A busy week (again)

I have been trying to slow down for years and somehow it never works. This post is a bit early, but after a single day of relaxation, we are off again to town tomorrow, as I have two meetings (one on Tuesday and another on Wednesday) in BP, followed by the guys coming to install the air conditioning on Tursday. By the way, you may recall that I had foreseen the weather for this week, on account of the aircon coming. Yes, I was right: temperatures have dropped considerably already, it started raining again and the aircon is coming in 3 days.

One of our deep red beauties

Last Wednesday's reading/discussion group was quite interesting. Alex had warned me that the Revolution Betrayed is not a particularly easy text and he was right. After each of the questions, there was a complete silence. Nobody knew the answers. Not even Levi, and Zsófi wasn't there. I hate those stupid questions. I know and understand Revolution Betrayed, but often had no idea what they were after. Somehow the questions seemed very convoluted and difficult to know where in the text they want you to look for answers. I am going to suggest to discard these stupid questions and make our own. Or read the text together, after we discussed every page and made sure everybody understands the meaning. This, of course, will come as a shock to the comrades, because it will slow it down considerably, but in my opinion it is still better, than going on with it without anyone really absorbing what you were supposed to learn from it.

Roses, cellar and a barrel

Zsófi mentioned some weeks back that she would like me taking on education in the branch, which I would do gladly. However, since then there were some issues that had to take precedence, plus the branch was slightly hyperactive, which never leaves time for reflection and decisions, so I think this suggestion is now not going to come up until September, if at all. I am easy, if they ask me I'll do it, if not, that's OK too.

Welcome drink on arrival at the bunkhouse

On Thursday we came back to Bér to start getting ready for my 3rd birthday party, this time with my orienteering friends. A long time ago, there was a birthday party at Bér for Lázár Laci, one of my orienteering friends, who was 60 at the time. It was a great success, but we never did it again, until this February, when he was 75. He is only 6 months older than me, so it seemed like a good idea to invite them all again to my birthday in the summer. Originally it was supposed to be combined with the one 2 weeks ago with the geocachers, but the guy that is always doing the cooking couldn't make it. So it got postponed to this weekend gone and it was a fun time.

Laci 15 years ago in the Bunkhouse with his cake

They have all arrived on Friday night. Szundi, the chef, brought some delicious frying kolbász, which was a large, wide and thick sausage, that was home made by a lady, who sells them in the markat where Szundi shops for meat and veg. Even Roy liked it, which is amazing, considering he hates them all overspiced, but which these ones weren't. We had mustard and bread with it, it was gorgeous, even I cleared a fair sized piece.

The sausage

Saturday was the main day, during which we had several activities. First of all, Szundi made a big fried breakfast for everyone, which we chose to exempt ourselves from and have our usual cornflakes with fruit, but the rest of the group ate all of it. Then we tried to enthuse all of them, with the possible exception of the chef, to come on a hike with us, and only four of them did. Still, that made it a nice little group of five, and we left through the back gate and thrashed through an already harvested plot of land to arrive at the border of the forest West of our house.

Big skies above Bér

This is an area I have hardly ever hiked in, so was looking forward to it. Unlike the 170 metres of climb that awaited us in one go. Amazingly, I was quite up to it, although later I was huffing and puffing like a steam engine. We went through quite mature forest, and especially one place where there were very large oak trees, was really pretty. Once on the ridge, we turned right, walked more or less on the level for a while and then started descending. The route home went under the famous andesite columns, but as every single one of us had seen that a few times already, we didn't climb up to them this time.

Group photo by the big oaks

We got home by 1 pm, as we promised Szundi, and had a delicious lunch prepared by our resident chef, and his assistant Zsuzsi, of marrow and pork shoulder. I have prepared a large bowl of Somlói Galuska for afters, which not only was big enough for all, but it disappeared in no time at all. I was very happy that they liked it, as it is a further development from the original dish, with some additions, like custard, booze, nuts and raisins.

Szundi the chef

Saturday afternoon was for lazing on the whole, except those of us who were put in charge of watching the beef pörkölt (Hungarian stew) cooking in the couldron in the garden. Two weeks ago we cooked in the couldron, but that one was a traditional Hungarian gulyás, which is a bit like a sosup, while this one had less liquid round it, but was made with mostly the same veg and spices, although the meat was beef, not pork, like a fortnight before. There were no potatoes in it either, as this time Szundi went for dumplings, but more about that later.

Rita digging for the best bits

Finally, around 8 pm we sat down to eat, but the real surprise was the mountain of dumplings that arrived on the table. I bought 1 kg of flour, at Szundi's request, but obviously he forgot that he asked me, so he bought 1 kg of flour too. However, the major mistake came when instead of taking home his flour, or not touching ours, he made dumplings out of 2 kg of flour. I asked if he has invited the entire village, but he was adamant that 1 kg would not be enough. He spent hours making them, and needless to say most of it is now sitting in our freezer as a result.

