Hundred and seventh week of the pandemic

The last week was in two parts (again). First half was spent in the village, the second in town. As soon as we got home to the village from our last stay in town, we took the garden in hand. Pruning, mowing (both hand mower and tractor), gathering walnut leaves, and burning walnut leaves were the main tasks. Unfortunately, there is a fire ban, even in your own garden, due to the drought and extreme dryness of the countryside, but burning the leaves late in the afternoon and well into the evening helped us to get away with it.

Roy and his beloved tractor

I also did a little pruning of the roses, but didn't quite get round to a few other jobs, like tidying the herb patch or picking up fallen twigs and branches. The latter do a lot of harm to the tractor when you try to cut the grass short.

My wild garlic is still alive

 

The weather was really gorgeous all week, and it only started raining today and even then not too hard. Unfortunately, we couldn't have an outing for a variety of reasons, but at least on Monday, en route back into town I managed to catch two geocaches. The first one was a moving cache, which is actually quite a funny one. It doesn't have a logbook, and you can only get to the password by plugging it in your desktop or laptop computer, run Java and this way you can find the password.

Near the moving cache with the view

The cache was up a short, but steep climb, which I did with no bother. The problems started when I arrived at the designated coordinates, in the middle of a featureless and treeless hillside, standing on a molehill. I honestly thought that he hid it in that, but there was no sign of it. Finally, I rang the guy who hid it and thankfully he answered the phone and explained where it was. The distance between the coordinates and the actual hide was, wait for it! 120 metres.

The other lookout point in the suburbs

 

The trouble is that during the pandemic over 2000 new players joined our hobby and practically all of them are now playing with their smart phones, using one of the apps available for geocaching. That is great fun, but the trouble is that either the GPS chip in them is not very accurate, or the player doesn't really know how to get an accurate GPS location out of their phone. The worst case scenario is when both problems are present, and that's how you get a difference of 120 metres.

Roy by the lookout point

 

Having moaned about it, finally I quite enjoyed the place, where there was a lovely view and a pleasant breeze. The next cache was a brand new one, in one of BP's outer suburbs. That was at a lookout point, with equally nice views, although by then it got a bit hazy, so the photos got somewhat faint. Still, both were pleasant bits of caching, and we didn't have to go too far out of our way at all.

GCPC moving cache under this tree trunk

At 9am Tuesday morning Roy had to go to the dentist, which is in a nice wooded district of BP, so I combined that visit placing the moving cache. I found a nice fallen tree, stuck it under it, camouflaged with with tree bark and fallen leaves and that was that. As far as I know, it is still there, which is very surprising, considering that at least half of the active geocaching fraternity lives either in town or within a short distance of it. Perhaps the fuffing around with the computer, running Java etc. puts people off.

The gadget hiding the password

The final event of the last 7 days was my return to the concert halls of BP. The Palace of the Arts had finally managed to organise an in person concert, which we have all been waiting almost two years for. The artist was Grigory Sokolov, a genius of a pianist, a Russian. We feared that the war in the Ukraine will interfere, either by his homeland not letting him travel, or the concert organisers cancelling it, but thankfully neither happened. Considering that initially this concert was scheduled for a date in 3 May 2020 and then for 17 March 2021, it was an extra special joy listening to him play Beethoven's 15 Eroica Variations in E-flat major, 3 Brahms Intermezzos and Schumann's Kreisleriana.

Grigory Sokolov

He was incredible. It has been so long since I actually attended a concert in person, that in spite of having heard Sokolov many times in the past, it was like a new discovery. Some pianists have brilliant technique, others have the insightful and deep emotional approach, but he has both in abundance. He is also well known for being generous with his encores. Last night there were 8 of them.

The National Theatre and the Palace of the Arts

 

At the end of the week I have two events, one being a memorial tree planting and hike for a lovely old man who was a fellow geocacher, IT bod and all round nice guy. He left us last year and we miss him a lot. The other event is on Sunday, the General Election. It is anyone's guess which lot will win, but with the amount of corruption, gerrymandering of the election law, and the possibility of outright fraud, who knows what'll happen. One can you be sure of: whoever wins, that will not be the workers of our country. The choice is between one or other set of capitalists and I do not like to play the game of voting "for the lesser of two evils".

