One hundred and second week of the pandemic

I am trying to put the schedule back to where it should be: Wednesday. Funnily enough, it's not that difficult as not a lot has happened last week. Most days we went out to do a few gardening type things, but we get tired fairly quickly, and it rained on some days, so not a lot got done. Still, most days the weather is definitely spring like, so we did a bit of chainsawing or burning wood that is no good for firewood, or pruning.

Indoors there was the usual cooking, reading, TV watching, (on the telly or online), chatting on Messenger, writing e-mails and messages, chatting on the phone etc., etc. Having finished The Two of Us by Sheila Hancock, I went onto her next book called Just Me. Both are fascinating and quite by accident I also discovered that she has taken over from Timothy West and Prunella Scales and is now presenting Great Canal Journeys on Channel 4 with Gyles Brandreth. I started watching them and have so far seen 4 episodes.

Sheila and Gyles going under an open Tower Bridge

Looking around on Netflix, I have also discovered the first 15 series of NCIS. I am pretty sure that I have never seen the first series, so watched 9 episodes, until one day they have all disappeared. I could have watched 300+ episodes over several months, obviously, but I can't now, as they are not there. Strange!!!

A very young Mark Harmon

Over the weekend I attended the Montreal Marxist Winter School online. It was fantastic. I have been following the development of Fightback, the Marxist magazine and its organisation, since its inception. The recent development is breathtaking. Not only in numbers, but in the quality of the comrades. I enjoyed Alex's presentation on a difficult subject and learnt a lot. The Marxist theory of rent is not an easy study, but I am sure I understand it much better now.

I am one of those tiny faces in this photo

Having missed my usual chat with Alex on a Saturday, due to the weekend school, he rang on Tuesday. I colngratulated him on his lead off, and he seemed very pleased with that. He was telling me that he was off to the trailer, as he took Tuesday off. Considering he worked all weekend, that was reasonable, methinks. Since then I saw a couple of photos he posted, one of them from the usual perch, this time with snow and ice over the forest and lake. I think all I need now is a spring photo from the same spot and I will have a full set.

Looking down to the lake from the trailer

Geocaching has been ignored a bit again, mostly because we are both a bit sneezy and coughy still, so I decided that no exertions should be attempted. On the other hand, things are getting going on the planning front. Wilka agreed to take me caching with him sometime in the next couple of months. I have drawn up the list of caches and I hope that he will live up to his promise.

Most of these are on my list

The spring Festival and Competition is in the Bükk Mountains mid-May. I'm not sure if I am going to go, but hopefully Roy and I could make a couple of days' outing out of it. First day travelling down, caching en route, then a nice little hotel or B&B to stay in, following morning visit the event base and then pootle home caching en route again. The other version could be that after the visit to the Festival, we would go on towards the East, where I still have lots of caches to get, but that'll have to depend on our health and strength, as well as whether we can find suitable accommodation.

The terrain for the Festival/Competition in May

Marianne also come up with her latest scheme, this time to revisit the Tisza-lake for the moving cache again, as well as the new look-out tower multi on the water. It will be on 24th April and if all goes well, I'll be in a 6 person boat with János, Júlia, Ásványvadász and his family. If all goes well, caching can also take place in conjunction with this trip, but, again, it will depend on whether we are up to it or not.

The Tisza-lake with my three I haven't yet got

A nice surprise today was a Messenger call from Linda and Phil. They are such lovely people, I wish they called more often. Finally, the main event of this week is that Heino and Manet are coming over for lunch tomorrow. We have been doing a bit of frantic tidying and cleaning, as in our old age we fell into slovenly ways, which need remedying once we start having visitors. Roy is planning to do a roast with all the trimmings, and he has already baked the crumble for afters. Must go now, my book is waiting for me, after which I'll go to sleep. Taraa!!

