The eightyninth week of the pandemic

This was a weird week. There was staying in, going out, feeling ill, feeling great and anything else in between in it. 

I have given up watching F1, due to poor Lewis's dreadful year and hoping that if I don't watch, he might start winning. Finally, after several months of disaster upon disaster, he started winning. The Sao Apolo GP was won by Lewis in great style and I have even seen statements from greats, like Damon Hill, that his drive at this GP was the best he had ever seen anywhere and from anone. Praise indeed!!

The main chore that has been hanging over my head for ages was our Tax Returns. Unfortunately, on the same day that I scheduled this task, we also had the news that both Stephen and Hannah had caught Covid and have been quite ill for nearly a week. And that in spite of both of them having had two vaccinations. This new Delta+ is evil, and, of course, comedy clubs are very closed-in places. Thankfully, neither of them has needed hospitalisation and are slowly, but surely on the mend.

The sign outside the Seafairers' Museum

After I managed to control my shock, I set about writing up the Tax Return data from my spreadsheet. That was slow work, as practically nobody sends P60's any more and as it only comes up once a year, I never remember from the year before how to find them online. I have decided that from now on, whenever I receive anything, either by snailmail or e-mail, telling me that it has been posted online, I will immediately enter the figures into the spreadsheet, so next November I just have a copying job. Well, that's the theory, let's see how the practice will work out!!

A lovely vineyard on our travels

Feri, Karesz and myself have been planning to travel by train to Szeged, to do a bit of geocaching, but I had to cancel, due to having another plan, this time with Anna to do a Medves Plateau hike on Saturday. As it happens, neither of them happened, due to the chaos that exists in the Hungarian Health Service, but what's new?

A coronary CT machine, similar to mine

On Thursday mid-afternoon I got a telephone call from the BP Cardiac Centre, a lady asking if I have an immunity certificate? Yes, I do, was the answer, but I had to ask, why? Because of tomorrow's coronary CT you are having. What coronary CT, I ask in amazement? To cut a long and vexatious story short, apparently, Dr. Bartha, the cardiologist I have seen at the Duna Medical Centre, a private clinic/hospital about 2 and half months ago, has fixed up for this CT to take place on Friday, 19th November at 4pm at the hospital in BP she works at. Nobody bothered to let me know about it, so good job that this lady enquired about my vaccination status, or I would have missed it. Phewww!

Wine cellars

The upshot was that we had to make an unscheduled visit to BP, good job the appointment was in the afternoon, or we would have had to drop everything we were doing on Thursday afternoon and tear in to town. As it happens, we pootled in on Friday morning, I had the CT, which was a bit frightening, but went OK and having spent a night in the flat, we travelled home on Saturday, via Lidl for food. The results will be sent in about 3 weeks and will also be up on the state health service's online portal, where I can see them, provided I register there.

 

I made an appointment with Dr. Bartha straight away, to see her and hear her evaluation of the results. She is an exceedingly popular consultant, so I had to be quick. As it is, the earliest appointment I could get was 4th January, but at least I know, well hope, that the results will be through by then.

A cold, but not as violent as mine was

The weekend went quite quietly, but on Monday morning I woke up with an explosive and very unpleasant head cold. It felt like there were fireworks exploding in my nose, I had to blow my nose regularly, later it started running like a waterfall, I had a headache, felt very tired and lethargic. I suppose, if you read this far, you must know where I'm going with this. Some, but not all, symptoms pointed towards Covid, but I decided not to panic. Spent the day in bed and hoped that I would be better in the morning. I was much better the following morning, but now had to decide whether to go out or stay in.

The name of the valley in pansies

The reason behind that dilemma lay in the decisions of the local electricity board, that announced the week before, that on Tuesday, 23rd November 2021, we will not have any electricity between the hours of 8am and 4pm. In a 100 year old, Palóc longhouse, with a covered corridor shading the building, the walls are so thick that not too much light would enter the house in the month of November, so one would have to have the lights on. We did not fancy sitting, or in my case lying about in the dark all day. So we decided to go out and do some geocaching. Roy's eye having recovered quite well by now, he took on the driving and miraculously, I was feeling perfectly OK all day.

