Johan's paperwork in Pásztó and lunch with him in the Éden, the birthday caching trip to the East and South, and the "Teddy Bear Museum".

So much happened in the last 7 days that I have to warn you, this is going to be a long post. As promised, Johan, our Dutch friend and neighbour in Bér, on Wednesday last, we have journeyed to Pásztó to sort out his admin relating to his services: water, electricity and gas. As I asked him last year, when he was in Bér last to bring them, he brought lots of documents with him, so we had his purchasing contract and deeds to his house and lots of bits of bills from the past relating to the services. I looked up the location of the offices we had to go to and found that gas and electricity are now together in the Pásztó Post Office. I suppose this should make sense, as they are both owned by MVM and billed by the same system.

Pásztó Post Office

We parked up not too far from the Post Office and found the counter,  behind which sat a lovely lady. She took all our papers and filled out all the forms for us, which we would have had to do ourselves, should we have gone for doing it online. The whole thing took an hour and a quarter, but it was done and she was so nice with it. I am still always in favour of doing things in person, which might take more effort to travel and queue etc., but you cannot beat the personal touch. Mind you, it could have been someone unhelpful and officious, but I am glad to confirm that ladies in Pásztó offices are still the best in the world: kind, smiley, helpful, patient and a joy to work with.

The form Johan will have to fill in

We also went to the Council to enquire about acquiring an address card and an ID card for Johan. The lady there confirmed, what I have already suspected, that Johan will first have to go to the Immigration office in Balassagyarmat to get registered, and then the address card could be issued by the Council. The ID card also, though that is yet another process, but Johan, quite rightly said, that he is not bothered with those yet. I did tell him, that if he wants to open a bank account, he will need an address card, but he is not bothering with that either at this stage. Finally, we went to sort the water supply and we didn't know that they have moved. Thankfully, we only went about 300 yards further up on the Main Street, so we sorted that quickly as well.

John in the Eden

On our way back to Bér, Johan invited Roy and myself to lunch the following day, and we gladly accepted. He was really grateful for my help, and I assured him that I am an expert at this game, having helped a large number of Dutch neighbours along the way. He came for us in his Mercedes promptly the following day and we went to the Eden along Route 21 for lunch. Gyula, the owner, was there and greeted us with joy. He even offered us coffees on the house after our lunch. Johan has really enjoyed his lunch and we all got home together with a full tummy.

The courtyard with roses

On Friday we did a few gardening jobs prior to our departure on Saturday: watering the trees, pruning the roses in the courtyard, picking up some plums for the mash and cutting back the vines over the patio. I also filled the medicine boxes and then started packing for an early departure. We promised Johan that we would be back on Tuesday and parted on very good terms. The packing was done very quickly, and with the exception of those things that have to be packed the last minute, all was ready for an early Saturday start.

An ancient and beautiful oak tree with its own cache

Our first day on the trip started towards the East, with a few finds still reasonably close to the village and then onto the motorway to get down in the direction of the Tisza-lake.  I have found most caches in that area, but this time we had some new ones to find, which have been put out since our last visit. There is a campaign to find the largest, or oldest or tallest old tree in each county. I have already found 9 of them and the target this time was for finding another 6. Obviously, there were others en route, which were also planned to be found.

A cute little chapel in the middle of the puszta

The first day went off without too many disasters. The only whinge I can offer is about the weather. The promised cold front has failed to materialise, and we had mid-thirties by the afternoon, which even with the air conditioning in the car was not easy to put up with. Still, we proceeded on our way, heading towards Debrecen, where we were planning to stay two nights in an apartment in the centre of the city. Unfortunately, I have not realised that the centre of Debrecen has been made traffic-free and parking was very difficult to find in walking distance of the apartment. Thankfully, the parking during the weekend was easier to find than it would have been during the week and was free from 2 pm on Saturday.