A very happy Roy

Still, I shouldn't be critical, as the beef was gorgeous, tasty and we even had some pickled veg and cucumber salad with it. The dumplings were very good too, just nobody could eat enough of it to clear it out. I had some more presents from this bunch too, no cards, but some chocolates, nuts, plants and lots of booze. We ate and drank over this short weekend enough to happily starve for at least the next week. The company was great, it was lovely to have them, as I no longer orienteer, so don't seem them too often.

They all went home after breakfast on Sunday, and now the house is really quiet again. We are living on some of the leftovers, not just the dumplings, but bits of the stew too. Unfortunately, there was only an incy wincy bit of cake left, which we gobbled up yesterday evening. Currently we are getting ready to go to BP, although I couldn't resist making another small cake, which I'll take to my Tuesday meeting with comrades at the flat of one of them, just to ease the discussions.

The guests are leaving

Roy is cooking lunch, so I am off now, take care all you out there and the next post is now going to be about 9 days away.

Alex's second week

After yesterday's unusual post, I am back to writing the diary, as I normally do. In fact, this will be for more than a week, as I have to start with the Sunday before last. That was the day after the birthday party and we still had a few people with us, who stayed overnight. Madwe, Zsuzska, the kids and a few other cachers hung around a bit and then left. Alex and I felt rather tired after the day before and basically spent the day recuperating. 

Kerri Russell in The Diplomat

Monday was no different, although signs of cabin fever were beginning to show on Alex, who was itching to go out. The temperature was in the mid-30s Celsius, so I wasn't very enthusiastic myself. I was perfectly happy with binge watching The Diplomat on Netflix and taking it easy. It was towards the early evening before Alex couldn't be restrained any longer and we went on a little walk along the row of very old wine cellars on the other side of the valley, followed by an unsuccesful climb to the ridge above. Unfortunately, since I was last there the scrub became impenetrable and we gave up.

Alex on the other side of the valley

On Tuesday, however, there was absolutely no doubt that Alex would go stir crazy if we had to stay in the village all day yet again. I thought that there was one place where we could go, as it contained some interesting stuff and while it involved a little walking, it was in a forest and in a big hall, so Roy and I would not suffer too much from the heat. Also, this was the place, where back in 2021 we tried to visit it, but because Roy was not yet vaccinated, they wouldn't let him in and I, out of solidarity, didn't go in either. 

My hamburger

Alex with his

 

The place we visited is called Ipolytarnóc. It is a small village directly on the Slovakian border and it contains a fantastic relic that is very rare and rather impressive. During quarrying operations some fossils and petrified trees turned up about 150-200 years ago. Unfortunately, some parts of those precious trees did end up as grave stones, but soon after that scientists stopped the practice and the research for further specimen had started.

A chunk of the big tree

 

Alex was very hungry by the time we got there, so we started with a visit to the cafe where we all had a hamburger, Alex a double one. It was delicious, and especially for me a great adventure, as I think I last ate one of those 30 or more years ago. Once we bought our tickets we were ushered into a peculiar little cinema, where we went on a 15 minute prehistoric journey, with all the seats moving and me nearly bringing up my burger. The film showed some scenes from prehistoric times with the correct plants and animals, as they are imagined to have been. It was very weird, I thought, but obviously more aimed at kids than adults.

The start of our walk in the valley of the fossils

This was followed by a half-mile walk to the start of our guided walk along the valley where most of the exhibits were found, including several bits of an old pine tree, 100 metres tall. Our guide was a gem, we really got lucky this time. He spoke English, and explained everything to Roy separately, which was very kind of him. That petrified tree was actually not lifted and placed in an exhibition hall, rather than they left it in the form how they found the bits and built the various exhibition halls around it.

Footprints in the prehistoric petrified mud

We saw footprints of bear, dear, boar, hippo and birds. A turtle type creature also left its imprint, as well as crocodiles and hienas. Shark teeth were exhibited in a glass fronted cabinet and the guide told us that when local people found them hundreds of years ago they thought they were petrified birds' tongues. It is a very long time since I have enjoyed being shown round in a museum or exhibition by a guide and was this much engaged in listening, asking questions and enjoying everything. It most certainly was a good idea to go there for our outing.

My fogash in the Kőhíd

 

On the way home we shopped at Lidl on route 21 and filled up the car at a nearby petrol station. As it was getting late and everybody was hungry again, we drove to Héhalom, to the Kőhíd (Stone Bridge) Restaurant and had dinner there. It is so good that Roy and Alex love Hungarian food, and all three of us had really enjoyed their cooking.

