Twentieth week of quarantine

I'm not going to start telling you that the last week was yet another busy one, as that is not surprising. Should we ever have a boring, nothing to do, week, I will mention that, otherwise things are as per normal, bloody hectic.

One of my new roses

Last Thursday, my friend in the village, Kati went shopping for us at SPAR in Pásztó, which was very kind of her. We are now almost 3 weeks from that large Tesco shop and with her small shop for us, plus the mobile grocer/greengrocer and baker, we keep going. On Friday my 3 months' meds also arrived, courtesy of another Kati, who works as the village social worker and meals-on-wheels person.

Birthday presents from Callum

Firday had another lovely event, my long awaited birthday present had arrived from Canada. You may recall, I mentioned that Callum had been to art camp for a week, and when I had a chat with him on Messenger he showed me all the paintings and bits of sculpture that he made. I was allowed to choose some and they arrived in the post after only 15 days, which considering the distance and then the time it must have spent being examined by the authorities here, wasn't bad.

Alex leading off at International Marxist University

On Saturday I started attending the International Marxist University's 4 day online summer school, which replaced our usual summer congress which normally runs in late July/early August. I hate the pandemic and the lockdown, but this event being the direct result of it, was a fantastic joy. Each day there were two sessions, and in the middle two days there was a choice of three in the morning and sometimes even in the afternoon. Alex was one of the speakers on the final day, and I thoroughly enjoyed his lead-off on Marxism and Religion. Beautifully put together and masterfully delivered. Clear, consise, interesting and even peppered with bits of humour, which a lot of speakers forget about.

Lucy from Brazil

I didn't always stay up for the end of it, as I tire very easily nowadays, and to be quite honest, listening for hours on end is to me more tiring that physical labour of any sort. Still, I will catch up with those sessions that I missed, as all of them are up on marxist.com. One interesting observation I must mention. The first two days had almost entirely male speakers, even in the discussion. Then, as if by magic, on days 3 and 4 we had several confident and in fact brilliant young women putting their opinions on show. I was impressed and very happy.

Jorge Martin on Building the Revolutionary Party

The financial appeal finally produced nearly 280,000 Euros, not only from the 6000+ participants, but from supporters all round the world. It was a joy to watch and listen to people from over 115 countries, all of which were full of optimism and a strong belief in our own ideas and our strength to put them into practice. I do hope, that even after the pandemic is gone, they will hold these once in a while, as they are fostering international cooperation and their educational value is immeasurable.

Miriam Margolyes

I have discovered sometime in the last week a really lovely short series with Miriam Margolyes on the BBC. She is travelling round Australia, discovering stuff she never knew was there, even though she has lived there for decades and have even recently been granted Australian citizenship. Episodes 2 and 3 are next week and the week after that. I am looking forward to them immensely.

Roy and the bucket of plums

In the meantime, we have started the plum harvest for Roy's pálinka. Unlike eating plums, which you take off the tree, pálinka plums are allowed to fall and you pick them up from the ground. Unfortunately, we couldn't pick up for a good few days, due to torrential rain and both of us being a bit off colour. Once we did, it was a hell of job extricating tiny plums from the high grass and weeds, but as of today, we managed it. Thankfully, starting from tomorrow, we will pick up daily and only 24 hours' worth of droppings, and in short grass, as we managed to do a short cut of 1.5cm by tractor. Currently we have filled one and a half barrels out of the four, so there is still plenty of plums to fall.

These are my eating plums

Obviously, there are a couple of trees that are too good to go for the booze, so those will be eaten straight from the tree. My favourite is one that is very close to Stanley plums in both taste and appearance, It's large, juicy and sweet. Dropped ones can go into the mash barrel, but the perfect ones still on the tree are only going as far as my tummy. Yum, yum!!

Roy cutting the grass short

Must go now, as we might do a bit more picking once the heat subsides. This week is very hot, but unfortunately humid as well. We are still sleeping downstairs, not so much due to Roy's injuries, but because it is a great deal cooler down here.

Roy whizzing up his pálinka mash

Taraaaa, I'll talk to you all again next week!

