To follow up from last week's post, I am happy to report that I had an absolutely no hassle and lovely time at the Water Board. A very helpful, bright and efficient young lady helped me register for the online service platform of the Water Board, after which I could upload the photo I have taken of the water meter. Since then I had an e-mail from the Board that they have forwarded the photo to the billing department and I will hear within a couple of weeks from them. Let us hope that they can do their sums and I will either get the money back or have it credited against further usage.
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| Obviously not modelled by me, but it looks like mine |
En route back from the Water Board, we went to Decathlon and I bought myself some more Lycra shorts, which cost between £6.50 and £9. The next stop was at the laptop guy who managed to sort of fix how to get it to come on, showing me the trick. However, since then I realised that I can just leave it on all the time, and that would take away the risk of it not starting when I want to use it again. This may not last forever, but currently it is OK.
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| Like my laptop, but with colourful screen saver |
Final visit was to One, the service provider of our landline, internet and cable TV. The remote controlling the digi box has started being intermittently dodgy. A helpful and cheerful young man appeared with a new remote in about 30 seconds, so that was a stress free time too.
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| My lovely collage of Callum |
Also on Thursday we had the very happy event of Callum's 16th birthday. He even rang me on Messenger and I had a lovely chat with him about his present - a laptop - his trip to Costa Rica, which he enjoyed tremendously, and about a few trivial things. He is such a gorgeous young man, I love him dearly. I suggested we might make this chatting lark regular, but I don't know if that'll happen. I hope it will.
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| Not quite like mine, but similar |
I am carrying on with my Chair Yoga exercises, which I enjoy very much. They are getting a little bit harder every day, but they really help to get my joints a bit more supple. I hope I would have learnt many tricks in this month, as I am not planning to renew my subscription, as it will go up to £35 a month, which I think is too much. I am sure I will remember most of them and can carry on doing it gradually by myself.
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| The brilliant little footballer (Xander) |
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| The equally brilliant climber (Elian) |
As we have not seen Stephen or the boys since Monday, I kept in touch with them via Messenger. Stephen complained that the kids were too tired by now and as they would not go to sleep due to all the excitement of their program, they ended up missing a day of football for Xander and climbing for Elian, by not being able to get out of bed in the morning. Speaking as the person who paid £200 for that footie camp, I wasn't very happy.
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| Xander and Elian by the Balaton |
At least the visit to the Fradi stadium to watch them beat the opposing team 3:0 in the Champions' League, was really great and worth missing a day of footie and climbing for. They took Valéria and her brother with them and had a fantastic night out. They were especially lucky going last week, as last night Fradi lost to an azeri team 3:1. It looks quite unlikely now that they will make the main table in the Champions' League.
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| The Ferencváros fan base |
Friday was a complete bedlam. Stephen's messages about when his flight is going were totally contradictory and confusing.Finally he settled on leaving the flat by taxi at 6:30pm, so I at least could plan a bit of our day around that. The complication was that one of Roy's internet family history friends was driving up from Romania that day and wanted to see us both for an hour or so. We had to move the times we agreed with him several times, after Stephen kept changing the schedule. Eventually, only Roy was able to go and see them, as I had to stay behind letting them back in and, to be honest, I was not in the mood anyway. I was also really looking forward to a bit of predictable scheduling and peace and quiet, but it did not arrive until after they disappeared over the horizon in the taxi taking them to the airport.
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| Muggins baking 5 years ago |
The bad news, however, that having kept all my stress under control for nearly 3 weeks, and thus having become hyper sensitive to the children's coldness and bad or non-existent manners, I had a terrible meltdown in the form of a crying fit. I couldn't stop crying for about an hour, which was a relief, but it was also most upsetting for my heart and pulse rate. I kept feeling really bad overnight as well, so it was not a good time. However, I survived it, and that's the main thing. FB came up with a photo album from 2020 where I was baking biscuits and looking very happy. That cheered me up no end. Plus, there was a post, also on FB, that really shook me up and out of my misery by making me laugh uncontrollably. I have copied it here, so that you can all have a good laugh too:
"It’s a rainy Tuesday morning. I’m running on two sips of coffee and blind optimism, trying to look alive for a very important Zoom meeting with my new manager (who, mind you, still thinks I’m a responsible adult).
Enter: Mr. Pickles. My cat. My furry, four-legged chaos goblin with the grace of a potato and the attitude of a middle-aged man denied a pub lunch.