Hundred and first week of the pandemic

Apologies for the delay, which had two reasons: 1. I forgot; 2. I haven't been too well this week. The two are obviously connected. Both Roy and I are having a semi-permanent sneezy, coughy, runny nosey cold. If it is a cold. We haven't had any tests for Covid, simply because it is impossible to get one here. And because it comes and goes, so we keep thinking it'll go away soon. My sleeping pattern had been really weird. Sometimes I can stay up, other times I fade out by 8pm. Last night I actually slept nearly 8 hours in one go. No getting up to go to the loo in the middle of the night. Admittedly, the beginning of the week was hectic, so that might have something to do with it.

Trees along the stream in the fog

Anyway: last Thursday I decided that as the sun shone beautifully and as I was getting stir crazy, I had to get out of the house. My own moving cache, which follows the Virgin Mary pilgrim route, was within an hour's drive, so I decided to go for it. Roy, quite unexpectedly, told me that he was coming too, so that was even better. The sun shone nicely in our village, so we reckoned it should be a good day.

Strange concrete tower

Unfortunately, about 20 minutes before we got there a real pea soup, genuine English thick fog descended, so we could hardly see the front of the car. I was being optimistic, so we parked up and I got going. I was about a kilometre from the cache, so it was a pleasant pootle, although photography was absolutely pointless. Found the cache, en route back to the car I placed it in another place and just as I turned a corner, suddenly the fog started lifting. By the time I got back to the car, I could turn back and see the lovely countryside  I have been walking in for about an hour.

The sun is out over the nearby village

 

As we were away from home, we decided to do some food shopping and found that Penny Market in Szécsény was excellent. I have always had a downer on Penny, as the only one I once tried was really crap. Well, this place was really good and we did a good shop there. Got home and annoyingly, the sun shone brightly back home, I wish it did round the cache too.

A farm in the hazy distance

 

On Friday, we had a phonecall that the translation of our documents for Roy's application for citizenship has arrived and I can go and fetch them from their office. We decided to go and do that, plus a visit to the Land Registry for the copy of the deeds, on Monday, and try to combine it with actually submitting it. The weekend was spent quite quietly, mostly reading, I am still getting through Sheila Hancock's The Two of Us - My Life with John Thaw, which is stupendous. Her style, humour and the love flowing through and through the words are awe inspiring.

Watching TV online included mostly Netflix, as CBS has definitely not had any episodes of my serials for weeks now, and UK TV is restricted to Call the Midwife and Trigger Point, both of which I still enjoy tremendously. Netflix, on the other hand, has come up with some most enjoyable fare, from crime, thrillers and history, all the way to two Daniel Craig James Bond films. 

And then Monday came. It was a thoroughly exhausting day, even though we were home by 2pm. First we went to the Land Registry and I was fourth in the queue even very early in the morning. I got in after about 20 minutes, which wasn't bad, and found a most helpful and efficient staff, who found which bits I wanted copied, did so, I paid and I was out in about a quarter of an hour. I looked upon the very long queue in the vestibule, which formed by then and was grateful for having arrived when we did.

Our houses and garden from the air

You might be interested why I only wanted part of our property copied? Well, this has a bit of history as a reason. In the last hundred years, many village properties have been divided many times upon the death of a parent, between children and then their children etc. So our property that we bought in 1998 has 8 deeds. We could have had it re-sureveyed, mapped and combined into one deed, but nobody told us that then and later we didn't want to risk some trouble, as we turned the stables into a dwelling without planning permission. 

The copy of the Land Registry deed

 

So, at about £15 a copy, it would have cost £120 to have a deed for all of it. I very nearly did, but thankfully I realised that it was very likely that the office that deals with citizenship applications has no need of all 8 deeds. They probably want just one, as long as that proves that I own a property where Roy can live with my permission. Mind you, I eventually I got two, because the farmhouse, which is where we actually live has two deeds. One for the front and one for the back. Actually that is correct, as two different parts of the family lived in it in the past. 

