Doctor, caching, Fáklya and some other delights

It has been yet another hellishly busy time, which is beginning to tell me that I must consider taking some real time out from at least some of it. The political work is challenging, rejuvenating and enjoyable, but it's relentless nature is definitely too much for an oldie like me. I'll wait until after the Congress, recently postponed again for the fourth time to the end of June, and will then take a month out at least.

The pond in the Arboretum

I have finally gone to see my doctor, who has sent me to a neurologist with suspected Parkinsons. I do hope she's wrong, but I made an appointment for 12th March. Dr. Dános is getting a bit scatty, forgetting stuff, mucking up the prescriptions in the cloud etc., but she is getting on too, so I forgive her.

A wiggly tree in the Japanese Garden

The branch meeting last Wednesday was quite depressing. Attendance was down, Bence's leadoff dreadful and Zsófi absent. I'll have to put a bomb under them, or things will go sideways. I suspect there is a bit of a revolt brewing in relation to joining the IMT officially after the Congress. We'll see.

 

The walkway above the swamp

On Thursday I had to go back to the hospital for a lab test, so I decided to spend the rest of the morning gathering up the three new caches in and close to town. The first was to an arboretum near the University hospital, the next a Japanese garden in Zugló, and the best was just outside BP, on a study route/plank walk over one of the few swamps remaining in the country. All three were brilliant, enjoyable, well worth visiting.

 

Pussy Willow in the swamp

On Friday we had yet another marathon executive meeting online. They are getting longer and longer and achieving less and less. The tendency to take on too much seems to be spreading. Unfortunately it is having the usual effect of either burnout or turn off on many comrades. I am obviously not persuasive enough to convince them to cut back. If they're not careful it will have disastrous results. Having said all this, I'm persevering, as they are good kids and deserve help. Whether I am going to last until they toughen up, is the 64 thousand dollar question.

 

A church ruin in the cemetery of Kocsér

 

 

Saturday was the joy of the week. Viktor and I went caching in the Flatlands in spite of the gloomy weather. Unfortunately, Edit's mum was taken ill suddenly, so she couldn't come. Better luck next time! That day was the most successful, laid back and relaxing bit of caching I have done in years, if not ever. It did have a few long multies, but even those were enjoyable. It tried to rain once or twice, but it didn't. And while it was quite overcast all day, my photos came out quite nice.

 

 

Viktor under the weeping willow

We placed a moving cache that Viktor brought, saw some nice towns and villages, visited memorials, lookout towers and study routes over swamps, a cute little narrow gauge railway, a new bridge and some ancient barrows and burial sites. In a modern cemetery we found the ruin of an ancient church and at the end of the day marvelled over an old synagogue still in reasonably good repair. Hopefully we'll be off again sometime next month to some other part of the country, that time hopefully with Edit coming too.

 

Bob in the doorway of his Kitchen

While I was away, Roy went to have brunch at Bob's Kitchen and found it excellent. He had the Full English, and managed to finish it, even though he had doubts about that to start with. We had now made a reservation for this coming Sunday to celebrate our 54th wedding anniversary there. 

 

The fairly new M44 motorway bridge

When I tried to get my meds after having been to the doctors,  the pharmacist told me there was no prescription in my cloud. I wrote to Dr. Dános, but she only answered yesterday. Hopefully, soon I can start to take the meds she finally managed to get into the cloud, against my swollen legs and my reflux soon.

 

Kunszentmárton synagogue

 

Today's branch meeting should be interesting. I have prepared some new ideas to jazz it up, so let's hope they all turn up. Must go now, have breakfast, pack and go into town for about 2 weeks.  Stephen's coming next week and he's borrowing the car. Hopefully, all his gigs will go well and I will enjoy myself at the one in BP on the Saturday.

Caching, visiting with Pityu and his crowd + more Fáklya

The main event of the last week was our trip to do some geocaching as well as visit our friends in Monoszló. We only realised once we were there how long it was that we have not been. It is somewhere between 4 and 5 years since we last had been at Pityu's place. Perhaps we were there to harvest some grapes or just visiting.

St. Stephen's crown on a tall column

Roy by the Kőröshegyi viaduct

The trip itself was probably the least successful of all our visits there, for a variety of reasons. Some of them had nothing to do with our host, like finding that we can no longer enjoy sleeping in any other bed
than our own, getting old, aches and pains etc., etc. However, the main reason, unfortunately, was that somehow we couldn't enjoy ourselves like we used to in the past. Ági was missing, due to her father's frail state and the fact that the host himself was a lot older and less mobile and less willing to go out into the fresh air for some excercise had a lot to do with it. 

