Big plums for eating, drying out lakes and rivers, 20th August celebrations, Stephen and Ruth's visit and my new hairdo

This post is a day early, as yet again, we are doing something all day and would not have the time tomorrow. Nothing too particular, just a day's geocaching West of BP. It has some caches that I haven't found yet, but what is more important is that they can be thread onto a logical round trip by car, which Roy, amazingly, agreed to come with me for. So, next week I will let you know about it, but in the meantime let us have a look at the last week's happenings.

The area of caching on Wednesday

Delicious plums, yum, yum!!

 

My last GCWALK seems to be popular, even thought it is still more than a couple of months away, I already had people commenting under the invitation and promising to come. Thankfully, I managed to change it from Saturday to Sunday, so all those people that I really want to come could consider it. The other development was around another geocaching event, organised by Marcsi, a fellow moderator and friend of mine. Due to the current drought and total lack of rain, the lake where it is held is drying up. And even if there will some water in it next month, no motor boats can travel on it due to the very shallow water levels. I have a feeling people will still go, just not to let Marcsi down.

The Northern end of the Tisza-lake now

In the meantime, before we discovered the dreadful water problems around the Tisza-lake, Heni asked me if she could come with me, and I said yes. Then Józsi did the same and finally I invited Csilla, who also said yes, so as it stands at the moment, 4 of us will go. It takes a good hour from Bér by car, so I think I will suggest that the other three travel by train to Hatvan, and I will pick them up there. Let us hope that in spite of the drought, the attendance is good and many moving caches will be brought. That is especially important for Heni and I, as we have already found all nearby caches on ground, so will have to depend on moving caches for finding a few during the day.

The light show and fireworks on 20th August

The 20th August is always a great celebration in Hungary, mostly because it is St. Stephen's day, as well as Constitution day, which has always been combined with celebrating bread baked from newly harvested wheat. Even in the communist era it was a public holiday, with not much reference to religion, but plenty to the Constitution and the new bread. That was the day when we went over to Johan's garden, and after we finished with the plums we noticed the abundance of pears on one of the trees. Combining those on the tree with those already on the ground, that would have filled at least one barrel, possibly more. We still opted for not picking any, partly because we were absolutely exhausted, and also, because one barrelful would definitely be mixed with other people's mash, and we never liked that. Now, if he had enough pears to fill another 4 barrels (we would have to go out and buy another 3), that would be another matter.

Some more fireworks on 2öth August

On Friday we left Bér and drove to BP. We were really looking forward to it, as our only really effective AC unit is in the flat in BP. We could enjoy feeling cold, if we put it on to a low temperature, and hopefully slept better too. There was also an impending visit from Stephen and Ruth, so we were looking forward to seeing them too. After arrival, we spent about a good half hour looking for the Opera tickets, that I seemed to remember having put on the notice board, but there were no signs of them. Eventually, Roy found them on the floor, under and behind the sideboard, so obviously they fell off and ended up there. Saturday was also the day Attila, whom we bought my e-bike from,  was bringing the keys he forgot to give us last year. It took us months to realise that we cannot remove the battery, as it is locked to the frame. He finally found it and came in on his e-bike to deliver it.

Alex, Nancy, Delaney and Callum kayaking

On Sunday Alex rang, which was lovely, as nowadays he is so busy with his new job and his kayaking at weekends, that I don't always hear from him. He sounded very happy and was excited telling me that he went to find the ideal place in Presqu'ile Park, North of Toronto for his first Level 2 class next month. This is really amazing, considering that until about 3 or 4 years ago he hardly ever went kayaking himself. It was back in 2023 that for a while he had lots of time on his hands and decided that he wants to become a kayak instructor and leader. Since then, he successfully passed Level 1, 2 and 3 for his own skill development, became a qualified Wilderness First Responder, eventually passing Levels 1 and 2 instructor qualifications. So, I will be crossing all fingers and toes in the second week of September, while he is instructing a group to become Level 2 proficient in kayaking. Many said to him in the last 3 years, that they have never seen anyone who could learn something from almost scratch and become that good that quickly at it. It just shows what brains, enthusiasm and perseverance can do for you to achieve your goals.

Stephen at brunch

Late on Sunday Stephen and Ruth have arrived, but we have only heard from them on Monday morning. I went to the bank with Stephen, although there was no need, as the guy there spoke perfectly good English. He was helped to get his new debit card and also sorted his tax residence issue successfully. This only took about 20 minutes, which was great. Later, he took Ruth to the big Synagogue, which they have enjoyed tremendously. 