The Great Church in Debrecen

The walk with all our gear took us more than half an hour, in spite of the fact that it was only about 600 yards. Still, it mostly lead along the main drag, with the glorious Big Church at the end of it and along it there were many pubs and restaurants. As it was traffic-free, the terraces reached into the road and a lovely buzz gave the city a pleasant atmosphere. It was also the promenade, so it was full of benches, where we could sit for a rest now and again. 

A gorgeous old Atlantic pine tree

The apartment was on the third floor, but thankfully there was a lift in the building. On arrival we spotted that there was a mobile air condition unit in the flat, so we put it on straight away. Unfortunately, there was no structure to put the exhaust pipe through the wall in, so we had to have the window open all the time. This, needless to say, lessened the otherwise quite effective AC unit's cooling of the apartment, but on the whole it was bearable to sleep in. The flat was a conversion from a large room into a tiny flat, with miniature kitchen and bathroom, but the bed was comfortable and Roy could watch the World Cup on the large flat screen TV. On balance, we thought that the apartment was reasonable value for money. We paid only 49.000 forints (£120), plus a few hundred in tourist tax for two nights. However, the flooding shower, which the owner promised to pop in and fix, was not fixed, so I don't think we'll stay there again.

A view through to the puszta

While Debrecen is a magnificent city, with lots of history, fancy architecture and lovely, laid back people, plus the centre has a delightful buzz and good atmosphere, we did have a shock on Sunday evening. Most restaurants do not open on Sunday and those that do close by 6 pm. We picked a lovely looking restaurant on the previous day to have dinner in on Sunday, but it has just closed as we got there. We were, unfortunately, left with only one place, which was still open, and that had very substandard service and food. To finish this on a high note, though, on Saturday we did find a Guri bar, which is part of a chain that Roy uses in BP and had a couple of pints of Stahanov beer, our favourite.

The only look-out tower this time

The days of caching around Debrecen were great, we did find quite a few, although we suffered in the late afternoon heat a lot. The list of large trees  was getting longer and thankfully none of the caches needed too much walking to in the heat. They were either drive in, including some in the middle of the forest or the puszta, as in the drought all the dirt lanes were driveable. I did have some longer walks, but those were done either first thing in the morning or in the forests, which were much cooler all day. We fulfilled our quota and happily moved on towards Gyula, our final destination on the third day.

A really ancient oak tree from the bottom up

That day included some travelling around in Romania, which in spite the deep seated prejudice of Hungarians about the condition of their roads, was most comfortably travelled. I think they have spent some money since we last travelled there on their roads, obviously mostly financed by the EU, but wherever it came from, it was most welcome. The only downside of the caches on the other side of the border was that some of the caches were very neglected by their owners, either in bad condition, missing or the locations were closed up and impossible to access. Still, we had help and we did find a few.

A nice little manor house in a village

Our arrival in Gyula was reasonably early, although we have had a very long day, or it seemed like it in the heat. This accommodation, and all things relating to the town of Gyula, had finally given us a few excellent impressions and experiences, so Roy announced that all he had seen, used, eaten and communicated with had cheered him up and saved his little holiday. I agreed with him, as in comparison with Debrecen, almost everything was superior to our previous time. The apartment looked brand new, clean, modern and extremely well air conditioned. The fridge was enormous and looking clean and large, and all in all the service was better too. We had to go to their hotel for the keys and the little woman on reception was very friendly and helpful. Breakfast the following morning looked like a 5-star hotel breakfast, with choices so many I didn't know where to start. The town itself  was pristine, well kept and even the caches were great.

Me looking happy in the Gyula apartment

And then, on the last day we had a leisurely pootle back home, although we did decide to rest up in BP for a few days before returning to Bér. I wrote to Johan, apologising for not seeing him before he departs for home, but it is not impossible that he will still be there when we get back on Friday, as he had car troubles and now, having stubbed his big toe on his dining table, might have to put off his departure while nursing his aching toe. Either way, we will be OK, it will be nice to see him again before he goes home, although if his toe has improved sufficiently to drive, then we wish him a good journey home after his month away from his wife.