Pityu and David playing cards

The final, and probably the main reason, was the dominance of playing cards literally all the time. I do not play cards, and managed over the years to get out of it with the excuse (and true as well) that I do not play bridge. However, having arrived very early, I was pressed into learning to play bridge, otherwise the other three could not play. I allowed them to make me play, and up to a certain point even enjoyed the fact that I was picking it up very easily.

Me, David, Szabi, Pityu, Richard and Mary

 

However, when in every 24 hours I had to play for at least 10 of it, that got too much. I have no idea whether it was the booze or the sitting in one position for all those hours, but at the end of the first day I ended up with severe arthritic pain in practically all my joints. Having to stay up until 1am didn't help either. I was really ill the following day, and I saw that Roy started getting tetchy too. Finally, he went on strike and explained that he had enough. That was very true, and then I joined him. Later they changed away from bridge and I joined them for a short while, having quite good luck at cards.

Richard, Pálma and Mary at dinner

The Somlói Galuska, that I made and took down, was quite popular, we made closer friendship with Richard and Szabi, his wife, and amused ourselves with his grumpiness at being last at all different card games. Awfully Hungarian, getting uptight about something you play voluntarily. Still, I cannot complain as he turned out to be a watch maker, with a shop in BP, so yesterday we went and got Roy's watch strap adjusted, so he can wear it now, and we can finally wear both our Christmas presents.

Roy's and my Xmas presents, now fucntional

 

En route down on Thursday we had a good day geocaching. The sun shone beautifully, the caches were quite interesting and photogenic and we even took a trip on the Balaton ferry across to Tihany, which we haven't done for donkeys' years. On our way back we did some more caching. Found the parts of a multicache around Zánka, as well found the outstanding parts of a very long bike multi, which we started on the way down.

The view of the Balaton from our cache

 

On the Friday of our stay at Monoszló David and I, both suffering from cabin fever, got away to do a bit of a hike, while finding two caches as well. We drove to Balatoncsicsó and walked from there. The higher we got, the views got better and better. The sun was shining brilliantly and all in all it was a great time out. I love being with David, he is calm, a very good listener and it is easy to be relaxed in his company. We found one part of a multicache which I might find the rest of the points of later, placed the moving cache I found earlier in the week and did a study route with a nice spring for one of the points, which was enjoyable.

The 4-trunked tree where we hid the moving cache

En route back from the hike Alex phoned and told me that his wild camping in the snow for 5 days was great and awful all at the same time. Apparently, this is a religious and aesoteric group, who seem to use the fact that all their clients are in total isolation and in no position to just walk out, for exercises in some sort of self exposure that Alex found distasteful and most aggravating being forced to do. He didn't want to be to strident about his feelings, as they might have ostrasized him from then on, and after all he went to learn wilderness skills, which he then would have missed. The most dishonest action on the part of the organisers of this trip was hiding these aspects of the trip. Had Alex known about it, he would never have gone on it, that's for sure. Mind you, the main reason why they hid that must have been that they would have lost their  government grant, which forbids any religion on state funded  events.

Alex's trailer in winter

Thankfully, his bit of misery on these 5 days was followed by a good weekend at the trailer with his  kayaking friends, which more than made up for the previous 5 days. His recent job applications are still in the system, but I heard last week that he didn't get a job that he really would have loved. There were several hundred applications and as it had something to do with trade unions, I think his politics would have scuppered his chances anyway. Still, he is quite upbeat, active and happy, so I can keep my fingers crossed for him to get a job by the autumn latest. The summer will be spent with the kayak courses he will be running, but I really want him to settle down to something solid by the end of the year.

David Roper - a striking miner in 1984

I have watched the Miners' Strike: The Frontline Story on BBC iPlayer and it was both heartbreaking and soul lifting. I am now in process to try to sort out how to download it, so I can show it, perhaps at the Auróra, to the comrades and anyone else who might be interested. I am seriously behind with my US serials, but life is so full of stuff nowadays that I just didn't get to them for over a week.

Roy, Arne and Heike from Norway

 

Yesterday we met up with a family history contact of Roy in a cafe and had a really lovely hour and half long chat, listening to each other's stories about our family history. Arne lives in Norway, but had a Hungarian Jewish mother, whose past he is now trying to find out. I enjoyed his company and that of the young woman who is actually writing his story.

After our pleasant interlude we went shopping and sorted a few things that have been hanging over our heads for a while. We did everything, including a lovely new red checkered tablecloth to covere the full length of the table when we have to extend it to take all my comrades for the branch meetings. The one thing we didn't do, is me going to the doctors, which is today at midday. Let's hope that Dr. Dános will have some idea why I cannot shake this awful cold/flu/Covid or anything else that I have had for nearly 2 months.