 

Vineyard, hills, forests and solar panels

We travelled an hour and a half East, where we haven't been for a while. All the caches within the town of Eger I have already got, but the ones just outside I haven't, so we aimed for those. The day was very long, as we left at 8am and didn't get home until 5:30pm, so we were both exhausted, but we did have a fascinating and enjoyable day.

The de la Motte chateau in Noszvaj

 

We visited an interesting, private museum of seafairing, a couple of small sporting airfields, an old geological phenomenon, connected to thermal waters, a couple of memorials, a lookout tower, an adventure park, a lovely 19th century chateau and its park, some cave dwellings and a valley West of Eger, full of wine cellars, bars and restaurants.

Large windows at the other end of the park

 

The final count of geocaches found was ten, I have spent hours reporting back on my experiences and uploading photographs, which in Bér, with its snail paced internet, is not always fun. Today, it got extremely cold, according to the Weather Channel, it got to 10 below zero last night in Bér, but we are as warm as toast, at least presently. If the Russian turn the gas off, we still have 2 cubic metres of acacia in the wood shed, so we will not freeze.

Mysterious room under the terrace

With this inexplicably fast recovery from a cold I thought I will have for a week, I am really pleased, but completely flummoxed. Was it perhaps an allergy attack? But to what? I suppose I should be pleased and not bother with trying to second guess it, but I wouldn't want it coming back, as it wasn't pleasant.

The Chateau's Park

 

Oh, and guess what? Lewis won the Quatar GP as well, last Sunday, so my trick of not watching it has been working. Obviously, I have to watch it retrospectively, but with too much to do today, I haven't yet got time for it. He is still 14 or 15 points behind Max Verstappen, so what is going to happen to the overall championship, is still anybody's guess. There are two races left, Saudi Arabia, (another new one) and Abu Dhabi, the season closer. Do keep your fingers crossed for me, obviously only if you don't

Bars and restaurants in the valley

have someone else you yourself are rooting for. 

Today, due to the severe drop in temperatures, Roy and I made sure that we put  the hanging bowls full of sunflower seeds out for the birds. Still at the back of last season we bought a 40 kg bag of seeds, hopefully that should do the entire season, if not two. I will have to remember to get some fat as well, next time we are shopping for food, as they like to peck at that too.

Another vista of the park

When I get a minute, I'm still following my US cop shows, Stephen Colbert on CBS and Netflix. I have discovered that a serial that I watched about 2 years ago, called Virgin River, is back with its 3rd season. I might go an relax with that now that I have typed too much. My RSI is back, so I should rest it.

Next post next week, all being well. 😉

The eightyeighth week of the pandemic

Another week in Bér, where we are trying to have a rest, but are both still struggling with a bad cold, sneezes, coughs and bad nights. Lately even Roy started having funny dreams, which he only ever does once every 10 years or so. Still, we are trying to be as busy as we can be, doing household chores, garden  chores, bits of DIY and keeping up with the internet.

I have finally caught up with my US serials, which took some effort. Having got out of the habit, with the disappearance of my VPN last year, it took me some effort to get back to it. I only realised that they were back about a month after they started. Some days I watched about 6 to 8 hours' worth, which, of course, did my eyes or back no favours. Still, I am happy to have caught up, and am currently watching, (whenever they are on, that is) 12 of them.

FBI Most Wanted

I have also noticed some interesting changes. Arcs are the new thing, and in various ways. Other than the normal 3 or 4 episode arcs, in the three FBI serials, (FBI, FBI MOST WANTED and FBI International, the last being new) they had a 3 episode arc, each of which episode formed the 1st one of the season in each of them. It took some time for me to realise what was going on, but it was fun. Should I get very frustrated for lack of episodes at any time, especially over Christmas when they always have a furlough of about 4 weeks, I will watch them again, but this time one after another.

FBI International

Chores completed included pruning and tidying the roses and tidying the cupboards, mostly aiming at reminding ourselves of what exactly we got in them. It really looked like we were preparing for Word War 3, but just going into winter it makes sense to have well stocked cupboards, doesn't it?

Shelves under the stairs

Having finished my second Tamás Frei book, The Banker, last week, I proceeded to re-reading the third one, called 2015 The year of chaos and the war of the Hungarian elite. I am about half way through, but it is absolutely riveting. With hindsight, it is easy to ridicule the story, as not having happened, but I still find it fascinating, especially, that his guess of disorder was not as way off the truth as you think. This was, and still is, a likely version of where the politics of this government might lead.