By the water in Gyula in a lovely restaurant

The last day's caching took us to an interesting place in Rákóczifalva, a village South of Szolnok, and where the so called "Teddy bear museum" can be found. This is the life's work of a delightful man, who is a maniac of collecting anything that preserves the past, be it teddy bears, furniture, memorial plaques, weapons, kitchen boxes, photos, pictures, statues, ancient remains of destroyed buildings etc., etc. I couldn't list all of it here without taking weeks. He led me round, told me the story of many things and I did see lots of teddy bears, but in spite of its name, the museum was about a lot more than bears. Unfortunately, Roy didn't want to come in, but I am sure, that when I next go past the place, I will drag him in. It was full of old things that Roy loves and he would have been enjoying to see, had he come in with me. I logged the geocache to go with the museum, of course, but honestly, I have forgotten about that as soon as my guide started his tour round his thousands of exhibits.

A few teddy bears in the museum

We took the M4 back to BP and were at home in no time at all. We are having a couple of days of recuperation and then get back to Bér on Friday. While in the car en route home I did a certain amount of paperwork, so as to use the time and save me facing the dreaded admin in town. I got rid of hundreds of superfluous e-mails, did some caching admin and spent some time on the phone discussing further caching trips coming up. Unfortunately, Csilla had to cancel our Pilis hikes, so I contacted my new geocaching friend, István, just in case he fancied doing the hikes with me. Amazingly, he said yes, so I am now planning those two hikes with him.

István Mák, my new geocaching friend

The weather is slightly cooler today, but for once we will not be going out, there is so much indoors work to be done before we return to the country. So, with this note I will return to my office work and hope to come back with some more news this time next Wednesday. 💖 

 

 

Geocaching event in Esztergom, World Cup and F1, our celebrations for my 78th birthday and meeting up with Johan

Last week was mostly spent still in Budapest, and our days alternated between spending it mostly indoors in the nice cool environment created by the air conditioner and going out in the heat for interesting outings. The first outing happened on Saturday, when we went to Esztergom, a really lovely old town about an hour by train, North of Budapest. This was a train safari - a la Adrian - and we had a good time.

The .com event's banner

The international geocaching club - geocaching.com - held a gathering there and as this was the third time they held it, I thought it was about time I went. With both of us going, it turned out to be a really nice outing. We caught the 8:21am train from Nyugati railway station and were at the event, after some bus catching adventures at the Esztergom railway station, by bang on 10:00 am. The atmosphere was very friendly and I managed to find out where the Hungarian geocache was, as a result. I logged it, had some more chats with both people I knew and with some new ones. 

 

Geocachers from all over the world at the event

As the weather started hotting up, we went and sat about on a bench in front of the Basilica in the shade and took some photos. Then we walked all the way round the Basilica, taking lots of lovely photos everywhere. Esztergom is really photogenic, but I never knew that they had lots of birdies too. I remembered to put the Merlin Bird ID app on, and would you believe it, I had a new bird, a Bank Swallow, to add to my life list. I have now 168 recorded birds in my life list on the app. 

Bank Swallow

Later, we also discovered some parts of the town we didn’t know, even though we had been to Esztergom before. After some more walking about, we returned to the event centre, to look around again, see if we can find some more people to talk to, but it seemed that everybody was either sight seeing or caching all over town. We said good bye and left, walking downhill towards the river, in the hope that we’ll find a place to eat at. While still in the vicinity of the Basilica, all places were full, but when we found a dead, cut-off bit of the Danube, we hit the jackpot. 

