Opera, theatre, geocaching and making truffles

Last Saturday I left Roy behind and went into town for culture. In the evening I attended the first opera of the 2017/18 season in the Erkel Theatre, which for this season is the only opera house, as the real one is being refurbished. Kati managed to remember her performance this time and so did I. The heat has returned and being in town was pretty hot again.  In the evening, when in mid/September you would expect to have to wear at least a jacket, I walked all the way to the theatre in one flimsy summer dress and was still hot.

The feast at the royal court in Bánk Bán

I saw an excellent performance of Bánk Bán, an opera by Ferenc Erkel, and all of it was first class. I hardly knew the performers, but they were very good and even outstanding in one or two cases. The setting, costumes, scenery and direction were OK, although I cannot stand the director, but not for any artistic reasons. He is an extreme right wing moron, who is loved by the government and can't do anything wrong as far as they are concerned. Thankfully, in an opera his politics did not dominate.  Except, of course, using the overly emphasised patriotic stuff, which are definitely his cup of tea and which most of the audience lapped up.

On top of "Chimney Rock", site of our first cache

I don't normally mind, because Bánk Bán was written in the 1840's and first performed in the early 1860's and its emphasis on patriotic themes had a revolutionary content then, being against the Hapsburgs and for Hungarian independence.  However, nowadays this out and out breast beating nationalism does get up my nose.  Never mind, the music was superb and I had a really good evening.

One of many beautiful views in the Pilis

On Sunday I went on a geocaching hike with my friend Zsuzsi to the Pilis Mountains near town. The plan was to pick up 5 caches by walking up the highest mountain in that range, then drop down half way on the other side for another cache, finally ending up at the very top by the lookout tower. The return trip was on the first side, where we picked some more caches up and finally arrived at some lovely caves prior to descending back to Zsuzsi's car. It turned out to be a bit longer than expected at 14km with 700 metres of climb, so we both looked a bit exhausted at the end.

Zsuzsi waiting for me while I climb all over the rockface

The caches were actually very interesting, fun and in one case, positively lethal. The first one was on the top of a rock pillar, the next one on a pretty lethal rockface, the next one in a valley, this time with no danger whatsoever, then we climbed back to the top through some tatty, uncleared, undefined and unmarked trails, where we did scratch our heads a few times about which direction to take.  The paths on the ground outnumbered those on the map by about 5:1. Still, following a rough direction on the compass made sure we never strayed too far from the general direction we needed to follow. Finally we arrived at the top, in the middle of a now long abandoned military base, where they used to be in readiness to launch rockets at the wicked West coming to overpower them. The lookout tower provided some nice views, which were slightly spoiled by some aggressive flying ants.

Autumn crocus

We returned on a glorious sylvan path on the other side of the mountain and tackled the last cache by  two caves, which were up a short but pretty steep and rocky path. We met a hiker there who became very handy at helping us up and down that lethal rocky path.We were both home by 7pm, but apparently Zsuzsi couldn't eat, she was so tired, but I just had my leftover sandwich and some tea.

The lookout tower on top of the Pilis

On Monday I decided to visit another cache site, this time in town, but up in the hills on the other side of the river.  The heat became very oppressive again, but the walk to and from the bus terminus and the cache was not too bad. This gets me to 1009 caches, which is now higher than my target was for the end of the year. I obviously am doing a lot more caching than planned, but I am enjoying it and it definitely helped and still helps not to miss orienteering too much.

View from the mouth of the cave

On Monday evening I went to the theatre for a performance of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt: a Parable. It was pretty good, although in the light of many pedophile scandals in the Roman Catholic Church of many countries in the last few decades, somehow the philosophical niceties of this topic didn't grab me half as much as it did the audience round me.

King Béla's spring where my cache was

Finally, I came home on the early bus on Tuesday morning and was indoors for a nice breakfast with Roy by 9am. Yesterday I finished the list of caches Mariann and I will search for at the end of this week and generally was trying to catch up with undone stuff.

