The festive season

This was a less hectic week than the last few. We stayed in the village until Thursday, did mostly work on the computer, Roy family history, me proofreading. As we are having guests from the Mill over New Year's Eve, we did some cleaning and made the beds, so that when we get back we shouldn't have to rush around like madmen. On Thursday I got really cross again at the total unreliability of the medical services in the village. The doctor only comes twice a week, but as I can't stand either of them (there is one on Tuesday and another one on Thursday), I usually go early on Thursday to see the nurse before the doctor arrives. She is perfectly happy to print out 3 months of prescriptions for me and this way I only really have to go to the surgery 4 times a year. Well, this time there was nobody there and no notice explaining the absence of any medical personnel.  Eventually I managed to ring the nurse and it turned out that she was on holiday. I went home fuming, counted my pills and realised that I can just about survive until 5th January, when she returns. If she isn't there then I'll definitely be stuck, as one of my pills will by then only have 4 left, which is two days' supply.  Let's hope she turns up!

Roy's steak sitting on the board

The table before we attached the food

Roy with his vino in his hand

Me looking uncharacteristically happy

This is how rare his steak was

As Roy didn't want to be lumbered with the car in town, we came in on Thursday evening by bus. I must admit, this arrangement of catching the 15.55 to a nearby village where we have to change buses to a fast one to town, is the best option of all. Mostly because it takes the motorway and thus delivers us fast and efficiently to our doorstep after another easy change, but also as on this route there is almost always a new, comfortable and safe coach, which is fast becoming a rarity in our county.

Once in town, the first job was to do our Christmas food shopping at the market. We managed to get my salmon, Roy's fillet steak, quite a lot of veg., fruit and herbs, plus nuts. It was quite a weight to carry it home, so we left the potatoes off and got those in the block. I decided to do some truffles, so we bought some chocolates and cream as well.

Christmassy model in the market

One of the stalls

Marzipan sweets

Closeup of sweets

The Basilica's fascade

Handicrafts

In the meantime we had a phonecall from some friends that they would like to invite us for lunch on Christmas Day, so we cancelled the restaurant and went and spent about 5 hours with them, had lovely food and good company, which made a change after several years of having just each other on Christmas Day. En route to them we popped into the Christmas Market in front of the Basilica and while we didn't buy anything, we appreciated the lingering scents of garic sausage, lángos, mulled wine and strudel.

Call the Midwife in South Africa

We had our big Christmas dinner on the 24th, and I must admit, I am in the process of growing gills, I am having so much fish nowadays.  Not that I am complaining, they were all very nice.  I was watching Jamie Oliver and decided to try making his gravadlax. That turned out good, so did my truffles and Roy's steak. He found 2 packs from last year still in the freezer, so he had one of those, having chopped up and frozen this year's offering.

Rowan Atkinson as Maigret

I carried on with the proofreading, which I managed to finish today and have already sent it. Apart from being helpful to my comrades in London, this also gave me sheer enjoyment, as I love Trotsky and in this particular work he was especially erudite, witty with his style at its most clear. The weather has been quite unpleasant, lots of freezing rain etc., so we stayed indoors a lot. Watched some TV, some from the US, although they stop their regular stuff mostly around Christmas, but there were still some. I also discovered some programs I haven't watched for ages, like Midsomer Murders, Last Tango in Halifax, Call the Midwife, Grantchester and Maigret, which I enjoyed tremendously. They tend to come out of the woodwork around Christmas, which is great. We are all looking forward to Sherlock, which starts again on New Year's Day and which promises a darker tone to the first three series.

The still deliciously dishy James Norton in Grantchester

I also managed to see a really good documentary about Lenny Henry, which I also enjoyed, the above mentioned Jamie's Ultimate Christmas, House of the Year with Kevin McCloud and the next instalment of Who Do You Think You Are? So, as you can appreciate, there was a lot of TV watching done this week, but only those programs that we really enjoy.

Last Tango in Halifax principals

Tomorrow we are having lunch with one of Roy's virtual family history researching friends, so that should be interesting. Finally on Wednesday I am having my last cultural outing to an alternative theatre and then we're off back to the village on Thursday.

