Opera tickets, geocaching trip into the SW, Lili's girls from her herbs course and the first proper Germersdorfer cherry crop

Apologies for a 3-day delay, but hectic does not even start to describe my last week or so. The visit to my rheumatologist last Wednesday was reassuring, as he told me that I haven't got Bechterew disease and we stayed with the original advice of registering at SmileyMed and have some physical therapy. I haven't had the time to even consider a date for this, but promise that I will have a go as soon as things settle down. 

Nagykanizsa TV tower

Last Thursday and Friday was spent preparing for our caching holiday starting on Saturday, so we went out shopping on Friday, which was including some other matters too. I had to go to the pharmacy to get my next three months' meds and that worked well. The only ones they did not have in stock was Rithmonorm, again, but we went early enough to be included in that day's special delivery, so before the holiday I had all my meds that I need for the next few months. 

The steps down into the ravine

I also visited the Opera House to enquire about subscription tickets. Unfortunately, only ones still available were for the Premieres and only in the extremely expensive seats. So I decided to forego the 30% or so discount that you get with subscription tickets and just buy half a dozen ordinary tickets for 6 performances in the coming season for Bozsa and myself. They ended up in the 160,000 forint bracket each set, which is appr. £850 for both of us. I am making some secret plan to get the tickets to Bozsa and refuse reimbursement. It'll be very hard, as she will insist on paying for them, but honestly, I don't know how many years now she didn't let me pay for my ordinary, cheaper subscription tickets to both the Music Academy and the Palace of the Arts with her, so returning the favour is now well overdue. I haven't had any contact with Bozsa lately, so I am hoping that she would forget. 

In front of the antler sculpture

Finally, we came home, packed and were ready to leave early in the morning. I am happy to report that we did leave early in the morning and were on our way happily by 8 am, which, being Saturday, produced fairly empty roads at first, but the traffic increased as we were bombing it down the M7.  Of the 5 days we were away, we were just the two of us on the 1st and 5th days, the other three were spent in the company of Heni and Szabolcs, my new geocaching friends. The travel down to Zalaegerszeg, where we were staying the first night and meeting up with them, was quite uneventful. We found 9 caches and with the exception of one, they were no hassle. They included places like a small but very exciting ravine in a forest, an enormous big television tower, a weird piece of sculpture made of deer antlers, old castles, churches, a 2000 year old embankment that was a form of defence against invaders, chapels in the depth of the forest and a few others I can't now remember. All were enjoyed and even Roy didn't grumble much.

Prep. for the wedding in the castle

The finding of the hotel in Zalaegerszeg was a bit of hassle, as it was positioned on the top floor of a complex that looked like a multi storey car park. The guy in reception was not there and we had to ring him to turn up. He was not particularly helpful on the phone, so I thought that it was going to be a disaster. As it happens, we made our peace with him later and had a quite good night there for a reasonable sum. In the evening we met up with Heni and Szabolcs and had a really good meal in a pizza place, sitting outside on the terrace and having a good chinwag.  

Heni with her and my giant pizza

The following morning we met them at their accommodation, had breakfast with them and got going far too late, which annoyed us both a bit. Still, I have seen this in the past when Szabolcs was cooking breakfast, he seems to take at least 5 times longer  than the same would take either Roy or myself. A total lack of urgency seems to be Szabolcs's speciality and, as we found out later, he has very little, if any, perception of the affect he has on the other members of his group. He is a lovely, friendly and sweet guy, with this one fault, which I suppose one can get used to. I am glad to report that even Roy seemed fond of him sufficiently not to grumble too much.

Roy waiting for us to return

The first day's caching together produced 7 finds for us and were pretty tiring after the long drive the day before, but we managed to leave out only two caches, as Roy was getting tetchy about being hungry and tired. We put the other two on a train back to Zalaegerszeg and went to check in at our B&B in Nemesnép, a tiny, but very historical little village. And that is when the hassle started, which eventually could only be laughed at, otherwise we would have both gone mad. First of all, we had to get the keys out of a key press on the wall with a code, which arrived by e-mail that day. This is a dreadful habit, adopted by many hotels and B&B's from AirB&B. We got in, found our room, which was in fact a small apartment with two bedrooms. We started settling in when we realised that the air conditioning wasn't working, rang the telephone number on the booking and found that the owner was not available, so we spoke to the manager. He suggested we moved, first to no. 5, but we couldn't open its key press, so we ended up in the smallest, furthest room, no. 7. There the AC worked, but was making funny noises all night. We refused to move all our food out of the fridge, partly because it would have been too much hassle, but mostly because our new room had no fridge. Eventually, we could keep both keys, but running between our room, the old room and the dining area downstairs was not very convenient. 

Our B&B in Nemesnép

Talking about the dining area: it had no access to water, as the old kitchen was locked up. This place used to be a lively, lovely little hotel, including a restaurant in the past, but was going downhill fast since the restaurant moved 5 kilometres away and the management was on the phone and not in person. We had not very good luck with accommodation on this trip, said Heni the following morning and I designated that sentence as the understatement of the year. We couldn't find anywhere to eat by the time we dealt with all this hassle, as most restaurants closed by 8 pm, so had to eat our leftover the sandwiches and a bit of salad. Considering how exhausted we both were, that was no problem.