Nineteenth week of quarantine

The second half of last week was somewhat stressed. First of all neither of us felt too good. Sneezing, coughing, sleeping badly, bunged and runny nose etc., etc. I don't want to bore you with any more COVID-19 symptoms, but none of us were a happy bunny for a while. I was also thinking of allergies, as the grass pollen was high all last week and I was out in it mowing again. Also one evening I finished off a glass of kefir, which was not in the fridge and perhaps that was not a good idea either. That night I had not slept a wink, and felt like death the following day.

The tracking chit

At the same time some good things have happened too. I got a tracking link from Alex, so I could track my birthday parcel from Toronto. They forecast a delivery date of 22nd July, which I thought would be very unlikely, and unfortunately I was right. It didn't come today, but we live in hope and if it arrives before the end of next week I will be a happy bunny. After that I think I will have to start complaining, but let us hope there will be no necessity.

Stephen compering from home

On Friday we did our physio exercises again and it seems that we can now make them a bit longer and/or harder and we still enjoy them. Friday also had two interesting events, none of which I could stay up for, but enjoyed both tremendously the following morning. Alan's English Revolution is still riveting, although he still has not arrived at the king losing his head, but we live in hope. Stephen was back with a KraterLive performance which was brilliant as ever. My two favourites were Michael Fabbri and Joanne McNally. Hilarious in the extreme!

Hannah Gadsby

Talking of comedians, I have made a tremendous discovery lately. On my phone, I found a video icon which if you press, will bring in an endless string of videos that the FB algorythm thinks you might like. And you don't want to know how right these bloody algorythms are. What I had was a short compilation of my life, honestly: classical music, comedy, ballet, clog dancing, cats, no political reallies, I suppose FB has to draw the line somewhere.  Well, anyway, I found Hannah Gadsby, who is a large, in your face Aussie lesbian comic, and who has given me a stitch every time a video of hers has come up. Hilarious, again.

Stephen Colbert

Then I re-discovered Stephen Colbert, who is a joy, broadcasting from home, assisted by his entire family and interviewing amazing people with wit, love and lots of lots of humour. I love the man! John Oliver turned up and another amazing interviewee (I never though that he was that lovely): Tom Hanks. I have just discovered that I have used up my 2 gigabytes of data on my phone, which I have never done before. I can't see how, as I never go anywhere and we have WiFi at home. Then I thought it could be that I use my phone in bed to watch videos, and where I am, the WiFi is probaby too weak, so it automatically switched to data. I switched the data off now for the next 9 days, until I am in a new month.

Modelling one of Linda's masks

The masks that have been made by Linda in Brighton have arrived in the post. They are really sturdy and she sent 4. She is a sweetie, I will have to try and work out how to return the favour sometime. No ideas yet, but I'm sure I will one day. On Saturday I did the mowing in the courtyard and the front lane, which was a bit exhausting as that is the mower that has no self-drive. Still, we were so lucky, as at about 4 minutes after we finished the skies opened.

Two-tone pink and white rose

Another facet of my life, aka moderating geocache plans, has gone barmy last week. A particular bloke who already has 200+ caches, has put in about a dozen for moderation. It was a bit of a bother on top of all my other stuff. On the other hand, I had a bit of luck with my two caches that have disappeared. Under the current circumstances they are too far for me to go and replace them, so I put in an appeal to ask others to replace them for me. And lo and behold, both have been done and I will be forever greatful to thos kind people who replaced them.

Roy's gammon and pineapple

Roy and I are still cooking together and as we are up to the brim with most foodstuffs, we have been eating well since the Tesco shop 9 days ago. The menu since then included: gammon and pineapple, fresh salmon, both hot and in a salad,  marrow with fried eggs and toast, fusilli with feta, cocktail tomatoes, basil, olive oil and lemon juice. We started eating our own cherry jam on toast for a snack and it is truly delicious. It is actually a lot darker and sweeter than it is usually, due to the extra sugar and boiling, so it will go a lot further, because just a little is enough.

