Well, continuing on from the end of my last post, NO, I am not spending this Wednesday down some caves, due to Zoli having called it off again. I wish he told me the minimum number he is prepared to take down the caves, now I know that just 2 will not do. It is a real pain that most people I have asked have either already been down these caves and have the geocache, or are ill, or can't take a day off work, or ended up on the afternoon shift that day or just simply not responding to any of my e-mails.
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| Late roses |
Currently, we agreed that we will do it next Tuesday, and in the meantime I will advertise it on the appropriate geocaching forum, just in case we get more bodies. Zoli thought that because I didn't ring, that meant that it was off. Therefore, he didn't do any organising on his part. Let us hope he does that now and we will have at least 4 or more and then it might go ahead. Knowing my luck and acrimonious relationship with that infamous Irishman by the name of Murphy, next week the weather will turn and it will have to be cancelled for that reason. Or, if the forecast is really good for next week, then we are likely to lose Zoli for two weeks, as he wants to go to the Tatra Mountains, rock climbing, hiking etc. If that is the case, it will have to be put off until the second part of October, as we are off to Canada on 24th September. I will report on this one way or another next week.
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| Pink hibiscus |
Now for another rather aggravating bit of news: the car is still not OK. Last Thursday we went to the garage in Gödöllő to have the seat alarm fixed and for the annual service. The weather was still quite hot, so we just hung around in the air conditioned showroom bit, hoping that this will be our last visit relating to this stupid alarm thing. Well, it wasn't. First of all, they forgot the service, so after a couple of hours the car came out, the bill was suspiciously low and when I asked whether that bill includes the service, you could see on their faces that the question in their heads was: What service?, so the car went off for another couple of hours and then when it came out the bill was more than double. We didn't mind, as we had enough of them and it, all we wanted was to get home.
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| 2022 version of my beloved Duster |
And then came the really infuriating bit. Having put the safety belts on, the light did not go out and it carried on screaming at us, albeit slightly less aggressively than before. So back we went. They fiddled with it and then we were told that probably it also needs a new belt buckle. Why on earth couldn't they test for that as well? Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!! Mind you, the guy could see the fury behind my eyes, so he twiddled something with the buckle, so that it is a bit higher than before, and thankfully it doesn't scream. On the other hand, it's probably not safe either. We agreed that he will phone when the new buckle had arrived, but he hasn't yet. Needless to say, that if it carries on screaming even after that, we will insist that they disconnect it, like they did before, as they seem to be incapable of diagnosing the problem and we had enough money thrown at it already.
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| Our grapes, ready for harvest |
After all this excitement, we started on a new campaign at home of clearing the rainwater gutters, as we couldn't get anyone else to do it. Thankfully, the Bunkhouse gutter is clear, as it has no trees close to it. The first one was the Southern side of the Farmhouse, which is a bit hairy in the front, as the ladder had to be extended to its maximum, which is nearing 5 metres. It was slow and very tiring, but I did that with Roy's help of standing on the bottom rung and holding the ladder. Next step was the Northern side, which was also pretty full of gunge, but not as hairy as the other side, and after a few hours that was done as well. Finally, on the third day I did the Cottage Southern side, but could not face doing the Northern one, which is in Nelly's absolute jungle, but hopefully, sometime next week I'll have a go at that as well. Apologies for no photos of this gutter clearance, but Roy still has not mastered the art of taking photos with my phone.
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| Nice big juicy bunches of grapes |
While all this was going on, I managed to get Nelly to give me the phone number of the guy who chopped down her trees last year and gave the guy a ring. He was really nice and promised to come over the following morning to have a look at the tree and its situation and give us a quote. This he duly did and quoted 60,000 Ft, which at the current exchange rate is about £135. I said yes straight away and we agreed on either Monday or Thursday the following week.
