for a small surgical procedure next week, and the week after that for 4 appointments, so once those transpired I'll report back on what happened.

The minor jobs, like going to the Asian shop for king prawns and to Doctor and Baker for artisanal bread, did not happen as I was really done in by the high heat and wanted to get back home to Roy. Other happenings included yet another F1 race, this time in France at Paul Ricard circuit. Lewis couldn't secure himself the pole, but did start from second. He dropped later further down and then fought his way back up to second, where he finished. Max Verstappen and Red Bull are definitely in the ascendence. Max has the confidence of Lewis and a better car. I have not given up on Lewis yet for 2021, but I'm beginning to think that it might happen. Max would deserve his first overall win, as he is very good indeed, but I would so like Lewis go out on a high.

Alex and Callum in the boat

The family had some events in the last week. First the Canadian bunch had called to show us the paddle boat they bought and which is now tied up at his dock with Roy's favourite nylon rope that he graciously donated for my tying up Alex's book parcel with earlier in the winter. The weather is also quite nice in Canada at the moment and they tend to go out to the trailer most weekends.

Posing in boat still on pontoon

And finally, today was Elian's 9th birthday. I sent him some money, which apparently made him very happy. He will discuss with Stephen what he can and cannot spend his money on, but what was an absolutely gorgeous gesture from him, that I watched on Messenger as he handed £20 of his £100 present to his brother. What a lovely gesture, he is truly a very good and kind brother. I wonder if Xander will do the same in October? We'll wait and see.

Elian about 2 months old

Now I have to fix tea for Roy and me. We had lunch so late that I will not eat much, I think. A ham, tomato, radish and spring onion sandwich for him, and a buttered Kaiser roll with sesame seeds and shavings of Cheddar with radish for me. It was delightful, mostly because I finally found a place - Penny in Aszód - where they know how to bake Kaiser rolls. Most other places do not put any salt on it and what's worse, do not bake it long enough.

Elian with Xander in the park

Carriyng his brother who is nearly as big as him

 

Next post some time next week, when exactly, I have no idea.

The Sixtysixth week of the pandemic

Last Friday we tidied up the Bunkhouse in preparation of the arrival of the orienteers from Skuló's club. They didn't arrive until very late on Saturday, as the base time was 4pm and the medal ceremony went on forever. Obviously, nothing changed in orienteering circles since I gave up orienteering nearly 5 years ago.

My good friend Vankó Péter

It was so lovely to see people in the Bunkhouse, a certain amount of normality reappeared in our lives. The people that stayed there were totally unknown to me. They were delightful, very friendly, liked the house, the garden and one of them even volunteered to climb up onto the roof and put a new tile in the place of the one that dropped off and left a gap, through which our pheasant crawled in some weeks back, causing havoc. He was amazingly athletic, even though he was no spring chicken, and it was done in no time at all.

After Roy's vaccination last week, I started notifying people I thought would be interested. Some congratulated him, others just were very pleased. Haggis even read out the news  at a gathering of our hashing friends who were spending the weekend down by the Balaton, doing a 30km walk in the Káli basin and staying with Pityu, where a combined birthday celebration was done for Ian (his 70th) and Pityu, the host.

Let's hope next time Lewis finishes and well

I thought there was a Grand Prix at the weekend, but no, the Montreal GP was cancelled, its place was taken by the Turkish one, but that wasn't on either, so the next one is the French GP next Sunday.  One very welcome happening involved the wonky stove door, which we were supposed to take up North, near the Slovakian border to be mended. The prospect of such a long drive - or at least Roy thinks an hour's drive is too far - made him apply himself to the task of mending it himself. Considering that he had at least 2 months to do so, I was so pleased that the unwillingness to drive an hour up the route 21 gave him the impetus to apply his considerable metal working skills to the problem. It looks a bit weird, but it is done, with time, effort and money saved, so I am happy.