Esztergom Basilica on the hill

It was beautiful, cool, with dozens of 200-300 year old plane trees by the town swimming pool. Not that we wanted to go for a swim there, but we found that their buffet had an entrance from the avenue of plane trees too, so we went in and had a lovely lunch under some more ancient and enormous trees. Roy had chicken in breadcrumbs with chips and a salad, and I had some feta cheese, with chips and a salad. We both had some beer with it and finished it all off. Then we needed to find a not too exhausting way back to the railway station and this time Google did us proud and led us on a fast and cool way to a bus stop, where we only waited about 10 minutes, a bus came, we got on and then when it did get to the railway station, the BP train was in and due to leave in 5 minutes. 

Roy supporting one of the ancient plane trees

Roy had a good sleep on the train again, and we were indoors by a few minutes after 3 pm. Air conditioning went on straight away and Roy had a third sleep for about another hour, while I started doing admin, re: birds, geocaches and FB albums. A very successful day, much enjoyed, with one new bird and one new cache and we found bits of Esztergom we have never seen before. And even the weather was reasonable with a slight breeze taking the edge of the heatwave off.

Roy having his lunch in Esztergom

Sunday was spent with some domestic chores, like washing and filling our medicine boxes for the next week. The Football World Cup was still on and while there were no more matches with England in them, some other high quality games were much enjoyed on the TV. We also watched some F1, which is beginning to interest me again, but I very much doubt that the old enthusiasm will ever return. Still, it was nice to see Hamilton doing reasonably well this year at Ferrari.

Roy napping on the train

Then came Monday, 13th of July, which had two main events in it: 1. a scheduled 5-hour power cut in our apartment block; 2. my 78th birthday. The interaction between the two was quite fortunate, even though I wouldn't have thought so originally. We live in a flat that is in the darkest corner of a block of flats on the ground floor. Basically, we can never do anything in the flat without artificial lighting, it is that dark. So, what were we to do in a dark place with no lights, no TV and no internet? The only connection to the electronic world was my smart phone, and that was wholly inadequate.

Champagne and fruit - my birthday breakfast

So, we got up quite early, treated each other to a champagne breakfast, containing half a bottle of champagne and a large amount of fresh fruit: apple, melon, peach, raspberries, grapes and blueberries. Afterwards, I had a couple of pieces of toast with 2 fried eggs and a bit of bacon, while Roy had a toasted bacon sandwich. As the switch off time was fast approaching, we had to decide what to do for the rest of the morning, while the flat was in the dark.

Roy with chammpagne

We decided to go out, but where? you may ask. I had no idea until the last minute, when I had some inspiration from somewhere. I suggested to Roy that we should go to the Buda Hills for a little outing, while I will have the Merlin app on, just in case we can find a new species of bird to record. He agreed, and off we went a few minutes after 8 am, when  the electricity disappeared. 

The cog-wheel railway at the terminus

We took the trolley bus to the Körút and the no. 6 tram over the river and ended up using the cog-wheel railway up to Széchenyi hill. It was amazing to feel that with every meter travelling uphill in the forest, the temperature was plummeting. From the u[[er terminus  we walked over to the Children’s Railway, but that was not coming for another 40 minutes, so the final choice was for going on a short hike of about 2.5 km, all the way down to the Farkasréti Cemetery. 

The old TV tower on Széchenyi  hill

The hike was really exciting. I got a bit worried about Roy towards the bottom, as the path got narrower and narrower, then got very uneven, slippery and steep. Still, we were very brave, hung onto as many trees as we could and made it down in one piece. Where we actually ended up on streets with houses around, we saw a bus stop, which was the terminus of the bus no. 53. We found out that it went down to the Metro and it came every 10 minutes. We were very lucky, as Roy’s legs were seriously complaining by then. 

Roy on the hike

Once on the Metro 4, we went all the way to the Keleti Station and from there with a trolley bus 76 to one of our favourite little restaurants. Had a lovely lunch and by the time we got home around 1:30 pm, the lights were on again and we could rest in peace. Roy had a fairly long nap and I have looked at the endless number of birthday greetings on FB and Messenger. It took practically the rest of the day to read and answer all of them. Still, I was really happy, as so many people thought of me on my birthday, that it looked like the numbers would outdo all previous years. At the end I counted them up and they numbered  just over 60, which is great.

