The talk with Jack and our 4-day trip to the South

Finally I managed to have my chat with Jack. He is such a delightful young man, that it was not a difficult discussion. He totally agreed with me that my health comes first, expressed his regrets at my leaving and offered an open door for me to return, should I ever want to. It took 40 minutes to discuss all aspects of my leaving and I was unable to offer an opinion who he could actually establish a solid relationship with in Fáklya from now on. I honestly couldn't think of someone I could recommend without reservation, for reasons of either low political level, personality or not sufficiently good mental health. I do hope the group survives, but as I have always said, I have been associated with the IMT, (soon to become the RCI), long enough to have seen all kinds of crises and transformations, and if this lot does not survive, there will be another one in the country that will.

Jack + beloved pussycat

Because of our little trip away I am yet to have a discussion with Adriam about my resignation and departure as soon as possible. Since we have come back I have felt so good and relaxed that I am dreading that talk, but it will have to happen soon. He also has Volume 1 of my Lenin book, which I need back, so I cannot avoid it, but I am putting it off for a short while yet. We were also absolutely amazed that looking in my diary, it turned out that there is no need to go to BP for two whole months now. It would be lovely to stay in Bér for that long, but I am sure we will pop in sooner than that, perhaps when Bozsa lets me know when she is free, so we can take her to the Snail for lunch.

The Event Centre where I picked up my T-shirt

 

So, after all that palaver, we set out on our little geocaching holiday to the South of Hungary last Saturday. Google gave us a route on the M3, M0, (BP's M25), and M6, which turned out to be perfect. We left about 7 am and were there by 9:30 am. We were back in the environment of Szekszárd, where we had that atrocious weather GCWALK last November, but this time the weather was absolutely gorgeous, if not too hot. The B&B was nice, especially that we got our favourite upstairs room, which is the biggest and nicest in the house.

Our first lookout tower

The 46th Geocaching Festival and Competition was already in full flow when we arrived. I never compete, but I like to pop in, have chats with friends I haven't seen for a while, pick up my event T-shirt and then go off to find some caches in the area. I ran into my friend Wilka, whom I haven't seen for what seems years, had a chat and then moved on. The caches mostly remaining in this area are all in the hills and the climbs, while never long, were always pretty steep. We went to various lookout towers, to the Hungarian National Nuclear Waste site, some pretty villages, lakes and some glorious views all round.

Roy and his Gypsy Roast

In the evening we had dinner at the Fritz Wine Estate's restaurant, where a rather plump, but delightfully chatty and friendly water helped us to choose good food and drink. Roy had a Gypsy Roast, I had vegetables in breadcrumbs and I drank just water, while Roy disgraced himself with drinking beer in one of the most famous wine areas in the country. The environment of the Fritz Estate is absolutely delightful. The Fritz family had been around in that part of Hungary for nearly 3 centuries, having arrived from Germany at the call of the Hapsburg kings. There were some lovely photos from the old days on the walls and a family tree too.

The views from the calvary

The following morning we said good bye to our B&B, The White Cow and journeyed West towards Kaposvár, where another one of our favourite B&B's, La Mia Casa, was awaiting us. En route I climbed a few more hills, up to old ruined castles, forts or just for the view, and of course the cache. We visited some lovely wine cellars, a castle, recently renovated, situated in the middle of a village, and finally arrived in a lovely little village, called Alsómocsolád, which had 4 geocaches in and around it.

The highwayman's statue

The village itself was really lovely: its people were laid back and very friendly, the Village Hall was an impressive modern building, managing the neat trick of being recently built, and still fitting into an old place. Around the place were many vineyards, forests, parks and other pretty places. We visited them all: including a lookout tower, a sylvan aerial walkway, a lethal looking wooden bridge over a very deep ravine, which I decided not to cross, a beautiful stages of the cross on a steep hillside with glorious views down to some pretty lakes and a carved statue of a puszta highwayman on the village boundary. Once we found and logged them all, we departed in haste towards our B&B and hoped to get something to eat soon.

Ducks or geese?

 

Kaposvár is a lovely small town, recently nicely renovated and with a traffic free downtown, which is delightful. The only thing what is wrong with the place, however, is the almost impossible task of finding a decent restaurant open in the evening. Before the pandemic it was perfect and a choice of at least half a dozen made it possible to have dinner at a different restaurant every night. Unfortunately, due to hyper inflation, emigration of catering staff, deaths during the pandemic and now a shortage of staffing, many restaurants decided to open only in the morning just for lunch, closing around 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

Good looking pizzas

The first night we ended up in a pizza joint, which was OK, the young man behind the counter spoke a bit of English, the beer was good and so was the pizza. My problem, of course, is that while many places state that the cheese is mozzarella on the pizza, that is not true and usually I get a stomach ache. However, I can recommend this place, as it was genuine mozzarella, which I enjoyed AND which gave me no tummy ache afterwards.