Hundred and sixth week of the pandemic

The last week had two main characteristics about it: doctors and geocaching. My general practitioner considered my blood pressure a bit too high, so she wanted me to take my own blood pressure for a week to 10 days and then send it to her to consider what, if anything, we need to do about it. The blood pressure machine was left behind in Bér, so we went to the nearby chemist and bought another one. This way I will always have one wherever I am. I'm sorry to say, it is really a bit high, but she did mention that we can go up to a higher dose with my medication if she thinks it necessary. I'll see when I see her next.

The bloodtest was a bit worse than the one in July. A lot more little red crosses appeared against the values, but most of them were just out of normal, so I don't think there is a lot to worry about them. The one that bothers me a bit, was the monocites, which indicate an infection. I Googled it and one of the online doctors suggested that the high value for these means either an infection that is in the process of going away, or a chronic one. I think it's the latter, but we'll see what the GP says. 

The bone density diagnoses for my hips

The bone density measurement showed a slight thinning of my bones, but nothing too drastic. At my age most people have at least that much deterioration and the fact that I stopped orienteering since I had it checked last 7 or 8 years ago didn't help. The gyneacologist was a bit miffed that it took me 8 months to come back to him for a checkup since my last one. He seems to think that a D&C would be the best way to go about checking out something he saw on the ultrasound. I think I'm having it sometime in April.

Roadside chapel

Finally, a really sweet and kind rheumatologist closed the list of doctors for this particular week, who confirmed what I suspected that my aches and pains are not due to inflammation of my joints. I have never had an inflammatory version of arthritis, and the bloodtest proved that. So he gave me a booklet on exercises, prescribed some medicine and suggested some other stuff I do not need a prescription for. I haven't yet done anything about any of them, due to having only come down back home to the village yesterday. I will visit the pharmacy in the next village and try to get them probably tomorrow.

A neat row of XIXth century wine cellars

The week and a bit away from home in town finished with yet another fantastic day of geocaching. We were supposed to go together, all three of us: Feri, Karesz and me. Unfortunately, something came up for Karesz, so it was just Feri and me this time. We had a brilliant day. The sun shone like it was summer, the caches were great and due to the drought, we could practically drive all the way to all the caches, including the ones in the overgrown forest and scrub.

Big church in one of the villages

 

Locations included a road side chapel, some churches, some chateaux, bits of amazing countryside, a large, now disused, geodesic tower, an abandoned and ruinous chapel in a forest, a tall TV and comms tower, a village full of beautifully renovated 19th  cnetury wine cellars and an old ammunition factory with a lovely brick built  tower. We took lots of photos, and Feri, having brought his drone, took some gorgeous photos and a video with the drone. The total count of caches at the end of the day was 15 and we even managed not to have a road accident en route home, like we did last time.

Lovely old manor house, now a school

Having arrived back home yesterday, currently we are trying to start up the garden after a long winter. With the sun shining and a bit of a breeze, we decided to get the tractor out to pick up the second half of walnut leaves which we didn't do last month. The garden is beginning to look nice, but we still have to burn the leaves and then start really mowing, pruning and tidying up my herb patch. If the drought persists, this summer we will have to start watering again, which is a very boring and monotonous work, but without it I don't think we will have any produce or flowers or herbs.

The tower of the ammunition factory

We are staying in the village until Monday,  then we are off to town to stay until after all my medical appointments are over, which is likely to be about 2 weeks. Roy also has a dental appointment in town  during this next visit, so hopefully we should be back in Bér in about 3 weeks' time.

The big TV and comms tower

Hundred and fifth week of the pandemic

The main events of the last 7 days were definitely to do with geocaching. We decided to spend half of the long weekend in Bér and the other half in BP. Most day in the last week in Bér were quite uneventful, although I had a fantastic day with my friend Wilka geocaching in the Zemplén. It was a round trip of 400km to drive, but I didn’t mind. He is such a good company, drives very carefully and with skill, and takes most of the hassle out of caching, which allows me to enjoy it a lot.

Boldogkő Castle

We saw lots of sweet little villages, lots of churches, an old power station in the middle of a river, a ruined palace, which is being renovated, a gorgeous medieval castle, and a few others besides. They were mostly drive/in, but we had to take a few walks to get to the caches. I left home at 7am and got back at 7pm. En route home I saw a large number of Ukrainian cars, which was heart-warming to see, as at least these people were safely out of their war.