The Land Registry building

So I got away with £30, rather than £120. After that, we motored North to fetch the translations. We managed to find somewhere to park, which was quite a feat, I walked down to the office, paid the balance, received the papers, and walked back to Roy sitting in the car waiting for me. Next stop was the petrol station, as the fuel was getting low, after which we parked up, tried to have all our papers photocopied, but the stationery shop we knew had no longer possessed a copy machine. The lady explained where there was another place with one, so we had to travel back in the direction we have just come from, but thankfully it wasn't too far. The copying only cost £2 and took about 10 minutes.

The site of the one and only photocopier in Pásztó

So we arrived at the Government Window in the Council building around 11:30 am. The place was a bit full, but we were told to get into the separate office that deals with citizenship matters. The usual lady was there, very kind and efficient, she looked through everything and finally accepted the application from us and promised to forward it to the appropriate authority for consideration. Now the only job left was to do a bit more food shopping, partly because we were hoping that for a while we can stay in, so we had to stock the fridge and freezer, as well as for the dinner party we have invited the Dutch too, so we had to have a joint for the roast.

Wednesday's lunch: stir fry with king prawns

 

Having had a good experience the previous week at the Penny Market in Szécsény, decided to visit the one in Pásztó. Big disappointment: it was as crap as I remembered the one I tried some years ago. So we just bought a few things and finished the rest in SPAR. Lunch at home was a lovely doctored pizza and then we both faded out. On Tuesday morning I felt  really unwell. Thankfully, later on the day I cheered up a bit, but I decided I would rest for the remaining days of the week, just to shake my horrible cold.

The happy chappie with his new toy

 

It cuts very well and neatly too

 

Our little battery operated chainsaw, ordered online, arrived on Tuesday, but neither of us felt well enough to open it and try it. So, that was done on Wednesday, and it turned out to be really handy. It is quite light, cuts very well, so we hope it'll do us good service. Unfortunately, playing with the new toy, out in the cold, pushed me beyond my limits, and I started feeling really groggy again. So, now, I am definitely resting indoors and doing nothing strenuous for at least a week.

Isn't he dashing?

Heino and Manet were due to arrive yesterday, but we haven't yet heard from them. I didn't want to pester them too soon after their arrival, but if I heard nothing by tomorrow, I might walk up the road and see if they are around. Normally, he sends me a few lines in an e-mail, announcing their arrival, so I am getting a bit worried what's happened? Perhaps they have no internet again, but hopefully I'll find out by tomorrow what's up.

Stuntmen doing Bond's fighting on the crane

 

Yesterday and today I had the joy of watching Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, the first two of Daniel Craig's James Bond films. The first one I vaguely remembered, although not in too much detail, but the second one was totally new, not a smidgen of any of the scenes, characters, chases etc. were in my memory at all. Not a bad thing, I think, as this way they all seem brand new and thus more enjoyable. One interesting observation: I was a lot more impressed by the choreography of the punchups and chases, than I recall I being 13 years ago. I love Daniel Craig on every level: looks, mannerisms, talent, athleticism, sex appeal and a few other attributes it would be too long to list.

Bond with tousled beauty

I must go now, as tea is ready. Taraa for now and next post hopefully on next Wednesday. I'll try not to forget about it. :) 

One hundredth week of the pandemic

Nice round figure: 100th blog post since the start of the pandemic for us. I'm beginning to appreciate how wartime years must have gone past, finally people internalising them as the new normal. Omicron is still raging, one of the old hashers has got it and it will be interesting to see how many of them he passed it on to last Sunday.

Brigi with me on a hilltop last July

My very good friends, Feri and Brigi have gone down with Covid too, thankfully quite mildly, so they are in a week's quarantine, but fairly cheerful. A mutual friend of ours, probably the one they got it from, has also been in quarantine last week, but he is OK as well.

Feri in the undergrowth last July

My frustration with being stuck indoors, especially when it is beautifully sunny outside, is beginning to be unbearable. Time is dragging, I wish it was spring. One of the soothing exercises is planning. I think I have already planned enough geocaching trips out and away for the next decade.