End of the tarmac road on our hike

 And then yesterday we packed up all our gear and came down to the village, as we needed to prepare my bike there for the trip to start on Saturday. We managed to buy the bike rack, but forgot about the adapter for 7-pin to 13-pin electrics between the car and the rack. Roy managed to buy one, but we didn't know if it would work. That we had to wait for until we got home. In the meantime, we had two chores, one was to ring the post lady and let her know that the parcel waiting for us could now be delivered, the other was our Dutch neighbour, Johan, who was back after nearly year and whom I promised to help with Hungarian bureaucracy.

In the depth of the forest on our hike

After a fairly uneventful drive, including a food shop at Lidl, we arrived around 11:15 am and Johan, was on the phone almost immediately. He invited us to coffee and we agreed that we would be there around 4 pm in the afternoon. In the meantime I managed to sort out the circumstances around Stephen's visit in August, which basically will only be for 2 days, not 4. He arrives with Ruth on Sunday evening and leaves first thing on Wednesday. If you add that up, that is only 2 days, isn't it? Never mind, at least I now know the dates and times, and as we would very much like to see them, I later suggested via Messenger that we could go out in the afternoon of Tuesday, 25th August to Callas, a really posh cafe right next to the Hungarian National Opera House, for tea and cakes.

Roy and ice cream in the Regős

The visit to John in the afternoon took something like 3 and half hours, which made me rather tired and hot, as he has no air conditioning in the house, although a very powerful fan was on, which made it a tad more pleasant. Still, he has so many problems with that house of his, that it will take more like 3 and half years, than 3 and half hours to sort them. I offered to go with him to sort out several official jobs, like changing the electricity meter, gas meter, water meter, his ID and address card in the nearby town of Pásztó the following day, and he looked rather glad. It had to be this Wednesday, because most of those official places are only open twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, and after this Wednesday it could only be done next week, when on Monday we are not back from our trip yet, and by Wednesday he has most likely have departed back to the Netherlands. So, we are leaving at 7:30 am this morning and wish me luck!

Callas cafe interior

 Hopefully, we'll get back from our 4-day jaunt to the East and South East of the country by Tuesday, and that I will be not too knackered to write the next post on Wednesday, a week today. 

Caching in the Buda Hills and in the Visegrád Mountains, World Cup and Tour de France and Pip and Martin from Yorkshire

Last Wednesday we had a lovely outing to the Buda hills in town. The list of caches you have found is broken down into 20 sections: the 19 counties and the capital. Many cachers have been to all the caches in their own county, so the percentage in that area is 100% for them. I have not had one like that for a long time, until one day I found that I had all the Budapest caches, so I finally got one area with 100. Until, that is, somebody put a new one out and I went down to 99%. So we had to go and get that new one to get back to 100%.

They had shelter and kept ammunition here

We got up very early, as the heat wave was still with us, but it was still quite nice and cool when we started. The theme of this cache was about the "Defence line in the Buda hills", which is basically all the remnants of WW2, like trenches, underground ammunition dumps and the bases for anti-aircraft guns. It was actually quite an interesting hike, especially the ones I never knew were there. Roy helped me by delivering me by car to the start and then driving to the finish to pick me up again. I am very lucky having him, as most other people had to walk to the nearest transport or back to their own car at the start.

The state of my finds as of today

This outing was also necessary for filling in my empty days on the table that shows how many days of the year I haven't yet geocached. Somebody thought up this silly table, where the months go down on the left and the days are in the top line. Each little square shows how many caches have you found on that particular day, ever since you started caching. So, the collection of 100% coverage is the aim in every month, and I am happy to report that I have 3 now. So, until I have got at least one cache in every little square in this table, I will have to go caching on all outstanding days with a bit fat zero in. Fun, isn't it?