Four bottles of cabbaga salad

We have also been making lots of side salads the Hungarian way, when you can put them into litre bottles in a mild vinegar and they last forever. So we now have three large and one medium jars of cucumber salad with garlic and white cabbage salad with caraway seeds. Both delicious and will disappear pretty sharpish, I'm fairly sure.

Veg curry, rice, pappadums, mango chutney, dhal

In the meantime we now have enough vegetables for a large veg curry, where we will eat some of it and freeze the rest. The fact that we managed to buy 4 jars of mango chutney and 4 boxes of pappadoms last Monday, will make our curries that much nicer for a good while now. I am still on my Irsai Olivér, a light, fragrant, aromatic and fruity Hungarian dry white, while Roy is sticking to his Cabernet Sauvignon, as usual. Some nice, darkish beers, pálinka, Cockburns Special Reserve port and a nice little malt whisky which was one of our 50th Wedding Anniversary presents make up the rest of the booze.

Hamilton victorious

On Sunday there was the third Grand Prix in two weeks, first of which I missed, but the other two pleased me no end. Mostly, because this year I seem to be bringing good luck to Hamilton, rather than being the jinx, like in previous years. After the second Austrian race, he also won in Hungary and in great style. There is now a couple of weeks hiatus and then two races in the UK in quick succession. Let's hope that Lewis will be in his winning ways on his home ground on both Sundays. It will be very interesting to have two Silverstone races this year, and we are all hoping that at least 8 races will be run, so 2020 will count as a championship.

Elian on the beach

Finally, we had a few lovely photographs from Lucy, taken on their visit to Emily and her family. Elian and Xander are growing up so fast, it is frightening. They also look like little hippies, not having had their hair cut since March. I love it, and it is always lovely to see how well they get on with their cousins, Jenson and Coby.

Elian, Coby and Xander in a heap

Must go now, as the washing up awaits and it looks like I will fall into bed pretty early tonight, as on most nights. Good night everybody and speak to you next week!

Eighteenth week of quarantine

This was yet another busy week, but quite honestly, do we ever have one that isn't? After the gate was done, we had to pay for it and I came up with the idea of transferring it with TransferWise straight into Feri's bank account. He gladly gave me his account number and that was done almost instantly. TransferWise is an amazing outfit, they are quick, straightforward, efficient and don't cheat you with using a lousy exchange rate. I will never go back to my own bank to transfer anything with.

Our handiwork

We also had another visit from Zoli to do the final touch-up with the paint on the slightly rusty bits of the gate, prior to which Roy and I fixed the fence to the gateposts on either side and also recoiled the barbed wire at the bottom of the gate, This is to stop wild animals and burglars and whether it can do that is questionable, but at least we have a clear conscience that we tried everything in our power. As Zoli didn't have to do that, he offered to shift the dug out earth, but as Roy could not yet decide where he wants it, that got left. I think it would be best used to fill in the ditch outside the gate, but Roy says that we need to put some builder's rubble first in it and finish it off with the earth. So, that should be done before the rainy season, I hope.

The barbed wire

We are carrying on with the physio, but now only three times a week. Still, even then I can see how much stronger and capable Roy is getting. Alan's English Revolution is still going on. He is as good as ever, but the technical side is deteriorating. I had quite a time before I could discover where last week's episode was. On the usual page there was no sign of it, but eventually, and just by pure chance, I found it.

Cupboard reorganisation

On Saturday we woke to the frightening discovery of an ants invasion in the kitchen. We had to move fast, so I killed as many as I could by hand, because our only ant killer is for outdoors only and then decided to initiate a rolling program of rejigging the kitchen. We started with the cupboard where the ants were, and I am happy to report that so far, no return of the pesky little creatures is visible. Obviously, once you have to unpack, sort, clean inside and out and then return anything, it gives you a chance to check what's in there, throw away what is too old and reorganise the whole thing. That done, I think the next bit will be the big IKEA sideboard behind the dining table.

We also had a lovely Messenger call from the Canadian mob. Callum has just got back from a week's Art Camp and we were shown round the flat, like in a gallery, to see his paintings and sculptures. I could choose my Birthday present, and I chose a painting of two cats and three little cat scuptures. Callum is very talented, his colours are very bright and those cats were just perfect. They have posted them on Monday and hopefully they should be arriving before next weekend.

