Christmas, griff's visit, geocaching Xmas tree, Geocaching New Year's Eve party and lunch at Rizmajer's

Here we are at the last post of 2025. This has been a somewhat traumatic year in many respects. For the world, for our family and health-wise as well. Trump got back in the White House and promptly set about demolishing it for his own pleasure. War, famine and high cost of living makes it hard to live in peace and prosperity. In the family there were and are tensions, but all in all we survived them so far. What happens next year is another matter. Let us be optimistic, although that is a world view and outlook which is getting harder and harder to keep to year after year.

Toast with champagne

As for the last 7 days, it has been quite busy, but mostly in the good sense of the word. Xmas was a quiet one, for the first time in three years. Two years ago the big gathering in Bratislava was pretty hectic and last year's celebrations with Stephen and Valéria were more peaceful, but still busy for us oldies. This year, after those two we had Christmas all to ourselves. No Christmas tree, no decorations, but plenty of expensive food and drink. Fillet steak, salmon, malt whisky and some sickly cakes were the highlights.

Nice rare steak for Roy and salmon for me

 

We do not give or receive presents between the two of us, but this year I have to admit to having been spoilt. I got myself an e-bike, which was considered a combined birthday and Xmas present. Stephen bought us a drone, which is very exciting, but we have not yet started to play with it, as the weather was unsuitable, but anticipation of it is another great feeling, and I am sure we will be able to have a go soon.

Last year's Xmas tree in the window

One interesting item needs mentioning, namely that last year's Christmas tree is still with us. At the end of Christmas 2024 I put it outside prior to disposal, and then forgot about it. We were both amazed when we realised in the spring that it was still looking great. Its colour changed to brown, but all its needles were, and still are, totally attached. Currently it is in the corner of the corridor, looking quite sweet.

Last year's Xmas tree a year on

The other great happening relating to Christmas was a visit for 3 days/2 nights by my good friend griffs, aka Zoltán Varga, who came up to test ride my plans for a cycling multi cache, part of the 25th year celebrations of Hungarian geocaching. The official celebratory caches will be one in every county + Budapest, finding the tallest, oldest, biggest etc. ancient tree. That one I didn't fancy, but when all the biker gang within the geocaching club complained that we never do biking caches to celebrate with, a good few of us decided that in addition to  the official list, volunteer planners will also do biking multi caches for next year's anniversary. Crazy me, now that I am a proud owner of an e-bike, I volunteered to do one on the Medves-plateau in Nógrád. It was that plan that griffs offered to test and we were really pleased to have him.

Planned route of bike multi-cache

He was a real gentleman and praised my plan. The only change he suggested was one long straight path up on the top of the plateau, which was hopelessly muddy, which is not very suitable to biking. Obviously, we have decided that the multis will also be available for completing on foot, but I do not think that even hikers like deep mud in any shape or form. He measured it as 26 km, which is probably a bit over the actual length, as he was making the odd detour to pick up some caches for himself while doing the test run.

The stove providing heat and light

Food-wise, we were doing Italian in a big way. First night Roy cooked spaghetti Bolognese and on the second griffs bought in some pizzas en route back for the Mátra. As he always arrived in pitch dark and was in a hurry in the morning, we could not show him the entire estate, but I insisted to show him the bunkhouse, hoping that he would come back with friends and/or family to spend some time around here. We invited him and let us hope he will take us up on it.

Griffs at the New Year's Eve party

And then on Monday, he left early to join some friends to climb the Karancs, picking up a few caches on the way, while Roy and I departed towards BP,  via Pécel and the geocaching Christmas tree there. We had a small amount of hassle from Google, as we arrived in a funny place, but thankfully quite near the cache up a big hill. I went round a small amount of forest, and there it was. Or, to be more accurate, there they were. Two different conifers had lots of decorations on them, unfortunately with some of them on the ground as the wind had definitely got up in an otherwise beautiful, sunny day.