Frei Tamás: 2015

With the binge watching of US serials over, I looked in on UK programs and also Netflix this week. I re-watched the Dowton Abbey film, in preparation for the second one, due out next March. Apparently, Maggie Smith is still going strong in the role of Lady Grantham. I await with anticipation the explanation for what happened to her terminal illness? I suppose, miraculous cures and/or recoveries have been used before, but really, who believes these things any more? Still, Maggie Smith is such a treasure that I don't mind her going on forever in any role, let alone as Lady Grantham. After Downton Abbey I watched ITV's The Tower, which proved to be quite interesting. 

Downton Abbey, the film - The main characters

I looked in on the booking system for Roy's booster, but no luck. It seems to be the same as when I tried to book mine all those months ago. The website is lagging behind with data and still keeps saying that he is not entitled. If I remember well, it caught up in about 4 or 5 days, so I'll keep trying. As he has a cold at the moment, it is not that urgent anyway.

Gemma Whelan in The Tower

I rang Pali yesterday about the pálinka mash and he advised Roy to stop stirring it too often and lock them down hermetically now. They will clear, he said, just slowly. Due to the cold, it always does that, he said, so Roy took his advice and is now staying away from the 4 tightly locked down barrels.

Roy with the barrels when we brought them home

The main event of the last week happened yesterday, or to be honest, the main eventS. It did not start very nicely, but improved right through the day. You may recall that I had a funny turn a couple of weeks back, and it repeated in the early hours of yesterday. Unfortunately, it was a lot worse than before and I decided to call an ambulance.

And this is where everything started to get better. In fact, the discomfort eased even before the guys have arrived, but it was their fastidious care that cheered me up no end. Happily, the Covid rapid test was negative, and their fancy gadget investigated my blood pressure, heart beat, arrythmia thoroughly. We had to wait for this ambulance longer than the one last year when Roy fell down the stairs, because it came from Pásztó, not Héhalom, which is near us. On the other hand, the advantage was that Pásztó being the regional centre, their ambulances are better equipped.

Pásztó church

I must admit, I didn't feel foolish to call them, as this was the second event in two weeks, and the ambulance doctor agreed with me. I now have to give it a serious thought on how to proceed. The coronaria CT will have to be booked, although I am not too happy to do that in the middle of the fourth wave over here. We'll see!

The county town of Pásztó with the Mátra

After I recovered quite well, we decided to keep our appointments in Pásztó, as there were a lot of things to be done and I decided that I was well enough to cope. Roy insisted on driving, which he did, as his eye is now quite functional, and practically all the stuff at the Government Window was done by sitting down. I had a really long list of things to sort out and found that the ladies at that office were worth their weight in gold. Patient, knowledgeable, thororough, smily and very friendly and helpful at all times.

Pásztó local authority building

Out of the 5 things, 2 got done completely and the other three either partially or are being processed in order to be done fully in the next couple of weeks, hopefully. The most amazing thing that happened there was the kindness of the lady that dealt with us, by suggesting something, that I was going to ask about, but haven't yet got to. This is the issue of an ID card for Roy, which by all accounts is something so new that in most other offices the applicants are being turned away in droves. She knew what was required, and while there are problems with it, she offered to do it for us, dealing with the BP authorities and promised to ring when it is done, so we could fetch it from her, not BP.

Roy's residence permit

It really restores your faith in humanity when you meet with people like that. They made up for every cold, ignorant, arrogant, unhelpful and aggressive official I have met in the last couple of years in Hungary. When returning there, I am fully intending to appear with a large tray of cakes, which I hope they'll like. It might be that due to the pandemic they will refuse them, that's entirely possible, so I have to make sure that I buy cakes that Roy and I like, should we have to sacrifice ourselves to save them from the dustbin.

I am off to fix breakfast now, as it's gone half past 7 and Roy must be hungry. I know I am. Taraaaa!!

The eightyseventh week of the pandemic

This is going to be an uncharacteristically short post, due to the fact that nothing much happened in the last week. You may recall that we came down to Bér to rest and I am glad to report that on the whole that is exactly what we did.