The lovely new tablecloth for the flat

Last night we also had a Reading Group meeting, (chapters 7 and 8 of Engels' The History of the Family, Private Property and the State), which was thoroughly enjoyable. We had a new guy Balthazar attending, who seemed very nice and bright. I hope he comes again. There is only one more session on this book, after which the Reading Group will also split and will be run by the two separate  branches. No idea what we are reading yet, but it looks as if it will have something to do with Marx's Capital, which I both fear and welcome in equal measure.

Rober's house from the air

 

Finally, today I fixed up with Robert, that we will go and visit him in April, as his house, not a million miles from Pityu's, we have not been even longer than to Monoszló. I hope that will not be a disappointment, like the other one was, but I suppose that the last visit, which was Volker's wake, can probably be easily improved upon.

Must go now, next post hopefully Wednesday next week.

Both sons up to something, Fáklya congress date changed and some garden work

Last Wednesday the first separate Fáklya branch meeting went very well. I struggled a bit with the online technical issues, but managed to sort them at the end. Hanna led off quite well and it did feel a bit that there was not too many of us around, but at least we all managed to sit round the table, which makes for a more professional set up.

Stephen banner for the Budapest gig

The following morning Stephen turned up, had a little chat and he even set up my new Christmas present watch, which shows my heartbeat, blood pressure, blood oxygenation and counts my steps. On top of that, it even shows the time. At the same time we watched him set the central heating, so he is now set to put it down before he leaves. The last time, we left it on and then stayed away for two unplanned weeks, which was a bit expensive on superfluous heating in the flat. He is coming over in the first week of March doing 4 gigs, I am looking forward to going to the one in BP.

Alex in his beloved kayak

Friday was busy. First I had a nice long chat with Alex, who got back from Cuba, looking and sounding very happy and off again straight away for a week of winter camping. Apparently, he applied for this winter camping trip before, which is also a course for winter wilderness first aid etc., but it was full. He was just about to leave for Cuba, when they phoned that somebody cancelled, would he like to go? He said yes, so he now has a few hours to get ready, have a quick nap, having arrived back home in the early hours of morning, pack and off again. As I write this, he is still there, but being in the wilderness means no internet, so I don't know if all goes well? Let us hope that is the case.

Jack with his pussycat

 

On Friday, finally, I managed to get that long awaited chat with Jack, even though he put it off by a couple of hours, again, but at least he did pay attention when we talked. I am glad to say, he was more or less agreed to my bullet point plans for the document. Having had that approved, I did my best to work on it ever since, and more or less have finished the first draft by yesterday.

Gyuri Beck

Márta Várnagy

 

On Friday our new friends in the village, Gyuri and Márti came for lunch which went quite well. We had a curry, followed by one of Roy's rhubarb crumbles, both going down well. As for drinks, I think the most popular one was my port, considering the look of the bottle suffering from a serious case of the tide having gone a fair way down. They have mentioned an idea for me getting involved in the newly created women's circle in Bér, and I said I would consider it. After discussing it with Roy we decided to offer the Bunkhouse for a couple of sessions, one in the spring and another one in the autumn. I might do a speech on the suffragettes, while I might also try to talk to Szilárd Drexler to come and speak to the girls about the Medves Plateau and the Geopark.

Muggins up a ladder

Starting on Saturday, we started to prune the fruit trees in the back garden We didn't do such a severe cut as Attila did some years back, but we still had lots of branches to burn at the end of it. We also cut a rotten branch off one of Nelly's walnut trees and now we hope that the fruit crop will be a bit better this year. Looking at my two little birthday present trees, the Flowering Japanese Cherry and the Canadian Copper Maple, they look as if they are still alive, but we'll know for sure when they do, or not, grow leaves in a month or two's time.

The caches for tomorrow

I have also started writing the cache list for this weekend. We are going to stay with Pityu in Monoszló, and do some caching beforehand. I did try to book an airbnb place on the South side of the Balaton for Thursday night, but got scuppered by the neurotic security features on its website. Even though I have an account with them and have used it once before, albeit nearly 4 years ago, they tried to put me through some idiotic security measures more and more, with no warning, which was annoying. Had I known it was going to be this much hassle, I would not have bothered. The problem was that I have never set up my camera on the laptop, as I never needed to use it before. So when after I was asked to answer a thousand questions, and I also had to send photos of my ID card, thinking that would be enough, the damned thing asked me for a photo made by my laptop camera, so that they can check if the ID was really mine. The camera didn't work, until later I realised to shift the cover away from it, and every time they sent me another safety code to put in, by the time I found it on my telephone it was too late, so I jacked it in. Needless to say that they pestered me for days to finish it, but I found a much better and much cheaper alternative. As Pityu has to go down on Wednesday to put a bit of heat into the house, he said we could sleep there on Thursday, so all is sorted.