Roy with his hot chocolate and cheese cake

We heard all about it at brunch in a lovely eatery in the party district, called "According to my Mother". We sat in the courtyard at the back, so it was cool and shaded, the food and drinks were gorgeous, including my giant croissants and Roy's cheese cake. We both had hot chocolates, which went down very quickly. Stephen and Ruth had more like a lunch, Ruth had a lovely omelet and Stephen had a Hungarian cooked breakfast. After lunch they were off to a thermal baths by the Danube and all these events were celebrating Ruth's birthday. They looked very relaxed and happy. We even managed to rustle up a cute little birthday present for her in a hand painted Hungarian patterned little round wooden box, which probably could be used for some treasures or jewellery.

Selfie with short hair

And finally today I had my hair cut, which was seriously overdue. I looked like a scruffy white haired mongrel before Timi, my lovely hairdresser had shorn me to a nice young looking person, with hair that  does not dangle in my eyes and tickle me at the my neck. Yippeeee!!!!! Last job was to write the cache list for tomorrow, which has been done and even printed on paper. I am still old fashioned to like paper, as I do not like having to rely on electronics all the time. Especially not in the middle of a forest with no internet. The weather is heating up again, so wish me good luck tomorrow, chasing after 9 caches in the desert like sun! Next post hopefully next Wednesday! xx

 

 

 

Caching in Nógrád, the driving licence arrived, 9 girls in he Bunkhouse, Callum's 17th birthday, My Brilliant Career on Netflix and my last GCWALK in planning

Last week I wrote and posted the blog post a day early, because I knew that I had something important to do on Wednesday. Thankfully, we managed to do it, so all worked very well last Wednesday. I have a target in geocaching this year, and our activities last Wednesday had something to do with that. There is a table in my profile page on geocaching.hu which counts how many caches I found on each day of the year, over the years of playing. Some days have high numbers and some have zeros. The target was to fill every day with at least one find, so that the end result in the column on the right is 100%. Last Wednesday was one of those days, so we went out to a cache near Salgótarján, plus did some food shopping as the fridge was getting empty.

The table with 33 days still to be filled

The cache seemed very close to where we parked, but once I got going I could see that I will take some time over getting to it. The box was a few metres behind a spring, called Béla-forrás. However, the location was near the top of a very steep and rough mountainside, full of deep and overgrown ravines. Not only that there was no marked path to it, there was no path to it marked or unmarked. I started climbing within the ravine, but thought better of it as I have done this before and got stuck by sudden 10 ft high rock walls and other hazards.

In the ravine

So, I climbed out of the ravine, especially where I saw a little path, which was probably only an animal track. That was a bit hairy, but I finally found enough trees to hang onto and got going. Unfortunately, that path went in the wrong direction, so I had to leave it and climb in the forest, which, thankfully, was getting a little bit less steep and less overgrown. Finally, I found another, or possibly the same path, just having turned back, which then led me to the spring. I found the box easily and returned in the middle of the ravine quite fast. Roy was half asleep, so no worries on his part, as I spent far too long away from the car, when the box was less than 200 yards away.

The spring I was heading for

En route home we stocked up on some more food for the rest of our stay in Bér. Good job we got home quite early, as the GLS driver was on the phone, bringing some stuff I ordered online. Typically, he came twice in two days, as some of the stuff was from another outfit, and just displayed the usual custom of never thinking of saving petrol and time by waiting for the next one and bringing them together.

This is where I had to climb up

With a bit of luck, the side of the Lidl, where we shopped, contained a pharmacy and we could buy some medication to treat what felt like a verruca on Roy's sole. He has been limping for a while, so I started painting the area, which didn't show a verruca, but was very hard and painful for him to walk on. Every morning I am having a go, but just to be on the safe side, I also made an appointment for him with Dr. Silló in Duna Medical, so he can receive professional advice. At the same time, I hope she will look at his spots as well, some of which have got quite dark recently. 

Lovely rocks to climb over

Thursday was yet again spent on finding a cache to fill up that table, and I am happy to report that this attempt was also successful. This was about the same distance from home as the one the day before, but in a completely different direction. A 4-parter multi cache was laid out near the village of Kisnána on the Southern slopes of the Mátra Mountain. The weather was like in an African desert, but at least some of it was in forest. There was a ravine here too, but I could avoid travelling in it. The views were nice, the higher I got and the rocks were definitely artistic to photograph.  