The pussycats

Callum's self portrait

The artist with his cat Mickey

The other big event on Saturday was that our Dutch friends from up the road telephoned and it turned out that they were in the village. Apparently, they have finally managed to sell the house and
brought over the new owners. When they turned up later, they invited us to the Mill for a farwell meal, but I had to decline. I do not trust the arrangements to be safe enough at the Mill, or at any other restaurant, especially with their indoor  space, at the moment. How can you wear a mask when you are supposed to be eating?

One of my favourite roses

Talking to the Dutch

Then they asked if we would go over on Sunday to their place and we agreed on that. Finally, that didn't happen either, because we misunderstood the timings and it was too late when they got back from the Mill. I started feeling very bad, as I love them dearly and would have also liked to meet the new owners, and this feeling was relieved when they turned up on Monday to wish me Happy Birthday. We suggested that they go and fetch the new owners, and all eight of us had a good conversation with us up on the corridor and they down in the courtyard.

Salmon rose with unique petal pattern

The new owners look lovely, they are younger than any of us, friendly and have the typical Dutch manner of laid back friendliness. Noud brought a present of one of his books that he edits and Roy returned the compliment with two copies of his book on the military history of Brighton the following day. I am sad that we are not likely to see them ever again, but the new people will be a good consolation, I have a feeling. Also, we invited them to stay in the Bunkhouse, should they ever come over and have no space in their old house.

Roy bringing in the shopping

And then Monday dawned. It is very typical that we should celebrate my birthday with an exhausting and frightening in parts shopping trip, but such is life. We left at 5:15 am and was there with about 10 minutes to go to opening time. Thankfully Tesco was reasonably empty to start with, although it started to fill up later. We bought about 95% of our list, the rest was either not available, or we couldn't find it - latter being caused by tiredness.

Half of the shopping

I had to order Roy to return to the car about 2/3rd of the way through, as he looked very tired. I got thoroughly exhausted by the end too, plus I felt very unsafe by the time Tesco was really full of people. There is no real discipline on the mask wearing side, with many pulling it down from their noses. Other than food, we also bought 2 toasters and a floor standing big fan. After that we filled up all our petrol cans for the tractor and the mower, and finally just I visited Lidl quickly for a few missing things, plus those items that are only sold there or we couldn't find in Tesco. We were away for 4 and half hours, from and back to our door. Not bad, as this Tesco is about 35-40 minutes from home and we did do a lot of shopping.

And the other half

One interesting thing I discovered was that it felt really good to be out and about. It had an even more liberating effect on Roy. He was on a high, even later, after we got home. This tells me that we will have to make an effort to go out more as no matter how happy we are at home, after four months it started affecting us too. Now, of course, we have to wait to see if it is going to cause us any hassle. If it does, I hope we will cope, if not, I hopefully will regain some confidence to stick my nose out into this great, big and bloody freightening COVID-19 world.

Safe to climb the stairs like this

The rest of Monday and a big chunk of Tuesday, (after we have stashed the shopping in the Bunkhouse for 48 hours of quarantine),was spent reading and thanking people for my birthday wishes. 72 is a reasonable age, and unless I live longer than Nelly, which is highly unlikely, as she is 89 in October, I should be third in our immediate family for longevity. Currently my maternal grandmother is second with her 79 years, so that should be my tarted now. 7 years to go, who knows what the world will throw at us in those years? I have just read that the bubonic plague is back, so Armageddon is approaching, therefore one needs to live from day to day and live all of them like they were the last.

The podium without champagne but with robot bringing the trophy

Another interesting event this week was that I discovered that unbeknown to me the F1 season had started. Unfortunately, I had to miss the first race, because Channel 4 only keeps them for a week, but I watched the second one, which was really much more enjoyable, if for nothing else but for the fact that Lewis won. On the previous Sunday, Lewis was fourth as he was beaten into second place by his team mate Valtteri Bottas, plus had a 5 second penalty for causing an accident. Well done Lewis, start the year as you mean to carry on!

