IMT Hungary plus coughing and spluttering

You may have noticed that I gave up mentioning the pandemic in the title. I got as far as 170 weeks, which sounds an incredibly long time. It is approximately three and a quarter years. The WHO declared the end of the "global emergency" back in March, downgrading it to an epidemic, with Covid 19 heading towards becoming endemic. These are the stages that all known pandemics in the past have gone through, in other words all of them are still with us, but in a much less lethal form as in the beginning.

The courtyard 

This is all and well, and some of it I already knew from Alex, but it is still somewhat disingenuous to cancel the "global emergency", not the pandemic. I have looked up the meaning in the dictionary, and a pandemic is simply meaning a disease that has spread all over the world, with no mention of how lethal or otherwise it was or is. Still, now we can suffer from all those other viruses, like RSV, that were overwhelmed by Covid 19 and couldn't spread due to the lock downs, but are now back with a vengeance.

A pink beauty

This takes me to the coughs and splutters mentioned in the title. Roy has been coughing for months and it looks as if I will have to drag him to a doctor, whether he likes it or not. Plus, I am feeling rather weak, having had shakes, headaches, and severe arthritis this last week. How annoying that with summer coming and quite a lot of events on the cards, we are both getting sick.

Fáklya (Torch) logo

After this unpleasant note, let me tell you about a most welcome development, which cheers me up no end. You may know that I have been very active in IMT, a Marxist international, in the UK, and have been missing it quite a lot since we retired to Hungary. Over the last couple of decades there have been occasional false starts over here, eventually coming to nothing. And then a few years ago, my Austrian comrades came across some young Hungarians on a demonstration and I met up with one of them who seemed promising, but the pandemic intervened.

 

Unbeknown to me, though, one of them, the very young man that I had a discussion with, has spent some time in the UK, joined the IMT there, and when he came home started organising those friends of his that were receptive to his ideas. This group of youngsters finally established their own group, called themselves Fáklya, meaning Torch, and are doing some good work. As I'm still a FB friend of the guy I saw 4 years ago, I noticed that he was advertising a public meeting about the state of the world in capitalist crisis and the way out of it, with the speaker coming from London. That comrade I didn't know, so he had to be a youngster himself and I was quite enthusiastic to go.

 

The public meeting 3 weeks ago

Well, I did and it was a great meeting. As I had to come in from Bér, I couldn't stay behind for⁰ a chat in the pub, having had to drive home straight away. However, I got to know a lovely young woman, Zsófi, a little bit and her and I started communicating through Messenger. The other leading comrade, whom I have known from 4 years ago, Levente, also wrote to me and we all agreed that I would join them in their activities, attend as many meetings as I can and become a member officially after attending my first branch meeting.

Last Wednesday, when we were in BP anyway, I went and attended their Marxist reading group, where they were discussing chapters 6 and 7 of Lenin's Imperialism, the highest state of Capitalism, which was great. Today we are travelling in to BP, so that I can attend my first proper branch meeting. I hope that I can be of use to these lovely young people, and while I am around them, I can make myself happier by seeing their enthusiasm and serious attitude.

The short cut grass at the back garden

Other activities last week included a lot of garden work, including an amazingly fast and successful tractoring effort one evening, when I managed to cut the grass in the back garden down to setting 2 on the tractor, without a single stop, in about an hour. The reason behind this efficiency was partly due to me not having started to feel ill yet, and partly to the fact that the grass was absolutely dry and not too high.

Using the new strimmer in the courtyard

Since then, having bought a really nice electric strimmer for the edges and where none of the other machines can get near the buildings, we started using that as well, making the garden looking great. The roses are blooming very nicely, including both climbers, so it is starting to look really nice outside.

The climber invading the corridor

Unfortunately, we are having some other bad news within the family at the moment, which I am trying to bear with fortitude, but am not always managing. Alex is having problems at work and by all accounts, (naturally I have only heard what is happening from his point of view), there are some very nasty moves afoot to rob him of his beloved job of the last 25 years. I hope this is just the stress talking and things will be sorted in a fair manner. The crisis is coming to a head hopefully soon, so then we will know what the future holds.

We might take Alex here to do some kayaking

One positive side-effect of all the above is that he is coming to see us in a couple of weeks' time. He needs to go and have discussions at the London HQ and once already in Europe, he will come and stay a couple of weeks with us afterwards. This is really something to look forward to, even though it has been caused by something rather sinister, which I am not quite sure yet how to deal with. He is dealing with it the best he can, but I am finding it hard not to be able to help him. I cannot see totally clearly, simply because he is being kept in the dark too, thus causing anxiety for him and now for myself too. I am not saying that he is totally innocent, but I can see no sign of natural justice in their dealing with the problem and that is not OK. Hopefully, I will know more by next week, and once Alex is here, I should give him some good times over here, helping him to cope.

Talking of family, Stephen unfortunately couldn't find a reasonably priced set of flights for him and the boys, so is not coming to visit in the summer this year. Hopefully, he should be able to bring the boys over for autumn half term, like he did before, but this needs their mother's agreement and might not work. In the meantime, I saw some gorgeous photos he put up on FB about Father's Day, showcasing the sporting talents of Elian and Xander. Not only the latter is now a superb young footballer, who has been noted by quite serious talent scouts, but Elian has now started taking climbing very seriously and is very good at it.

Elian on the wall

Callum had his graduation from his primary school yesterday, looking seriously grown up in both physical and personality aspects. He is really tall, obviously taking after his father in shooting up in early adolescence. I would so much like to see him, but it doesn't look likely that we will see him very soon. We are not likely to be able travel a long way any more, but hoping that the rest of the family spoils us by visiting us.

Walking up for his graduation certificate

Other good news on the travel front are the following: I am going to Scotland in the first week of September, with a good friend from Hungary, staying with our English friends, Alan and Steph. Laci, my old orienteering friend is a great traveller, and he asked me if I would go with him to Edinburgh and perhaps we could stay with my friends there. Alan and Steph are now retired and after leaving Brussels a few years ago, settled in Edinburgh. I asked them and they said YES!!! We are there between the 3rd and 7th of September, hopefully the weather will be kind, but I know that my friends will do everything to make it lovely for us.

Edinburgh castle

 

In the meantime, I have been organising a few events for Bér and elsewhere, for this summer. I have to chase up again Toti, another of my geocaching friends, as he has been promising faithfully this time, to really put together a few hours worth of caving for us, in order to find a multi-cache in a cave. I have asked a few caching friends to accompany me, and they are all enthusiastic, and hoping that this time it will finally happen.

Aerial view of Bér

The two Bér events are both concerning my 75th birthday. I may have mentioned before, that we will have a gathering on 15th July for my geocaching crowd, during which we will go on a small hike in the morning and will plant a tree in the afternoon. I also tried to invite some other friends for this event, but the date didn't fit, so they are coming 2 weeks later, at the end of July, for a weekend of cooking, eating, drinking, hiking, talking and especially switching off.

 

Back garden, looking towards the house 

I must go now, as I have a few household chores before having lunch and leaving for BP. Hopefully, the next post will have a lot more good news than this one. 💖