Selfie by the Christmas tree in Pécel

Once I got there on foot, I took some photos and the compulsory selfie, followed by looking for the cache. It was an enormous big box, hidden behind the big tree in the bit of forest on the hill. Very usefully, that bit of forest included a big ditch, in bottom of which the box was hiding. It was thus invisible from the tree, which made it fairly safe. I do not normally take any gifts from cache boxes, even though this one was stuffed to the brim.

The Pécel Xmas geocache full of goodies

We were pretty close to BP in Pécel, so we got to our usual parking place in no time at all. Once at the flat we could have a rest  and having done the geocaching Christmas tree, now were preparing for the geocaching New Year's Eve party with its own event cache, plus a few moving caches, as usual. I was also doing some paperwork when I could,  including reading and sending in the water meter's numbers. After the earlier crisis of gross overcharging, and the welcome repayment of most of the charges, now we settled into reading the meter ourselves and taking a photo of the meter itself. Logging onto the website of the Water Board, it is dead easy to send in the reading, so that they will send us realistic bills over the next year.

The water meter in the BP flat

Yesterday we travelled to the Tőköl Park Forest for the New Year's Eve party. I do not know why, but the party which is held in or near Budapest is always on the 30th. There are three more parties scattered around the country, but those are usually on 31st, as it should be. Anyway, the weather turned really cold, close to zero Celsius and with a brisk wind which made it feel way below zero. Roy very kindly came with me and drove us to Csepel Island where that forest was. We found a parking space and walked about 400 yards to a clearing in the forest where the party was held.

The entrance of the Tököl Park Forest

 

It was a really nice place with a hunting lodge, barbecue place and a children's playground all together. When we got there, the party was already in full swing. The usual cauldron was bubbling with lelcache's "tea", which I could swear had alcohol in it, but he insisted that it didn't. Whatever the case, it tasted delicious. I quickly logged the event cache and started going round to the moving caches that people brought. There were three of those, I ended up with 4 finds for the day and had a lovely time, catching up with friends, chatting, eating cake and drinking tea. 

A good crowd round the cakes and the tea cauldron

The presentations, which are always happening at the New Year's Eve party, were for the winners that did the best or longest or highest scores of geocaching over the year on foot or by bike. There are usually a man's and woman's version and a set of trophies for adults, families or juniors. There was also a tombola, where the winners got 5000ft vouchers to be spent in Decathlon. It all went extremely well and once poor Roy indicated that he is getting very cold, we left and headed to a lovely place for lunch.

 

The Hunter's Lodge behind the info board

Years ago our friend Dfri, aka as Feri, took us to Rizmajer's, which is a pub run by some artisan brewers and where the beer is gorgeous. Roy had some pálinka at the party, so I was driving, and this, of course, allowed him to have some beer as well, while having lunch. We both went for Wiener Schnitzel, with chips, onions rings and mayonnaise, which was delicious. I never realised how hungry I was, until I started eating. That sharp, cold air was obviously having a good effect on my appetite.

Roy in the Rizmajer, with Wiener Schnitzel and Popcorn beer

We got home by half past two in the afternoon, after which we both had a good couple of hours of sleep, which did us a world of good. Now we are staying in BP until the 8th, when I have a concert with Bozsa and that reminds me that I will have to ring her and see whether she has a free day when we could go out to lunch together again. I haven't seen her for a while and Roy hasn't seen her for a lot longer.

My plateful before I attacked it

 

Next post is due next year, which is only a week away.  

 

Cake making, loo mending, a funeral, depressing weather and looking forward to griff's visit

Alan, an old friend from Kiskassa/Pécs, sent a really pretty blue electronic Christmas tree for the festive season, and I decided to pinch it for mine. I have sent, as I always do, our usual Christmas Newsletter out nearly a month ago, but I thought this one nearer Christmas would be nice.

Have a lovely Christmas and Happy New Year!