Wednesday was spent with household matters, firstly waiting for a guy from the next village coming and having a look how the air conditioner's discharge pipes (hot air and condensation water) could be fixed. He agreed with Roy, that the best idea would be to discharge the water into the gutter and the 6-inch pipe of hot air through a B30 brick under the bottom of the roof into the garden with a downturned ending. The latter Roy knew about how to do as he watched many years ago somebody else doing it to the extraction pipe above the cooker.

A bit later, a parcel delivery company's van stopped outside and we had Stephen's slightly late birthday present to me arriving. I love biographies, so I do have many, but somehow Stephen got lucky and bought me one that I didn't have. Its subject matter is Errol Flynn and it is pretty fascinating, his oversexed paedophilia notwithstanding.

Thee BBQ master at work

At 6 pm I joined my comrades in BP via GoogleMeet and listened to some controversial topics, where amazingly eventually we all came to an agreement. I love these youngsters, and I am due to attend the reading group today in person. Finally, in the evening, after writing last week's blog, I made a Somlói Galuska, as the sweet course for the following day's BBQ, prepared by Alex.

The perfectly pink duck breast

Back in Lidl, we wanted to buy some typical BBQ food, but nothing grabbed us, until Alex clapped eyes on some duck breasts. We all agreed that we could easily barbecue them, and they became the chief attraction for lunch on Thursday. Alex decided that we are going to use the fire pit, instead of the small metal BBQ we have and that was also a great decision. Roy turned up with a grill, which rested on some stones at the edges and we lit a few logs to light it first and than those lit the charcoal.

My portion of Somlói Galuska

It was unbelievably gorgeous, I have never tasted tender, pink and very tasty duck breasts like those ever before. We were all so full at the end, that we had no space left for the afters, but Somlói Galuska keeps and we had it for tea in the evening. Alex is such a wizard with a BBQ, and the food will be perfectly cooked and presented, whether he cooked it on his own large and fancy BBQ set back home, or on charcoal and wood in a stone surrounded firepit in Bér. 

On Thursday we departed from the village and journeyed to town. We chose route 3 instead of the motorway, so that Alex can have some lángos en route. As we parked up at the designated place, I was pretty sure that everything was closed. When I got closer that suspicion was confirmed, but a large poster on the fence told me that they only moved up the road about half a mile, so all was well in the world of lángos eating Alex.

Alex and Roy having their lángos

Alex also had a side of kolbász with mustard

 

Town was at least 5 or possibly 6-8 degrees Celsius hotter than the village, so I was suffering all day. I bet you the weather will break and no more heatwaves will come, starting with August 3rd, that being the day we are having the air conditioning unit installed in the BP flat. Anyway, on Saturday we ventured out as Alex had a few more things to tick on his list of things to do, food to eat. That day was the turn of a Wiener Schnitzel and we went to a restaurant called Wiener Schnitzel on King Street, which is not far from the flat. That was a jolly good meal too, and they had air conditioning too.

The Schnitzel kings

On Sunday Alex came up with the idea to go to the pictures, and as this was the week when Barbie and Oppenheimer came out, we went to see the latter. You would have to pay me to see Barbie in any shape or form, but I suppose that is a prejudice I have to own up to. Well, Oppenheimer took three hours, and it seemed to me like 20 minutes. It was riveting, very well done, we scripted, well directed and extremely well acted. The movie theatre, Művész, is also quite close to the flat and is one of seven specialist art cinemas in the city. Its decor is fascinating and while it is a bit too sparkly for my taste, I appreciate the artwork that went into it. 

The Oppenheimer poster

Monday was Alex's last day. We went off to a butcher's shop, which is a little bufet as well, so that he can have his beloved blood sausage. He told me it was delicious, freshly prepared in the kitchen in the back and everything he had with it - bread, mustard and mixed pickles - was also very tasty. All was left after that is to get his gear and catch the airport bus for his flight. All went absolutely well, we got out there far too early, but Roy is always neurotic on travelling days, even if he is not travelling, so to please him we went way early. I lent Alex one of my Bryson books, so hopefully he wasn't too bored.

Ticket office in Művész cinema

We followed all his flight connections, and we were very happy that he made, even the tight one in Munich quite OK. He got home on time and is now planning several future trips where we can be together. The idea is to go to Portugal for Christmas and which will pose quite a headache for me, as there seems to be only one airline that flies to Lisbon directly from BP and that is Ryanair. Knowing that outfit, who knows if they will still be running that route by Christmas?

Next post hopefully next week, now I have to read some last minute correspondence from my Fáklya branch that appeared in my e-mail intray 5 minutes ago. Naughty, naughty, I will have to have a word with Levi, that it is not very efficient to send this much reading matter mere 4 hours before the next meeting.