The lake by which the train cache was

The following morning we went further West, to find a cache at the site of an old, and now not working, narrow gauge railway. I am currently trying to collect all 25 of them in a series, and after this outing I have only 7 more to find. This cache was put out many years ago, when the little train still worked and you could find the cache near one of its stations in the forest and by a lake. Now, I had to walk quite a lot, although Roy bravely risked the Duster over rather dodgy ground to reduce my walking to about 600 yards there and the same back.

Nature taking the rails back

It was a lovely walk, I enjoyed the bird song and the cool air of the forest, and the lake was lovely too at the end. Another interesting happening cheered me up no end, when I ran into an old acquaintance from my orienteering days, Kati Kármán, She was on a cycle tour with her husband and didn't recognise me, but I recognised her at once. We had a good chinwag for about a quarter of an hour, but I had to go on, so that Roy doesn't worry about me out there, all alone in the wilderness.

800 year old church

During the rest of the day we found caches by medieval churches, in a German-Hungarian Military cemetery, by an old Soviet Military memorial, and a few other places. That evening dinner was taken in a proper restaurant, but one that simply had no clientele whatsoever. I think it was also a hotel, so perhaps that kept them going in business, but who knows. The food was OK there, Roy had another Gypsy Roast, and I had pasta.  We walked back to the car in a different way from our usual one, which was also quite interesting.

The round/oval church

And finally, the last day beckoned, Roy was getting quite tired from all that driving and the heat, but soldiered on regardless. We took a new way home from there, along which there were some interesting caches to find. The very first one was quite an adventure. In a village there was a round, or perhaps oval shaped little church, which was built in the late 18th century, and which had been nicely renovated to its original state. The actual inside was round, but the walls were oval and the thickness of them at their thickest was apparently 2 metres thick. I do not like Baroque, but here it was quaint and in style. A guy from the parsonage suddenly appeared and opened up the church and guided us around. He was friendly and very knowledgeable. 

Small wooden chapel by a lake

The main place with a few caches en route was called Tamási. It had two lookout towers, a very pretty lake and a few nice parks and woods. Not far from Tamási there was a very pretty fishing lake and finally we closed our geocaching at the castle of Ozora, We turned home, which we would have reached before 6 pm, had it not been for an accident on the outer ring, but were indoors soon after 7 pm. We fell into bed early and slept like logs. This little outing was very successful. We saw some lovely places and had a good time. The total tally of caches was 31, which is not too bad for two old farts on 4 hot days. Now we were back to the daily grind and the first job was to clean and tidy the flat for Stephen, who was passing through from Istanbul to London Wednesday overnight. 

A lush green back garden

Pink roses by the pavilion

We left about 10 o'clock on Wednesday, did some shopping in Lidl in Aszód and were home by midday in Bér. The grass was sky high again, but we had to rest first, so we did it today. We were extremely lucky with mowing, as just as we finished the skies opened and it has been raining ever since. The combination of downpours and strong sunshine is what makes the grass grow like crazy. Good job we have several machines to do the mowing, or we would not see the sky for grass.

Red rose by the cottage cellar

Pasta lunch in the pavilion

The plan is now to take it easy. Do our chores that have to be done and otherwise enjoy the sun and fresh air. One important job coming up is the fixing of the outlet pipe coming from our air conditioning unit in our bedroom. Running it out to the eave last year didn't seem to work, as the hot air couldn't really dissipate sufficiently to provide enough cool air inside. So now we are working on a method of fixing it through the plaster board wall all the way to the outside. Roy, apparently, has a plan in his head, let us hope we can follow it together and do the job soon. The weather, and it is still only May until Saturday, is already a bit like it should be in August. Global warming is a real curse, causing such downpours like today and raised temperatures, like all summers now.

The barn, Roy's domain

Roy trying to mow the top of the cellar

 

Next week's post is due on Wednesday, as this week was very busy and I was only one day late, I hope I  can keep to it next week.