Life back in Bér is a bit depressing due to the miserable weather persisting. I can cope with very cold, but bright weather, preferably with snow, and/or sunshine, but this depression inducing dark, foggy state of every day is slowly, but surely, getting to me.

Dark and depressing weather in Bér

On top of that I am still very tired most days and having really bad sleep most nights. I reckon that this is either a new bout of lurgy or an after effect of the previous illness that we took so long to shake, that some of it is left behind. Either way, we cannot do much outside and that is depressing in and of itself.

RIP János Hrncsjár

Another reason for sadness was the funeral of János Hrncsjár in Szirák which I attended on Saturday. He was our painter and decorator for several decades and not only a good craftsman, but a very nice bloke as well. Our lovely old metal stove in the library was a present from him many years ago.

The chapel in the cemetery

There were around 100 people at the funeral, but as far as I could see, nobody from Bér. I passed our condolences to his daughter by the grave side, as she is the only person from his family we know. She recognised me straight away and thanked me for attending. 

Protest in Gdansk Shipyard 1980

 

Last Thursday Levi, Márkó and I had another discussion group, which was pretty good again. The topic this time was a new article on the marxist.com website about the Solidarnosc movement in Poland in the 1980's. It was an excellent article written by a Polish comrade in the UK and my suspicion was that he wrote it either for a university dissertation, as part of his studies, or something that he wants to publish. I have never seen a list of works he used as sources as long as this just for an article online. The discussion was also great and we are now having the next session on 11th January, going back to the third chapter of the Bolshevism book.

The flames

Another positive feature of last week was the joy I always find in lighting and maintaining the fire in the stove. Like a true pyromaniac, I never mind this duty. The only chore relating to that, which is rather hard and not really that much fun, is getting rid of the burnt on soot from the glass in the door of the stove every morning. We use oven cleaner, which is terribly toxic, so I have started a new campaign, which might have sorted it. Rather than closing the stove down after the wood caught, I am going to leave it ever so slightly ajar, hoping that a lot less smoke and soot is formed. The signs are that my assumption is correct, but I'll be sure when I looked at it this morning, which I haven't done yet. 

Another irritation, however, has arrived, namely the hassle I had paying my monthly £10 to O2 on their dreadful website. They have still not sorted the merger between them and Virgin Media, so the old website, with which I never had a single problem, is no longer available, and the Virgin website is utter crap. Unstable, frequently crashing, producing gobbledygook and no feedback. To cut a very long stupid and boring story short: 5 days on I still do not know for sure whether I have actually paid or not. Although I did have the SMS and e-mail confirming that I did. The trouble is that the payment is still in the "pending" section in my online bank statement and I will not rest until I see it having been cleared. Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!  PS: I have just checked, finally the £10 has cleared. But I am still miffed, how a big outfit, like O2 cannot sort its merger and related website in about 2 years???

Not exactly pretty, but hopefully delicious cake

Now for happier topics: yesterday I made a cake for Christmas. It isn't a traditional Christmas cake, just something I threw together as an experiment and I hope it'll be edible. While in Lidl, I saw a nice looking brick-shaped sponge cake, so I bought it. Normally, I make petit fours and truffles for Christmas, but this time I decided to combine that effort with filling and topping the cake with ganache and some of the marzipan petit fours. I cut it horizontally and put a layer of ganache in the middle. I also made a brick-shaped piece of thin marzipan for the top and then put 6 petit fours and one large oval-shaped marzipan decoration in the middle. Photograph is to follow when I have finished it with the whipped cream on Christmas Day. I hope to keep a slice for griffs when he arrives next Saturday.

griffs

Yes, this is another very good bit of news, but griffs had confirmed that he is arriving on 27th and leaves on 29th, which is great. He is a fellow geocacher, and a delightful one at that. He is a wiry little chap, who is a good cyclist and, what's a great deal more important, a very nice, kind and funny man. He is the one who lent me his e-bike last year to do my second GCTOUR and generally I do like his posts on the forums on the geocaching website. I recently followed his cycle tour in a very cold, rainy and windy Scotland, and love his humour and writing style.