They're back, finally

I also had some time on the VPN, this time with the US series, which have now started after a long strike. I also watched some more Silent Witness and Call the Midwife, which are still very good and enjoyable. And then we arrived at Tuesday, 13th February, which ended up pretty busy and tiring, yet again. The morning wasn't too bad, but just before lunch I noticed that the moving cache GCM002 had appeared in Egyházasdengeleg, about 15 minutes by car from us. Jumped into the car, went and found it. I was lucky, as it has only been there for two days and nobody took it in that time. Took some lovely photos in the sun and got home happy. 

The medieval church in Egyházasdengeleg

The afternoon/evening, after driving and caching, I had some more exhausting activities. We had a 2/hour meeting with Jack from London, which was basically an hour's leadoff on the IEC with questions and contributions afterwards. Jack is a nice lad, but it reminded me that things never change and the attitude, delivery and style of all IS full-timers is identical to each other. After two full hours of Jack, we then had almost another two hours of our own executive meeting, which was very productive and useful, but really knackering. We put the Congress off by yet another month, I am now laughing, as I have written mine already, so the only work I will have is corrections and possible deletions/additions, suggested by Levi, Zsófi, Adriam and Jack. 

Renee, my US cousin

GCTOUR on bicycle

GCWALK, the hiking cache

So, to sum it up: in the next 3 months I have the following: finish the Organisation document, prepare for Congress, for my leadoff and any other tasks they give me, prepare for a GCWALK and organise it, prepare for a girls' circle meeting in April and organise it, go to several meetings with either Roy's family history friends or my own friends, like Bozsa and Zsófi, go and attend the spring geocaching festival with added caching before and after in May, go to two more concerts with Bozsa this spring, run my branch, attend the reading group, go to at least one, but more than likely several, caching trips with Viktor and Edit, hopefully go on at least one, possibly two separate caching trips away with Roy, go to the theatre in March with Ági, take Roy out on our 54th wedding anniversary, go on a GCTOUR trip, kindly offered by griffs, so I can finish to have every moving cache in my hand at least once, host Stephen and the kids for Easter, go to lunch with cousin Renee, over from the States, and facilitate Dani and Lili having guests in the Bunkhouse from their own events at their tea-house. The rest of the time is my own!!!

Politics, lots of classical music, Alex in Cuba and a birthday

Quite a lot has happened since my last post. I must admit, it's fun to be busy, but occasionally I would feel a lot better with nothing to do. Still, I am coping, albeit with a lingering cold/flu/Covid, whatever this was and still is.

The Palace of the Arts in Budapest

On the day of my last post I went to the Palace of the Arts for the first concert of my return to having a subscription ticket with Bozsa and Árpi. It was a brilliant evening, with a pianist that I do not normally like much. He isn't bad, but while everybody is all much impressed by his personally designed piano, I am not pleased that the government spent a fortune on his piano, paid for by taxpayers' money, while there are people starving, dying for the lack of a hospital bed etc., etc. in Hungary.

Gergely Bogányi with his self-desgined piano

Still, I shouldn't let politics interfere with my enjoyment of music, and I must admit, he was brilliant last Wednesday. What was not nearly so brilliant, was the fact that my enjoyment of being with Bozsa was interfered with by her husband. I like him, but he is a definite alpha male and very dominant in society. My little girlie evening was totally eradicated by his presence, which was a shame. Still, Bozsa and I are now planning getting together in a few weeks' time, and definitely without Árpi, which I am looking forward to.

A beautiful great tit

Finally, after 9 days away we got back to Bér on Thursday last week. We only stayed 3 days, but at least we could feed the birds and checked up on the house while there. We also made some new friends, as the guy who got us a sack of bird seed turned out to be very friendly and wanting to make friends. We have now arranged for them to come to lunch this Friday, which ought to be quite interesting.

The flat lands we are going to cache in

In those few days we got quite a lot done, although I always get a bit upset when I have to be working indoors while the weather is gorgeous. Thankfully, Viktor got better from his flu and got excited over planning another outing to the flat lands to get a few more caches together. Lately, Edit, who also lives in Jászberény decided to join us, so we are off to Tiszakécske on 24th of the month.

