The seventyeighth week of the pandemic

After our day of rest last Wednesday, we motored home on Thursday to a lovely and sunny Bér. We got quite lucky, as I managed to get through to the firewood delivery man and he agreed to deliver the wood on Friday. We quickly cut back the vines around the woodshed and got ready for the delivery. We also had another bit of good luck as the gas company we get our gas from managed to send a guy for the once yearly meter reading several times during the 9 days we were in town. However, as we were getting into the car in BP to drive home he rang me and asked if he could come to read the meter. I told him that we were on our way, so he promised to turn up very early the following morning.

A nice big bunch of our grapes

I am usually awake by 5am or earlier. So I said to the gas meter reader that he can come as early as he likes. Sod's law, of course, on Friday I overslept (first time in years), and didn't wake until 7am. The guy came at 6.15am. Thankfully, Roy was up and was just checking the front gate, if it would open for the firewood delivery truck when a car drove up. It was the meter reader, so that was done.

The tipper truck in action

The firewood arrived around 10am-10:30am. He was a really nice bloke. He had a rather ancient, but still perfectly working, Iveco tipper truck and was prepared to reverse up the courtyard. Not many would have done that, but thankfully, he had good gears and what's even more important good tyres. He dumped 2 and half cubic metres of ready chopped firewood in front of the cellar, which we then started moving to the woodshed in our wheelbarrow. Bloody hard work, so we gave up and decided to try to get someone take it on for 5000Ft (£12.50) later.

Arnold has nearly finished

 

I did have one more fortunate event, as when I went down to the bus stop, where the guys of the village gather with cans or bottles of beer in hand, for the want of pub, I met Arnold, who took pity on me and offered to come half an hour later to do the rest of the shifting of the firewood and stack it in an orderly manner in the shed. And he did. He was an amazing find and we both hope that he could become our heavy work handyman in the future.

All wood put away neatly

So far so good. We had the gas meter read, we had our firewood delivered and we found Arnold to move and stack it in the shed. To have three successful events on one day is rather unusual, so we thought the 5 days we were planning to spend in Bér had several good omens. On the strength of these happy events I decided to take advantage of the good weather and do some caching. I discovered 2 moving caches in Nógrád County and went after them. 

The house in the forest where the moving cache was

 

I am not that bothered about moving caches, unlike some cachers who live for them and are prepared to travel great distances for them. I only bother in two cases: 1. If I happen to cache somewhere where they turn up; and 2. If I have never yet had them.  This later case was what really got me going last Saturday. It has been around for about 18 months and its theme was 'Houses and huts in the forest'. 

View of the Cserhát hills

 

So, I got up early, unlike the day before, and drove off in an Easterly and then Northerly direction towards the Slovakian border. Following the Tom Tom I had my doubts, but as it happens I was there by 8am and found it quite easily.

Cserhát flora

The other one was closer to home, but not by much, and it was my own moving cache that travels along the marked pilgrimage route dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Finding it was easy again, as it was about 20 metres from the car in the car park, but I then had to move it a minimum of 1km. That I did and had a delightful 2km's walk, in brilliant sunshine and breathtaking views. Took lots of photos and at the end of the km hid it at the foot of a multitrunked tree. 

The second moving caches hide

On Sunday, I had yet another trip out on my own, in order to hide the other moving cache which had to be put near a building of some sort in the forest. It has been many years since I have been planning to visit a forester's lodge in Buják. I thought, this is the time and opportunity to do that with this cache. I had two options of how to get to the lodge. Either I drive round to it, about 6km or 7km, on forestry roads of questionable quality, and where I am not quite sure if I should be driving without permission, or park at the end of the public road and walk about a mile to it.

The forester's lodge near Buják

I did the latter. It was absolutely magical to walk on my own in a rough, but beautiful forest, which was totally silent and a bit mysterious. I didn't bring a map and had no GPS coordinates for the lodge, but I memorised the online map and found it with no trouble. The lodge was totally empty of people, animals or anything that would imply occupancy. On the other hand, it looked cared for and had tons of nicely stacked firewood at the back. So, I am sure they use it for something, or at least maintaining it, but nobody lives in it permanently.

The meadow near the forester's lodge

The area had a big meadow opposite the lodge, where you could see some enormous old trees. All of it was very photogenic and I took plenty photographs. On my return, I found that Roy had repainted Mike's bench and it now looks like a million dollars, or at least as good as when we got it in the first place. 

Mike's bench repainted

 

Yesterday we went over to Tomi, our car mechanic, to ask him to put some air into the trailer, which we will probably use when we go to fetch a lot of plums for Roy's pálinka. I don't think we have enough plums to fill one barrel, let alone four. We also booked the car in for its MOT and yearly service with him for next Wednesday. Things are getting done, the only thing I probably will have to do without is a couple of geocaching trips away, which we even managed two of last year, but with Roy's teeth and eyes, this will probably not happen.

The other end of the meadow

Talking of teeth and eyes: the plans are fluid, as teeth are notorious for turning up to be worse than expected, but currently we are in town where on Thursday we're both going to the dentist, Roy for a more substantial temporary bridge, which then should last 3 or 4 months, while his jaw is healing up. In the meantime, once the current batch of dental work is finished, he should have his first eye op done, if the surgeon is available sometime around the first or second week of October.

An enormous weeping willow

 

Now I have to say good bye, next post hopefully next week. :)