The church at Vizsoly
 

Then on Sunday we came into BP, so that I could go and drive off to Veszprém to stay with my old friend Edit and we had a brilliant time together geocaching and hiking. On the first day we only found 5 caches, but we did a fair amount of hiking. The start was a spring near a village and then a cache high up above the village, from where there was quite a nice panorama to photograph.

The cave at Borzás mountain

After that we parked up and hiked to the top of a big mountain called Papod. There was a lookout tower there, which afforded very nice views. En route to the top we detoured to a cave, which was in a large rock wall, which was quite impressive.

The Calvary Chapel at Lókút

At the end of the day we drove up to another village, which had a really nice chapel and stages of the cross. At the end of the day we had dinner and I fell over like a felled tree about 8pm. As it happens, I had a brilliant night of sleep there. I only woke up once to go to the loo and then went back to sleep for another 3 hours. I had 8 hours all in all, which is unheard of.

The limestone pavement

The second way we ventured a bit further, all the way into the High Bakony mountains. The day started with climbing down to the mouth of a railway tunnel. That was pretty exciting. Then we walked up an old and neglected study route, but at the top, where the cache was, I also saw some gorgeous limestone pavement. I really didn’t know that they had anything like that in Hungary. I have only seen them in England.

The bridge over the pond at Szarvaskő pond

 

Then we went to see a spring with a little pond and then walked to a totally derelict Ecological Park. I think they might have had something like an Ecological Park when the cache was new, but nothing but a few derelict wooden shacks remained. Still, the walk was pleasant and we found the cache after a little search in the nearby woods.

Muggins in the ravine

Then came the highlight of the day. We had to climb to down to a fantastic ravine, above which there were two caches. One was a fantastic looking rock pillar, the other a spring. However, the most exciting experience was to climb down from the spring into the bottom of the ravine. It was steep, it was rocky, strewn with fallen logs and surround by enormous rock walls. Fantastic, I though, that is what geocaching should be about.

Natural limestone steps

The last one was another chapel and stages of the cross, which was neat, well cared for, just we couldn’t find the cache. Finally, Edit found it under a root stock, which was miles from the coordinates. All in all, this visit was well worth it. I had some fantastic hikes, I found 12 geocaches and I saw some sights that were worth seeing.

My friend Edit by the lookout tower on Papod

Now we are back into BP. I have just visited my doctor today and I’m having full blood works tomorrow, and have appointments to a rheumatologist, gynecologist, and a bone density test within the next week. Wish me luck!

One hundred and fourth week of the pandemic

Back to the usual schedule of a post on every Wednesday. There is another great anniversary. In three days' time we would have all suffered the privations, stresses and hardships of the pandemic for two whole years. I count the start here from the day we put ourselves into self imposed quarantine back in 2020, by moving out of BP and into our country house. I am not complaining, being here is lovely, we have a lot of space, an enormous garden, nice neighbours and a relaxed lifestyle, but the inevitable isolation and restricted movement has had its toll on us, as well as the rest of the world.

The mnoving cache went along here

You may recall that last week we had to cancel an outing to shop for food, as I wasn't too well. Thankfully, my flare-up has diminished somewhat and we had a go at not only food shopping, but some geocaching as well. Unfortunately, in spite of all the sunshine that has characterised the still quite cold, but otherwise bright days, Monday, when we went, was overcast and exceptionally cold.

Dign to the spring

Still, we were getting a bit stir crazy indoors, so we went with enthusiasm. Our first stop was somewhere in North Nógrád, where my own moving cache has been stuck again for a few weeks, so I decided to move it on. We found it quite easily, moved it about 1400 metres on its way.

Freshly renovated manor house in the village

After that, we moved onto the next village, which was the starting point for another geocaching related activity, namely the replacement of one of my static caches by a spring, that somebody pinched. That happened about a year ago, but the cachers who looked for it since were OK by finding the alternative little box, which was put out by some helpful cacher friends back in last spring.

Equivalent of SSSI sign in Hungary

I have always meant to replace the proper box, but considering that the box had been nicked more than once before, I thought we might have to produce one of Roy's cute little faux bird boxes as a hide. This way, it might have a slightly more secure future. However, Roy only makes bird boxes when he has the materials for them, plus when he feels like it. Fair enough, he is no cacher and he only contributes voluntarily, so I left it with him to get on with it. Unfortunately, by the time the bird box was made, the weather got cold, so the task got left to the next spring.