Stephen Grant

Thursday was Stephen's birthday, he is now 53, but I'm happy to say he does not look it. He is still a bit of a workaholic, which as he gets older will be very difficult to maintain. Still, it is his life, so while I quietly worry about him at times, I have no word in the matter whatsoever. I sent the money by BACS for presents for both him and Elian, and am currently awaiting his report of what they got with it. I suppose I'll have to wait for a while, as he is on a P&O cruise to the Norwegian fjords with Ruth, his latest and really lovely girlfriend. Not that it is a holiday, he is contracted to perform on stage as the resident comic every night. Still, he is never happy unless he is earning money, even on holiday.

Jordan Pickford the goalie

The next 5 days in BP had not too many exciting happenings to write about. I was hiding from the heat mostly, Roy occasionally went out shopping and/or to the pub, so it was routine. I still had lots of paperwork, namely making sure that we had enough money in the bank, as booking.com was drawing the cost of the Debrecen accommodation on the 2nd July for our next caching trip East. I also had to finish the cache list for that trip, as well as prepare for yesterday little jaunt. We also made attempts at watching the World Cup, and while we are not particularly enthusiastic about football, this time it was worth watching some of the matches. England versus Mexico was a real sensation. Even I was celebrating, which does not happen too often.

Tadej Pogačar

 

Talking of football: I am really cheesed off about 3 major sports events being held at exactly the same time. The World Cup, the Tour de France and Wimbledon. Even though we were trying to stay cool indoors lately, we still didn't have enough time to watch all of them. In my case, Wimbledon went for a Burton, but I am watching the odd match and followed Day 4 of the Tour the France yesterday. Amazing guys those cyclists. And I had some more information about Tadej Pogačar, whom I have heard of, but never appreciated how good he is. 

Áprily-valley with the cache nearby

Two more interesting, albeit rather annoying things have also happen last week. The first one was the announcement of the city council about car parking. They have overnight abolished using coins for parking and the parking meters. In fact, they are removing the parking meters and you can only pay by smart phone. What on earth will those people do who have no smart phones, like Roy? Budapest GO is a fantastic bit of software, as I wrote last week, but guess what? Yes, the parking bit of that software is not due to come out for God knows how long. Brrrrr!!!!

The steepness of the valley side

The other thing was an announcement by Yahoo that my e-mail account's storage is full and I will either have to clear some space or pay for the new version with the facility of storage extension. Considering that Yahoo is an ancient system and I have been thinking of abandoning it for gmail, I had to inclination to pay, so I started the process of deleting 46,000 e-mails. You can imagine that it would not do it in one  go, so I spent several days with boring deletions, which was not fun. I am happy to report that while it wasn't all 46,000 of them, but I deleted enough to stop the aggressive pop-ups appearing on my screen.

No vehicles, please!!!

And then, yesterday Roy and I went caching again, (to fill another one of those little boxes with zero in it), North of BP on the other side of the river. One had a km walk each way, up a really beautiful little valley in the Visegrád Mountains, the other one was a mile walk in each direction, along a desert in both appearance and heat, to the remnants of a Roman fort along the Danube. Both were fun, although the desert walk was starting to get to me towards the end. I am nursing sore muscles this morning, but I am glad that I did those two. They have been screaming at me on the map for years, so now they are done.

Pretty flower en route to the Roman fort

One other fun thing was Roy turning up with two complete strangers from the pub one day. They were a hilarious couple, Pip and Martin, from Ripley in Yorkshire. We had a jolly good chinwag, until they quickly departed around 7 pm, as they wanted to have dinner and a nap, before waking up at 2 am to watch the England/Mexico match in their hotel room.