My lovely Danish tea mug

A lot less exciting, but equally necessary activity is filling in Roy's application form for Hungarian citizenship. I haven't yet finished it, but it should be done by tomorrow. The certificates that need translating are with the translators and hopefully should be finished by next week. In the meantime, the lovely lady in Pásztó sent an e-mail that we need a recent copy of the house deeds and a declaration from me that Roy can live with me here.

The Nespresso machine

Can you imagine a more idiotic requirement from a man in his eighties, who had lived here for over 15 years and had a registered address card  for the last 12? Well, flexibility has never been the Hungarian state's strong point. They can't cope with anything out of the ordinary, and the forms have been designed with refugees and repatriated Hungarians in mind. So when we next visit the Government Window and the translation office, hopefully ending up submitting the application, we will also have to go to the Land Registry, for a copy of the deeds. 

 

My mineral water

I suppose I shouldn't complain, as this lot of frustrating form filling and bureacracy is not compulsory, as it was me who decided the lumber myself with it. On the other hand, the fact that I am doing it has a lot to do with the quasi-fascist Hungarian state, which is totally unpredictable in its regulations, especially with regards to foreigners. I'm doing this, as I have mentioned before, to try and safeguard Roy in the future. Hopefully, they will not be able to chuck him out of the country, once he is a Hungarian citizen.

Clause 9 and the protesters

Unfortunately, I have listened to a Guardian podcast this morning, and if that is anything to go by, I'm an idiot thinking that even citizenship would safeguard anyone in any country. Although, who knows, the way things are going in the UK, Hungary might be a preferred location for our dotage, if what the coming Borders and Immigration Bill in Westminster proposes is true. Stripping citizens of the UK of their nationality has just become easier to do. I was wondering, listening to statements that white people have nothing to fear, this is a purely racist subclause. Hmm. Pastor Niemöller comes to mind:

" First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

 

Dictatorial regimes, and the UK is definitely heading that way, will sooner or later come for everyone, so let me tell you, even as a white woman, I do not feel too safe myself.

 

My favourite kefir

You may remember that sometime last year, when Alex discovered that we have a glass of wine with our dinner every day, he exclaimed that having given up alcohol himself, he is now forced to watch his parents' descent into alcoholism. Well, I don't think that is a real danger, especially that I realised that the largest amount of drink that I consume in a week is that of herbal tea and water.

As for Roy, I am not that confident, he drinks more wine than me, drinks a lot of pálinka and some beer. So, in his case there might just be some justification, although I am sure he's nowhere near dependency. If I couldn't reform him in his first 8 decades, there is not much hope for doing it now. I did a list, and in order of quantity, (going from most to least), my liquid intake is as follows:

herbal tea

mineral water

dry white wine

decaffeinated coffee

kefir

port

fruit juice

beer

The first two items constitute about 85% of my intake, with the rest adding up to about 15%.

 

Roy's full English for lunch

Food this week has been plentiful, amazingly it is lasting. The other day Roy had a full English breakfast for lunch and it looked gorgeous. I usually  call these things "cholesterol cocktail" and while I had leftover salmon with salad, I couldn't resist to have some of his stuff too. I added a fried egg, fried bread, some mushrooms, fried tomatoes and a very small bit of bacon to my lunch and enjoyed it tremendously. Fried bread is definitely an indulgence, but I am allowed it just now and again. Even though it is fried in pork dripping.

And my lunch

 

With the lovely sunny weather continuing I thought the birds would stop feeding or at least come less often. Well, that has not been the case. I suppose the temperatures have been low, due to wind and rain this week, but the number of birds on the bowls has been exceptionally massive. The main reason is that the finches, who have been missing for a long time, have returned. There were times when I could count at least a dozen birdies on and in the bowl this last week.

Four Lives cast

TV watching was mostly British TV and Netflix, although CBS's FBI's have had one episode each, which I enjoyed. On UK TV I loved Call the Midwife, Trigger Point, Wild Bill and Four Lives. On Netflix I have finished watching 5 series of the Good Witch and discovered State of Play as a movie, rather than a TV series. It was very good indeed.

