The hundred and twentieth week of the pandemic

As planned we left Bér last Friday and motored in the direction of Isaszeg and Pécel. This was not exactly en route to Csobánka, where Márti and Laci were awaiting, but this detour was necessary, if we wanted to get the last 4 remaining geocaches anywhere near BP. I have cached in that vicinity before, but 2 of these 4 were left out due to a need to walk quite a way to them, while running out of time, plus the other 2 having been put out since then.

A soldier's grave in the forest

First cache was up in the hills above Isaszeg, where several soldiers' graves and some memorials were situated from the days of the revolution and independence war of 1848-49. Roy took pity on me and didn't do his usual thing of parking at the bottom and letting me walk up on my own. He braved the very uneven, but well metalled road up almost all the way to the graves. Unfortunately, the box was missing, but I managed to talk to the owner on the phone and all was well.

The next two caches were to be reached from the same car park above Pécel, and Roy did his trick again, so I did not have to walk too much to either. The first one was a tatty old patriotic and chauvinistic great Hungarian place, which made my stomach turn, but I did find the cache, so it was OK. Mind you, the password was written in runes, so I had quite a lot of hassle decoding it, but managed it with the help of the owner again.

The top of a bunker

The second one of these two took us to a weird old rocket silo on top of a hill, which, I presume was populated in the communist days with nice big rockets aimed at the West. It was quite overgrown and eerie, but interesting. Unfortunately the box was yet again missing, but I was in luck and managed to get hold of the owner on the phone again and he told me what the password was.

In the Memorial Park

The last one was a totally pointless exercise, in the high heat, more than a kilometre walk at the edge of a field in 37 degrees Celsius, to a neglected and overgrown ravine with a cave in it. No views and head high jungle. I hate these type of caches, and was glad to get back to Roy to make our way to Márti and Laci. We were actually very lucky with the route that the TomTom suggested. We didn't really appreciate how close we were to Budapest's M25, which in these parts is called M0. In 10 minutes we were on it, and from there it took not long to Csobánka, situated North of the city.

The route of the M0

Except we didn't go straight to Csobánka. First we stopped at an OBI, which is a bit like B&Q. It had a lovely garden department, which was a disappointment for Roy, who was after some fence posts, but I found a beautiful bowl of rockplants, which was an ideal present for Márti, the avid gardener. We also took them a bottle of our own pálinka, plus a special bottle of dry white wine from Mád in the Tokaj region.

The tyre place in Szentendre

Unfortunately, en route to them Roy suddenly heard some noises that told him the car has picked up something in one of the tyres. After checking, it turned out to be a nail or screw and he insisted to find a tyre place to have it checked. Fortunately, my suggestion of not turning off the A11 towards Csobánka, but carrying on towards the centre of Szentendre was a good idea. Within 2 minutes we saw the garage and after a wait of about half an hour, they fixed it.

Laci and Márti's house

We arrived at Laci's about a couple of hours too early, but there was no problem as he was working from home that day and could let us in. The house is beautiful, but so is the garden now, and a parking place for up to 4 cars at the main entrance at the back. They also have a big lawn now, and especially the glorious flowers, which included leanders, lilies, petunias, cacti and many others. They have a fig tree and lots of potted plants. Lots of different herbs, including apple mint.

Laci and Roy at Friday dinner on the lower patio

Tea in the evening was delicious, I had liver, the rest of them had pork. We chatted into the evening and went to bed happy. On Saturday we were supposed to go geocaching in the Visegrád Mountains and leave Roy behind, as usual. Much to my surprise and delight, he decided to come. We first visited a brand new geocache in the village of Pilisszentlászló, which was published only 3 days before we went. It was behind the big cross on top of a stages of the cross, with glorious views all round. Laci found it, after I told him the description of the hide. It took him about 5 seconds.

The calvary cross

After that one we drove to a parking space in the forest, by a hunters' lodge, from where we had about 1km fairly steep walk up to a meadow, where another cache was to be found. There the views were not so spectacular, but the forest was cool and calming. The weather got very hot over the weekend, so walking in forest was just right.