Guess who's walking under the trees?

The other reason was that I had one of my funny turns, when one night I woke at 1am and could not get back to sleep. My blood pressure was 170 over 90, I was shaking, unable to concentrate and had a headache. Thankfully, it settled down in about 6 or 7 hours without any medication, but I was a bit wobbly for about 3 days afterwards.

The Banker by Tamás Frei

As a relaxation, I read my second book from Tamás Frei, which I haven't read for at least 10 years and which I could not remember, other than a few vague ideas about the plot. It might have well been a new book and I have a suspicion that I am enjoying it a lot more now, than I did 10 years ago. We both spent some time on our respective computers, Roy doing a lot of his family history stuff, me, watching a fair lot of US TV series, occasionally Netflix and playing patience now and again. 

Our favourite eye drops

Roy's eye is definitely getting better. He has just today finished with his special eye drops, although if some redness appears in his eye, we have to carry on with it a bit more. We are both having artifical tears twice a day now, which will hopefully help to stop the stickiness and itchiness of my eyes and his. Although he never complained about itching eyes, but this brand - Vizol - sesems very good. Apparently, it keeps for 6 months, due to it being a pump action little bottle, where the bottle is hermetically sealed, thus the liquid inside stays sterile.

The Kubinyi-Prónay chateau in Karancsság

 

On the days when we weren't totally relaxing we had a few activities: geocaching in our county, as somebody brought a moving cache quite near, so we went and fetched it. We put it out by the Szirák Chateau the same day, as that is a glorious building. While in the North of the county, we went and did a bit of shopping in LIDL. Now we can stay another week at least, possibly nearer two, so there is no need to rush back into town.

 

Karancsság church

The nearest need to go back into BP, is for a checkup with my dermatologist. That's on 6th December, which is still weeks away. En route home from LIDL, we dropped into the builders' merchant's for 40kg of sharp sand. It was an awful hard task to pick it up, so that we could bring it home in the car. Currently Roy is busy out in the yard, finishing the wall behind the timber storage shed, so that the rain won't seep into it from the back.

The Teleki-Dégenfeld chateau in Szirák

The weather has been quite rainy earlier on, but this week the forecast is for lots of sunshine, albeit the temperatur became a lot colder. That is another reason why we went geocaching yesterday, as that was forecast for sun, and we had a lovely time. The garden is enjoying the sunshine, but even if you stand in the middle of it, you still feel how cold the air has become. In fact, yesterday, around the cache there was hoar frost, so there it must have been way below zero in the night. This morning in the garden, there was some here too and it didn't get above zero until 7am.

My glorious white November rose

Talking of the garden, there are still roses blooming, which is amazing in almost mid-November. I also harvested the last of my parsley to go on my new potatoes, and that was also nice. Parsley is very hardy, it usually survives the winter and then comes back even stronger the next season.

The last of the parsley

Roy is somewhat concerned about his pálinka mash. Normally, the fermentation goes on in the summer mostly, when out in the sun the barrels can be kept warm and happily bubbling away.  Unfortunately, we couldn't get our plums until quite late in the season and Roy is convinced they are not fermenting. It has a skin on the top, which, he tells me, it never had before. I'll have to ask Pali, he should know, as he used to have pear pálinka from pears that don'
t get ripe until the end of October.

A beautiful pink November rose

We also defrosted the freezer part of our fridge/freezer this week, as we couldn't pull the drawers out. That was a messy thing to do, but I'm glad it's done. And that's all. I can't think of anything else, and to be honest, I'm glad. I'm off to bed to do a bit of reading and hopefully dropping off for a nap.

Taraa and next post hopefully next week!

The eightyfifth and sixth weeks of the pandemic

As you can see from the title of this post, I have some catching up to do. Normally, I post on Wednesday, but in the recent period I got a bit out of sync with the dates. We have been hellishly busy with Roy's eye operation and the visit of the grandchildren, so now I am reasonably close to being back on schedule.

Xander in filmstar pose

The main event since I posted is obviously the 4 whirlwind-like days that Stephen, Elian and Xander were with us. I think we managed to squeeze 14 days' worth of stuff into these 4, which of course, included travel at either end. After arriving on Monday afternoon, we went to eat a giant Schnitzel at the Regős, followed by some leisure fun at the local playground.