I rang Nelly, who has moved into BP for the winter, and she was most uncharacteristically chatty again. If only she could be this nice face to face, rather than just on the phone, I'd be really happy. Talking of telephoning, I rang Sheila this week, on her 89th birthday. She is definitely in her 90th year and she sounded quite upbeat and chatty. My impression is that she gets on very well with Carmella, her granddaughter, who has moved in with her a couple of years ago, but what she seems to worry about now, is what is going to happen should she decide to move on. I hope she doesn't, as Sheila would become very lonely again.

Must go now. It's well gone teatime and I have to find something to eat for both of us. Taraa!!! Next post hopefully on Wednesday of next week.

The ninetyninth week of the pandemic

Apologies for tardiness, but the reasons for it will be revealed later. These last 8 days are definitely characterised by a great deal to write about, but a dearth of photographs to illustrate it with. Perhaps I was so busy while out that I forgot, but more likely, it was that there was not much to take pictures of.

 

Back on last Wednesday, after I wrote and published my last post, and resulting from a rush of blood to the head, I ordered online, all the way from Portugal, 4 bottles of my favourite port, Cockburn's Special Reserve. I hope it is really the one I like, because there were various vintages available, but these were only £12.50 per bottle, including the tax and delivery charge. It was 4 bottles, simply because that was the maximum transported for the basic, minimum delivery charge of £12. I have been tracking it online, and in the early hours of this morning it went from "in transit" in Germany, to "out for delivery". Great, I thought, but I had no notification, either by SMS, phone call or e-mail, so I am not counting my chickens yet. PS: While I was writing all this, the postlady phoned that she will be delivering a parcel. And lo and behold, 4 bottles of port arrived. Yippeeee!! Mind you, I should have guessed it why I didn't get any notification. DHL passed the final stage to the Hungarian Post Office, and to be honest, on their past record, we were lucky to receive it at all, never mind getting messages about it.

Roy's collection on the windowsill

Last Thursday was an interesting day. First of all, the sun shone beautifully, then I noticed that somebody put a moving cache in Bercel, which is less than half an hour by car. So, I decided to go, especially that we needed to do a bit of food shopping too. Roy is occasionally difficult to shift, but thankfully, looking up at the sky, he begrudgingly agreed to accompany me and even do the driving. 

Saary mill in Bercel

This mill is over 100 years old

 

We found the cache very easily and I was very pleased, as recently there had been a run on moving caches in Nógrád, by some of the overly keen cachers, who previously ignored my county. Once we got the little box, I went to the Pharmacy in Bercel to fetch my medicines, which were uploaded into the cloud, so that you can buy them anywhere without paper prescriptions. Extremely useful measure, that is, and I did find the Bercel pharmacy extremely pleasant. Big, clean, well stocked, very nice and friendly staff, but mostly I was impressed by how well they adhere to and make everybody else adhere to Covid regulations. You could only go in one a time to shop, everybody wore masks and finally, their stock was pretty impressive, the only thing they didn't have were 2 boxes of was my Rytmonorm, which is the high dose one that no pharmacy keeps too many boxes of. This is the joy of the online prescription system, it didn't matter, I could later buy it at any other pharmacy.

Bercel Co-op

Next we went to the Co-op to buy some bread, milk and a few other things we got short of, followed by the greengrocers and then home. In the afternoon, I had a very nice chat with a new couple of online friends, whom I met through one of my FB expat groups. Jane and Lance Hattatt were a delight to chat to. We hit it off online, because we seemed to have dead identical opinions about a lot of things. The Zoom connection at my end was a bit fuzzy and the sound was pretty awful too, but we were talking, (or according to Roy, I was talking), for over an hour, and we parted agreeing to chat again in future.

Lázár Laci

Karesz on the left bending down

Friday was the birthday of two of my good friends: Lázár Laci was 74 and Karesz 77. As we didn't go to the birthday weekend at the Balaton for Laci, I sent him a present via his son, who was attending, and rang him in the morning to wish him a good weekend. Karesz only had a Messenger message, because I have seen him recently, so he knew what was going on. Apparently, it turned out that he had Covid, but by the sound of it, he only had it very mildly. I hope he has no complications with it, as he is not one to keep to notions of taking anything easy.