25th year of club multi - 26 km version

25th year of club multi - 22 km version

Anyway, when I recently, and some say foolishly, volunteered to create a 25 km long multi-cache by bike on the Medves Plateau near the Slovakian border, it was griffs who immediately offered to test the route for me, as it is winter now and the plateau is quite rough. I took him up on his kind offer, and apparently, as his wife has to work straight after Christmas, he is free to come over. He is staying two nights and will also stay another day up there with a friend to do some more biking and caching. I am really looking forward to his visit, I do enjoy his company and testing my planned route is something that is worth a great deal to me.

The old dripping joint

 

Roy had also been busy, albeit with not too much excitement, but household chores, when they save money, always cheer him up. We had a dripping loo for months now and it got so bad recently that there was no way getting out of it - it had to be fixed. So, on Friday he made me photograph the bit that needed to be renewed and we departed in the direction of Palotás, where a very good builders' merchants is situated. The guy there was very helpful and a new piece of pipe for the back of the look was purchased. After this excitement, we went to the COOP there for some outstanding food shopping and returned happily.

The fancy new joint that seems to be working

On Saturday, when I went to the funeral, Roy attacked the problem in the loo. By the time I returned, he looked as if he was winning the battle with the toilet and it was me who tried it out soon after I got home. I am happy to report that the dripping has stopped, but we are still monitoring it, in case it returns.

 

This is the sum total of our happenings in the last 7 days, and provided my bunged nose doesn't get worse, we are intending to enjoy our quiet Christmas Day, - the first one in three years - and the visit of griffs, aka Zoltán. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Making sweets, filling Xmas baskets, visiting friends, back in Bér and firing up the stove

Last Thursday was mostly spent by making petit fours and truffles for the planned Christmas baskets for Laci & Márti and Bozsa & Árpi. We actually started buying things for them weeks ago, like the baskets, wrapping paper, marzipan, dark chocolate, nuts etc. This time we got round to making them up. I was doing most of it, but Roy frequently helped out when I asked him to.

Truffles in front, petit fours at the back

Close up of the petit fours

 

Laci and Márti's basket had all the usual stuff, like jam, compote, pálinka, petit fours and truffles, but in their case was also included a bottle of Jagermeister, as we knew Laci liked it. In Bozsa and Árpi's case, we left the pálinka out, but included a bottle of wine. Both were wrapped in cellophane and tied with a bowed ribbon.

The askets

We decided not to go to Laci and Márti on Friday night, which was just as well, as it turned out that I promised Edit, my friend, that she could stay the night, after her office Christmas do. She arrived quite late, but it was very nice to see her after quite a long time.

The cache was in the tree covered in ivy

 

On Saturday morning we visited the Budapest St. Nicholas geocache, which was in the same place as last year, en route to Csobánka. We got to Laci & Márti's about 11:30 am, which was pretty close to lunch time. Márti is a great cook and lunch was great. They marinaded a piece of pork over several days in balsamic vinegar and garlic. It was roasted afterwards and served with potatoes and gherkins.

Márti and Laci

Laci on top of the rock wall

As Roy usually has a nap after lunch, the three of us went for a little hike up on one of the mountains behind their house to get a fairly new geocache. We left quite late, so we had to get going fast to get back down before dark. The approach was a bit hairy on a boulder strewn mountain side, as it was getting dark while we were trying to find the cache, but eventually it turned up near the lookout places on tops of some cliffs, which were quite impressive.

Their house at dusk

Our return was facilitated by a narrow path, (which we managed to miss on the way up), so we got back to the house just before it got completely dark. In the evening we chatted a lot, caught up on several happenings and managed to put away a fair amount of wine, Jägermeister, pálinka and rum. Laci is definitely one of those typically Hungarian hosts, who fills your glass up immediately you have finished it. 