The forest

We returned to Roy, who had a lovely time sitting on a camping chair by the car and watching the world go by on the main road, plus the comings and goings in the car park. He found himself a shady spot and had a little snooze too.

Laci and Márti on the meadow

Lunch on Satuday was a gorgeous goulash soup, followed by lángos. I adore lángos and am yet to find anyone, from any part of the world, who is not instantly in love with it after the first taste. The Grants are definitely addicted, and I will never forget the mad dash with Stephen, Elian and Xander to the "best lángos place in BP", last October, so they could have some. We just made it before they shut, and they stuffed themselves silly, I recall.

The secretive old lángos recipe

After definitely stuffing ourselves with lángos on Saturday, Márti showed me an old recipe, which she uses and passed on all her wisdom on how not to spoil them. As the entire next generation and the one after them, of Grants are exceedingly fond of lángos, I will have to practice until I get it just right, and make some in August for Elian, Xander and Stephen, plus, if all goes well and we really go in September/October to Canada, for Alex, Meaghan and Callum too.

The meadow with some trees

Later on in the afternoon Marti's daughter Zsani and her husband came over with 3-week old Dorka, who was absolutely gorgeous. Just before that, Márti had an idea that I should ring Bozsa and Árpi, who also live in Csobánka, if they would like to come over around 6pm for a drinks, nibbles and chatting session, which they said they would. The youngsters were just going when they turned up, stayed about 3 hours and we had a lovely evening, all six of us together. 

Bozsa and Árpi at the Emma Restaurant

On Sunday we were quite lazy getting up, we sat outside on the terrace, had drinks, had lots of chat and ended up having lunch at the Emma Restaurant, where we yet again ran into Bozsa and Árpi. They were just having their coffees when we turned up, so they came over to our table and we had yet another chinwag. All in all, the weekend was absolutely delightful, I do hope we can have them from now on, a bit more often than once a year.

Sunset over the Pilis hills

 

The remaining time in BP was mostly spent hiding from the heatwave and visiting doctors. It was Roy's turn on Monday, when we went to consult a really lovely lady doctor about his itchy ears. As she is an ENT consultant, she looked not only in his ear, but up his nose and down his throat too. The least problem she found was the itchy ear, she prescribed some drops and let's hope they will stop the itch.

Roy's new medeicines

The real problem was that he had polips in his nose, so now he has two different nose sprays, (one a steroid, the other just seawater), plus a cream, should he need it. We have to go back in three months's time and hope that all's well.

Márti with her lovely flowering cactus

My turn came on Tuesday, when I went to see my GP. She assured me that my blood pressure was OK, although asked me to take second readings when anything is unusually high for no obvious reason. I hope I'll remember to do so. My joint pains are still quite debilitating, so she prescribed a stronger pain killer, that I am used to, not for all the time, but only if there is a special need to be pain free. I'm glad, I know I will not abuse it, but need to feel that I have something to call on should it get too much.

Márti and Laci at the Emma Restaurant

And then, today we came home. It is so much nicer to be in the country, rather than in the city. The house is 24 degrees and that without air conditioning. Upstairs is a bit of an oven, but down here, where I am, it is gorgeous. While the heat is this high, we will not do much in the garden, but one job needs to be attended to, and that is to harvest any fruit that is ripe, plus start seriously watering the plum trees, as they are heavily laden with fruit, but it'll drop all shrivelled up from the drought conditions, unless we start watering them.

Glenn, Árpi's border collie

 

One more job tonight is to pay the credit cards and then I can return to my book and my Netflix. I have nearly finished Vivien Leigh's biography, and have definitely finished Madam Secretary on Netflix and have moved on to the remaining episodes of S4 of NCIS. In fact, I have just finished them as well, and have started S5. We have nothing to leave the village for until the end of July, when I have two checkups and an ultrasound due. 

Cat fish paprikash, with strapacska and onions

Hopefully, should the heat subside a bit, we might go away caching for 2 days at a time, but that'll depend not only on the weather but on the state of our joints and backs too. 

Beef and onions with chips