Alex

Alex rang on Saturday and we had a lovely long chat. There are times when he is in a rush, but this time it was me who rang off after an hour, as I had other jobs on. Next week I will miss him calling, as it is time for the winter IEC meeting, of which he is a member, and that lasts from early morning until late into the night for four days. It is only on Zoom again this year, but that can be even more tiring than in person.

The compere opens The Forge comedy club

 

Stephen's launch of his own comedy club was also on Saturday, and it look as if it was a resounding success, but when I exchanged Messenger messages with him a few days later, he mentioned a few complications, which means that the venue might not be a long term arrangement. He will have to work like a Trojan, (which he is very good at) to raise the profile of the club to get adequate listings to make it a paying proposition, even without full houses. Having said that, the launch was full, in fact the 200 tickets available were sold within 20 minutes. We are all keeping our fingers crossed that it all works out for him.

Also on Saturday, I sat down to fill in Roy's application form for Hungarian citizenship, which I was going to present for scrutiny in Pásztó Government Window on Wednesday. It was painful, as all stupid bureaucratic form filling is, but having attained a virtual PhD in form filling last year, it didn't take me long.

Cassie, Nick and Sam on the Good Witch

On Sunday, being at a loose end, I looked for something mindless to watch on Netflix and found it. Hallmark, the home of the sickly kitch, appealed to me in the form of the Good Witch. There have so far been 5 series, and having started on Sunday, I have recently started watching Series 4. It is really addictive, although I do cringe at times at the inane and predictable story lines and the sicklz sweet emotions all round. Mindless entertainment, as described by a dictionary.

Monday was spent on the telephone, and unlike most of the time, when nobody answers, the idiot answers, who knows nothing or hours later it turns out that you were told was complete b....cks, or when you are finally talking to someone with a few brain cells between their ears, the phone gets disconnected - this time it went like a dream.

3 of my 5 phone calls were to people and places where we were planning to visit on Wednesday, just to check that they were going to be there and in some cases the exact location and how to get there. All 3 were very positive and I got all the answers I wanted. One call related to some more medication to be put up into the cloud, and that was fixed with no bother, finally a long outstanding issue with our insurance agent was also sorted, although I haven't yet received the promised e-mail from him, but let's hope he is just slow, not totally forgetful, which is his main bugbear.

Bozsa and Árpi cutting the cake

Tudesday's main highlight was Bozsa ringing, telling me all about the concert that she took Árpi to instead of me. She is such an absolute darling, that I am lucky to have friends like her and her husband. "Salt of the Earth", is the exact English expression that describes those two.

And then we come to Wednesday. Roy has always preferred to fill an outing with as many things to do as possible, thus save on petrol and time. This worked for decades, but now, with him in his 80's and me in my 70's, this is quite a hard task. Wednesday was fantastic in terms of really achieveing practically everything we planned, but a disaster in relation to how thoroughly exhausted we got. We must revise our ambitions on how many places and tasks we can cope with in one day.

We left home at 8:15 am and got home 7 hours later. First stop was in Pásztó, where we managed to find the agricultural shop open and bought a 40kg sack of bird seed. Then we went to the Government Window, where we had a lovely interview with a lady who looked over the filled in application form for Roy's citizenship application and confirmed that I didn’t forget too many things. Those that I did, she suggested how to fill in.

Pásztó pharmacy

Next stop was the pharmacy, where I got a new set of ear drops, this time in the form of a spray, for Roy and bought my own outstanding medicines. A few days before going I managed to break my computer/reading glasses, so we also needed to find an optician. We searched for a while, but finally somebody pointed it out a bit further up the road. While driving there we popped in to the computer shop for a printer cartridge for my Brother printer. Having done that we parked at SPAR and I walked across to the opticians where the lovely lady squeezed me in between two of her appointments and mended my broken glasses. Next came a small food shop at SPAR, as we were going to do the major shopping at Lidl later, I just went to buy things I knew I couldn’t get at Lidl. 

