Roy's new haircut, waterbills sorted (almost), caching hike organised for November and we made grape jelly

This last week was quite busy, but we stayed at home right through. There is still plenty to do in and around the house, as well as lots of things to write, organise and do online. Roy had a nice and short haircut, which he is enjoying. I set the machine to nine, but because at the back around his neck I usually put it down to 6, I obviously forgot to put it back to 9 for the rest of his head. He really does look like a thug, but thankfully his hair is still growing quite fast, so it shouldn't matter.

He looks happy, doesn't he?

 

The weather was still quite hot, but over the weekend we had a large super cell move over the country and it rained at times, like it does in the tropics. In fact, I had some  experience of the Monsoon in Nepal a couple of decades ago, and the rain that fell on my back garden was just like it. 

A magnificent super cell

The garden got rather green as a result, but the downpour was so ferocious that most of it just ran off the land, rather than soak in. We are still watering our two small trees, which are amazingly well adjusted to the drought, but I want to be on the safe side and give them some water now and again. They are both in their third year. The Japanese ornamental cherry is growing faster than the Canadian copper maple. They are both very beautiful, which is the main thing. 

The little Japanese ornamental cherry tree

I spent a lot of time online and on the telephone this last week. There was still some sorting to be done over the water meter reading in Budapest. I had a strange e-mail from the Water Board to advise me of the time by which I have to give them our water meter reading. Well, I am definitely planning to go over to reading the meter two monthly and let them have it, so that they will not try and produce ridiculous estimated figures, but they seemed to have been a jump ahead of me. I did ring them, just to clear what exactly they want me to do, and the lovely lady at the other end of the line confirmed that at the minute I should do nothing. If I am lucky I will receive an accurate water bill sometime this month, but more likely by the middle of the next month. This should, I think tell me that they owe me money, and once I got that back, I can go over to filing my meter readings to them online every other month.  I cancelled my chair yoga classes, as mentioned last time, and since then I have been bombarded by request from Yoga Go to return. I am quite capable to do some simple and easy yoga exercises without them, and their regular charges are unacceptably high, so even if I couldn't work out for myself, which I can, I would have had to cancel. 

The hike's banner with one of the views from it

The most complicated paperwork of the last few weeks related to a geocaching hike which I am organising for November 8th. It includes writing the online page, detailing the place, time, route etc. of the hike. Then you have to upload lots of photos that illustrate the environment of the geocaches that we will find, then designing a banner, so that my friends who helps me with this, can put it up on the start page of the geocaching website and link it to the page I mentioned above. I had to make sure that there is a parking place for the cachers' cars, preferably not a paying one. A really nice fellow cacher wrote to me to warn me about two things. One was about both parking areas I quoted were quite expensive and also that one of the paths was overgrown and he suggested an alternative route to one of the boxes.

The grrapes in the pot before we boiled it

The one remaining job relating to this is to update the actual event cache's page nearer the time. I have to wait, because there is a young woman, who has taken to organise hikes herself, but always leaves it to the last minute to advertise them. So, if I update that page with the details and links of my hike, and then she advertises another one, which will happen before mine, she'll erase mine  to do hers, and then I need to do it all over again after her hike.

Filling the jam pots

One interesting activity this last week was Roy and I making some grape jelly for the first time ever. I must admit, we haven't pealed and pip them, so it will not be a perfect jelly, but Roy no longer needed the grape juice in the cefre, so we had a go. I tried it yesterday, it set perfectly, and I personally do not mind the pips, as I quite happily scrunch away on them, considering that they are anti-fungal and generally good for you. The skin has disintegrated in the cooking process, so those bottles of rough grape jelly, (my name for it), will be enjoyed. Tasting it yesterday, I must admit, it was delicious and a little bit sharp, as I like my jams and jellies.

11 little pots of grape jelly

As the air conditioning is still going in the bedroom, often I retire to bed, get my laptop on my lap, while sitting up in bed to watch stuff on either Netflix or with my VPN.  The latest great fun was The Thursday Murder Club on Netflix, which was packed full of great British actors and was not only funny, but extremely well done. I do hope they make it a series, as it has the potential to be really successful.

 As I haven't yet seen the last James Bond film, No Time to Die, which was also the last one of Daniel Craig, I watched that as well this week. I absolutely adore Daniel Craig. I have always loved all things to do with him, so I could safely install him among my "Telephone directory" actors. Just in case you do not know what that means, it is a list of those theatrical persona whom even if they just stood up and read the telephone directory, I would sit down too and watch them and listen to them with admiration and great enjoyment. 

On Saturday I had a real treat. Alex phoned, as he seems to do most Saturdays, but this time he was chatty, sounded happy and I didn't have to extract information out of him, like I sometimes have to. He was on a long drive, so this was not only great pleasure for me, but it also helped to pass the time for him, which knowing the distances within Canada, could be beneficial. He is getting ready for his Level 3 kayaking course in October, which will be quite hard. This time he will have to manage on the ocean, rather than rivers and lakes, like until now. Oh, I have just  thought, that he has been kayaking in an ocean in March when we were in Portugal. He loved it, but did say that the wind, rain and height of the waves were exciting, but exhausting.

A mobile shop very similar to our's

Today we were supposed to go shopping, as we have run out of bread, but Roy managed to catch the moving shop, which is quite an exciting happening most of the time. When we had the steps built down to the road from our front gate, that was done, so the mobile shop doesn't leave before we get there. Well, quite often they still do that, steps or n o steps. However, today he caught them, so we don't have to go out. The heat is still pretty uncomfortable, so I voted for not going out. Roy didn't seem to mind.

 

Gyula Michnai'a priaon photo

I gave him a job of writing a family tree for a guy, called  Gyula Michnay, who was the first and only one who successfully escaped from the death camp in Recsk in Hungary in 1951. He was a fanciful character, with a fascinating set of ancestry, spoke lots of languages, was a soldier, as well as lots of other things. He planned and executed the escape in a totalitarian Stalinist country and the only reason why the other seven with him were caught because they didn't keep to the pre-agreed tactics and methods. Roy managed to find out a lot about his family and I discovered that he wrote his autobiography, which was published just over 20 years ago. Now I have a task, which will probably be harder than Roy's was, to try to find a copy of it somewhere to buy.

Must go now as I have to assist with cooking lunch. Next post next Wednesday, but as that day is when we return to BP, perhaps it'll happen a day early or a day late.