Elian on the climbing frame

On Tuesday we went to Superfly, a brilliant trampoline venue, where Elian and Xander have had 90 minutes' worth of tremendous fun. Unfortunately, my photos and videos didn't come out OK, so I can't enclose any, but when I can get some decent photos and/or videos from Stephen, I might enhance this post later. Other bits of fun included travel on a tram, climbing into Gran's and Daddy's Daddy's bed and eating lángos.

Fun with the 48 year old kid

 

Wednesday was the day calculated to kill off the grandparents. Still, we risked the program, which was absolutely amazing. We started with the Children's' Railway, which included other public transport experiences, including a bus, trolleybus and Metro. We got off after 4 stops on the Children's Railway, did a little hike in the forest and then arrived at the chair lift. Elian and his grandparents didn't go on that, but Stephen and Xander did. They loved it. 

With Daddy on the chair lift

Afterwards we all had burgers and chips, followed by a walk back to the Children's Railway. We caught a bus, then the Metro, followed by funnel cake. Apologies for no photos, but we were too busy eating at the time. In the afternoon Gran and Daddy's Daddy took Elian and Xander to the best playground you have ever seen in your life. Obviously that was a lot of fun as well, although poor Xander could not try the climbing wall, so he will have to come back to try that next time. :)

2 broken down trolleybuses + 1 squeezing by

Thursday was not even a half day, but we still had some fun. While Stephen was packing, the three of us went shopping and spent a bit of time at the local playground. The trolleybus photo shows a bit of a disaster right in front of our block of flats, where one broke down, although we were very lucky getting one that managed to go round the broken down one, on our way to the bus no. 100E which goes straight to the airport. After saying good bye and returning home, there was another broken down trolleybus in the same place and a third one managing to going round them inch by inch.

Vera and Gábor at the Stadt Restaurant

We have not met with our friends, Vera and Gábor, for close on two years. Finally we remedied the situation on Friday, by accepting their kind lunch invitation to a restaurant in Budakeszi. The restaurant was a revelation, the environment and service was very pleasant, but the real star was the food. Vera and Gábor had Wiener Schnitzel and fillet of pork medallions wrapped in bacon, Roy and I had pink duck breast and pike perch in breadcrumbs, respectively. Afterwards we went back to Vera's for coffee and cakes, the latter being strudel with various fillings, like cottage cheese, Morello cherry with poppy seed and apple, which along with the chat was absolutely delightful. We invited them back to Bér, which they have accepted, so all we have to do now is to find a mutually convenient date.

Gorgeous autumn colours while caching

On Saturday Roy and I went to the 41st Geocaching Festival and Competition in the Vértes Mountains. As usual, I didn't compete, but it is always worth showing up, see old friends you haven't seen for months or even years, and, of course, pick up the event cache. This year people were very generous by bringing moving caches to the event, and I managed to log 2 out of the 4 that were around. The other two were too far and we didn't have time for them.

The cache was behind the church in the woods

Previous to calling in on the event, Roy and I went to visit, find and log another 3 caches nearby. Although, Roy would argue that the first two  being 44km from the event, could not be called "nearby". Still, one of these two had been in my sight for years, so I had to go and get it. This was a fairly new moving cache that travels along the route of a long distance hiking trail in Mid-Transdanubia. I only had to walk about a mile to get it, then take it on by a kilometre, followed by walking back to Roy in the car. It was lovely, with interesting views, although photography conditions were not too good, due to high humidity and the resulting haze.

Some more autumn colours

The sun still shone on Sunday, like it was still summer, so we went geocaching again, this time around the Danube Bend. Glorious countryside, the big river below, woods and mountains above and cute little towns and villages with castles, churches etc. in between. We had two multi-caches, which meant that we had to go to more than one place to get the entire cache. I added it up, we had to go to 9 places for 4 caches. Two of them were hiking caches, one entirely, the other one in parts. We also had one down by the river, showing off an ancient big barrier wall, the other one was placed very high above the river on what is called the “high bank”. All in all it was an excellent day!

