Stephen's visit, BP caching, Alex's 50th and a lurgy

Stephen has popped over for 48 hours while we were still in Bér. He hasn't seen Valeria since the summer and, unfortunately, further endeavors by her to get a visa to the UK remained fruitless. He also needed to open a bank account, which eventually and after a fair amount of paperwork, was successful. Still, he is learning by personal experience the avarice and inefficiencies of Hungarian banks. My contribution was producing an affidavit about him having the right to stay in our flat. This document needed two witnesses and then I had to book his appointment online, which eventually was totally pointless, because their system was unaware of it. Finally, I had to keep sending various sums to make sure that his account is not in the red. The sum of -12,010 forints that appeared on the app was the cost of a card. He seemed a tad pissed off that during an hour long interview, the guy there failed to mention this fact.

The Grant family bank in Hungary

He also brought my post, including my new passport, which is now navy, not purple and has my photo in it three times. Considering my age, this is likely to be the last one, but I doubt if I will use it too often. We are most likely to travel in the future only within Hungary and the EU and even that not that often. Stephen also bought my extremely early Christmas present, the 4th volume of Michael Palin's diary. I suggested it and he brought it now. Roy had a litre bottle of rum, which cheered him up no end.

Ugly Brexit passport

 

On Friday we came up to BP, just for a few days, as we haven't been around for over a month. The weather has changed to beautiful autumn and on Sunday we decided to go out and look for 2 out of the 3 still outstanding geocaches in the city. The sun shone beautifully and it wasn't too windy, so we had a really good time. Roy doesn't like moving the car, so we did it by public transport.

The pond in the Park in South Pest

We first went to South Pest, where there is a lovely recultivated area, which is now a pretty little park. We found the cache easily, then walked round the pond, watching people feeding the ducks and joggers using the running circuit. We got to this part of the city by trolley bus, tram, metro and bus. The connections were great, so it didn't take nearly as long as we were expecting it, being a Sunday, when transport is less frequent.

One little boy with lots of ducks (and a few pigeons)

Once we finished there, we then took one bus, then the metro, a tram, another tram and another bus to get to the next cache in the Buda hills. We were extremely lucky with the connections again, especially the final bus, which normally only goes as far as a very popular inn in the forest, and only 1 out 3 goes another kilometre further, which is where our study route started. This was a multi cache with 4 parts along the study route, but the weather was so nice, and the hill not too steep, that even Roy came with me for all but the last few hundred yards, which he spent on a comfortable bench in a children's play area near the last point.

Gorgeous view from near pont 4 of the multicache

Muggins with view beyond

 

I took lots of lovely photos and got within 15 caches of my 2024 target of 300 finds. Hopefully, I will be able to get to my target figure, or possibly even a bit beyond it. After the 2 caches, including the little hike at the second one, we went to have lunch in the Fenyőgyöngye restaurant, which was delicious. Roy had beef with onions and I had liver in breadcrumbs. And as neither of us had to drive, along with Roy's usual pint, I had a dry rose spritzer, which was also excellent. Transport en route home was just as good as earlier and we were at home by 3:30 pm.

En route to lunch

Roy at point 1 of multicache

Unfortunately, the following day I showed some signs of illness by having a funny turn in the supermarket. I had to sit down on the steps in the shop and a lovely young woman came to my aid. It is nice to know that there are still caring and helpful people who notice distress around them and offer unsolicited assistance. After a glass of water and 3 large chocolate biscuits, I started to revive. My symptoms were similar to 18 months ago, when I woke in the night in fright, sweating so much that I was drenched, shaking and dizzy. The ambulance then took me to the university hospitals complex, where the accident and emergency department had lots of overworked, but really nice and efficient doctors, who diagnosed me with severely dropped blood sugar levels, and it was food and drink that fixed me then, so I tried the same trick again. It worked and I managed to walk as far as the pub and then home.

I wonder if they will have Benylin in Hungary

I got better and am reasonably fine now, but the bad news now is that Roy seems to have caught the same lurgy and for the first time in a very long time, or possibly ever, he has got it worse than I did. His cough is horrendous, so tomorrow, when I have to go to the pharmacy anyway, because one of my meds had to be ordered in, I will try to get him some cough medicine. I am quite a good patient, but I absolutely hate watching someone else I care about being unwell. Much more stressful, than my own condition, when I am able to be laid back and cope. I checked his vitals, he had no temperature, a slightly elevated pulse and blood pressure and adequate blood oxygenation. Considering he is 83, I think he is coping OK, but if he doesn't get considerably better soon, I'll have to drag him to a doctor, which is never fun.

Alex and I in the French Alps in July 2017

Alex and I in the French Alps in July 2019

Yesterday was Alex's 50th birthday. So now both our boys are in their 50s. That makes me feel so ancient, you wouldn't know. Alex and Meaghan went away to Miami for 4 days to celebrate and had an interesting time. On Saturday, Alex is having an end of kayaking season party, which will be combined with his 50th birthday celebrations. I hope he will have a good time with his kayaking mates and can proudly look back on the results of his first season with satisfaction and joy.

The Wildflower Teahouse in Bér

We were supposed to be going back to Bér tomorrow, but I am not sure if Roy is up to it. I hope he'll get sufficiently better by Friday, as we ought to go as we are having guests in the Bunkhouse over the weekend from Lili's Wildflower Teahouse.  I hope all is well, and I can write the next post on Wednesday of next week. I am beginning to think that our geocaching trip starting next Tuesday will have to be postponed, as I can't stress Roy with all that driving, even if he's better by then, at his recovery time from his current illness. Keep your fingers crossed for him, please!!