Lili and Dani's Teahouse in Bér

At home we were preparing for an invasion of nice ladies in the Bunkhouse for the weekend. They were attending one of Lili's herbal courses and, as usual, they slept at our estate. This is a service I do for Lili, as their renovation of the accommodation they will eventually have, had been taking too long. Dani is an excellent builder in traditional ways, with mud and wattle and daub and rocks and lime, but he cannot be accused of high speed. Still, it is lovely to watch them renovate their inherited old buildings the traditional way. We also met little Klara when she visited us, and saw what a pretty, clever and sweet little person she is. Time flies, so we were shocked to hear that she was 16 months old now. 

Lili in the attic and her herbs in bottles

On Thursday Roy suddenly got very busy and managed to connect the exit pipe of the mobile air conditioner in the Bunkhouse, to the outside, through the wooden panelling wall at the top of the stairs. The irony, of course, is that by the time the girls have arrived, the weather got much cooler, and they hardly used the AC. Still, with global warming and droughts are becoming commonplace, that will be useful in the future too, I am sure. 

The 2026 collage 

Friday was Callum's 17th birthday, and I was so very happy when he phoned. This was the first time in his life that independently from parents he rang me and we had a lovely little chat. He thanked us for his birthday present and for our contribution to his university fund. No matter, I said, if you have the money, what can you spend it on more usefully than for your loved family members? He is so grown up now, that's frightening. Deep male voice, lovely calm manner and almost as tall as his dad and uncle. And those guys are well over 6 ft. 

Philippa Northeast as Sybylla Melvyn

The girls arrived quite early on Friday, moved in and then departed for day 1 of their course. The weekend was spent quite calmly, not doing much, except going to Johan's house and picking plums. Both of us spent far too much time on our computers, but what else can you do? It's like the Sahara outside, so we vote for the inside. I did find another short series "My Brilliant Career" that was on Netflix, which I enjoyed, but I am sad to hear that it has not been renewed. I would have loved to see that series to carry on. I wonder if I can get a copy of the book it was based on? Apparently it is quite famous in Australia.

Top half of my last GCWALK invitation

Monday had some admin in it, but, thankfully, no frustration. Quite the opposite. Roy's driving licence had arrived, which was speedy indeed. One whole week proves that finally, most parts of the British officialdom that you have to deal with has finally recovered from the chaos caused by the pandemic. I was giving up hope that they will ever make it, but hopefully they have. Another sort of admin is that I promised Johan to chase up our boiler engineer to look at his boiler. I finally got the guy at the end of a phone about 10 days ago and he promised to ring this week, but he hasn't yet. The other problem is that Ferenc, Pali's son in law, who is now in charge of looking after Johan's place, has not been very forthcoming either. We'll see what happens. We are leaving for town on Friday, so if they do not turn up until then, this will have to wait, again.

The banner of the GCWALK hike

To finish on a high note: yesterday I decided that I will organise a last, farewell GCWALK in November and that's be my last one. I am too old to be the leader in these hikes. Especially, that the vast majority of those who take part are young and fit, and there is no longer any chance of me keeping up with them. The one really good thing is that there is a lovely young woman, who has taken to organising these caching hikes now, so there will be no shortage of them even after I stopped. So, I spent yesterday writing the invitation, making a banner and wrapping up the whole thing. The invitation is already up on the geocaching.hu website and the banner should be up soon, as that is something I cannot do. I have sent it to the chairman, who has total access to all functions on the website, and he will put it up soon, I am sure.

Fireworks over the Chain Bridge in the past

We decided to go to BP on Friday, which is day 2 of a 4-day holiday over here. 20th August is Constitution Day, which is tomorrow. There will be fireworks over the Danube and all sorts of  fun celebrating. The new government of Peter Magyar is also restarting the traditional news program on television, which the Orbán maffia cancelled 15 years ago. I have a feeling that it will be worth it, for the first time in a long while, to watch the celebration on the TV. And on this happy note, I wish you all out there a happy weekend, whether you are celebrating or not. Next post on next Wednesday, by which time we should be in BP. 