Small crisis, (being solved as I write this), no Laci and Márti, cherries and a glorious rest for me

Well, things have gone more or less pear shaped practically straight after I posted last week's post. You may recall that we packed up and left for the village, with view of having a rest from permanent commuting that was getting us down. We did our shopping with our weekend guests in mind and braved the pouring rain that seemed to have arrived and was forecast to stay until the end of the weekend. This got me a bit worried about what we are likely to do with Laci and Márti if it rains all weekend? I was contemplating to ring them and suggest a postponement, but didn't want to seem unfriendly, so I didn't. 

Early cherries in abundance

And then something happened which made me positively ill and which pushed me into several decisions within the next 24 hours. The first one was made, when we tried to do the tidying and cleaning in preparation for the weekend and found that we were incapable to do so. In many ways the bad weather didn't help, neither did a lingering cold with sneezes and coughs we both had, but the final push was a phone call from Adriam trying to have an EC meeting within 24 hours of my apparent time away and rest.

Some more early cherries

 

Obviously, I wasn't in the right frame of mind to have a meeting of that sort, and should have just said NO, suggesting that if I am having a small sabbatical, then I should be left alone at least for the first few days. Because I have always had an inaability to say NO when I should, I should have by now learnt that the end result is always a disaster. Resentment, being unwell and a hell of a lot of suppressed frustration made that conversation into a duel. I must have said things I shouldn't have, but so did he. The end result was that I was heading for another crying fit, like last last month and was just about to put down the phone, when Roy appeared, screaming, demanding that I put the phone down and leave Fáklya at once.

Little baby apples

Obviously, in spite of not understanding Hungarian, he knew full well what was going on. He later explained, that he was not only looking after me, but himself too. For the first time since we married 54 years ago, he actually admitted to me that he needs me. Needless to say I put the phone down, after which I had a small shaking fit - interestingly not a crying fit, but one of those mini nervous breakdowns, I have not had for many years. One of those is an obvious symptom of high levels of stress, which my bad heart is not very happy to try to manage.

Another type of apple

After I calmed down, I did some very deep, very honest and finally decisive thinking. I had to admit and accept that things like this cannot go on. I owe it to Roy, I owe it to myself and especially to my health. At nearly 76 the workload in Fáklya would test me, even if everything went absolutely well, harmoniously and by everybody pulling their weight. This, unfortunately, is not the case, and never has been, if I am honest, so an old lady, like myself, can do a great deal of damage to her health and well being clinging stubbornly to something like Fáklya. With much regret, I had to decide how to extricate myself from the commitment that is now a burden, more than a joy. 

As yet green walnuts

As the process is still ongoing, I will not write about it in any great big details, but I promise that as soon as it is done and dusted, I will report here of the what, how and perhaps in more details about the why. Needless to say, I wanted really to have a rest, not only physically, (that I did by staying in bed for days), but mentally and emotionally as well. First thing was to make sure I do not look at any of the communication channels that are normally full to the brim every day with comments, plans, requests, questions etc., etc. I am proud to report that I have not yet looked at any of them and am occupying myself with things that take my mind off them.

Three beautiful plums, still green, but plump

I also had to cancel my appearance at the solicitors, but Adriam wrote that he would go alone, so I let the lovely solicitor lady know what is happening. Jack wants to talk to me, presumably to get my side of the story, so I wrote a detailed letter, which I will use as an outline when talking to him, or send to him if for any reason the chat does not materialise. My decision is made, but I will not communicate it to the comrades until after my chat with Jack.

Smaller plums, green, but lot of them

 

Now for the good news. To prove how therapeutic solid decisions are, as soon as I made it, I slept near 8 hours over two nights in succession, something that has not happened to me for years. I feel considerably better, well rested, even though I have only had less than a week, and managed to catch up with normal things that were always way behind, neglected or forgotten before. We did cherry harvesting, planting out, watching TV, catching up with hundreds of e-mails etc., etc. As it happens, I felt so wretched after the upsetting phone call plus the rain wouldn't stop, that we agreed with Laci and Márti to put their visit off by a month. We found a weekend in June which is convenient for all of us, and that also lifted some pressure off me. Amazingly, the weather cheered up, so we would have been able to be out in the garden, but I was still quite unwell initially, so I don't think I would have been good company, so the decision was correct.

Copper maple, 75th birthday tree

In the meantime we had a lovely family of Mum, Dad, little girl and dog in the Bunkhouse for four nights, which was nice. It was lovely to see the cute little girl and the dog playing in the garden and as the sun shone right through Saturday to Monday, I really relaxed and cheered up. Lili and Dani's wedding was over in Buják on Saturday in a large meadow, which I know from my orienteering and geocaching activities, so we congratulated her when she came for the bedding and looked radiant. Her hair went white blond, which suits her well.