Doubt: a Parable

Today we did a bit of cooking, with Roy making a delicious veg curry and I made some truffles. We need to take some presents to our kind geocaching friend who offered to drive us on our middle day in his area and invited us for a chat and supper, so most of the truffles are for them, while I will probably also take a bottle of Roy's pálinka and Mariann is bringing a bottle of wine.

Mrs. Patissier busy making truffles

29 truffles with roast hayelnut in the middle

Tomorrow we are off to town and I will post again sometime next week as I have the time.

A geocaching and preserving week

Last Friday Roy had a doctor's appointment as his gout doesn't seem to be willing to clear. She confirmed that the medication he is taking is the right one and that he should carry on with it. She also prescribed a lower dose tablet of the same, so once it is totally OK, he can carry on with that daily to keep those pesky crystals at bay. He also had a blood test, result of which was due on Monday.

The market hall now

The market 40 years ago

After the appointment we decided to do a few chores in town, but some never got done, due to the heat again. Those that we did do included: a visit to what we call the "Crazy Market", due to its weird and colourful modern architecture. That is one of the most superb markets in the city. If you have not found something that you wanted there, it probably does not exist! We got some Brazil nuts, that my homeopath subscribed for their selenium content, we also bought lots of other nuts, like hazels and almonds, so that we could take some of them to the village.

View East from the Roman Shore

Just before getting home we also popped in to our local market hall for the heavier stuff, like potatoes and big peaches, which was a good idea, as they were gorgeous. And then, on Saturday, I went caching again. I took the car, because the ones I chose were all over the place and going by public transport would have taken forever.

As I had a moving cache to place, I went to Roman Shore, where I used to spend all my summers between my birth and age 22. This moving cache has a theme of "User's home". Once you placed it at your current home and perhaps one or two previous ones, you have to start getting creative, so I chose the place (not the building, as its long gone) where our cabin was situated, not far from the boathouse on the river, where I was very happy every summer of my childhood. Once having placed that, I went for a 3km walk along the river to pick up a two parter cache there. I also had a "lángos" at one of the cafes on the river bank for lunch. Not so long ago I did this same walk (only in reverse) with a friend in order to show him where I used to spend my summers as a child, but then never thought of picking up the cache, so I did it this time.  It was a delightful, relaxing time in good weather and I enjoyed it, even though I was on my own.

Panoramic from the plateau

After this I went to get a cache that was left some time ago due to it being on a sun drenched plateau and the day being 35 degrees Celsius. It was another 3km walk, this time in slightly  cooler weather with a bit of a breeze, and the views were delightful.  After this one I jumped back into the car and went back to the river, where two caches awaited a bit further North than Roman Shore.

On the ferry

The first one was a two parter, with the first part being near a large shopping centre by a small lake, and the second on an actual island that you had to catch a ferry to. The ferryman was a hilarious chap and while waiting for the ferry to leave I asked him to also take me to a sand bar on the other side of the island where there is another cache. He agreed, so after the crossing, and finding the second part of the cache, I had a private little cruise to the other one as well.  The island had an impressive avenue of plane trees, which are about 80 years old and are really gorgeous.  The architecture is mostly Bauhaus, as it was first settled in the 1920's and 30's by wealthy city folk.

The glorious plane avenue on Lupa Island

Finally, after my return on the ferry I travelled practically right through to the other end of town for a fairly recently placed cache, in memory of those that were randomly collected up off the streets by the Russians in the post-war years and taken to Siberia for "a little work", aka "malenky robot". That was quite a stunning memorial, on which I found out that even to this day they don't know for sure how many people were taken and how many died there.  Research is ongoing.

