Wood chopping, gardening, DIY, winter tyres, car to garage, Xander's birthday and lunch with Bozsa

I can very happily report that the last 7 days in our lives were considerably less eventful than the previous 7. Not that we had sat at home and twiddled our thumbs, but it was a bit less crazy and easier than our usual weeks. We spent about half of it still in the village and the other half in town. Roy managed to bring down quite a lot of fire wood and neatly stored it along the corridor fencing. In fact, he had a good few days of doing all sorts of DIY and gardening, which kept him busy, therefore very happy. He put together a new shelf, which is due to be put up above the coat rack in BP, to store boots, as we are running out of space for all our footwear in the hall. Unfortunately, one upshot of these activities was that his old bench saw gave up the ghost, so that is yet another expense fairly soon. 

The boot shelf in the hall

I did the outstanding accounting work for Alex, which turned out that I have last done in late June. Thankfully, it wasn't too hard, as it consisted of only thirty transactions, mostly buying gas, entertaining clients and paying business subscriptions. Alex bought a few bits of equipment and a couple of new kayaks as well, but none of that is too unusual. I finally managed to get hold of the assistant in the Szirák surgery, and asked for the prescriptions for the next three months to go up into the cloud. I must admit, in this respect, the Hungarian health service is way ahead of most other countries. You don't have to go and see the doctor or even visit the surgery for your regular meds, but if you are of the sceptical type, you might suggest that rather than something the previous regime having done for people, it was all in the  methodology of an authoritarian regime, wanting to know everything centrally about all its citizens. Either way, I hate to visit that surgery so much, that I am grateful for this.

Poppy Montgomery in Unforgettable

For the first time in ages, I also had some time to watch some Netflix and started the watch a series called "Unforgettable", which I enjoyed like a bit of light entertainment. The other series I re-watched, considering the next one is due to start tomorrow, was "The Diplomat". This is under the heading of light entertainment too, but with slightly more up to date political content, which I enjoy a lot. Talking of television series, my US procedurals have also re-started this week, and apart from my usual ones that escaped cancellation, I still have Marshals, Tracker, FBI, CIA, NCIS, NCIS Origins, Sheriff's Country, Fire Country and Boston Blue, Of the new ones I started watching NCIS New York, which seems OK, but I ignored all the other ones, as they all seemed quite trivial and not my cup of tea.

LL Cool J and Scott Caan in NCIS New York

After my slight faux pas with the car, when totally absent mindedly I managed to drive straight into one of the ditches in the High Street, we finally found Tomi in and he changed our summer tyres to winter ones. The nights are getting quite cold, but we decided not to start heating until we return from town next week. That event in the ditch was frightening to start with, but ended quite interestingly. One of the ladies in the High Street came out to see what happened and called the mayor for me, who keeps the village's tractor. He turned up at once, but didn't need to pull me out as with the help of a few bits of wood that formed a bridge between my tyres and the tarmac of the road, I drove out carefully, and on my own. Obviously, Dusty's 4-wheel drive helped.

The banner for the Festival/Competition

I also managed to get up to date with my e-mails and FB photo albums. And finally, I made a decision about the geocaching Festival and Competition in the Zemplén Mountains, which I vacillated about for weeks. The Zemplén is a long way from BP and even from the village. It is an area where most drive-in caches I have already found, and going with Roy, I can't do too many hiking ones. Finally, I decided to go, but taking it easy on the caching front, so Roy doesn't get too tired from all that driving. I wrote the cache list and I think I only have 15 or 16 caches listed for a trip of 3 days. Day 1 and day 3 will have about 5 or 6 and the Festival day just  one or two. I also found an interesting accommodation, which I will let you know whether it worked out or not. We are staying in a small apartment, which is a conversion from old outbuildings of a famous château in the village of Füzérradvány.  Apparently, the beautifully renovated château is now a museum and gallery space, but it is surrounded by an ancient park, which is where our apartment will be situated. Let us hope the weather is good too. We'll be away from Friday to Sunday at the end of this week.

My favourite guy at Baumgartner's

After catching up with most outstanding jobs we finally departed to BP on Sunday, trying to dodge the traffic chaos that was caused by shut sections of the city due to the Budapest Marathon weekend. Once in the flat, we found our missing boots, which was good news, but Roy forgot to take the holdall out of the car after we parked it, so later had to go back for it. I reckoned that he put it in the boot, but he was adamant that it was left on the back seat, which is not safe, as it is visible from the outside. He was right, so I am glad he went back for it. 