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Other jobs during this time included letting the gas meter reader in to do the annual meter reading, which was quite lucky, as he had been before and we didn't find his piece of paper about it. I also started doing some preparation work for our Canadian trip, which I kept putting off out of superstition, that something will crop up and will stop it. Still, some things had to be done and I printed all the documents and put them in a folder, as well as downloaded the Yettel app, so I can buy data traffic time for roaming
just before we go.
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Alex also insisted that I should download Uber, as public transport is so expensive now in Toronto, that it is worth catching an Uber isntead. That wasted a lot of time and was unsuccessful. It turns out that Uber is banned in Hungary and while filling out the form it would not take my postal code, with a notice "no such code". So I gave up and we will either walk or catch a street car, like we always did before, no matter how expensive.
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I also had another job to do with telephone calls, but instead of Canada, now I had to deal with post-Brexit UK. I have a dual SIM phone, where one is Hungarian and the other UK. The latter is a "pay as you go" phone, where I put money on it now and again and it works. I occasionally receive calls on it and use it to make calls even more rarely. So I had a letter that if I do not use it within the next 90 days, they'll cancel my number and SIM card. OK, I thought, I have always done this, so it should work even now. No, I was wrong it did not. When they notified all PAYG customers of the post-Brexit changes, the text was a bit hazy on detail, but I took it to mean that either I buy a package that they were offering for using my phone abroad, or carry on without a package, but then it's a lot more expensive. Considering that I make at the most 3 or 4 calls a year, I decided against the package, willing to pay the higher rate. What they didn't tell you, was that you can't use your phone at all, except with these packages, which last only 8 days. Obviously, they were thinking of people being on holiday, not of expats that live abroad.
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| The packages |
Unfortunately, I had no choice but to buy a package, as unless I used my phone within the next 90 days, I was going to lose it. The information in one of the letters was that I have to send an SMS with the word EUMINS to 2345 and that will be facilitated. I would have 100 minutes for £4. Quite reasonable, I thought, no problems. Four times a year I can afford that to hang onto my UK phone. And here comes the very frustrating punchline. There was no way I could do that, unless I already had the package. The classical case of Catch 22. It was also very confusing that there was no information what format the phone number had to be put into - again they were thinking of holidaymakers who could buy this at home before leaving. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, when I spotted their website that you can do it with the Vodafone app on your phone or online on the desktop PC. And finally, that is what I have done. Not that their website is very user friendly. I had to look for quite a time before I spotted the button I had to click on for buying a EUMIN package for 8 days for £4. I also downloaded the app onto my phone, just in case I'll need it there in future.
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| Sheila in the pavilion a few years back |
Now, having a 100 minutes gave me a chance to call people, whom I haven't called since Brexit, having lost the facility of it costing the same as at home. Having a bad relationship with my old friend Murphy, practically nobody I called was picking up. Linda had a busy week and was away some of the time, and quite a few others were just not picking up. Finally, the vast majority of the 100 minutes was used up by calling Sheila, with whom I had a jolly good natter. I think I still have approximately 10 to 15 minutes left, but it doesn't matter if I can't use it up before Friday, when it finishes. I was very keen to use most of it up, as having been forced to buy one, I was not going to waste my minutes.
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| The silver birch still intact |
And now back to the death sentence on the silver birch. Monday turned out to have a bad forecast, so I thought János would come on Thursday, but then Tuesday became free, so we had the tree cut down yesterday. H
Minus a few branches
Many branches on the ground
The tree giving two fingers
A busy Roy in the greenery
Roy and I were thinking that the Farmhouse and the Bunkhouse need new
rooftiles. The structure of the roof is OK, but the clay tiles were a
mistake. The Cottage has second hand, very old, but concrete tiles on it
and they are perfect, while the other two have discoloured, cracked and
delaminating tiles on them all over the place. Another job that occurred
to me was the 10 tins of Swedish paint that we got over two years ago,
so that we can repaint all our exterior paintwork on the railings,
pillars, eaves and the front gate. Then Roy fell down the stairs and we
still haven’t done any of it. 
The stump
The future fuel for the stove
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