Julia Organic Mill in Pásztó

Finally, we went to hide the moving cache I found last week in Bercel, and now we hid it at the Julia Organic Mill, in Pásztó. This place is fascinating, a veritable proof of what enthusiasm and bloody mindedness can achieve. This mill is now nearly 170 years old and it is still milling flour and an entire family with 8 staff makes a living out of it. 

The mill from the end

The current owners bought it in a poor and dilapidated state in 2004, took a year to renovate the building and then started milling flour using the existing 100-year-old machines. As they aimed at making at least half their produce organic, these old machines were perfect for the purpose. Over the years they had serious problems sourcing their corn and other seeds, selling enough flour to make a living, keeping to their principles of not selling through supermarkets etc., etc. But they persevered and now they are one of the only 10 family owned, small mills in the country that are successful and supply a wide variety of outlets. Thez deliver to most of Budapest's artisan bakeries, Micheline starred restaurants and the kitchens of five-star hotels. 

The mill with the shop on the right

I wanted to buy some bread, but apparently, they have ceased baking some time ago. So, I bought a kilo of organic rye flour, which should be good for my cooking, instead of wholemeal wheat flour, that I usually use in sauces and roux. Having finished with Pásztó, we journeyed North to Salgótarján, to submit a couple of documents for official translation, which is necessary for Roy’s application for Hungarian citizenship. Before leaving Salgótarján, we had a snack, Roy had a pork and salad roll, followed by a cherry strudel, I just had to cakes, one was the same strudel, plus a chocolate croissant. Yum, yum! I also took a photo of a communist era statue, which reminded me of Salgótarján's past or coal mining. The guy with the gun looked like a Workers' Militia man, guarding the mine.

The mill looking back towards the cache

En route home we finally went and did a couple of weeks’ food shopping in Lidl, and were home by 3:15pm. I tried to add up how much we spent, and guess what was the most expensive item? The Lidl food shop, but it only won against the translation by a small amount and once I paid the balance for the translation, I am sure that is the item that would have won.  I have listed the items here, just to illustrate the cost of living in Hungary: 1. 40 kg of sunflower seeds: £25; 2. Medicines: £16; 3. Printer cartridge: £10; 4. Opticians £ 8; 5. SPAR £14; 6. Translation £80; 7. Lidl £85; Total £238.

And finally finally: after we got home, put away all the shopping, had a drink and a rest, plus all the paperwork to do with the placed cache, Roy pointed out that he had been bombarded with ads for a mini chainsaw. Now, that is interesting, as we have twice already come into contact with one of those saws, as our Dutch friends, Heino and Manet, ordered one to be delivered here and we received it in the post. Also, the other day, when Roy was cutting back the jungle on top of Laci and Irénke's cellar, Laci came out to help with one of those small, very handy and sturdy little mini chainsaws.

The mini chainsaw

So, having had a look at the price and likely quality of the saw, I ordered one online. Or tried to, which is more correct. Just as I got to the paying stage, the website went to pieces. Didn't confirm anything, and nothing further happened. Having already put my credit card details in, I was starting to panic. What if this was a scam, and now large purchases worth thousands of pounds are already made using it by fraudsters. I always look in the URL, and the required 's' after http was there, but who knows?

Thankfully, I spotted a helpline phone number and rang it. A very friendly young woman was rather puzzled what could have happened, but offered to take my order by phone. This way, of course, I will have to pay by cash, but at least we will have that saw. Since yesterday I have been checking our credit card online and thankfully there is no sign of any suspicious spending on the card. The appalling nature of this is, that it should have given me an error message, if the bank's website was having problems, but nothing at all, is very disconcerting when you have already typed your credit card details in, isn't it?

Must go now, hopefully I'll post again next Wednesday to get back to the normal schedule. 💓