 

 

 

 

Moving downstairs, picking Johan's plums, Callum's birthday present, pickled onions and Roy's driver's licence renewal

The road side cross with Roy

As planned we returned to Bér last Thursday. The Crux Viator (roadside cross) moving geocache from a week back was still with us and we placed it en route home, just before Héhalom by the road. Once at home, Johan was gone, but he ensured that we had a key to his padlocks, both on the entry gate and on the door to his workshop. The latter, especially proved very useful, but more about that later. The first night upstairs in our bedroom was thoroughly unpleasant. As mentioned before, the mobile air conditioner, while very good, has not been really up to cooling the bedroom sufficiently. Party because the heat wave this summer is a great deal hotter than ever before, plus the damage done by the martens that had almost removed all the insulation. The fact that we have been away for a week meant that everything was very hot, so the AC had no chance.

The lounge with our beds

So, after one miserable night we decided to move downstairs into the lounge, at this stage only bringing down our mattresses, and later we will decide whether we stay long enough to bring down the bed frames, or just stay on the floor. To  be honest, the floor is the coolest in any room, but getting up from the mattress is quite a performance for both of us at the moment. The move have actually proved to be very successful. Partly because it is a great deal, (about 8 degrees at least) cooler downstairs, and partly because a slight cooling in the weather coincided with our moving downstairs. While we don't have AC downstairs, we have an old, but robust fan, which really cools you most of the time.

Johan's garden from the back

We also started visiting Johan's place to see if we could pick up a few more plums and it seems that we will have a couple of buckets full every other day. We try to go very early, before the heat gets unbearable, but do not always manage it. Occasionally, we oversleep and I must admit both Roy and I seem  to be sleeping a great deal more than normal, presumably due to the long term affect of this high heat, that we have now had for at least 2, if not 3, months. Not to mention, of course, the hard physical labour that picking up plums, then carrying them home and then whizzing them up takes out of Roy.

 

Finally, Alex told me what to buy for Callum's 17th birthday. He tried to say that I do not have to buy anything, considering the size of the sum I sent not too long ago to put into Callum's university fund. I told him, that on that basis I shouldn't send a birthday present for him for years, which is silly.  I love that gorgeous lovely young man so much, that I would never do that. And anyway, that money was for his future, and to take advantage of a scheme for the Canadian government doubling it before the end of the year. Finally, we agreed that I should send him an Amazon voucher, which I did. It went yesterday to his mother's e-mail address and hopefully he should spend it on something nice for himself. His birthday is not until the 14th, so I am looking forward to talking to him that day or sometime during the weekend.

Plums, just as in Johan's garden - yum, yum!!!

Returning to Johan's garden, we initially had some problems getting in through the gate, because the two parts of the gate seemed to be stopping  from opening, but Roy worked out a simple method, by which if you move the gate towards yourself, rather than pushing it in, it opens with no hassle. We also noticed that he must have left in a hurry, as he left the trailer lock unsecure on top of the trailer, so we moved it into the workshop, and today we spotted that he had two rugs on the terrace railings airing, so we rolled them up and put them in the workshop too. One great discovery today was the tree that has some enormous plums which are too good to put in the cefre, so I now know where it is and will pick them when they are ripe.

Remnants of the cockpit, back in 1988

The weekend was spent by resting, which I think we needed and because the heat outside was getting  ridiculously high. I found a short series on Netflix about the Lockerbie air accident some 40 years ago, and watched all 6 episodes in one go. It was fascinating to see the basic truth and the beautiful and lovely people of Lockerbie, who did a lot for all the victims' families in their free time and for no reimbursement. I always loved the Scots, but after this, I love them even more.

And on Monday I had a a really annoying event, which got me into tears of frustration at times, and into  a righteous fury at other times. My stubbornness came in very useful, quoting the famous sentence of : "Don't let the bastards grind you down!" I usually do everything online, if it is available. It is a great deal simpler, that either phoning or using the post or going to anywhere to sort stuff. So, it was time to renew Roy's driving licence and having got within 90 days of the date when it runs out, I had a go. Needless to say that a system that worked like a dream for the last 15 years has been updated. OK, I appreciate, that there is such a big likelihood of fraud nowadays that they have to be strict with identifying you, making sure that there isn't any fraud committed in your name, but what it still so bloody annoying, is that new software never works 100%, and this must have changed very recently. 

The dreaded new system. Brrrrrr!!!