The big skies en route to the Roman fort

I think this is it for last week. We are in town until next Monday, which happens to be my birthday. We would have left earlier, but we got a notice of a scheduled power cut on that day, and we like to be around when the power comes back on, just to check if everything is OK in the flat. We plan to leave next Tuesday, so next Wednesday we should be back in the village, preparing for our 4-day trip to the East. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elian's 14th birthday, WhatsApp, fruit tree supports, cache maintenance, the high pressure dome arrives in BP, reading the water meter, planning my farewell GCWALK, a drink in the pub with Roy and lunch in the Snail

Last Wednesday, when I posted I never mentioned that it was Elian's birthday that day. He is 14 years old now and is growing up fast. He is happy at school and his reports are always brilliant. What then occurred to me, that for one reason or another, none of us thought of a present for him. Even more, as Elian's and Stephen's birthdays are only 8 days apart, I have never thought of Stephen's present either. I sent Stephen a Messenger message to suggest that he has a discussion with Elian about what he would like, let me know and then we'll arrange it. While discussing this, he happened to mention that both boys use SMS and WhatsApp, rather than FB, e-mail or Messenger. So, the upshot is now that I have got my WhatsApp sorted, now I can communicate with all three of them, (Stephen included) and hope that something will expire soon.

Roy with one of the support poles

On Thursday, we tried to get up really early, so we could do some urgent gardening. The high pressure dome over Western Europe has moved and was now over us. The lowest high points are around 35 degree Celsius and recently the highest went up to nearly 42. It is unbearable to be outside between 8 am and 8 pm every day. So, we got up nice and early, Roy did a bit of DIY on the pavilion table, which was warping in all directions, so now the edge of it is screwed to the next bit and we hope it'll stop opening up. The other job we both had, was to get out as many sticks that we could and find the weakest points on our fruit trees to support them from below. We really do not want to lose several branches that are drying up in the drought, and in some cases will be heavy with fruit too. These two almost always cause quite a few branches to break, like they did last year.

The well where my geocache is

Having sorted most tasks in the village, we departed for town early on Saturday. I managed to find a geocache en route to BP and I had a really nice adventure around it. It was one of my own caches, which needed a bit of maintenance, so I went to do that, as well as get the chance to log it. After I did that, I have only one more of my own caches that has not been logged yet, but I am sure there will be some reason why I have to go there sometime and I can log it then. Roy stayed under a nice shady tree and I walked about 400 yards to the cache. It was rather surrounded by fallen trees, so it was a bit exciting climbing over those. The hide was OK, albeit a bit less than straight, but I didn't bring any wire, so I tightened it up the best I could. I replaced the missing alternative password and took some photos both ways.

The countryside near my geocache

As we arrived in BP the temperature was already in the mid-30's, so we fell through the front door and put on the aircon. Correction: wanted to put on the aircon, but couldn't find the remote. This ended up with a large scale project of tidying up the total chaos near my bed on the gallery, which I wasn't planning, but I am now quite happy that I had to do. I did find the remote under a lot of junk, so we could cool down. The AC in BP is a great deal better than in Bér, so that cooled us down very quickly.

The air conditioning unit in BP

The first job I had was to photograph the water meter and send it to the waterboard. This is such a good system, no need to wait in for anyone to read it, just log on to their website, enter the number and attach the photo. That's it, and I only have to do this 6 times a year. This reading was actually the yearly balancing one, and they are still quite happy letting us do it ourselves. Some people think it's cheeky, but I prefer anything to hanging around all day waiting for the meter reader.

162 cubic metres of water used since it was new

The rest of the week was spent mostly hiding indoors, as my heart reacts most weirdly to such high heat, so I though better of leaving the flat. Roy was quite brave and went to the pub a few afternoons, but I stayed indoors. I had plenty things to do, so I wasn't bored. I have to write the cache list for our 4-day outing to the East, South East and South of the country in less than 3 weeks now, as well as I had a thought about my farewell GCWALK and did some planning for that as well.