A very Happy New Year to everyone and this will probably have to be my last posting in 2016. Let us hope we will all have a better year in 2017!!

Yet another insanely busy week (are there any other kind?)

After my last post - Tuesday was a day of rest. The outing to the Matra was fun, but I was rather wrecked, especially by the bus trip home. The rest was also in aid of setting me up for a few days in town, as I had to go in for a couple of concert/opera outings as well as a few things to sort.

My trusty old Nokia Lumia 800

Roy stayed behind and as the weather was pretty freezing, he mostly stayed indoors. As soon as I got to town my first job was to find someone to have a look at my mobile. There was this little place not too far from the flat and I thought I would start with that.  Good decision!! The little fella inside took the cover off and then showed me where the SIM card resides.  Not having had any trouble with this phone before, I had no idea where it was.  He pulled it out and put it back. The phone worked perfectly after that.  Funnily enough, I knew that should have been tried before, but had no idea where the SIM card slot was. Mistakenly, I thought you can't remove it, which is, of course, seriously silly, as that should always be independent of the phone's innards.  I got myself confused with the battery, which is definitely not removable from this phone, so when that goes, I will have to buy a new phone.

My old camera, now repaired

The second job was to get to the other end of the city to fetch my old camera from the repairers. It cost a bit over £40 and it is now the fall-back camera, rather than having a second battery for the new one. In fact, I think I still prefer the old one, as it is just that fraction smaller and fits into my pocket better.

The new one just that bit too big for small pockets

En route home I popped into my favourite health food shop and bought some more vitamin C capsules and another big box of my probiotic, BIO KULT, so that I won't run out of them for a while. I also tried to get my Eliquis in the corner pharmacy near the flat, but they not only didn't have it in (that's quite common), but told me they couldn't get it in from the wholesalers as they didn't have it either.  How pathetic! So I went on a bit of a detour to another one, where I always had very good service, friendly, helpful and knowledgeable pharmacists behind the counter and got it straight away. I suspect that they now stock just one box, as we have purchased this quite often there and they think that the risk of it going old on them no longer exists.

Andrea Vígh

The concert in the evening was very good indeed. Both Bozsa and I looked totally done in, but we both managed to stay awake and enjoy the superb harp and cello music on offer. Andrea Vígh and István Várdai are amongst my absolute favourites and all the music was Saint Saens, which made it that much better.

István Várdai

Thursday brought even colder weather, so when I departed to the hills West of the city I was wrapped up looking like the Michelin man. I was after a couple of caches, one en route to the top and the other at the top. The one half way up was actually the very first geocache placed in the country back in 2001. It certainly looked as if not many people found it since, as it took me ages to locate it. The view from there was superb and I took lots of lovely photos in the sparkling sunshine.

Not far from the first cache

I climbed up to the top of the lookout tower at the summit and saw amazing countryside all round.  It was your classical 360 degree view, but this time all the fog and cloud was in the valleys, with the tops of mountains peering out through it. Fascinating indeed!

As the weather persevered sunny and it didn't get any colder on Friday, I managed a little hike with my friend Zsuzsi to some interesting looking limestone rocks and to a fake castle which was built nearly 50 years ago as a film set. We also visited the nearest village to the rocks, which didnát have a particularly nice feel to it, but still had an old baroque church and some old gravestones.

In the afternoon I managed to collect one more cache, which was in town, at the reception of the newly opened Pinball Museum. I never liked pinball machines sufficiently to spend more that a few inutes on them, so my focus was to get the cache and get out.  I was in a hurry, as my opera that night started at 6pm and I didn't want to be late.

The lookout tower

Looking down from the top of the lookout tower

It was a performance of Don Giovanni, and it was excellent. Erwin Schrott sang the title role and a selection of performers, whom I was not familiar with, were also first class.  Especially the one in the role of Leporello, Miklós Sebestyén whose smooth, soft and beautiful bass-baritone was magical and his acting very good too. Schrott was also a very good actor, lots of bravado, fun and talking to the audience vowed everyone. He was definitely larger than life, obviously enjoying the role and a very good looking guy too. I hope he comes our way often in future!!

