Hundred and sixteenth week of the pandemic

The last week was spent mostly doing some stuff at home, as well as having outings for purposes of geocache maintenance and food shopping. The bad news was Roy's computer suddenly refusing to find any of the network connections available to it. We tried everything we could think of until we came to the conclusion that the network card probably doesn't work any more. My phone and the laptop was finding the network no problem, so the next step was to find somewhere to have it repaired. In the meantime Roy was using the net on my laptop.

My favourite brand cornflakes

For this purpose we motored in to Pásztó on Monday, but unfortunately the computer shop was closed, as the owners were away on holiday until 2nd June. As we needed to stock up on food, we also visited SPAR and bought some stuff to eat for the following week or so. En route home we popped into the COOP in Palotás to see if we could find some dill. No luck! However, I found my favourite brand of cornflakes which has suddenly disappeared from most stores, so I bought them right out by buying all six boxes.

Lovely big bunch of fresh dill

While I was checking out, I had a chat with the cachier, bemoaning the fact that nobody keeps dill. All of a sudden a lovely lady shouted across the shop to offer me some dill from her garden, which I then duly picked while she was urging me to pick more. She really had a lot of dill about  and I was profusely grateful for her rescuing my marrow dish, which is no good without dill.

Roy eating his Cordon Bleu with chips

The last stop on that day was the Kőhíd (Stone Bridge) restaurant, where we had lunch some 10 days ago, where we had yet another lovely lunch. Roy had Cordon Bleu, I had salmon. Once we got home Roy came up with the idea that as he has no computer, he might as well occupy his time by being busy in and around the house. He started with tidying up his workshop and finding some cut off pieces of wood, out of which he made me two birdboxes for future need of hides for geocaching boxes. The painting will be my job, and having bought some paint in Pásztó, I'll have to do it sometime later on the week.

Green walnuts, hopefully to grow to large and ripe

 Other jobs found were tidying up our upstairs bedroom, which currently is full of junk, prior to moving back up to sleep there later on in the summer. He found some amazing old stuff and sorted our clothes and other boxful of papers, which will have to be either put away, (in the drawers and cupboards, or in the attic, or given away or thrown away). He and I worked quite a lot in the garden, mowing, pruning, killing greenfly and blackfly and burning cuttings and leaves.

The first red rose of the year

 

The first rose of the year

On Sunday Roy and I had done some further mowing, both on the tractor and with the petrol mower. The garden is really looking lovely, although there are still bits that need doing, but with the heat we had to give up after a couple of hours. 

Roy on the tractor

The roses are beginning to bloom, although they a re rather behind normal schedule.  The fruit trees are totally erratic. The plum and the walnut trees seem to have quite a lot fruit on, apricots are having none, the rest are having middling crop. Obviously, if in the meantime we have some bad weather, or if the drought continues, most of those little fruits will drop off, not get ripe all the way to the end. We might even start watering them, we had done so one day last week, so must do it again this week.

Roy mending the geocache box

Last Friday, we also had another geocache maintenance day out. This time we didn't go too far from home and checked out the three local caches in and around the village. We started with the Virgin Mary spring en route to Virágos. That was totally missing, but thankfully the bird box was there, like the week before in Buják. We replaced it and went up to Virágos to check the other one. There Roy needed to do some remedial work, this time with covering the top of the bird box with linoleum against the rain. There we ran into the one remaining camel, quietly grazing.

The camel up at Virágos

The third cache was perfectly OK, nothing missing, everything in good condition, just behind the Mill at the North end of the village. We didn't run into Anna and Feri, but we are currently thinking of popping up there to eat one Friday, when the weather is good and we can sit outside. The other great event was Nelly coming home from BP, and she is in very good mood again, chatty on the phone and she is due to pop over for a coffee tomorrow.

Lovely part of the meadow up at Virágos

Also during the last week I finished the paperwork and online work to do with my two geocaching hikes in the Vértes Mountains in a couple of weeks' time. My physical state is a bit precarious at the moment, so I am not entirely sure if I will be able to finish one, never mind two of them, but we'll see. Sometimes I do find my second wind and can go further than I think, but the odds are that one, either fully or partly, will be my limit.

The route on 11th June: 15km in the Vértes

 

Must go now to see what Roy is watching on the TV, I might joing him. The next post might be either a bit early or late as we are off to BP next Tuesday or Wednesday and will be away for about a week. Firstly due to the hikes, and following that Stephen is coming over just for 24 hours or so to do a corporate gig.