A busy fortnight

Six 1litre bottles of pear compote

Well, I wrapped up my last post with the rather overly optimistic promise of posting the following week. It is now nearly two weeks later, but better late than never, as the saying goes.

Transylvanian gate in a Nagyatád park

We were still in Bér when that last post was done and we stayed for another week until the following Tuesday. We did some pear harvesting and bottling, but the only mention worthy event in that time was the arrival of our slightly eccentric central heating man to clean and service two boilers. He charged about £80 this time round and he didn't really do any extensive checking of anything, he mostly cleaned the innards of both boilers.  Mind you, it was about time, as we all think he last came about 4 years ago.

Lovely old castle in Varazdin, Croatia

We departed on the Tuesday, parked the car up at our friends' place in the XIVth district and kept the appointment with Roy's urologist in the evening. He seemed a very nice bloke, who was prepared to explain to me what the matter was and then waited reasonably patiently until I translated it to Roy. I even had a cute hand-scribbled drawing of Roy's bit of anatomy that my modesty stops me naming, so that we knew what was wrong.

Cute little circular church somewhere in Slovenia

I will not bore you with the details, but thankfully he seems to think that there is nothing too drastic to worry about and there are medicines that deal with the problem.  Not that that makes you who at all happy.  Lucky devil who all his life had very little illness and what he did have was nothing too serious, now that he is in his dotage is pretty slow to get used to the idea of having to take pills. Tough titty, I say. :)

Isn't he cute on his bike?

The day after that was his 76th birthday and we didn't do anything too exciting as we were busy getting ready for me going away for 4 days. He did have one very pleasant surprise which he designated as a very nice birthday present. This came attached to an e-mail, which he opened on the morning of his birthday and felt really chuffed. It was a photo showing him aged 17 on his beloved motorbike. He doesn't have a copy of this photo, and he has been asking the old girlfriend who took it and his own sister to let him have a copy, as they seem to still have one.  No joy for years, but finally his sister Pamela came up with the goods. Typical of bike buffs the world over, when he put it up on Facebook, he had over a 100 Likes, but the comments were almost entire about the bike, not him. Such is life!!

Pretty flower in an alpine forest

On Thursday I departed South and Westwards for another extensive geocaching adventure.  While going abroad again, the distances covered were a more reasonable 600 or so kilometres, not like 1300km in 3 days, like last time. This time I went by coach to a small town in the South of the country, where I was picked up by my friend Feri and we did a bit of caching through Croatia and Slovenia, arriving at our B&B's in the evening. There was a geocaching festival and competition the following day, which we didn't take part in, but which we visited at the end of the day to see or be introduced to (in my case) to many cachers that I only knew virtually so far.

Signs of autumn everywhere

In the meantime we were caching every day and seeing some really lovely, interesting and/or curious places. On Saturday I switched friends and spent that day and Sunday with another couple of friends, doing more of the same. We finally started travelling towards our respective homes, me being dropped in a small town somewhere near the Danube to catch a coach home, which I did.  The total number of caches for the 4 days was 39 and I met and chatted with lots of people whom I can now call friends. My friend Gyuri, who carted me around with him and Judith at the weekend, unfortunately lost his tablet at one of the caches when foolishly he put it on top of the car and when we finished drove away without taking it off.  We did drive back there after realising, but didn't find it. :(

Kirchschlag Castle, Austria

Davis (Ian's brother, Ian, me and Roy at the Regős

Yesterday, after a pretty long sleep in the night due to being utterly and completely exhausted, we met up with Ian and his brother David in the Regős and had a lovely lunch and chat. David is 8 years younger than Ian and to describe them as chalk and cheese would not do justice to reality. Amazing how two brothers can get on this well, even though they are very different in looks, temperament, interests and many other things besides. We invited them for a day out in Bér this week, before David goes home, so they are coming on Thursday morning and the following day the two of them and my good self are driving to Visegrád to do a hike together, followed by returning by car to BP. Roy will follow by coach on Saturday.

So, as you can see it is not surprising that I was this long with this post and even now I am snowed under with sorting post, answering e-mails, doing the geocaching paperwork, downloading photos, planning the next hike, writing this blog etc., etc. Hopefully I should be back posting next week, but don't hold your breath!! :)

An inquisitive local at one of the farms we visited

Geocaching weekend in the South

Last Thursday we went into town and as I was taking the car with me for the weekend, parking was not a problem. Unfortunately, the place weere we parked for 20 years or so has now become paying and not just any amount.  Obviously the XIVth district is trying to solve its own financial problems by fleecing motorists, which we, as a matter of principle, object to.