Erwin Schrott

Miklós Sebestyén

It was also the first time I was actually sitting in the seat written on my subscription ticket. I managed to miss the first 3 performances on this ticket through being ill, the performance clashing with something else or being abroad. I have already gone to see the first and the third since and have a ticket for the second, but this time I had my normal seat, which I must admit is very good. I think I will definitely renew my First Night subscription ticket for next year, as this seat is worth hanging onto.

Rocks in the forest

The camel rock

The phoney castle

And then, after some shopping, I was picked up on Saturday morning by Laci and Márti, our friends who were coming down to the village for the weekend. What a treat not to have to be bumped about for 2 hours plus on the bus! We were both very pleased that they decided to come down and spend time with us, even though the choice of the weekend stopped us attending an apparently excellent Hash Christmas party.

We had lots of lovely chat, food and drink together during the weekend, we had Saturday dinner at the Mill and they have gone on a couple of walks just the two of them, first around the village and on Sunday to the andesite rocks a half an hour away. We really enjoyed their company and we might get together over Christmas in town.

The only other, and somewhat worrying, event during the weekend was a possible plumbing disaster which Roy managed to catch in time. He suspected that there might be a frozen plug in one of the pipes in the back room of the Bunkhouse, due to him having forgotten to drain the pipe after our visitors last week. Thankfully, he caught it in good time, fuffed around with it for ages, but managed to unfreeze the two ice blockages he eventually found, before they got big enough to break the pipe. We decided to raise the temperature in the Bunkhouse from 5 degrees Celsius to 10, as this winter seems a lot colder than the last few.

I had very little time watching TV last week, but still managed to catch Who Do You Think You Are on the BBC, which is one of our absolute favourites and I have been watching my usual US cop shows and thrillers, which keep me entertained on cold days.

Now I have to log off, due to a proofreading assignment, which I took on and as it has to be done by the end of the year, I'd better get on with it!

An insanely busy 6 days

Life is still as hectic, if not more, than before. Some of it is my own making, others not.

Sunset in the back garden

The first two days in the village were pretty peaceful. It started getting very cold again, but we didn't feel like covering up the roses or firing up the stove. Both of us are still quite tired from all that flu and the colds, so we just stayed indoors and recuperated.

Sunday dinner of just veg + Yorkshire pudding

On Friday, however, I had a concert in town and Roy decided that he would stay put.  Very sensible decision, also a necessity this time, as we had 10 friends coming to stay in the Bunkhouse for their annual get-together of hiking, eating and drinking. One of them arrived a bit before I left on the last bus and Roy ended up entertaining him until the rest of them arrived sometime between 6 and 7 on Friday night. As it happens, Mikrobi collects stamps, so they had something in common which didn't make for too heavy use of either English or Hungarian.

János Balázs

The concert was quite strange. János Balázs is an excellent pianist who this time, and in order to honour the memory of György Cziffra, chose to play the exact same program that Cziffra did in 1962 on his BBC concert in England. It was fantastic, but both Bozsa and I felt that his speed, especially playing the Chopin pieces, was far too fast. It was as if he got carried away with both the speed and the loudness of his playing to the detriment of the quality of the sound and the otherwise excellent interpretation of his music.

I was on the 7.20am bus the following morning to get back home before our visitors surfaced.  As it was Saturday, the bus left half an hour later than normal, but the main bonus was the lack of having to change en route.  A direct bus is always preferable, no matter how clapped out the actual vehicles are. (Which they are!!)

Balázs, Miki, Vöcsök and Janó by the andesite columns

The guys were great fun. They tried to make Roy drink all the time of the day, so we taught them the word "yardarm", which they now know very well, having given up forcing alcohol down Roy's face before 12 noon. There was 9 of them plus one that was to meet them in the hills when they went to visit the areas of the forest where Janó plans to extend the orienteering map. Afterwards they returned via the mountain chapel and stages of the cross above a neighbouring village.  Except the cooking contingent, which arrived home earlier than the rest, so that when the rest of them turned up their food was good and ready.  I, on the other hand, didn't accompany them, as I knew they would go too far and too fast for me. In fact, due to having to get up at 5am, I dropped off for about 3 hours in the late afternoon, but that set me up for a long chat with them until about midnight later.  Great guys, interesting and fun to be with, so I was happy.