Muggins at her 1000th cache

On Sunday morning I was thinking that I ought to go out again to catch some more caches when I felt like going for a hike. Plenty of caches in the hills around the city, so I was just about looking on the website which ones to go for when I had an idea. Why don't I ring a friend to come with me? I tried and amazingly Jutka said that a hike in the hills is much preferable to decorating and decided to come with me.

Schwabisch couple in bronze in Solymár

We drove to Solymár, about half an hour from home and started from there. The weather was still quite warm, but the oppressive heat was gone and there was a little breeze again. The plan was for 7 caches, but finally we got just 5. The three at the furthest point was replaced by one nearer, but the other way. The locations were in a large village museum, by a cave (site of my 1000th cache found), on a dramatic look-out point in a pine forest, down a deep ravine and all the way round a lake and forest on a study trail. All brilliant places, with lots of interesting things to see and at the last one we even came across the  National Duathlon Championships in progress.

Dramatic limestone cliffs in the Pilis Mountains

In total we covered 12.5km with 400 metres of height climb. The final destination was quite near a bus stop and we only had to wait 20 minutes for a bus to take us back to the car only about 15minutes' journey away.  Mind you, on foot and up in the hills and forests we took about 6 hours to do that distance, inlcuding at least an hour and a half of stopping, admiring views, taking photos, having our sandwiches etc. It was a lovely, if somewhat tiring, day.

The lake round which the duathlon and the study trail went

On Monday we finally came down to the village for a bit of peace and quiet and recuperation. "Fat chance!" I hear you say and you would be right. The roses and the garden in general needed some attention. We also had to do some cooking and harvesting fairly urgently, before the ingredients and produce spoiled.  En route home we bought some liver, which I made into liver pate. We also bought some tomatoes, peppers and onions which had to be made into lecsó. Roy also harvested the grapes and I think he is considering making wine out of them, as there is no cefre due to no plum crop this year, so he can't put them in there.

The chef hard at work

A cauldron full of grapes

The pate ended up in two jars. I haven't made any in 30 years, but I used a doctored BBC recipe and it tastes great. A pound of chicken livers, butter, salt, pepper, garlic, fresh thyme from the garden were worked together and cooled.  I have already had two small meals out of them and there is plenty left.

A cauldron full of lecsó

The lecsó was a bigger undertaking, as we bought 2.5kg of peppers, 2kg of onions, as well as 5.5kg of tomatoes. Roy used the large outdoor cauldron on the cooker and all that filled it to the very top.  We used 15 x 1litre bottles and now we can look forward to lots of lecsó in the winter.

Our preserves in the Kotege

And finally, the last two days were mostly spent catching up with stuff on the computer, putting garden stuff away for the winter, deadheading roses, making garlic mayonnaise and such like. I also had to start thinking of making a plan for my trip to the South with my geocaching friend Marianne, as this time I will be driving, so the list of caches will have to have a driveable sequence. The only other significant thing that also happened in the last few days, is that the temperatures have suddenly really dropped, in fact drastically dropped to well below 20 in the morning and hopefully will not return to heatwave conditions before next summer now. Amen!

An insanely busy week

We are still in town, but since I posted I haven't stopped. Last weekend was spent with our good friends Márti and Laci at their house in Csobánka. Before getting to them Roy and I went geocaching nearby and managed to get a couple of them. One was at the end of a good half hour's hike on a lovely pine wooded hill, the other on a sun drenched plateau, which was getting uncomfortably hot.

En route to my first cache of the day last Saturday

Once we have done that, a lunch place had to be found, which we did in the village of Pomáz. Then we slowly pootled towards their house to arrive there in the early afternoon.  It turns out they had a family crisis in the morning, so just as well we didn't arrive until hours later.  Attila, Laci's younger son, (aged 29), seemed to have disappeared. Laci was getting really stressed when somebody thought he might be next door. It transpired that he walked up a ladder in the little yard behind the kitchen and literally fell into next door's garden.  Then he went to sleep and didn't wake up until his father found him there.  Bit weird, if you ask me, and Roy was immediately thinking that some drugs were involved.  Possible, but not likely in my view, but what do I know?