The Danube Bend at Verőce

And then, on Monday we travelled home, but couldn't shop for food, as we usually do, as All Saints' Day is a public holiday, so everything was closed. However, there was no problem, as sometime the previous week I booked myself an appointment to see someone about a new ID card, as my current one expires on 14th November. This office is in Pásztó, which is our district's central town, so we decided to shop there after the appointment. In fact, we also did quite a few little visits to places in Pásztó prior to my appointment as well.

Roy by the big wall on the riverbank

Tuesday was a cold and rainy day, but the rain only started in the afternoon and in the morning Roy and I managed to sort a lot of things that were outstanding. We started with a visit to our favourite fruit and veg shop, where we spent about £30 on fruit and veg. Then we moved the car to the central car park and carried on on foot. First visit was to a white goods store where we looked at cookers and fridge freezers. Both these appliances at home are giving up the ghost, and we tried to look around. I have seen a few of both that I fancy, so we will now have to measure the space for them, to make sure we don't buy something that won't fit.

Up the steps to the calvary chapel

Then we went to the stationery shop for a 2022 diary and highlighter pen, followed by the pharmacy. In the latter we had to get some eye drops for both Roy and myself, and some more surgical adhesive tape, for fixing his eye patch at night. Our next stop was at a hardware store, where I recognised one of the staff from many years ago, when we used to shop in Pásztó more often than we do now. Here we had to stock up on mousetraps and batteries for my thermometer and the alarms in the Bunkhouse.

Autumn forest above Nagymaros

By now it was time to go to our appointment at the council, where I had to have a new identity card, as the old one was due to expire soon. I had an appointment that I made last week online, but I thought, as we finished our other chores more quickly than expected, we might as well go and see if we could be seen early. I took a number and it was called in about 5 minutes. The lady behind the window was very efficient and I was out of there in 10 minutes flat. The new card is expected to arrive by post in about a week.

Looking towards the Visegrá hills

The really annoying thing was that we could have dealt with two other matters, but I didn't think that I could do them there, so I didn't bring the relevant papers. Firstly, Roy needs a vaccination certificate, which doesn't neccessarily have to be obtained where his address is registered, then secondly, I believe he could also have his new ID card here, that he should apply for, now that he has his settlement card. Never mind, we will have a go at all this next time, as during this visit we have rediscovered our fondness for Pásztó, where people are laid back, polite, friendly and helpful, where most shops are not full to the brim, queues are short and everybody is willing to give you assistance.

Mafioso with Chinese sunglasses

 After the council we popped in to a Chinese shop and bought Roy a pair of sunglasses, that make him look like the local Godfather. His eyes need some sheltering from strong light, although just as he got them, the sun went and later it started to rain. But not until we have done the food shopping in SPAR, and drove home carefully in the pouring rain to a delicious pasta lunch of fusilli, pesto, chopped green olives, crushed garlic, olive oil and Grana Padano cheese. Roy's had added gammon as well, which wasn't particularly Italian, but he assures me, was delicious all the same.

Marzipan petit fours with dark chocolate

After lunch I quickly made  some marzipan sweets with walnuts and dark chocolate, put it into an old chocolate box and presented my sister with it on the occasion of her 90th birthday. She is pretty indestructable, as I have always said. She slowed down a bit, but still active, which she proved when I called. She happened to be pumping out her cesspit, as you do at the age of 90. She did ring me later saying that the sweets were very nice. I know she has a sweet tooth, so I don't think they will last long.

Today's lunch: salmon supds, mushrooms with veg.

In the rest of the afternoon we settled down to our computers, mostly to catch up with stuff that we ignored while in town. The afternoon also became a phoning time. Irénke rang to remind me to go and fetch my parcel that she took in while we were away, and I did. Then my friend Feri called while walking his dog and we discussed lots of things. The next caller was Petya, my good friend, who is now back in England, but still not a very happy bunny, and then the last caller was Gyuri, my moderator friend, who wanted to talk business. No chance to have a nap, obviously, but I think I will have one after tea. I have to stay up until 10 or 11pm to administer Roy's eye drops, so I need 40 winks to keep me going.

Roy's lunch: like mine but with gammon

If you have read this far, I'm sure you got the message that these last few weeks have really been exhausting.  Now we have no plans to leave Bér for weeks, so that we can have a rest. Fat chance, I hear you say, and I fear that you would be right. Somehow we can never sit still on our butts, but that's another story. :)