A spooky church in a spooky cemetery

Still back on Saturday night I discovered that one of the moving caches was placed very close to us, so on Sunday morning and long before anyone else was up, I quickly drove over to the village where it was and fetched it before breakfast. As I was planning a bit more geocaching before the year was out, I thought I would place it while doing that later on in the week or month. After breakfast, 4 of the guys decided to walk up to the andesite outcrop and I decided to go with them. It was a delightful hike, not particularly long (about 5km), but the views were gorgeous in spite of the darkish, cold and windy weather. As soon as we got home, they started to depart and I went with one of them into town for another concert, saving me the uncomfortable journey by bus.

The compulsory, "on the top of the andesite", photo

The real trauma of the day started the minute I got into the flat.  I noticed, even before I opened the front door, that there was a really loud sound of pouring water. It came from the tiny toilet next door to us where we heard that noise before, but not recently. The loo serves the kebab shop in the building, which being Sunday was closed. Obviously, in spite of repeated requests of not wasting water or endanger the properties on either side, they either did not repair the cistern, or did so insufficiently well for the repair to last. After this came a tragic farce that seems to confirm that trouble is never alone, in fact it goes in at least threes.

One of many glorious views from the top

As soon as I tried to call the management agent I found that the SIM card on my mobile phone has either stopped working or got dislodged.  Unfortunately, this is a phone I can't get into, so there I was, in distress and without a mobile phone.  I tried to ring a friend on the landline to get in touch with the management agent, who then proceeded to request ME!!! to go down into the cellar, find the correct water pipe that serves the loo and turn it off. She said it was either 14,15 or 16. My arthritic fingers struggled valiantly, but I couldn't manage to close 15, to see if that was the culprit's pipe, as it was broken.  I was running up and down, checking if the noise went, when I realised that Roy keeps a toolbox and perhaps a set of pincers would help.  Next door's husband turned up in the yard and I asked him to help as well, so between us we managed to turn everything off and the noise still wouldn't go away. At this point the guy said: "Isn't it that one with the little wheel on the meter going round like there was no tomorrow?" Now, why didn't I think of that? Mind you, that was pipe number 12, so I wasn't looking that way, and it was rather dark down there with that single, very low wattage bulb swinging at the other end of the corridor.

Ernő Kállai

Dóra Kokas

Anyway, finally I managed to get rid of the sound of the pouring water, although then had to spend the rest of the day hiding from the lynchmob of all flat owners/tenants who then found that they didn't have any water supply.  Those pipes, unfortunately, serve more than one flat in the block.  Also - and here comes the third disaster - I couldn't find my concert tickets and as Bozsa's ticket was also with mine, that would have been really embarrassing. After a certain amount of frantic searching and panic, I decided that this was getting far too ridiculous, so sat down, calmed down and came up with some suggestions where they might be.  One of them turned out to be right and all was well again. What I have learnt was that you have to stop panicking and also start lateral thinking to include most places, no matter how unlikely.  As it happens, I found them in my purse, which while not a typical place where I keep concert tickets, was not altogether very unlikely.

The concert was pretty good. It was the second of four, with the title "Discoveries". Basically, the orchestras are not very well known and the soloists are either beginners or very young. It was the turn of the Debrecen Philharmonic this time with soloists: Dóra Kokas and Ernő Kállai. The first was a stunningly pretty, blond young woman, just out of the Academy, playing Elgar's chello concerto like a seasoned pro. She was delightful and brilliant.  The violinist, playing a Sibelius Violin Concerto, was not so impressive, but that judgement might be my bias, as having become very fond of Kristóf Baráti, I tend to set my expectation unfairly high. Once your definition of a good violinist is called Kristóf Baráti, nobody is a good violinist any more.