Wooden church I have seen in the past

 

The following morning we went to fetch our friends from a railway station in a town about half an hour away and started caching together again. We were in the business to find all points of 5 cycling multi-caches, which was fun, but occasionally got Roy riled up about the terrain. This part of Hungary has lot of history behind it while it is not very developed in the transport department. We struggled with a few dirt lanes and swamps, but survived at the end. The area is famous for its bell towers and I must admit, I have never seen this many of those structures anywhere else. They were usually built of wood, some had the bells outside, some inside, the shape was universal, which is why they call them bell towers with skirts on. At the end of the day we put Heni and Szabolcs on the train in another town, after another exhausting but fun day.

One of those famous bell towers

Our caches were multiplying, we had collected a good few new ones in the Ancient Trees collection, and even popped over the border into Slovenia for one. One evening, after we finished with them, we then gathered three more on our own, as Heni and Szabolcs have already found those in the past. All those three were very close to our accommodation, including one in our own village. The best of those three was in a village just 10 minutes away by car, and it was a church with a painted ceiling all in blue. Even Roy fell in love with it so much that he wrote in their visitors' book.

The "Linden Tree" inn we had dinner one evening

The problem of no restaurants or even pubs in the vicinity of our accommodation resulted in one evening eating where we put the two of them on the train and the following night in the village where the restaurant of our own B&B moved to. Both were excellent, although the second one was a lot more expensive than the first one. In the second one we met with a bunch of people at a neighbouring table, who spoke English and we had a lovely chat with them. I realised that one of the down sides of this trip was being in a large B&B entirely on our own and Roy not having a chance to chat, like he likes to do. At least he had 10 minutes of it in that restaurant.

The castle at Lendava in Slovenia

Once we had said good bye to our companions we arrived at the last day of our holiday, where we were just the two of us again. We started with popping over to Slovenia again, this time for two caches in Lendava, which was only about 15 minutes from the border. The town had a lovey old castle and a little chapel on a spur which gave you fantastic views of the environment all the way round. Both were great. Then we started heading back to Hungary and towards the M7 motorway. We found a few caches en route and then drove an hour or so towards another set of caches North of the Balaton.  All went well with all of them and we were at home in Budapest by 6 pm, exhausted but happy.

A giant ancient oak in Szalafő

The following day we left town early, as we had to go and shop for a week's food in Lidl Aszód en route back to Bér and be around by midday, as Lili was coming to clean the Bunkhouse for 10 ladies, who were coming the following day to stay for the weekend of her herbs, teas and wild  flowers course in her house. She hasn't got enough space yet to accommodate them and uses us in the meantime. We found the house and garden OK, the storm we had down South had not come this far, although the roses have lost many petals while we were away.

The first pickings of cherries this year

We both started discovering the joys of the back garden, as our Germersdorfer cherry tree had actually produced quite a crop for the first time in its life. It has a small bowlful about 4 years ago, but nothing since. This year, I think due to the rain in early May, it actually looked quite happy and the results are visible on its branches. We are also going to have a reasonable plum, pear and apple season, assuming no nasty disease attacks any of the in the meantime. The walnut trees look lovely at the moment, but the burrowing fly, which had killed them for the last 7 years might still strike between now and when they usually drop.

A bunch of Germersdorfer cherries in the garden

Yesterday, I climbed a big ladder and picked about 3 kg of Germersdorfer cherries, and we have been eating them like there was no tomorrow ever since. Obviously, we can't eat 3 kg in a few days, so I am thinking of preserving them in bottles today or tomorrow. Alternatively, we might make jam as well, we'll see. Currently, I am catching up on paperwork, which will probably take me at least a week, if not more. The items having already been done are: 1. finishing the logs and adding photos to all geocaching finds online; 2. entering the new passwords in my database and those caches that are on .com as well, on there. Items still awaiting completion: 1. this blog; 2. dealing with my thousands of e-mails; 3. putting a new album up on FB about the caching trip. 

My Boskobak pears in the garden

I have already mentioned the cherry picking that has been done, but it is very likely that we will have to pick them continuously this week and next, otherwise the birds will have them all. I have already made three little jars of cherry jam from those cherries that I could pick from neighbouring trees, as we have agreements with neighbours that whatever is hanging over into our gardens we can pick. Another job that has been done yesterday was the washing from the trip, and that is getting happily dry in the sun outside. 

And then Roy's sister Pamela was 91 years old yesterday. In recent months she was getting the hang of how to use Messenger, so we were hoping that she would ring us. We tried to ring her, but there was no response. We hope she is OK, but if we can't get her on the end of a Messenger chat line soon, we'll have to ring Sheila, who is usually more up to date with Pam's comings and goings than we are. The photo on the left is Pam about 70 or so years ago. Amazing how fast time flies, but I am always pleased when Roy shows me old family photos. She was delightful and very pretty, which is still obvious when you see her nowadays. HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAMELA!!

En route home I took this photo by the Balaton

 

And then on Thursday and Friday the girls from the herbal course arrived and they seem a lovely bunch. One of them is from a village only about 20-25 minutes away by car, so she isn't staying overnight, but going home at the end of each day. Another one is staying up at Virágos, as she doesn't like to share. So, altogether there are 12 attending the course, but only 10 staying in the Bunkhouse across the yard. They will leave tomorrow, but we hope to see them before that.

I have to go now as Roy fixed breakfast and he doesn't like to wait for me. I hate having breakfast on my own. The first meal of the day should always be in company, if possible. The weather does not seem as sunny as it was yesterday, let us hope it doesn't rain. Next post back on schedule on Wednesday, I hope.