I had to re-register into a different system, then had to provide what seemed like an endless stream of verification of this, that and the other, including taking selfies of Roy, as well as sending a variety of documents photographed with your telephone. This is really a pain, because Roy refuses to have a smart phone, so it had to be done on mine. Anyway, I will not bore you all with the ins and outs of this process, but something that used to take about 15 to 20 minutes ended up as a full 2 hours. Partly because the system was so slow at times that I thought it was crashing, partly because when it stalled and got stuck at a particular stage, there was no way of getting out of it or returning to start again. For god's sake, try to employ some outfit that knows how to write these bits of important software, and then TEST THE DAMN THING UNTIL IT WORKS PERFECTLY!! Do not use the unfortunate users as guinea pigs, please!!!

I am happy to report that eventually I did complete a valid application for renewal, I even have a confirmation to this effect, so hopefully it should arrive in 2 or 3 weeks. What still worries me, however, is that while I read the warning about each applicant having to have a separate e-mail address, and that is no problem, because we both have our own, and while there was no other warning like that about telephone numbers, I am wondering that when I have to go through this next year for mine, will it take my telephone number for the process? I hope so, or I'll be stuck.

Our lovely pickled onions

Another brilliant success this week was preparing several large jars of pickled onions for Christmas. I have a very old cookery book, which proved very successful with recipes, so I worked from that. The problem is that you cannot get mace nowadays, so we just grated a bit of nutmeg instead. Had to soak the onions in very hot very salty water twice, which took up some time, as you had to wait for them to cool down before repeating the process. Ultimately, we ended up with 1very large, 1 large and 3 medium size jars and are hoping that they will taste as good as the last batch did, some 6 or 7 years ago.

One of my beautiful white roses

 

Must finish now. Roy is upstairs on his desktop computer, I am downstairs on my laptop and I feel like a nap now. Next post is due next Wednesday, as usual, when the plan is that we should still be in Bér. On the other hand, you never know what could crop up, in which case we will be back in town.

 

Outstation Hash in Balatonalmádi, bit of caching en route there and back, 2 days of geocaching with Pisti and Johan has gone home, but his address card arrived just before

Preparing a big fire in the BBQ pit in the Outstation Hash

This week had two major events in it. One was the Outstation Hash in Balatonalmádi, the other my two day's geocaching with Pisti in the Visegrád Mountains. Both were absolutely great with a few unpleasant features, although none of those spoilt either.

The Sár river looking a bit neglected

After we said good bye to Johan last Wednesday, we journeyed to BP to pack and leave for Balatonalmádi on Friday. Our list of caches was not particularly long, but they were all fun, especially in the Sahara type heat that has had, and still has, Hungary in its grip. The first cache was a moving one, which amazingly was still there. I was originally thinking of not taking it, but eventually we decided to take it, so that we can place it somewhere in Nógrád. The other cache was a biking multi, which took me along some nice countryside in the vicinity of Velence Lake. That was really nice too, and we had our sandwiches near its third point.

Paprika Smiley's hash coat

Paprika Smiley and friends by the table

After all that we arrived in our B&B in Szentkirályszabadja, which is a nice little village near Almádi. The owner of the place knows us, so he trusted us to stay there while he was away on holiday. I later transferred the cost of our stay to him by BACS, and we had a good time in our usual room. On Friday we met up with Hulk, Paprika Smiley and a few others and PS's house in Almádi. It was an interesting bunch of people, but the fact that the food had not arrived until about 10 pm, didn't please me much. Luckily, I had a reasonable night's sleep, even after some food that late.

The cauldron with the gulyás

On Saturday, most of the crowd and others went on a 10 km desert walk aka a hash run, along the Balaton from  Fűzfő to Almádi, which Roy and I missed. In temperatures of near 40 deg C, I didn't feel like suffering for nothing. So, we offered that we will look after the cauldron, which had the traditional gulyás bubbling in it for dinner. They were supposed to get back by 4 pm, but they were an hour or so late and when they arrived most of them looked like death.

Group photo at the Almádi Hash weekend

Prior to that Nata and Colin arrived with quite a few friends and we had a good chat with them as well. The party had about 24 participants, there was beer, pálinka and eventually the food appeared too. We had a good time, although both Roy and I decided that this was the first and last Outstation Hash we would attend, as neither of us had real gelled with Paprika Smiley. The funny thing was that the second night I had a dreadful sleep, even though the meal appeared 2 hours earlier than the night before. The cause must have been the ingredients in it, most probably containing fats that my tummy disagreed with.