Muggins under a very large plane tree

We were actually expecting the loss, but not this way. The government had been threatening to dig our car park up and build a theatre, a museum and many other buildings on it, but due to protests or their own lack of finance for the project, that is yet to happen.  However, the appearance of parking meters was a bit of a shock. Especially that it is well over a quid an hour to park there now 24/7. Day and night and including the weekends, it would cost a fortune to leave the car there for any length of time. 

A glorious weeping willow at the start of a nature trail

So, Marianne and I have left for our geocaching in the South at 7am on Friday and journeyed along our prepared route. The weather, even though rain was forecast, was comfortable and dry. We started with a very large tree, which was by a sandy lane about 2km from the nearest tarmac, but after such a dry summer, it was perfectly driveable.

One of the better condition manor houses we saw

The next few were related to the flora of the Great Plain, that we were crossing, so we saw a few small hills, memorials to a variety of people, causes etc. on them, then a strange place where it used to be swampy with reeds, but no longer and one in a small town, which was actually quite nice.

The windmill

We also saw a small chateau, which was the first of many in the coming days - some nicely renovated, some a bit dilapidated and a good few totally derelict. This first one was a bit overgrown, but still functioning as some institution or other and then we moved on to the Aviation Museum.  Unfortunately, that is now closed, so we could only see it from the outside.  The exhibits are soon to be moved somewhere else, obviously the prime site is needed for some corrupt official to make a lot of money on by selling it to the person or persons who offer the biggest bribe.

Oxbow lake

After this there was another small hump in the middle of nowhere, so a lot of driving on sandy lanes was yet again called for. This was followed by a beautifully restored old windmill, where, curiously, the cache itself was on the other side of the main road behind an old and very neglected church. We saw some cute ducks on the oxbow lake behind the church, so that was a plus.

The little choo choo train

This part of the country abounds in oxbow lakes, as the main river had its course straightened some time ago, leaving many old kinks, some of which have become fishing lakes or used for recreation of some sort or other. Our next cache was in a lovely park, yet again right next to an oxbow lake, followed by the second oldest inn in the country, which is now a museum. Both were lovely and finding the cache no bother.

Kolbász museum

By the time we got this far, we realised that time was getting on, we have already eaten our sandwiches en route and were getting tired and hungry again, plus I had to arrive in good time at our hotel, so that I could have a rest, a shower, change and be ready for 6.30pm, when my friend Gyuri and his wife Eva were picking me up to go to the theatre with them, which started at 7pm. So we finished caching reasonably early and motored fast to our destination, which was a rather nice hotel in the middle of a pine forest.

The large grain silo, called "elevator house"

I think I failed to mention so far the theatre, and that is strange, as the entire geocaching weekend was built round this premiere. Rober Cogo-Fawcett, an old friend of ours, has taken on directing Maurice Hennequin and Pierre Veber's 1912 French farce, La présidente in the lovely old theatre in Békéscsaba. I wanted to see it anyway and as this town and the county it's in remained the only part of the country I have never geocached before, I thought I might combine two of my passions and have a friend along for the ride. Marianne agreed, and that is how these three days were born, starting with the 15th September, the night of the premiere of the play.

The Jókai Theatre in Békéscsaba

Well, I think I had a fantastic evening, even though Marianne declined to attend, giving the reason of being tired and not particularly bothered about French farces.  As far as I was concerned, I am not particularly fond of the genre myself, but to show interest in a friend's efforts, when it is quite a long time since he directed anything and not at all in this country as far as I know, was probably what swayed me.  And it proved to be a very good decision. I have never screamed with laughter, or possibly only once before, in a theatre, like I did last Friday. It was frothy, silly and very, very funny; well put together, well acted and directed.  Even the costumes caused hilarity quite often, I really had a good time.  So did Gyuri and Eva, so we rounded off our first day splendidly indeed.

The two principals of the play

The following morning Gyuri arrived at 8.30am to take us out to all our caches on that day, which was extremely kind of him. I was spared the driving and his local knowledge had helped in the search for some of them. I finally ended up with the day's count of 16, which on top of the 12 the day before, started looking like a healthy total for the weekend. We started still within the boundaries of the town, at a cute little restored old choo choo train, followed by the kolbász (spicy sausage, a local speciality) museum, both caches hidden by our host.

Some of the young horses

After that we started on the list we prepared, all of which were outside the town in the countryside. The reason mostly being the fact that Marianne has cached there before and found all the other ones in the town already and while I haven't yet, but I could be back any time in the future, even by train, if necessary.