Yesterday I rang Ian and sang Happy Birthday to him over the phone. Unfortunately, they will be going home at the end of July, well before Roy will have enough antibodies to go gallivanting anywhere. Shame, but we will miss them again, but I'm sure they will be back. While chatting to him I realised that they have applied for their settlement certificate at the central place where Roy and I were supposed to go way back in March or April. Apparently, there is no need for an appointment and they do the form and the biometrics all at once, so you don't have to bother with the online form. I think, once I feel that Roy is safe to get about in town, we will ditch the online form idea, and return to that one. I was under the impression that that was no longer an option, but apparently it is.

As I collapsed into bed around 8pm last Thursday, after our visit to Pásztó Hospital for Roy's jab and several bits of shopping in the high heat, I was unable to stay up for my concert online that I paid for. I wrote to the lovely lady who organises these online concerts and she sent me the secret YouTube link, on condition that I don't tell anyone about it and definitely not send it to anyone.

Soma Balazs-Piri

I have just listened to it and the lovely young man, Soma Balázs-Piri played with great enthusiasm, feeling and skill. Bach, Beethoven, Liszt and Debussy was in his program and a very lovely hour and a bit was had.  I also had a close look at a fancy new piano, built by Bogányi Gergely, a concert pianist who is trying to make money out of it. The sound of it was to my ears, a bit harsher than all other grand concert pianos I have ever heard. A bit like a clavichord was in the old days. Both the two remaining concerts are this week: the first is tomorrow night, the second on Sunday after the Grand Prix.

Samsung A12

I also decided this week that my phone is likely to be dying. The battery, to be more precise. It gets very low on battery power very quickly, but it takes ages to charge it. Sure sign of the battery being on its way out. I can't now remember when I got it, but I am sure that it is over two years ago, and the network usually gives you a new one free after two years, provided you sign up with them for another two years. So I picked another Samsung online, this time it is called an A12, with FOUR cameras at the back, also colour black, which I think is OK. If I am lucky, it will be delivered tomorrow. I will have to take the two SIM  cards out and put it into the new one, which usually beats me, but I will have a go. Feri is going to help me on Messenger, I hope it works. When my current phone was new, I remember there were some funny settings on it, so I had to change them, which will definitely be beyond me, that's for sure. However, every problem has a solution somewhere, you just have to look for it!! (If you believe that, you believe anything.)

First bloom on the yellow/pink floribunda

The roses are coming out in the high heat very quickly. The red climber by the gate is going to be prolific. Result of last autumn's drastic pruning, no doubt. The Bunkhouse side is struggling, most roses there are not up to much and 3 of them were dead, so we pulled them out. I think we will have to replace almost all of them in the autumn.

Two-tone beauty

Next week I will have to go to BP as the cable company provides out TV, Internet and landline phone, is bringing yet another modem, this time with cable laying. Originally I was going to take Roy as well, as I have now given up the hope on the yearly  card in the private clinic and am going for myself for the specialists that are most urgent. I am starting with the dermatologist and thought of taking Roy to have a general checkup with the lovely general practitioner lady I found so nice last time. But now, I have changed my mind. I am going to go on my own and have Roy's appointment as well, after the dermatologist. I also made a dental hygiene appointment and a few other things that are outstanding.

Narrow gauge railway engine

In the meantime, I might have organised a hiking trip to the Mátra with Feri and Karesz later on this week. I am not holding my breath as Feri often cancels at the last minute. He has a very busy life, plus it appears that his lady wife is not very well, so things can crop up the last minute, but I am holding my fingers crossed that it'll be OK. If we go, it should be fantastic. There is a long ridge in the Eastern part of the range and along it there are about 6 or 7 caches, which can be visited. Hopefully, the views will be good too, although unless they have created some clearings, the trees will hide it in most places.

PS. on Friday:  Well, yesterday was a fantastic hike/ geocaching day, but not to the Eastern ridge of the Mátra as before planned. That trip requires two cars and Feri suddenly wasn't available. So just Karcsi and I went and had a very long and exhausting day in another part of the mountain. More detailed report in the next post, for now, see a few of the photos!