Árpád the chief of the chieftains

We hung around, first in the garden and then indoors, as it got awfully hot again. Once the temperature was a bit less oppressive, we went on a hike, taking the dog for a walk and also finding a moving cache which was only about 300 yards from their house. We took it about 1200 metres from where it was and hidden it quite well behind a tree. After a cold supper we all fell into bed quite comatose.  The heat and the two hikes I had on that day definitely made me tired.

Froggie in the puddle inside a tree

On Sunday Márti, Laci and me went on a real hike of about 8.5km and picked up three caches, as well as got into a cave where I have already been, but Laci hasn't. After that we climbed right up onto a mountain top and proceeded to find several caches. The views were magnificent and we have even run into one of our mutual orienteering friends on top of one of the cols.

Márti and me in the woods

En route back to the house we found another cave, but as the cache was outside, we didn't do too much exploring there. when we got home we departed to a local restaurant for lunch where we had some good food and there we ran into Bozsa and Árpi, our other Csobánka friends, who have just finished their lunch and said hello. After lunch we dropped Laci and Márti near their house and motored home.

One of Márti's gorgeous orchids

In the evening I packed for my trip to the Balkans and went to bed quite early.  The following morning I had to catch the 7:20 bus to Pécs where I was to stay the first night, so that the three of us could start early enough the following morning. In the afternoon, however, I still had time to pick up 6 town caches, which were in the historic centre and were easy to walk round to.  Some of them were quite exciting and difficult, others easier.

The theatre at Pécs

In the later part of the afternoon Feri, who was our chauffeur took us outside the town for a few more caches, so considering we only cached in the afternoon, I picked up 12 of them in quite quick succession. Once we finished, I had a lovely dinner in a nice restaurant in King Street and went to bed early again.

The once Turkish mosque, now catholic church

Tuesday morning we departed on our Balkan adventure and that was such an amazing experience that I am still trying to work through it in my head.  First we crossed the River Drava and picked a cache up there. Then travelled through Croatia, picking up two caches, one at a chateau, another at a castle. Some motorway travel got us in three hours or so to Belgrade the capital of Serbia.

The Majláth chateau in Croatia

There two caches awaited us, one at an old tower overlooking the river, the other at the massive fort and castle, also overlooking the river Danube, impressing as it was. We also sat in a few traffic jams and had difficulty finding a parking place, but finally all was well, we found the caches and travelled on.

Belgrade fort

The next leg of our journey was very, very long, first boring on motorways, but then when we joined up with the river again, which was amazing, exciting and spectacular.  We followed the lower part of the Danube as it travelled through some impressive gorges, passing castles, amazing cliffs and cliff tops in an ever tighter gorge. The next cache was at an enormous castle right by the water, with some of its towers partly under water, as nearly 50 years ago the gorge was part flooded by a dam at its other end.

Galambóc (Golubac) castle

We went down on the Serbian side, sometimes at water level, at others a lot higher up. No towns on that side, only villages, but the views were to die for. At one place we left the river and went inland and only rejoined it at our Southernmost destination, in the town of Vidin in Bulgaria. By then it was getting dark and we still had the main cache, the raison d'etre of the whole trip to find. It is a travelling cache which follows the Danube from source to delta, but unfortunately we didn't have much luck in finding it.

Vidin at night

After many phone calls and other efforts we had the agreement of both the owner of the cache and the president of the geocaching club that we can replace it with another one and move that on. By the time we gave up looking for it, it was pitch dark and we were all done in.

The hotel was actually better than I expected for 19 Euros a night. It was clean and comfortable and even had very efficient air conditioning. The following morning we had breakfast and then travelled down river a further 23km to place it in a hollow tree quite close to the water. Then came probably the most gruelling drive I have ever had, thankfully only as a passenger. We gave up some of the caches on our list, because we realised that otherwise we wouldn't be able to catch the last train from Szeged, which was my trip home.