One of the rare beautifully restored little chateaux

I am not going to go into blow by blow details of all of them, just give you the highlights here.  First of all, the main theme seemed to be dereliction.  Many of the caches in this area are hidden by a fellow geocacher, who is rather enamoured of ruins and/or dilapidated buildings.  He gives the reason for this, as a memento to the glories of old and to make people have a look at them before they fall down.  This is fair enough, although in one case the inn commemorated by that cache has fallen down so long ago that we couldn't even find a single pile of bricks, never mind a wall or a ruin.

Marianne, Eva and Gyuri round the table

It is an agricultural area and also the centre of horse breeding. So we visited old, dilapidated grain silos, oat silos, manor houses, barns, chateaux, churches, mills etc., etc. Some were quite pretty still, others even better after renovation, but the vast majority were just depressing and seriously overgrown. We even found one cache by a capped off oil well, while the area it commemorated was a few hundred yards away, fenced off and unreachable.

Gyuri relaxing after his long drive by his pottery fireplace

However, there were highlights too. Some of the enormous, fantastic, old trees were amazing and real treats to see.  The biggest ones were plane trees with strange bumps on them, which were very photogenic. We also visited the town that was the home for decades of the breeding stables for the cavalry in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  The buildings are neglected, but a renovation program is currently going, and, of course, the horses are still there and were looking magnificent in most of the stables we visited.

Pretty berries en route

I take it you are getting the gist that as far as sights are concerned they were mixed, but I still think it was worth going, as the area itself was totally unknown to me, and now I can say that I have a feel for its way of life, even though it was not always to my liking. Also, I was in really lovely company: I haven't cached too many times with Marianne before, and I discovered that her and I are very alike. She was extremely useful navigating for me, so I didn't have to think of everything while driving, like I always had to with previous caching partners.  Gyuri also proved to be an absolute darling and as for his lady wife, Eva, she is a treasure, but more about later.

A definitely derelict, ready to collapse, chateau

So, all in all after the second lot of caches (now numbering 28 in total), we arrived, sweaty, dirty and rather exhausted, but extremely happy to Gyuri and Eva's house for dinner. We freshened up a bit, before we were summoned to the dinner table. Eva is a gourmet chef, as one of her hobbies is cooking. She is otherwise a teacher, which having been one myself I can happily relate to. She made an absolutely delicious pheasant soup for all of us, and then the meat eaters got kolbász (what else in Békéscsaba?) and I got African catfish with dill, which was heavenly. We had strudel for afters, and all of it was washed down by copious amounts of pálinka, champagne and soft drinks.

Amazingly, the tower is still in good condition

We didn't get into bed until quite late and slept like a log most of the night. The bits we didn't sleep through were due to a very noisy wedding party all round us, but finally around 5am they all shut up, so I slept another 2 hours after that, which is a miracle, as I can never normally go back to sleep once I'm woken up in the morning.

Yet another oxbow lake

The following morning, we managed to leave by 8am and slowly but surely pootled back home picking up caches as we went. Our third day gave us more of the same on the whole: derelict, currently under renovation, disappeared and/or neglected churches, chapels, chateaux dominated again, but there were highlights as well again.

Centre of country marker

Ethnic Slovakians have settled this far from their homeland in the 19th century as agricultural workers (the migrants of that era), and their cultural and religious traditions are still with us.  We saw a couple of Lutheran churches which date to that time. We also saw a cute little tower commemorating the geographical centre of Greater Hungary, as it was before Trianon in 1920, which while I can't normally stand all this irredentist nonsense that currently prevails in Hungary, was I suppose a historical monument of its own time.

The Andrássy chateau from the park

We saw some more oxbow lakes again and again and again, but most of them were very pretty with fishermen and wildlife around. The final cache was actually fortunate that it gave us the chance to go out on a high. The aristocratic Andrássy family had a summer palace about 50km from the city and it is now an American Bible School, which while not over-endowed with money, tries to look after both the park and the building itself. We had a lovely chat with the gatekeeper, who is also the head gardener and found out a lot about the chateau and the park.

The conservatory from the park

The little fountain in the lake

The final total of caches was 37 for me and 35 for Marianne. I was home by 6pm, Marianne had another hour or so to get home from where I dropped her, but both of us felt very pleased with our three days away and hopefully she will come again with me to do this sort of thing in another part of the country.

The restored water tower

On Monday Roy had a doctor's appointment and he needs now to see a specialist next week. We did a few outstanding things in town on the Monday as well, including parking up the car in a long term car park we have been eyeing up for ages and which has a reasonable daily rate of £2.50. I suppose the time for free car parks has passed and now the choice is between paying for it (hopefully not too much) or not bring the car into town.  We often do that, but there are times when we have no choice other than driving in. Hopefully, this place will be around for a while, as it is an easy bus ride from home and reasonably convenient.

Next post due next week, hopefully!

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!