Views of vineyards  from the little train

Views North from high up in the Mátra

Views North again

Zooming in on the Palace at the foot of the Mátra

The sixtyfifth week of the pandemic

Yet another tumultuous week, but do we have anything but those? I left you with the great news of having got Roy's TAJ card number and having registered him for vaccination, now we needed to check every day if the registration had been approved or not. Well, this was easy, I could do it online. On the one hand you need to know straight away when it is in the system, so you can look for an appointment for him based on that. On the other hand, waiting for it desperately and have the webpage tell you NO every day is such a disappointment, that life suddenly becomes so stressful that it is bad for my health and, to be honest, for Roy's as well. He hides it well, but I can tell that he is coming to a crisis point soon, if things don't turn up better than they did so far.

MOL headquarters being built

And while pondering this I had a phone call from my neighbour in the block of flats where we live in BP, that while checking our post box, she found a notification that the postman tried to deliver a registered letter. It was obviously the TAJ card, so I went back into town again, the following day.  Roy got very agitated and I decided to go back to BP to fetch it and do some more geocaching, this time on my own, to cheer me up even more.

The new railway bridge being built

If only I stayed one more day, I could have saved myself this bother. After all, the lady in the office, where I got Roy's TAJ number, told me that it was posted the previous week, but sod's law tells me, that when you hang around, things never arrive, while if you leave it, they come the following day. The news were so good, I was over the moon and refused to play the "if only" game. Plus it gave me some more chance to do some caching, so I was happy.

The Athletic Stadium with those giant cranes

Amazingly, the queueing  was minimal and I managed to fetch the card in no time at all. The geocaching was somewhat less successful, as there was a sudden increase in temperature and I was suffering from the heat. Every year I take at least a week or two to acclimatise to sudden heat at the beginning of the summer. It was just unfortunate that I was in a big city, with white surfaces everywhere to reflect the heat back, when this happened.

The reclaimed park with lake and mountain bike trek

I still managed to get a few caches, one by the building site of the new athletic stadium, another two in a suburb of BP, covering the old centre of the place with lovely old buildings and another showing a new development of land reclamation and its use for rest and recreation. There was a lovely lake, a running track, a children's play area, an event tent and a few other delights. I ate my sandwiches there and then took myself home, carrying the precious card in my bag.

The giant slike in the playground

Roy was happy, even more when I told him that in the meantime I arranged with our car mechanic in the village to finally change our winter tyres. Tomi was so kind and was prepared to do them before his dinner in the late afternoon. Summer was so late arriving that I thought we would never change to summer tyres, but at least now that job is done as well, shortening my "to do" list further.

Poppies

The main event of the last week - other than getting the TAJ card - was the Geocaching Festival and Competition on Saturday. I never take part in the competition, but it is always nice to turn up for meeting up with caching friends you haven't seen for a while and to log the event cache. I was there by quarter to nine, but the centre was not very full yet. Still, I had a chat with Ica and Géza while hanging around, waiting for Mariann, Gabi and Wilka.

At the Forest Camp

They arrived just after 9:30am and we left to go caching together just after 10am. We got seriously unlucky with road closures, due to about 5 different events going on in the Mátra that day. There was a car rally, a long distance hiking and/or running race, plus one by bike and another by motorbike. So we sat for nearly an hour at a junction, and then the other three went to get a multicache that Roy and I got a month ago. So I sat in the car pondering the meaning of life, as you do.

 

Nice new buildings at the camp

Finally, well after midday I found my first cache. There were three of them in quite close vicinity of each other. For the first one, which was by an impressive ravine, we had to climb up a steep forest path, but thankfully not too far. The second one was by a spring in the same village and the final one on top of a small mountain, where you had to get by a murderous steep, but thankfully also quite short, climb.

My good friends Ica and Geza

 

All three were great and I took a good few pictures. It also made a change to cache with friends, as I usually do it with either Roy or on my own. After I parted from my friendswho then went ont to find caches I have already found, I took off towards home, thinking that the main road across the top of the mountains was now open. Needless to say I was wrong and the coppers turned me back mid-way. So, I thought, once I had come this far, I must find some more caches to make the extra distance worthwhile. And I did.