En route to the top of the rock wall above the Kazan straights

The one remaining one, however, was the very highlight of the trip. From high up above the Kazan-straights of the Danube we had the most incredible views over the river and the rock faces surrounding it. I have been to impressive places before, like Scotland, Niagara, the Himalaya, but this definitely took the biscuit. Although not recommended for those with vertigo. The walk to the top of the rock face was easy through the forest behind it, but looking down was pretty frightening if you didn't have the head for heights.

Muggins on top of the rocks

The rest of the day was spent dodging dead-ends, daft route choices by the GPS, traffic jams, long queues at borders and other such delights.  Finally, I did make my last train and was indoors by 10.30pm. The total tally of statistics were as follows: 1300km travelled in 5 countries, 23 caches gathered, 2 nights spent in hotels and no cooked food consumed right through. I was really pleased to be home and fell into bed like a felled tree.

The view

Today we had lunch with Ian, who suffered from the heat as much as we did.  This heatwave does not want to shift. In downtown it was well above 30 degrees Celsius again. I hope we can return to the village soon for a bit of peace and quiet, but there are still chores in town to be completed, so it will probably wont be until next Monday.

A short, but busy week in town

The day I posted last, Saturday, 19th, was still beautifully warm and the promised cold front didn't seem to arrive. Overnight the rain did arrive, but not with a bang, just with a drop in temperature of a few degrees. On Sunday the air was fresh and cool, so we could breathe again, although the week was forecast to warm up again. These short and not particularly dramatic cold fronts seem to do very little to take the force out of the deeply entrenched hot weather this year.  And the small amount of cooling down is nothing too exciting, as around the 20th August the weather seems to break in most years.

Wileyfox Swift 2X

We decided on Sunday, that as the food was lasting we wouldn't come back into town until Tuesday. We were enjoying the better, fresher air and Roy's gout was improving, albeit very slowly. Ian was due to arrive with my new phone and Roy's driving licence on Tuesday, so I arranged to see him on Wednesday, the day we were due to see Lois and Peter German to go out to lunch at the Zila together.

Roy, me, Peter and Lois at the Zila

Other than those two visits we had a myriad of things to do in town, lots of shopping and arranging things, as well as getting ready for my little geocaching trip with some friends South. For the weekend we were invited to stay with our friends Laci and Márti in Csobánka, to go hiking/geocaching and catching up as we haven't seen them to talk to for ages.  So there was a lot to be getting on with.

My salmon en croute

On Wednesday, Ian arrived bang on 10am, like he always does, and we had a nice chat, I took possession of my phone, Roy put his licence away and the post duly arrived. Ian needed help with a few things, which we went through and after his departure we drove to the Intercontinental to pick up Lois and Peter. Traffic was murder, but we managed to get round all road closures quite niftily.  It seems that they are digging up the whole city in the middle of the tourist season and while the school holidays are still going.  Insane!!!

Interior of the Zila where we had our lunch

The Zila was rather to their liking, which we thought would happen.  The atmosphere, the service and especially the food was first class. We had to wait a bit longer than usual for our food, but once it came, all waiting was proved to have been worth it. Lois and I had salmon en croute, and it was better than any we have ever had before. Usually there is a lot of fresh air between the pastry and the fish, which usually gets quite dry, even at the best restaurants.  Here, it was moist and filled the pastry fully. Roy had a long-horn kettle beef burger and Peter's rosé duck breast got all our juices going. We had a long chat about our lives and memories, which is always great, especially when the peope you are with had such an interesting life.