A brooding, winter skyline in the Mátra

After all this I decided that I deserve a bit of peace and quiet in the countryside, so Monday got scheduled for a small hike in the Mátra mountains en route home to the village, in order to catch up with another moving cache, plus a permanent one, as well as giving me a chance to place the one from Sunday morning.  The theme of that one is that it has to go somewhere spooky. It is usually placed in cemeteries, which is where I fetched it from, but where I was planning to go was a place where the image of the Virgin Mary appeared several times in front of a simple peasant woman in the 1940's, so that seemed eminently suitable for the spooky one to be placed near.

I caught the bus at 7:10am and was there by 10:23am. The little village in the forest had a really nice pilgrimage place that grew up around the 1940's sighting. Found both caches quickly, placed the one from Sunday there and got going with the other one that had to be moved.  That one is called a bikers' cache, although one can move it on foot as well. The weather got darker and colder all the time, so I managed to move somewhat quickly to keep myself warm. I put it at the foot of a tree, hidden by rocks and from there the views were absolutely gorgeous.  It was very overcast, which made it even more dramatic, so that seemed a good background.

A passing forestry truck laden with timber

I managed to get down to the nearest town quite quickly, only to find that I had nearly 4 hours of waiting time for the bus to get me home. Tried to ring Roy, but he was out in the garden burning walnut leaves and he usually guards fires just in case they get out of hand and burn something down. Finally, I talked to him, but he declined to drive all the way there (about half an hour) and made me wait until 5pm. So, first I went to our favourite restaurant in that town and ignoring my sandwiches had roast trout with parsley potatoes and a cabbage salad. It was gorgeous.  Oh, and a glass of dry white wine, as I didn't have to drive, which is rare.

The pilgrim's church in the forest

Then I went and did a little food shopping, tried the Library, but it was closing in 15 minutes by the time I got there, so the rest of the time was spent in the waiting room at the railway station which is right next to the bus station. While still back at the restaurant, I managed to log all my finds and the new location of the moving cache I placed, which was due to the availability of WiFi in the restaurant. Dreadfully boring being without one's mobile and not having a paper or a book to read.  It was really tedious hanging around without those facilities.

However, the biggest upset for me that day was the state of the bloody bus I finally caught at 5pm. These must be clapped out rejects from Austria or Germany with no suspension, which those countries won't use any more, they are that dangerous, and which are then bought by enterprising persons in places I will not mention, in order to shake the living daylights out of you on the delightful roads in these parts. In the first 15 minutes or so I managed to have a nap, because then it was on a brand new dual carriageway without potholes. However, as soon as it got to the "normal" roads, there was no more sleeping.  In fact, it got so bad that by the time I got home I had full blown motion sickness with a tummy ache and a headache.  Never again!!!

Drumsticks for Roy, salmon for me with all the trimmings

Other news from this past week includes some lovely lunches and some truffels that I made to use up an old half carton of cream from going off. As we might miss our usual Christmas fare by staying in the village (which we are considering at this stage) we started making steak and salmon lunches with wine and truffles, which went down a treat. There are still some truffles left, so I think I am off to raid the fridge any minute to partake of one or two.

Langur monkeys in Jodhpur, India

On the TV front, unfortunately, Planet Earth II has just finished and I am sad.  The most incredible footage about the living world shot anywhere surely belongs to those brilliant guys from the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol. I am only sad that if and when they come back with another series, it might not be accompanied by the dulcet tones of David Attenborough. At 90 he is still sprightly and altogether undiminished in the intellectual stakes, but if it takes another 10 years to come up with another series, he should be 100 by then.  Still, who knows, he looks and sounds indestructable, so it might happen!

And finally, we had another annoyance these last few days, but thankfully that has been sorted (so we hope!). Normally Roy's cefre for his palinka goes to the still in November, December or even the following January, like it did this year. So when recently I tried to have a word with Pali, who usually takes it and makes the arrangements with the local distillery, he told me that he had taken everybody's weeks ago and why didn't I tell him? I got really angry. He's been doing this for years. Once there is a material change, shouldn't it have been him who told us that he was taking it early? I think he got my message how upset I was, because apparently he had arranged with the distiller to open up again after Christmas and do just ours.  We'll see if that's true, if it isn't, that'll definitely be the end of yet another beautiful friendship!!