Roy, Márti and Laci in front of the Stube

On Sunday we all slept in, although eventually Márti was the last to the breakfast table. After some more lazing about and chatting, the two of them invited us to lunch in a German restaurant in Pilisvörösvár. To us Stube was a new place, which we were very pleased about, as we do like discovering new restaurants. Well, it was a fantastic find, the food, the service, the atmosphere were all first class, and we had a lovely time.

Roy and Márti's duck breast

Roy and Márti had pink duck breast, Laci had a pork shank and I went for an old traditional favourite, a Wiener Schnitzel. They were all absolutely delicious. I chose to have it with a mixed Bavarian salad, which was great, although I would not have minded if there was more of the potato salad in it.

My Wiener Schnitzel

Once we were back at their place, we said good bye and popped over to Bozsa & Árpi for a short while and gave them the basket. Unfortunately, it turned out that they have both gone down with the flu, so we could only hand over the present outside and send our best to both of them for a quick recovery. It is really nasty this winter how many people have caught this new lurgy, apparently it is not Covid, but an A strain influenza, which is really nasty.

Laci + his pork shank

On Monday we had a relaxing recuperation day in BP, after which we departed for Bér via Lidl in Aszód. The weather turned rather cold in the last few days, so I was looking forward to firing up the pottery stove. Well, the house was about 11 degrees Celsius on our return, so we put the central heating on full blast, and after we put away £500 worth of Christmas food shopping, I got about firing up the stove.

The pottery stove

Close up of the flames

Absolutely amazingly, it got really hot well before the evening, unlike in the last many years, when both this new stove and the old one took at least a couple of days to warm right through. We believe that the new one really took a full year to dry right out, while the old one was probably of an unfortunate design, which was never as efficient as this one.

After spending 9 months out of use, it lit up easy peasy, with no smoke or any other hassle. The flames were high and furious within 15 minutes. I played around a bit with the settings and ended up with a large log on it just before we went to bed, which kept it going until morning. This morning I fired it up in about 5 minutes and that is how it went all day. It is not only beautiful, but it is a fantastic source of heat and we both love it a lot.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!💖💖

We have got this far this week, and do not have too many plans for Christmas this year. Stephen isn't coming and we are not going anywhere either. It will be an intimate Christmas for just the two of us, which doesn't bother us whatsoever. We did buy a large fillet steak for about £50 at our favourite market, (10% of the price of our Christmas food), plus a nice bottle of Talisker malt whisky for about £35, (dirt cheap by UK standards), no presents as such, although I can count my e-bike, which was £750, as a combined birthday and Christmas present. With all the above we should be happy as Larry, (whoever he was), right through Christmas, I hope. Next post should be coming your way next Wednesday, aka Christmas Day.

 

Cooking, shopping, eating out at Becketts, geocaching trip to the Mecsek and lunch with Robert

This last week was pretty hectic, again, but we did survive it, only just. Last Wednesday, after I posted, I had a rearranged discussion group with Levi and Márkó. It went great and we agreed when and what will be the topic next  time. Márkó suggested an article about the Solidarnosc movement in Poland many years ago, so we settled on that, and the next date is 18th December.

Mass emeeting in Gdansk in 1980

 Solidarność 1980-1981 – a working class revolution

My lovely new cycle helmet

Thursday was spent in the name of having a bit of fun, but also preparing for a variety of festive activities. We did need a few gadgets and bits for the Christmas presents to Márti, Laci, Bozsa and Árpi.  We visited a fantastic kitchen shop for a pastry filler needle and some little paper cups for petit fours and truffles. Must remember this kitchen shop as it has an incredible stock of anything to do with kitchens, that no other has in the country. We also had to go out to fetch my hiking poles from the car for my weekend away in the Mecsek. We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Decathlon for my cycling helmet and a pump, after which we went and had fish and chips in Becketts. Friday was spent packing my gear for my weekend away, preparing a replacement box for a cache, which eventually was not used, due to a change in our route. 