All mechanics are safe

The reason why I forgot about F1 was that I was convinced they scrapped it altogether for 2020. Thankfully not, but things have changed drastically and are mostly still up in the air as I write this. The first two were both run in Austria on the Red Bull Ring, first called the Austrian GP  then the Styrian GP. This weekend it is the Hungarian one, and a couple of weeks after that is the British GP.  Beyond that nothing is certain yet, but they are hoping to be able to hold at least 8 races, to make sure the season counts as a championship. Another interesting feature is that to catch up and minimise travelling, several countries are following Austria's example and offer two Sundays on the same circuit. There will be two races in the UK, one the British GP and the other the 70th Anniversary GP. Shame it had to be this year for the 70th annivesrary, and the celebrations are not as much fun as they would have been otherwise.

Lewis very lonely on the podium

Yesterday we did some physio again, then I was busy moderating cache plans, as one of our prolific cache owners put in about 8 plans to be moderated. He already has over 200 caches of his own, we were all hoping that he would stop some time soon. The main job yesterday was the garden again and we made some great steps forward, not only with the look of the garden, but with Roy's health and strength.

My recovered gardener mowing

He did quite a lot of mowing, although I helped as well. Then we did some pruning, the major part of that was to cut the big red climbing rose back. I took some lovely photos of my roses again, as you can see in the post. We cooked lunch together, which is an experience I sill love. Roy had pork medallions with garlic, I had half of my massive piece of salmon I bought on Monday and we both had boiled potatoes, sprouts, cucumber salad with garlic mayonnaise. Yum, Yum!!

And again

Today we should get out there to do some weeding in a minute, as that is currently the most neglected aspect of the garden. Unfortunately, the weeds took hold in the first two weeks after Roy's accident, when I had no time or energy for anything other than the absolutely essential things, along with looking after him. Once things got easier, I still didn't have the time or energy for fighting well established weeds. I think today Roy will help me too, so we might make some headway.

I wonder what he is thinking?

That's all folks for now, next post hopefully next Wednesday.

Seventeenth week of quarantine

Times passes so fast, that I realised it is time to write my next blog post. I canot understand people who are bored during the lockdown. I have so much to do, I can never get bored.

Early bunches of grapes on the vine at the back of the Bunkhouse

This last week was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. Roy got to the stage when he is almost back to normal. He can walk unaided, climb stairs, even do some mowing, so it seems like it is all done and dusted. And then he gets tetchy, which is a surefire sign of tiredness or tension, occasionally he suddenly gets very tired, he can't stand around for too long, etc., etc. No matter how impatient he is, a man of his age cannot rush the recovery. As at the beginning he never believed that he would ever get better, (and then he did, he is now hopefully a bit more optimistic, if impatient, to believe he should get as near as damn it to how he was originally.

Zoli and Gyuri by the cement mixer

Nobody believes me that he is 79 in September. That makes a hell of a difference to strength, stamina and lots of other aspects, that he can't hurry nature with his healing. Funnily enough, in spite the fact that I am over the moon how much better he is, and physically it's a relief to me that I no longer have to do everything he did, as he is slowly returning to cooking and other household chores. What I miss, is the closeness I had with him during nursing him. He is not a lovey-dovey type, but this time he was just so nice that I'll miss that. Everything is back to normal in activity pattern: he's the foreman and sometimes not a very nice one at that. I am the minion who can be bossed about a lot. I know he doesn't mean it, but the contrast with the last 6/7 weeks got to me a bit in terms of mood.

Roy posing proudly by his new back gate

This last week we opened some jam jars to see how the jam turned out. The news are both disastrous and happy. The last few, which got a bit burnt and was overboiled, ended up like concrete. It tastes lovely, just it is not jam. I am sure I will find a use for it sometime in the future. We also opened one of the others, and this one is very nice. Obviously, as it had added sugar and it was boiled twice, it looks nothing like our Morello cherry jam used to look. This one is sweeter, darker and denser, but lovely all the same.