A busy, but very enjoyable week in town

I promised to post before we leave town, but ran out of time. As it happens, it is just as well, because life in the village is so much less demanding and relaxed, so I can concentrate on getting the story of last week together.  Mind you, there is still a fair amount of work here too, like starting up the big stove and covering the roses, but let's have a go at this post first!

Cache no.2, a Russian Chapel for Alexandra Pavlovna Romanova

I left my last post off with the intention of going to the baths to extend my discount card, but I found them most unco-operative in this matter.  Apparently, if you don't extend it by February the following year, they cancel it.  Earlier this year I knew I would not have a chance to use it much, so I didn't extend it for 2016, but thought, it should be OK to do so, once I need it again.  No such luck. So I didn't bother with booking any massage sessions either, because now I will have to apply for a new card, wait for it to arrive and then I can think of booking any massage to go with my visits to the baths.

The abandoned quarry

So on Thursday last week, Roy and I went to the central offices of the baths to apply for a new discount card. This transpired amazingly easily, we found a nearby and cheap parking space, there was very little waiting and the paperwork was done in about 5 minutes.  Now I have to wait a full month for the card to arrive, (correction: I will get an e-mail that it is available in the baths I indicated on my application form and then I can go and have some splish-splash in the lovely thermal waters!!). As that office was on the other end of town, I felt it would be quite fun to drive out of the city in a Westerly direction and do some geocaching. The real surprise, however, was Roy volunteering to accompany me and do the driving.  He doesn't offer too often, so I grabbed the chance of having a chauffeur and off we went.

A lovely modern church

The weather was a bit overcast, but it didn't rain (much). In a nearby commuting village we found a couple of interesting caches, then went into the woods for one near a spring, followed by an amazing abandoned quarry, then a lake, followed by a modern church and some interesting ruins on top of a hill. En route home we found a lovely restaurant where Roy had a superb piece of rare fillet steak and I had pike perch prepared with garlic and basil. Both were delicious, the service good and the environment, if somewhat Wild West(ish), very pleasant.

The restaurant with the Wild West theme

We got home in good time for me to have a rest and then prepare for a unique concert in the Main Synagogue. The BFO runs an outreach program, during which they take classical music to schools, old people's homes and especially into abandoned synagogues. A couple of years ago I have been to one about an hour's drive from the village, which used to be a furniture store and is now a synagogue again. So, this time (and due to the city's mayor cutting the BFO's subsidy) they had to start fundraising for their outreach program. The minimum donation was just under £10 and while they didn't promise a seat for your donation, I was hopeful that a building that can seat about 2500 people should be big enough for everyone.  And I was right.  The added sensation was the appearance of Daniel Barenboim, playing a Beethoven piano concerto and giving a lovely long encore as well. It was exceptional and a special treat for me, as I have never been on the second floor gallery of this synagogue, where my seat was and which provided an interesting vantage point to take photographs from.

The Synagogue from the second floor gallery

Friday was so full of activity, that I will have to curtail description of it, otherwise this post will end up an endless saga. The first place we went to was our computer repair guys, as the time has come to clear all our machines and reinstall their operating systems. We delivered three laptops to start with, repair of which set us back just over £40 and then departed to the other end of the city, where the Panasonic service centre was to have the old Lumix repaired. That is estimated to be about £50, but as speed is not their forte, I have no idea when it'll be done. The computers were done in 2 days, which is why I love those guys.

Daniel Barenboim at rehearsal

We managed to get home quite early for a little breather, before Ros and Ian arrived, so we could go out with them to the Ba Bar Bistro for lunch, followed by a visit to the Róth Miksa Museum of stained glass and Art Nouveau interior design. The lunch was super, which I was jolly glad about, as we have not been there for at least 5 years and chose it only as it was near both the flat and the museum. The quality of cooking was as good as 5 years before and the prices lower. Mind you, it could be that the average cost of a lunch is now so expensive that their high prices do not seem as high as they did to me all those years ago.