The Duke of Hastings with Daphne Bridgerton

As I wrote above, I have spent the majority of the last days since Friday in bed, but that doesn't mean that I was just lying there or sleeping. Admittedly, I did a lot of that too, but otherwise I caught up on my laptop and one really weird thing also happened. I don't know how many of you watch Netflix, but I do, even though not that often. Back in 2020 I vaguely remember trying to watch Bridgerton, which after no more than half an hour I considered as the lowly kitsch and turned away from it. This time round, obviously I was in the mood for rubbish romance and have watched all 20 episodes over the currently available 2 and half series, complete with its ridiculous design, costumes, soft porn, and totally daft concept. This just shows, that living with high levels of continuous stress does addle your brain. On the other hand, it really occupied me for hours on end, thus not being able to brood over my state of mind.

Last Saturday's first crop of early cherries

As we are due to travel to Szekszárd on Saturday, where this year's spring Geocaching Festival and Competition is held, we are trying to harvest and eat as many of our early cherries as possible. We haven't got the time to make jam this week and to be honest, I only like Morello cherry jam, and those trees are nowhere near producing ripe fruit yet, and not a hell of a lot of it either. So, until Saturday I can make a pig of myself on cherries, which are pretty acidic, so the price will be  the odd tummy ache, methinks.

Geocaching Day 1 - Saturday

 

I am back indoors now and typing up my geocaching list for the weekend. We are going to spend a few hours at the Festival and then go off caching in the area. The following day we will be travelling to Kaposvár, where there is a nice B&B, we have stayed in before, for two nights. This little outing will need four days' worth of cache lists, two of which I have already done, and two more will get done tomorrow.

Geocaching Day 2 - Sunday

Think of me during the next week, so that by the time you read my post next Wednesday, I would have extricated myself from a commitment that I am no longer able to fulfill.

 

Four Fáklya EC meetings, Zsófi, the caching on Saturday and a few meals out

Apologies for the late post, but life is running away with me. To carry on from where I last left it, the lead-off on contact work has gone off quite well. There are many pressures and conflicts within Fáklya, most of which I can easily handle, but things are coming to a head, methinks. Zsófi somehow had taken violently against me, AGAIN, and this is now not only boring and frustrating, but getting on my nerves. Apparently, I have abandoned her by disappearing a couple of weeks ago.

The castle ruins of Ónód, my first find of the day

A military memorial

 

What a concept! As if everything is about her. One can only abandon people one is responsible for. At least that is how I look at life. She is an independent and adult person, and while I happily give advice in all manner of things, when I am asked, it does not entitle people to own me and/or demand consideration 24/7. I squared things with Adriam quite successfully, so now he understands why I had to take off then, and he finally understood why the stresses in my life created the move I made then.

A glorious blossom of a horse chestnut tree

Ancient fossils from a long disappeared sea

 

Zsófi, on the other hand, is playing a dangerous game. She refuses to return to the leadership, but her strident opinions and demands project a persona with leadership rights and expectations, even from the actual leadership. This is unsustainable and will have to stop, or I will have to reconsider my position in the organisation. Last week we had FOUR leadership meetings. My work load is exploding and I am needed in the country. So, I am taking not a sabbatical, but a lessening of expectations on me.

The view from a hill top in the Bükk

Green tunnel on an ancient lane

 

Adriam has actually asked if I want to be away for the whole of the summer for a rest and a break in my persistent need to be in BP every Wednesday. He has taken on to find places to meet and find someone to do the moderating when I am not available. I have no idea how this is going to work, but to be honest, I do not care. I deserve this slight improvement in my own personal private life and decided to take it.

Viktor and Edit at the celebration

Another lovely view from another hill in the Bükk

 

This Wednesday was the last branch meeting in the flat and from now on 7th district branch meets elsewhere and Baltazár will do the moderation when I am not available. This, of course, does not lessen any of my background and lead-off work, just the personal appearance and provision of the venue. Still, it is very refreshing and I have already had a lovely time in Bér in the last 24 hours.

View no. 3 with lovely old tree

Edit and Viktor chatting to the forrester

 

But let us return to the star event of last week, which was my geocaching trip with Viktor and Edit to the North East of the country. Unfortunately Erika could not come due to some health issues, so the three of us took off together, after I travelled from BP by train and the other two picked me up outside Hatvan railway station. The idea for the trip came from the appearance of the GCWWED moving cache in that region, which neither Viktor or Edit has ever found before. As it happens, that cache was the last one of the day, long after the wedding finished, but we could still log it, which made those two very happy.