The last batch of Morello jam

The other big event this last week was the back gate. After Gyula dug the holes, and nobody came to actually install the gate, finally I lost my patience and rang Feri. He assured me that somebody will come that very day. And they did, two lovely blokes, Zoli and Gyuri, who seemed very nice to talk to, whose opinions about the whole outfit they are working for totally coincided with mine and while we watched them work, we could tell that they were good at what they did. Attention to detail, precision and good team work are not particularly common place over here, so we were really pleased to see that they practiced all three.

My breakfast of cornflakes with our own cherries and nuts

As it was Friday when they came, they have gone off for the weekend and returned on Monday to take away their gear that was holding the gate up while the concrete set and touched up a few spots where the painting wasn't perfect. Since then, of course, we have discovered a few places where the rust was showing and should have been touched up with paint, as well as we now have the problem of attaching the old fence wire to the new gate. I rang Feri yesterday and he promised to send someone to deal with those problems. All in all the gate looks great, it is rock solid and should keep the burglars out, if we are lucky.

The last lot of fresh cherries, to be eaten with cornflakes

Today we have written the Tesco list between us, as we have now decided that we'll go shopping next Monday. It opens at 6 am, so we will leave just after 5 am to hope for a not too full supermarket. We will also have to buy some petrol for the tractor and the mower, visit Lidl also for some stuff only they have and if we have the energy, look out for a new mower, scanner and a few other things besides. I am not too happy having to go out of the house, as we haven't been anywhere for nearly 4 months, but such is life. You have to grab the bull by the horns, when needs must. Next Monday is also my 72nd birthday, so it should give me courage that I am still here, alive and kicking. Let us hope the virus doesn't think otherwise! :)

Brad and Barney Walsh in racing drivers' gear

Talking about grabbing the bull by the horns, I have discovered a really lovely series Breaking Dad, on ITV in which Bradley and Barney Walsh go travelling in the States, doing crazy things. The chemistry between father and son is so delightfully close, but mad, that it makes for a fun program. One of the activities was riding a bull, which nearly killed Brad and he ended up with three broken splinters at the lower end of his back, although it didn't seem to stop him much for the rest of the series.

Charles I of England x 3

Alan Woods' lectures on the English Revolution are still ongoing and now are into the actual events that led up to the king losing his head. I think the next episode is the start of the Civil War. I am really enjoying these, as not only I am learning a lot of history through them, but that the outlook on this great historical event is very different in Alan's interpretation from the traditional shallow recounting of Cavaliers and Roundheads. Especially, that all other interpretations are on the side of the reactionary bastards, represented by the Cavaliers, when the real heroes were the common people, who did most of the fighting and the vast majority of the dying. With the happy exception of the king, who deserved his fate ten times over.

My friend Feri

I still get my regular phonecalls from my good friends Feri (this is another one) and the occasional call from Gyuri. Both these guys are friends through geocaching, Feri is a closer one than Gyuri, but I like talking to both of them. Feri's wife, Brigi, was ill, so I was awaiting his call quite anxiously to know how it went at the doctor's. Apparently, they are as stumped as everybody else, but it's still good to know that there is no sign of anything too drastic.

A few apples in the process of growing

Another great effort that needs mentioning is another big mowing day. Unfortunately, I am not strong enough to do everything in one day. So mowing is a movable feast, taking 2 or sometimes 3 days, with lots of resting in between. The grass was too wet, so I had to do the bits in the shade twice: once on 2.5 cm high, and then again at 1.5 cm. It looks really lovely now, and Roy's anxiety over the lenth of the grass under the plum trees is now solved. He thinks the plums will start getting ripe soon and will start dropping on the ground, where we need short grass, so we can pick them up. Fair enough, but I don't think they are going to get ripe any time soon, even though it is wet, as well as hot at the moment. Still, he might be right, so I did that as well.

Roy resting in the shade by the barn

Roy and I are still doing the physio exercises, but we went down to 3 times a week now. I will find some harder exercises soon, because he can do them now. They are very useful, even after recovery, as they help maintain the new found strength, as well as have proper posture.

My favourite plum tree

That's it for this week. Take care of yourselves and each other!<3 br="">