Ros, Ian, me and Roy at the Ba Bar Bistro

The Róth Miksa Museum was just as good, if not better, than the last time we were there.  The lady who showed us round spoke good English and was very knowledgeable. I bought a lovely book about Róth Miksa and we just started to leave when we noticed that the building across the courtyard was open. That is where Róth Miksa had his workshops and studio and we have never seen it open. We snuck in and talked with a lovely young woman who was organising the closing party for an exhibition of modern leaded, stained and painted glass art pieces. This building is not restored, although it had been secured, so it shouldn't fall down.  It is an eminently good space for exhibitions, conferences and courses, but it should be decorated a bit to make it more suitable for those type of activities.

One of Róth Miksa's glorious windows

We parted with Ros and Ian wishing them a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, as we will not see them now until January, when they should be back for a week or two before departing to dim and distant lands at the end of January, chasing after cricket.

Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect

In the evening I went to the theatre and saw a stage version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  It was absolutely brilliant and brought back memories from so many years ago I don't care to contemplate. Jutka was with me and she enjoyed it too. Nowadays, it is only her and me at the theatre, as Zsuzsi is not well and Koxi is in an ever deepening, self-destructive and downward spiral as a result of her marriage breakdown. It is a crying shame that she doesn't let us help her, but we all think now that she is way beyond help by amateurs and unfortunately she refuses to seek professional help.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet

Saturday had two appointments in it, the first was an absolutely delightful lunch with Laci and Márti in a restaurant we have been in many-many years ago when it was called something completely different. Those two are such good company and the food, while it took a while to get to us, was absolutely delicious. We had a lovely chat with Laci and Márti and they are coming out to the village the weekend after next for a hike, a meal at the Mill and are staying overnight on Saturday.

After that we had a drink with Martin, aka Ten Minutes Late, who treated us to a drink (or two) in thanks for trying to help him with his insurance problems for his trip to the States this week. He has travelled extensively in all parts of the world and has not been resident in the UK for 35 years. He is one of those outraged citizens, who was disgusted by the fact that he wasnát allowed to vote in the Brexit referendum, even though its result is affecting him gravely. Such is life! I know Shakespeare said: "Kill all the lawyers!" (with which I agree, by the way), but I would prefer a XXIst century version which should be "Kill all the politicians!!"

Towards the first cache on Monday

Sunday brought one of the treats of the week in the person of Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of Hamlet at the National. My sheer physical pleasure of watching him competed with the intellectual delight his performance meant, right through all of 3+ hours of it. He was interviewed before the play started and was asked what he felt after each performance of Hamlet? "Total exhaustion and raving hunger!" was the answer. I absolutely adore the bloke, not just for being a genious of an actor, but for being a lovely human being as well.

A gorgeous fallen tree in the Ócsa swampforest

Monday and Tuesday were spent geocaching in a variety of places and while the weather turned bitterly cold, the sun shone (mostly) and the places I went to were fascinating. On Monday I drove South of town and picked up caches in forests, on study trails, around ruined churches, ancient Kagan burial mounds, along the river and by an enormous ancient tree associated with a famous XIXth century poet. Tuesday, thankfully, I didn't have to drive, as we were within the city limits, where you could use public transport. We went up and down nice mountains, climbed lookout towers and ex-military vantage points etc.  The second day I had a companion in my friend Zsuzsi and the total number of caches bagged over the two days was 12 and the total no of km's covered approximately 15 -16 kilometres. At the end of Tuesday's caching we were both totally frozen, as the sun went early and the wind got up.  With the wind-chill effect it had to be well below zero.

Sunset by the Danube

Tuesday evening I had an opera performance to attend and it was an unusal one indeed. Francis Poulenc's The Carmelites was written and composed in the 1950's based on a story from the XVIIIth century. Apparently right at the end of the Jacobin terror, they guillotined 16 Carmelite nuns. The closing scene of the execution was dramatic and extremely well done.  I was slow getting into it, as I am not into overly religious themes and music, but the second act was much more lively and the singing excellent.

The nuns in The Carmelites

And then today we came down to the village via Tesco. Other than food, we also bought a microwave today, based on about 30 second's debate. I like to shop like that, not for me the long drawn out agonysing indecision of most shoppers that I know. It was about £50 which is reasonable and it looks quite nice in its place behind the table.

Must go now as Roy seemed to have thrown our tea together and is getting tetchy that it is going cold.  Speak to you all very soon sometime next week!