At the edge of the ravine: Mariann, Wilka and Gabi

First of all my own moving cache that travels along the Virgin Mary pilgrims' route was really near. I went and fetched that, followed by a kilometre walk with it along its route. After that I went to an interesting place, where there was a metal lookout tower, which wobbled. The cache was down about 10 metres on a practically vertical rock strewn mountainside, which was somewhat precarious on my own, but I managed it. Took some more lovely photos and finished my leftover sandwiches before I did some shopping in Lidl Gyöngyös en route home. It was a long day, but very much enjoyed all round.

Muggins and Wilka

Sunday had two events in it, one quite useful, the other seriously aggravating. Let's start with the latter. It was time for the F1 race from Baku, and while Lewis did not have a good time qualifying, eventually he recovered to start from 2nd place. He was having all sorts of troubles with the car and some other form of bad luck, but by the last few laps was back into 2nd place and even with a vague chance to overtake the leader, when after a gap in the race to clear up the debris on the tarmac they restarted. He got off fine, and then for some unfathomable reason simply drove off the track, thus throwing away a chance to get his lead back in the overall championship race for 2021.

Lewis in happier days

At that time I didn't know, but since then it transpired that Mercedes has a 'magic' button, which in the case of some serious, life-threatening incident can shift 90% of brake power to the front. Apparently, Lewis accidentally touched this button and this locked the car up and he just sailed straight on, right off the track. Good job it didn't cause an accident or injurity to him or anyone else, so I am fine. Toto Wolff has since explained that Lewis does not make mistakes, this was a misfortune and they do not blame him. If anyone or anything is to blame is the entire team. For two GP races now they were way below par and they have to up their game to come back and win. I am sure they will, as in their long history they have been known to come back from a lot further down.  But even if he doesn't, I still love the guy as he is a superb driver and a very decent human being. I could not ask for more.

The boiler

The other event was, while not particularly enjoyable, very necessary and useful. We had a visit from our boiler engineer to do the year's maintenance of our two boilers. As it happens, it was 4 years ago last that he came, and it was definitely time both boilers had some maintenance. The one in the Farmhouse has been hellishly noisy for ages, but he turned up and fixed both. My only complaint was that he wouldn't wear a mask and kept trying to come within two metres of me, like the ignorant twit he is. I tried to avoid him as much as I could, but he is a chatterbox and forever invading your personal space. I knew that of old, but he is otherwise a good, reliable mechanic, and those are very few and far between in these parts, so I put up with his idiosyncratic ways the best I could. Unfortunately, his prices were much higher than I remembered, but I suppose inflation in the last 4 years, and his aim of recovering some of his COVID losses must have played a part in his bill of £125.

Adam Balogh being interviewed by Andrea Vigh

On Monday I checked the vaccine registration webpage, but Roy's registration has still not been approved. I read that it needs a few days for that to happen, but after these number of months, one can be excused for a touch of impatience. I went on with housework as usual, did a load of washing and put it out in the now ferocious sun to dry. In the evening I listened to yet another concert, which was absolutely delightful. Ádám Balogh, a young titan on the piano, gave a superb recital of Haydn, Beethoven, Liszt and Ravel. He is a genious of a young man, having won many competitions, and still stayed unaffected and lovely. He was interviewed by the Director of the Music Academy, who got him talking about his passions and he came across very well. His playing was with his usual inspired brilliance, and I enjoyed mysef a great deal.

A two-tone yellow and pink beauty

Another joyful event was the discovery of our very first fully out rose this year. Nature is about a month late, so it came to being June before we had a fully open rose. It happened to be one of my favourites, the two tone yellow with red edges, which has such a photogenic profile. There are hundreds of buds on most of the other roses too, so very quickly we should have an orgy of colour outside our windows. Unfortunately, this year the green fly are abundant too, so I had to wage a relentless fight against them yesterday and I wouldn't be surprised if the situation was similar again today.

A snow white glorious bloom

You may remember from my last post that Roy managed to remove the broken door wings from the stove last week and set about mending them. He was hopeful that he could manage, but eventually found that one screw was missing and needed a specialist to replace it. So, I rang the guy in Salgótarján and he told me that if we take it in, he'll fix it and sends it back by a delivery service, cost of which will be in the price of repair. We haven't done it yet, I plan to do a bit of caching near there sometime later on this week or next, and combine pleasure with duty.