Alex's hotel in Cuba

There was a lot of political paper work and talking to people done from Bér. We are getting close to the split of the branch and there is a lot to do. After having done the translation for Attila, I should have started on the Organisation Document for Congress, but Jack had put our chat off by two weeks, so I didn't. As it happens, I do regret that now, as he seems to have forgotten about me, and while he is already back from the IEC, he is not answering my e-mails and arranging other meetings with the Hungarian leadership with no reference to me. That is really annoying, but such is life, I will have to learn to cope with neglect from London, there is nothing new under the sun. The way they treated Alex last year, nothing should surprise me any more.

Alex's hotel room in Cuba

Talking of Alex, on Friday he has gone to Cuba for a week and by all accounts it was a good move. He went with one of his new kayaking friends, Virgil, and in spite of all warnings about the accommodation and food being crap, he seems to have found a place that is OK. Their room looks really lovely and the food is even better. He is eating lobster for a third of what he would have to pay back in Canada and relaxing on the beach, which must do him good.

Sunset in Cuba

After our lightning visit to Bér, we returned to town on Sunday, for another classical music event. This time it was the annual Marathon, when the Palace of the Arts provides once a year a full day of concerts of some particular set of composers. After many years of finding a new set of composers, this time they went for "Northern Romantics", like Grieg, Sibelius and Nielsen. The latter I have never heard of, but that is not surprising, as these Scandinavian composers are not played too often in Hungary, and the few pieces I knew were not amongst my favourites.

Hulk, aka David

Well, this music event was quite a revelation. I actually sat through 6 x 1 hour concerts, one after the other, which, I must admit, was pretty hard on my bum and my joints. I did end up rather stiff, although we tried to walk about between concerts to loosen up. My tickets were bought by my good friend Haggis, as a Christmas present, and Haggis and Hulk, (their hashing names), aka Ági and David, have also treated Roy and me to lunch. Roy didn't attend the event, just joined us for lunch in the Bohemian Restaurant, which is very upmarket and dreadfully expensive, but the food was good.

Balázs Fülei, brilliant pianist and teacher

If I have to choose a couple of concerts that I favoured most, I have to go for Balázs Fülei playing Norwegian Folk Song adaptations by Grieg, as the first concert, and the Sibelius Symphony played expertly by the Budapest Festival Orchestra, as the last. The latter was conducted by Anna-Maria Helsing from Finland absolutely brilliantly. It was also quite nice hanging out with Hulk and Haggis, catching up and chatting in between concerts.

Anna-Maria Helsing

And then yesterday we had two events. The first one was Sheila's 91st Birthday and the other the Reading Group, this time discussing the Roman Empire from Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. As Sheila is totally in possession of her mental faculties, not something you can say about most people over 90, she mastered the use of Messenger perfectly lately, so we had a lovely chat and wished her happy birthday.

Sheila with her cake

Talking about people around 90 years of age, I need to mention my other sister in law, Pamela, who has all her life was a bit ditzy, and is no different now either. Having said that, she had also mastered the use of Messenger, after a fashion, lately, and we now started having reasonably intelligent and enjoyable chats with her too. Thanks to modern technology, I know the internet has lousy PR, but in my family, it is still much appreciated for giving us chances to talk and see each other from opposite ends of the planet.

Sheila with one of her presents

The reading group was rather interesting yesterday evening. Earlier in the day, I decided to do something I always meant to do for all reading group events, but most of the time failed to find time for it. Namely, not only reading the chapter designated to be discussed that evening, but combining the reading with considering the answers that will be posed at the meeting and answering them. Once that is done and is put down on paper, it gives a different experience to the proceedings. I did that yesterday, and it was fascinating watching the reactions. There was 6 of us there, plus another 5 online, so it was quite well attended, if not the liveliest one.

Personalised wrapping paper

 

Today has the first branch meeting post-split and I am looking forward to it, as well as fearing it a bit. We'll see what happens, but at least Hanna is back from her sickness/bit of depression due to work troubles, so life should be a bit lighter for me, not having to chair AND take the minutes. Interestingly, work and psychological troubles pain the branch and especially the leadership. First of all, the job market is so appallingly bad in Hungary, that unless you want to starve, you have to take on jobs that pay pittance and wear you out both physically and mentally. Three people have either given in their notice or been sacked in the last few months, and while that is bad from the point of view of surviving without starving and having a roof over your head, psychologically it is good news. Many of them have been difficult to cope with precisely because they were overworked, dissatisfied and unable to do the political work as a result. Let us hope they manage to get something more interesting, satisfying, but still paying enough to survive on from now on.

My comrades at the pro-Palestine demo

Next post around next Wednesday or thereabouts, and wish me luck with the Organisation Document, which I fully intend to write the first draft of this coming weekend!