Muggins with Peter, Józsi and Henriett

The trip to the Mecsek was a group affair: Peter was driving, as we were in his car, the rest of them were  Henriett and her boyfriend Szabolcs, Józsi and me. They were great company, especially Henriett, who is my new friend. The seat at the back was not quite wide enough for three of us, so physically the trip was a tad uncomfortable. We started Friday afternoon and even managed to get two caches in pitch dark, before arriving at the rented cottage.

Our little cottage in Orfű

The cottage was really nice and definitely cheap at £135 for 5 people for 2 nights. Szabolcs was our chef, always coming up with some nice thing to eat. I ended up sleeping in the same narrow double bed with Henriett, but amazingly, managed to have a really good sleep on both nights. The small and lethal looking spiral staircase was about as lethal as it looked. Still, we were all very careful and there were no accidents.

The start photo on Saturday morning

Saturday there was a Saint Nicholas Day's organised geocaching hike, which proved a tad hard. The main reason being, the large amount of rain that fell during the days before Saturday. On the day it cleared up by midday and stayed pretty mild and occasionally even sunny, but the mud created by several days' rain was a nightmare, especially towards the end of the hike, where forestry trucks made several big paths impassable.

Niki's doggie in Xmas mood

Henriett and I cut the hike slightly short, as we were pretty much tired from fighting the sliding about all day. It still felt like I went through a shredder by the end of the day. The number of caches gathered that day was 14 for me, with 8 on the hike route, 1 event cache and 5 moving caches that several people brought in.

Our chauffeur, Peter

On Sunday we started caching again in quite a nice almost sunny weather and managed to gather another 9 caches. At one point Szabolcs left us to go to work by train, so it started getting much more comfortable in the back of the car. The trip home was fast and pleasant and I was indoors by 7:30 pm.

Muggins looking at the map online

Monday we both needed some rest but the shopping raised its ugly head, not only for the presents, but for ingredients for the lunch with Robert on Wednesday. Who would have thought that a fairly expensive cut of pork would suddenly become difficult to get. We got one pork fillet in SPAR and then had to go to several places before we found another SPAR, which had plenty. Methinks, we 'll have to start using this other SPAR, as it is enormous and seems to have everything you can need. 

Anima Musicae orchestra

On Tuesday we ran around for a few more things for both the presents and the lunch with Robert, after which I had a concert in the Music Academy with Bozsa. This one was quite a strange one, but I loved it tremendously. Anima Musicae is a very talented bunch of mostly young people and they had two new additions for this particular night, which was true entertainment. Zoltán Erdő on tárogató and Jenő Lisztes on cimbalom. The first instrument is a traditional Hungarian one, although the modern one that was designed in the 1890's is somewhat different from the original folk instrument, and the second one is a Hungarian percussion instrument, similar to a piano in tune. Apparently the translation of cimbalom is dulcimer, if that makes sense to anyone.

Zoltán Erdő on tárogató and Jenő Lisztes on cimbalom

They played some Hungarian and German composers, none of which are generally known outside of Hungary. The quality of the sound, the perfection of interpretation were superb, but that is not surprising from Anima Musicae.  For me the actually fairly unknown music was a revelation, as I loved it right through. 

Robert last year when we saw him last

And finally, Robert arrived bang on 12 o'clock today and we had a fantastic 3 hours chatting, catching up, eating and drinking with him and with Fanny, his whippet. The menu was a strange creation, but we put something together that was delicious. We started with Roy's famous creamed vegetable soup with chili and parsley, followed by pork fillet wrapped in bacon with boiled potatoes and sprouts. Desert was a strange concoction invented by me: a butter croissant filled with whipped cream and home made chocolate sauce.

Fanny the whippet

Those 3 hours went past in what seemed like minutes and now I am writing this blog post just to keep up. By next week, hopefully, we should be back in Bér for Christmas, followed by a return to BP for New Year's Eve. In the meantime, we have another weekend away, this time together in Csobánka with Márti and Laci, which should also  be fun. Next post hopefully on Wednesday.