Baumgartner's garage in BP Kőbánya

The first three days of the week had one, or in one case two, important items in each: Monday had the early drive to Baumgartner's for Dusty's annual service, as well as Xander's birthday. The latter finally got fixed with Stephen and we are contributing to a new bike for Xander for his 13th birthday. The car service has highlighted some important anomalies in the car, one of them relating to my mishap in the ditch. Thankfully, that was not too bad, so that got put off until later. The most expensive bit was a complete replacement for all break shoes and pads, which put us back about £350. The service was about the same, but as a special treat, they actually cleaned the car inside and out to a fantastic standard, neither of us had seen since it was new 11 years ago. And the cleaning was gratis, which is very nice of them. 

Roy and Bozsa at the Regős restaurant

To be honest, Baumgartner's are the only garage in all the years with all our cars that is the epitome of the perfect business They are excellent in the workshop, with knowledgable engineers, thorough in their inspections, they do not treat, even me, as an idiot and their attention to detail and perfect manners are superb. It was such a lucky day, when having thought of jettisoning the garage in Gödöllő, after years of bad manners, negligence and useless systems, he spotted this lot. We took a chance on them, and for once, they turned out great. 

My chicken paprikash with noodles. Yum, yum!!!

The bad news in the garage, however, was that the suspension is getting dodgy and will have to be fixed within the next 12 months, or it will not go through the MOT, due next autumn. That is likely to be in the region of £900 to £950, which seriously raises the question of changing the car. We are both so fond of our dear Dusty, that served us faithfully for the last 11 years, that we have rejected that idea repeatedly over the last few years. But it seems that we might have now arrived at a point when it is time. We have a whole year to decide, so we'll have to think about it seriously in that time.

One half of my birthday present from Bozsa

Tuesday had a very enjoyable event in it, namely the first lunch together with Bozsa for 4 months. I have seen Bozsa recently at the Music Academy concert a few weeks ago, but Roy hadn't seen her for over 4 months. They are very fond of each other, so they looked very happy in the Regős restaurant, one of our age old haunts. We had the lunch menu, which is a good deal cheaper than the main dishes, but nowadays all three of us are unable to do justice to a large portion, that normally arrives for the full price, so it is ideal to choose from the fixed lunch menu. It was not only delicious, but none of us left a morsel of anything. Roy had pork in breadcrumbs with chips, Bozsa had mushrooms in breadcrumbs and I had a chicken paprikash with noodles.

Roy's birthday present from Bozsa

Bozsa appeared with presents for both of us, as since she had not seen us, we both had our birthdays. Roy got a large bottle of Talisker, my favourite malt whisky, and I got two boxes of chocolates, one of Raffaello and one of Merci. The latter must have been responsible for my dreadfully bad sleep last night, as I have eaten far too many of them before going to bed. Still, they are so delicious, that that is a price I am happy to pay for the joy of them. 

The other half of my birthday present from Bozsa

In the last few days I have also tried to buy all my meds, which I have managed to have put up into the cloud, but it seems that due to supply line difficulties, or possibly even manufacturing problems, some of them are now not available anywhere in the country. Until now, when a pharmacy did not have anything in stock, they used to order it from the wholesaler and it got delivered within 24 hours. They still have some like that, but a new category joined this silly game: the "sorry, these are not available at the moment" one. I do hope they will turn up soon, as I do need the citrocalcium tablets to keep my bones in good condition.

This post ended up a lot longer than I thought it might. Even on leisurely weeks, we have a lot to do, which is great, as the quote from Clint Eastwood: "Don't let the old man in!" is definitely our motto. I am only hoping that our health will last to maintain this level of activity for a while yet. I have just read about the "American Covid" having reached the UK. That means that it'll be here in a week or less. Brrrrr!!!! This is not funny in a country where they do not supply vaccines any more and the private clinics are prevented to purchase any. Mind you, with the new government, that might have changed, we'll see. Hoping that we survive the trip this weekend and will have our capacity to write, you can expect the next post on Wednesday as usual.