The chemical analysis of the spring water

 

The weather was still pretty cold, but Roy came in to good use again, by driving up beyond the village on the dirt lane another half a mile, thus saving me another mile's walking. I set out in the beautiful forested hills of Nógrád, all on my lonesome, but enjoyed it terribly. There was complete silence. Not even bird twitter. Met not a soul, animal or human, so had all the hills, forests, meadows, valleys and steep climbs to myself.

Picnic site above the spring

All in all it was about 5km, (3 and quarter miles) the return trip, with the last 300-400 yards a bit too steep, but I managed. Found a good tree to put the bird box onto, took lots of photos of the spring and the picnic site around it, and returned in half the time down the mountain. It took me an hour up, about half an hour putting out the box and the hide and another half hour to get back to the car.

The foresters must have been busy

The next job was the food shopping in Penny Market in Szécsény, which was great. Unfortunately the government abolished all pandemic restrictions on the very day we went, so other than Roy and me, there were only about 4 or 5 people wearing masks. The shop itself met with Roy's approval. Penny is not normally a nice shop and we don't normally use it. But the last time, when we tried this particular one, I thought it was exceptionally good. That time Roy didn't come in with me, but this time he did and liked it as much as I did. 

Szécsény Penny Market

En route home we were thinking of having lunch at one of the restaurants on the way, but I didn't fancy the first one and unfortunately the second one was closed. We then thought of having some lángos in another villge, but they stopped making them about 15 minutes before we got there. That was a shame, but better luck next time.

The Bean Soup Inn, where we didn't eat

The following day my new book arrived by courier, which was lucky. I was reading a book about the actor husband of an old university friend, as mentioned in my last post. The last volume, which I haven't yet read has finally arrived and I started reading it already. It has a different format, as the subject of the  biography is not speaking in this one, all the text is from his family, friends, neighbours, co-workers and teachers. He is very much loved by his audiences, if not by some jealous colleagues or the state. The latter currently does not like his political opinions, which doesn't bother him, as those opinions are the ones that make him even more popular, beyond his talent and excellent performances.

My friend's husband, the actor

On TV I am still binge watching NCIS on Netflix, currently I am about 2/3rd the way through the 3rd series. It is quite enjoyable rewatching the early series, as everybody is so much younger, plus the episodes seem fresher, better written and better acted. I also have forgotten most of the story lines, so they seem new to me now.

Strange shot from NCIS

Must go now, as Roy is awaiting his coffee. The exciting news of the week is that if all goes well, nothing untoward happens and we are all healthy, I will go geocaching for the whole of Saturday with Wilka, my gorgeous and very good friend, whom I have not cached with for several months now. He is about the age of my boys, so with him it is yet again a situation that I am treated as his honorary second mum. Report on the day in next week's post.

One hundred and third week of the pandemic

I am a bit late with this post, but at least I can say that I am writing it on our 52nd Wedding Anniversary. The 2-day delay was due to me not feeling very well. I think I got to a stage, when I need a thorough check up again, so I made some appointments with some of the really nice doctors at Duna Medical. It is a very nice place, except for the financial gurus, who are greedy, nasty, incompetent and bordering on the evil. I would choose another clinic, if it wasn't for the nice medical staff and excellent standard of care. Let us hope that their usual magic and find what's ailing me. 

Jar of pears

Due to my incapacity, the planned outing to replace one of my missing caches plus go food shopping was cancelled. But, Roy being a wizard, he magicked up a really lovely celebratory lunch today, for the Anniversary. Over the years we have been preserving lots of fruit and some vegetable dishes in large jars, so we had one of the latter, called lecsó. It is like ratatouille, but without the aubergines and courgettes. He found our last two large potatoes and mashed them. That with the lecsó was the main course, followed by a lovely desert of preserved pears from our own tree, with some shop bought preserved Morello cherries, all served with some cream and cocoa wafers. Yum, yum!

My favourite champagne

Drink, of course, was champagne, what else? Our absolute favourite is one by a vinery called BB, (short for Balatonboglár), which is by Lake Balaton. It is as dry as a bone, fragrant, nicely full of bubbles and we both had a couple of glasses of it. There is some left in the bottle, so I suppose it'll be consumed tomorrow.