I should’ve known something was off when he didn’t immediately attack my ankles as I walked past. No, Mr. Pickles was sitting very still. Too still. Plotting. You know that look cats get like they’re contemplating either dinner or arson? That was the vibe.
Anyway, I log into Zoom. Camera on. Hair pretending to behave. I start nodding like I understand what anyone’s saying.
That’s when it happened. Out of nowhere, Mr. Pickles launches onto my desk like he’s doing a surprise audition for Cirque du Soleil. He lands directly on the keyboard — full belly flop — and somehow manages to:
1. Turn off my camera,
2. Change my Zoom name to “PicklesTheBoss,”
3. AND raise a virtual hand.
The meeting goes dead silent.
Then my manager says, “Looks like... Mr. Pickles has a question?”
I panic. I try to grab him, but the furry menace thinks we’re playing tag and sprints across the room with my USB mic cable dragging behind him like a techno tail.
Now I’m chasing him, the camera turns back ON, and everyone gets a lovely view of me, in socks and shame, crawling under the coffee table yelling, “Give me the mic, you tiny terrorist!”
Eventually, I return to the screen, hair in disarray, dignity in shambles. My manager is crying from laughter. Someone has already updated the meeting notes to read: “Action item: Promote Mr. Pickles. Strong leadership presence.”
The Aftermath? Mr. Pickles now has a cardboard desk next to mine. He sits at it during meetings like he’s my furry little supervisor. Sometimes, I swear he judges my reports. So if anyone needs career advice, I recommend finding a cat with a talent for keyboard shortcuts and a thirst for power."
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| The worst break |
As Stephen managed to turn up with the car at the appropriate time on Friday, I volunteered to take it out to its normal parking space. Thus, first thing on Saturday morning, after a disturbed night with not much sleep, we quite happily departed to Bér, where a quiet and ordered life awaited. Or dear, the first thing I spotted were the several plum trees that had large branches, and in one case, even the trunk snap under the weight of the crop, as well as the easy to crack wood caused by the drought.
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| Plums are gathered, slowly, but surely |
This was most upsetting, but thankfully, we managed to harvest practically all the plums on the trees, even though not all of them were fully ripe. This will have a detrimental effect on the quantity of pálinka from the cefre, but as we will have to buy at least a 100 to 150 kilos of plums to fill all four barrels anyway, the high sugar level in the bought-in plums should counterbalance the low sugar in some of our plums.
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| My nicely ordered photo albums online |
On Sunday I set about finishing one of my slow and boring projects, which I, thankfully, managed. It took me several days in fits and starts, but now I can declare that most, if not all, my photographs of the last two years are in chronological order in appropriate albums on my laptop and also saved in One Drive. The reason why I got lumbered with this job, was the result of my last two years having had quite a few crises and stressful times, when none of this photograph sorting business had the necessary attention paid to it. We started with Alex's problems in 2023, then came the falling apart of Fáklya the following spring, as well as added stress over my health and a few other hassles. Never mind, now it's all sorted, so that's the main thing.
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| The clothes repairers across the road |
On Monday I also had a task, which thankfully got itself sorted. When in BP I took another pair of trousers to the repairer's, that woman said they would be done by Monday. At that time I thought we would still be in BP on Monday, but since then the plums made us hurry up, so we weren't. However, I had a bright idea and it worked. I rang Anna from the block in BP, and she was only too happy to go and fetch the trousers and even advance me the 3000 forints it cost for the repair.
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| We are half way up filling the third barrel |
And then yesterday we had a primarily gardening day, when we sawed off all the broken branches, then picked all the plums from them, some straight into the cefre, some into a box, hoping that they will ripen up. While out in the garden, I also pruned and dead-headed my roses, so they now look a bit more tidy.
And to finish off this post I leave you with another happy note. You may recall that in the spring and early summer I was very busy with using my Merlin Bird Recognition software to record bird song. About 6 or7 weeks ago I got stuck on 117 birds, as there were no more species that I haven't already recorded. Alex told me, when I complained about this, that as the seasons change, so will the birds too.
Well, in the last two days I managed to record 2 more: one that was somewhere in the garden, the other one had to be flying over, so I didn't actually see either, but my trusty telephone, with the help of that brilliant software, recorded them. That was another lovely moment giving me happiness and satisfaction, so this post will end on this uplifting note and the next post is due, as usual, next Wednesday, if I am still alive then.
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