Muggins trying to stamp a logbook

The toast to Viktor's 1000th find

 

That area in the country represents the part of the Carpathian Basin where the Hungarian tribes first settled over 1000 years ago. They came from the East, crossed the mountains, which are currently in Romania over a pass and started building villages, churches and engage in agriculture. The oldest document written in Hungarian was found in this area and many other cultural sites are also surrounded by dramatic countryside and geological features too.

That box is too high even for me

Viktor, the hero of the peak

 

The list is long, but I would highlight a few. We did some drive-in caches in places of old, but also did little, but very steep hikes in the Bükk Mountains as well. The terrain is breath taking in places and while all three of us huffed and puffed up 45 degree gradients, the views were often more than enough payment for our efforts.

Returning on the rails to the car

The church where the wedding we missed was

 

We also followed the tracks of a narrow gauge railway and met with some lovely foresters doing some strimming in and around a picnic site around a spring. One of the highlights of the day was after finding a cache near an ancient geological feature, which was amazing. The Pannon Sea has covered the whole of current day Hungary in the flatlands some many thousands of years ago, and proof of that can be found in places, where you can find fossilized marine shells and other remains. 

Viktor with his 1000th find

However, the real surprise came when Viktor got a bottle of champagne out of his rucksack, accompanied by three engraved glasses, so that we could toast his 1000th geocache find. That was such a lovely surprise, but very typical of him, as he is a fun and very considerate chap who thinks of these things.

The amber nectar in his hand

The day was very long, I got up at 6 am to catch a 7 am train and got home at almost midnight, missing my return train by only 3 minutes. Still, it was a lovely day and we will have something similar in two weeks' time, when Roy and I will go away for 4 days/3 nights geocaching, and the first day we should meet Viktor and Edit, at the Festival and Competition in Alsónána near Szekszárd. That time we will travel separately and Viktor will do the driving in a full car. The planned party will consist of Viktor, Edit, Erika and Judit, so he will have a lovely, giggly day with three girls, while I will have a grumpy Roy, who hates geocaching, but at least he is willing to drive me around.

Our sweets in the Snail

Roy, before attacking the desert course in the Snail

 

Last week, before returning to BP on Wednesday, we mowed the entire garden, which looked a million dollars, and when we got back the grass has grown about 10 cm, so mowing was the main program yesterday, almost immediately after our return. We spent 9 days in BP, during which, other than all the activities around Fáklya, we had some of our fun stuff too. As poor Renee managed to catch Covid on her cruise en route to Europe, including a visit to us, she had to cut it short and return home from Spain, thus missing the meet up with us. To remember her and wishing her a quick recovery, we went to have lunch in the little cafe we were planning to take her and toasted her health.

Bozsa and Roy in the Sushi Wan

Close up of the roast duck

 

Talking of eating out, we have also managed to put together a lunch with Bozsa, this time in the Japanese restaurant we discovered with Stephen and the kids earlier in the spring, and had a lovely sushi filled meal (for me) and duck with rice for Roy and Bozsa. She is such a lovely person, I enjoy her company tremendously, and to be honest, I think she likes being with us too, as we are discreet and sympathetic, when it comes to her problems. I love her dearly and hope all things will settle down around her.

Bozsa, my best friend

We looked very pleased with all that food

 

This week's branch meeting, the last one in our flat for a while, went extremely well. We had two contacts attending, both being very nice and approachable. The lead-off was interesting too, and the atmosphere was friendly, lively and comradely all round. And then we went to Tesco en route home to Bér to stock up for the long weekend. It is Whitsunday and we are having Laci and Márti coming for a couple of days. 

My lovely dark red rose in its full glory

View from the Farmhouse to the Bunkhouse

 

Just to report on the garden, the roses have started blooming really nicely and some of the fruit trees are promising. Unfortunately, there is not one Morello cherry on any of our Morello trees, but the early cherry tree, planted by us a good few years ago has produced its first real crop. I had a good handful straight off the tree and they were delicious. The pear tree looks good too, the plums are about average and the apple trees are reasonable too.

The first cherry crop

Muggins on her beloved tractor

 

Today we are preparing food, tidying and cleaning the house and looking after our lodgers in the Bunkhouse, who have arrived last night for Lili and Dani's wedding. Life is hectic as usual, but we wouldn't have it any other way, would we? 

Next post next week, hopefully on Wednesday.