Heino last autumn

The main event of last week, thankfully before I started feeling a bit unwell, was the visit by the Dutch. Heino and Manet seemed to enjoy their lunch with us, and stayed for about 3 hours, eating, dringing and chatting. Roy did a nice roast, this time with a boneless chop joint, two types of potatoes, sprouts and carrots. It was served with gravy and apple sauce. Latter also from our own apples. We had red and white wine with the meal, pálinka and port for aperetif. For afters we had Roy's famous apple crumble, which also went down like a storm.

Manet last autumn

Heino and Manet went home a couple of days ago. Should be back in about 2 months, hopefully for a little longer than two weeks. They usually use their stay for switching off, plus at least once go on a trip finding out about different places all over the country. This time they went almost as far as the Ukraine,, thankfully a couple of days before the war started. They loved the mountains they went through, but saw a lot of poverty and degradation too. In a way, they are the type of people who are aware of social and other problems and were not too surprised seeing it. What they didn't know, however, is that the corner of the country they visited is in the most deprived region.

Roy piling up leaves to burn

The weather has been amazingly spring-like. Sparkling sunshine most days, although it is still quite cold. The nights are well below zero, so thankfully, the grass is not yet growing. The first job we had to tackle was picking up all the fallen walnut leaves that we ran out of time and energy to pick up last autumn. The best way to do it is with the mower. We managed to do quite a lot of it and Roy burned it on Brighton beach. Hopefully, we should have another go to finish it off this weekend, then we can pay attention to pruning the roses and tidying up the herb garden.

Our good old trusty mower ready for action

Talking of tidying, Roy had a go at the back room in the Bunkhouse, where we keep a lot of stuff, and tells me that it is nice and tidy now. Same goes for his workshop, and, of course, quite a few things that we couldn't find in the last year or so, have turned up. He also rationalised our bottle collection, which is now getting ridiculously large. He threw quite a few away now, as the current stock is more than adequate for our needs. I am really hoping that this spring there won't be any snowstorms or overnight frost, and the apricot tree produces a big enough crop to make some jam. We have been saving dozens of little jars in the last two years to put it in.

Roy burning leaves on Brighton beach

The floor polisher/scrubber has finally arrived and it looks great. I haven't tried it out yet, but that is on the cards. The main job I intend to use it for is scrubbing the kitchen floor. Our conrete faux brick floortiles are porous and a hell of a job to keep clean. Let's hope with this little machine I can spare the aches and pains in my back and on my knees.

The floor scrubber/polisher

The rest of our time is spent, as usual, watching TV, on the computer and reading books. I have finished the second Sheila Hancock biography and now I am on a similar book, but about a Hungarian actor/comic. He is called János Gálvölgyi and he is not only a brilliant, talented and very, very funny guy, but I know him personally. He is the husband of an old friend of mine from my university days. He is very shy and has not much conventional luvvy-type social life. However, we managed to actually talk them into joining us for a short while on our Golden Wedding Anniversary party, which caused quite a sensation from my other friends, whom I didn't tell who was coming. Needless to say, there were quite a few selfies taken, which he wasn't too happy with, but obliged them all the same.

János Gálvölgyi, my friend

I had this book about him for quite a while now, but I think it is yet another one that I read once, when I first got it, and not since. I am in the process of reading it now, and while I was Google-ing him for some other information I realised that there is another volume, which was published 4 years ago and I never bought. So I ordered it online, it should arrive next week. With that one, his entire life story - from birth to about 4 years ago - should be available.

Jutka and János with me 2 years ago

I am still watching NCIS on Netlfix, although it is a very unpredictable affair. Some days it is available, other days I can't find it anywhere. Weird! Still, I have done some serious binge watching when I could find it and have only a couple of episodes left of Series 2. I am also watching current US and UK programs as well, so I am not bored. Not even when I have to stay in bed. A very interesting new discovery has been on Channel 4, where Sandi Toksvig has a lovely travel program, where he takes a variety of girlfriends to gorgeous, but seriously expensive hotels/villas and renovated old buildings. It is mind blowing how many hidden and very rich placeds there are in the UK.

We are now stuck in until Monday, as we don't like to go out when there are too many people shopping, hiking etc. I am sure we won't starve, there is enough stuff in the freezer, plus we have lots of pasta and as a last resource, we can catch the mobile shop as it passes. The nearest village is only 5km away, so anything the mobile shop doesn't carry, we can buy there. Should I get sufficiently better by Monday, we might attempt the trip out that we had to cancel earlier in the week.