My last GCWALK at planning stage

 

It'll be 9 years in November, since I started organising geocaching walks for the club, most of which were fantastic and very enjoyable. Unfortunately, with my heart, arthritis and other elderly deteriorations, I can no longer cope with being the organiser. I can still climb mountains, but very slowly and carefully, and while I might join some walking groups in future, I can no longer take on the role of organiser. An organiser cannot cut short or turn back, as she has to be with the group from beginning to end. So, I cooked up a plan, which I think will be great. We'll be going back to the same terrain where my first GCWALK was, and which is where I have a cycling multi-cache for the 25th anniversary of geocaching.hu. I love that area and it has the lucky topography, which gives me a chance to cut short in several places. I will advertise it as my farewell tour, so they might forgive me for not going through right  to the end. The base of the hike will be the route of the cycling multi, with some variations to extra caches. This also gives me a chance to have little rests, as these variations will be there and back, and while others are doing them I can rest.  

Roy's new pub on the Körút

After being indoors for 48 hours, I decided that I might take a risk and accompany Roy to the pub yesterday afternoon. It was great, except for one silly mistake, which I will try to avoid in future, should I go out again in this heat. I went, within 10 seconds from 22 degrees indoors to 38 degrees outside.  That was a grave mistake, I felt a weight on my chest, which was rather worrying. The trolley bus was not due for about 10 minutes, so we walked 400-500 yards to the pub. I was in a bad way arriving there, but a glass of beer, followed by a glass of water cheered me up, so on the way home, which we always have to walk, as the trolley bus goes in another street, I was perfectly OK. We tried a couple of new beers: one was an ordinary Pilsner lager, the other another IPA, but from the Western coast of the US. Roy tried both, I only tried one. We agreed that they were both OK, but we will still stick to our beloved Rasputin, from the Eastern coast of the US, which is the best.

My discussion group with the boys got cancelled yesterday by Márkó, so we'll have it once he returned from his holidays. Considering that the boys have waited for me for two months in March and April, I can't complain. I have been a good girl and I read the article and listened to the podcast again, but as I enjoyed both of them all over again, that's no reason for complaint either. As I had some time freed up, I got into trying to sort our urgent need for a bike rack for the back of the car. I found a model online, which was a reasonable price, but nobody was answering the phone. Ours after I gave up, a very nice bloke rang me up, asking what I was after. I told him, he said there was one left in the stock room, so hopefully tomorrow we will go and pick it up. Yippeeee!!!! I might just start getting those 16 anniversary biking multi-caches after all.

No. 74 trolley bus, that stops in front of our block

Today we were very brave and risked a little jaunt out into the desert-like weather in BP. When we left home it was about 36 or 37 deg C, when we came home it was definitely 38 deg C. First we went to one of our favourite places, called Snail, which is a care/bar/restaurant, not too far from us and right next to a large Market Hall. The main attraction of that market hall is that they are the only people who almost always have a particular type of durum pasta we like. It is tagliatelle sold in little nests. So, we left just in time to catch the trolley bus outside our block. It wasn't guessing, it was with using a brilliant public financed bit of software that tell you exactly where all the buses are on a particular line. I noticed that the 74 was at the corner of the City Park, so we probably had 5 or 6 minutes to catch it. The air conditioning was great and it was also quite pleasant on the no. 6 tram which we caught after the bus.

No. 6 tram on the Körút

The first considerable walking was done between getting off the tram and getting inside the cafe. That was about 200 yards and we found the shady side of the square. Our assumption that the Snail does not have air conditioning was proved correct. Still, we stayed, as both of us was actually coping with the high heat surprisingly well. Roy had sheep's cheese with a lovely African salad, while I had chicken liver in breadcrumbs with rice and peas. The drinks were a pint for Roy and a large glass of lemonade for me. After lunch we went to the market, bought everything we wanted and picked up some talcum powder in a pharmacy en route to the tram stop. After getting home we both fell into the shower and now Roy is having a nap and I am finishing this blog.

Roy in the Snail

Next post, hopefully, on Wednesday next week, when we should still be in BP.