The Zila's front from the garden

I don't normally have a sweet, but I couldn't resist a chocolate mousse which was delicious, if somewhat too large. We could hardly move, we were all so full. Shame Lois and Peter only visit once a year, but we are already looking forward to seeing them next year. On our way back to their hotel I dropped in to see Zsófi to pick up Roy's Cholchicum drops for his gout, let us hope they help! After dropping Lois and Peter off, we journeyed to our usual organic supermarket for our washing and rinsing liquid, which we normally get there. Since then we found another, much nearer supplier, so we won't be going there again, unless we need them for something nobody else supplies.

My favourite health food and organic shop

Thursday was a very busy day, but I can report that the "to do" list is now considerably shorter. We started with my mobile company's shop, where a helpful young man took my SIM card out of my old phone and put it into the new one. The even older SIM card could not be put into it, because  it is too large, so that is still to be sorted. Then we went to our favourite organic shop close to the flat to get some probiotics and vitamin C and it was there that we spotted that we could get the washing and rinsing liquids with a lot less hassle, so next time we'll get them from there. We also tried to buy some thick socks for Roy in a nearby department store, but failed.  Wrong time of the year, we thought.  The only place we'll probably try later is an outdoor shop, they must have them all the year round, but at a price. I don't mind, as long as his tootsies are comfy.

If only you could get these!!

The next stop was the Western Railway Station underpass, where I usually buy all my phone, tablet, small laptop cases and it didn't disappoint.  For the princely figure of £5 I am now a proud owner of a large, white case for my new phone, so hopefully I should be able to spot it in the bottom of my bag easily!!  From the station we walked to my insurance company and bought travel insurance for my trip next week. That was only a tenner and while 3 days are not usually much to worry about, I thought that in Serbia and Bulgaria I should be insured.

The shield on the front of the hospital

Following that we hopped on a tram and walked to the market where I bought some nuts, although Brazil nuts are difficult to get, so that is still on the list. I will probably going to have to go to one of  the biggest ones for that. Finally, we ended up in the Regős for lunch: I had fish and chips and Roy had mushrooms in breadcrumbs.  After lunch we parted, Roy went home and I went to visit Robi, my ex-brother in law, who is now in hospital and being 91, will probably not leave there soon, if at all. I have last seen him about 10 or so years ago, but since then his cicrumstances have been rather awkward, so we didn't visit.  Recently he lost his wife and is now in this hospital for palliative care, so I thought he might like to see me.  I asked my newphew, András, to ask him and apparently he was happy to see me.

The Western Railway Station

Well, that was definitely true. He is in pretty bad state physically, but the big smile on his face told me that it was a good idea to go and see him. He seemed lucid, although kept repeating things, which probably gave away his anxiety over the visit. I only stayed 20 minutes, but I think I didn't tire him too much and he insisted that I come again.  Next time I will take some family photos, as he expressed an interest in them.

The latest trolley bus model with air conditioning

The trip home was a bit hot and with the city being dug up everywhere, the trolley buses are doing detours on batteries as well as have replacement buses at times. The latter was a disaster, as the trolley buses have efficient airconditioning, the ancient buses are like ovens.  Once I was at home I started playing with my new phone, which is nothing like I have ever had and in some cases I could not work out how to do things without some instructions.  Roy Googled for me how to answer calls, apparently you swipe it. It also turned out that my phone book in the old phone was not on the SIM card, but on the phone, so all those will have to be transferred by hand. That is a bit of a bummer, but at least it will give me a chance for tidying up that long out of date list, full of totally unneccesary names and numbers.

Fearne Cotton

 
This morning we watched Who Do You Think You Are and it was about Fearne Cotton's ancestry, which was fascinating.  Fearne herself turned out to be such a genuinely lovely person, it was yet another excellent episode in this, one of our absolute favourite, series. Today was supposed to be a day of geocaching on my own, but Roy came up with a brilliant idea of doing some of it tomorrow morning, before we visit Laci and Márti, as they are near them and this would save us driving to more or less the same place twice in two days.

Today I have a few more shopping trips out and the start of packing for Monday, so I'd better get off the computer and will post again in a week or so's time.