Stir fry with king prawns and potato/onion salad

Cooking took a centre stage this week, as when we are anxious or stressed, we both find solace and a distraction in cooking. The start attraction in the culinary world of Roy and Julianna  this week was our Asian stir fry with king prawns yesterday. It looked good and it tasted heavenly. The big bag of prawns that I bought at the end of April, has just finished and the last lot was a bigger portion than normal. We chomped away on it with delight and are already planning to buy another bag just like it when next in town.

 

Mower before action

Yesterday, we also enjoyed an active day in the garden. After the joy of the first rose earlier in the week, this time we had to do some mowing. All this heat, coupled with a fair amount of rain earlier, caused the grass growing like there was no tomorrow. Roy was using the petrol mower, I was on the tractor again. It took us barely an hour to do almost all of it. Only the tops of the cellars were left, which we might attempt today. There is still no sign of that guy who promised to ring about coming and doing our edges with his strimmer. I tried to ring him, but he didn't pick up. 

Cheers!!

And then I have to finish this post on a high. Ever since I got Roy's TAJ number, I have been trying to reach the practice nurse to let her have all Roy's details over the phone, for having him registered at the surgery. She must have been on holiday all last week, as she wasn't picking up. Then I got her on Monday, but she was driving and later she wasn't picking up again. Finally, yesterday she rang me and I dictated to her the TAJ number, his birth place and date and address. After that was done she told me that in the neighbouring village there is a foreign guy without a TAJ card and he managed to get an appointment at the nearby hospital and has already been vaccinated. 

Cheers (2) !!

I got very excited at that and I asked her how that could be possible. She gave me the URL of the relevant webpage and I thought I'd better investigate. I must mention at this stage that in all the busy time that morning I completely forgot to check whether Roy's registration was accepted, but I quickly had a go at looking for an appointment for him at the nearby hospital. It was ever so simple, straightforward and easy, adding to my shock, as things in Hungary are never easy or straightforward. I suppose, even those idiots might have finally mastered how to do this after nearly 6 months.

 

The first crimson beauty of the season

Anyway, there I was getting a vaccination appointment for Roy for THIS THURSDAY. I could not believe my eyes. But then I thought, I must check if his registration has been accepted or not. And it was. So, I couldn't have done it sooner anyway, but it's typical sod's law that it was accepted on the one day I didn't check. So, we are now getting excited about his vaccination tomorrow, although we are both superstitious enough not to shout any of this from the roof or even publish this blog post until after the event. When you had so much disappointment over so many months, it is difficult to believe that finally your luck had changed. So, I'll return to report on the happening, should it really happen, once we have something to report.

Paszto hospital, vaccination centre on right

PS: Yippeeee!!!!  Roy had his first Pfizer jab yesterday. He was so excited that his blood pressure was sky high, endangering his vaccination. It was also high as we parked about a quarter of a mile away and the walk to the hospital was in high heat and uphill. Thankfully, the lovely nurse believed my explanation of heat, walk and hospital phobia and he went through. Felt nothing, as the doctors in that hospital are excellent at diverting your attention, and then jabbing you. He felt nothing and had no rection to it either.

Another two-tone beauty: white and pink

Now we can start planning our life for the rest of the summer. I was getting ready for having no summer at all, but all in all, he should be fully protected by the 1st of August. In the meantime, we have to go into Budapest as yet another cable TV, internet anad phone box is coming from Vodafone. This time it will involve some cable installation, so we will have to be there to move the furniture around. I have also decided to give up on waiting for the yearly card at the Duna Medical Centre, and so we are now having two appointments for 23rd June, Roy for a general checkup, me at the dermatologist.

Third lady from left, my lovely dentist

 

I have also booked my hygienist (about 3 months late), to make sure that we use the few days in BP well. I am now going to tidy up in the Bunkhouse, as I said YES to a set of orienteering friends to stay there on Saturday night. The middle distance championship is near Salgótarján this weekend and they are competing there. Next instalment is next week and apologies for this one being late. You now know why. 😀