The circle at the end of the hash run

On Sunday we left the B&B by 7 am, collected two more caches en route and were at home in the flat in BP by 9:30 am. The caches were in the vicinity of Tác: the first was a 3-parter biking multi, which was actually quite nice. The only trouble with it was that the river was nowhere as nice in reality as it looked on the cache page online. The other one was a new one for Gorsium, a large set of Roman ruins very close to the other cache's points. The rest of Sunday and the whole of Monday was then spent with trying to get over the trials and tribulations of our weekend and getting ready for my two days of hiking and caching with my new friend, Pisti.

Pisti on the caching hike

Day one of our hike in the Visegrád Mountains, was a walk along the Rám-ravine, a 3-parter multi cache, that I have been wanting to do for years and something always stopping me. Including last November, when I organised a GCWALK along this and a neighbouring multi, and then caught flu just before it happened and had to miss it. It was quite interesting and even more exhausting in the high 30's centigrades, which arrived weeks ago and still didn't want to leave.

The view from the Rezső lookout terrace

Pisti proved a great companion on the hikes. He is nice, chatty and friendly, looked after me and enjoyed it himself. He luckily survived the heat wave a lot better than I did, but I must admit, even I started to adjust to this tropical climate, which seems the new normal in the summer. The second day we hiked along a neighbouring route, which took us to some amazing rocks, some very steep and slippery. Towards the end of the second day Pisti went ahead at one point where he had a cache that I have already got, but he hasn't. It was amazingly exact, as I only arrived 4 minutes before him at the agreed meeting place. Even though the second day was a bit longer than the first one, we arrived in very good time at the bus stop to make our way home.

View down over the forest to the Danube

This part of the mountains around the Danube Bend is magnificent, both in terms of challenging routes and panoramic views. I did take a lot of photos and while the heat was getting worse and worse, survived both days with good grace. Pisti enjoyed it too and it looks like we will take caching trips together in the future, whenever we can.

Pisti and I on the Rezső lookout terrace

 

One interesting event arrived while we were on the top of a high ridge and thankfully had good reception. My phone rang and it was the post lady from Bér, letting me know that she had a registered letter for Johan, but can't get his attention from the gate, which was locked. Johan had not got a bell yet, so I promised her that I ring him and he would come out. He did, and amazingly got the address card attached inside the letter that arrived. That was supposed to only come after 2 or 3 weeks, and took only one week to turn up. Bloody good job it did, because Johan told me that he was leaving tonight to get home to Holland.

A memorial pole in the forest

I am so glad that just before he left he got all the documents and cards he needed, so he can come back any time when he can, no need to worry about these any more. Tomorrow morning we will go back to the village and the hard work of gathering the fallen plums from the ground will start again. Johan was kind enough to gather another two buckets full of his plums for us, so it looks like we will not have to buy any plums from the orchard to fill all our barrels, or possibly only a small amount.

Remnants of an old provostry in Dömös

Next post on Wednesday as usual. Hopefully, we will still be in Bér then. 

Plums pickup, Johan's ID card and upcoming events

Last Thursday was the last day of our short recovery stay in BP, then on Friday we left for Bér. The only thing happening on Thursday was a return of the discussion group with Márkó and Levi, but it was a bit disjointed because none of us was particularly well prepared. Finally, we agreed that we are going to read the next three sections in Alan's Bolshevism book, as well as discuss the podcast about why we don't criticise Putin. No date yet, because Márkó is supposed to come up with dates, as he is the one that works odd shifts and we have to fit in with him.

My pink  beauties in the courtyard

Our trip down to Bér was pretty eventless, we left fairly early, went and shopped for food in Tesco and arrived home just after 11 am. The rest of the week was dominated by two main activities:  1. helping our good friend Johan, who is still in a great deal of need for assistance and we are trying to help him; 2. picking up fallen plums for the pálinka mash. Both are extremely exhausting, Johan's affairs mostly because fighting the insane Hungarian bureaucracy is not one of my favourite activities and picking fallen fruit is absolutely killing my back. 

Just a few fallen plums under one of the trees

On the day of our arrival we picked over 50 kilos of the stuff, mostly the large yellow plums, but there were some traditional blue ones as well. I don't think the harvest will be as prolific as last year's, but it is still good for somewhere between 2 and 3 barrels, the rest will have to be bought in from our usual orchard in Galgaguta.  Since then we realised that in spite of the drought, the miniature plums that we inherited from the previous owner have also plumped up and were worth picking up. Not in every year do we bother with them, only when they look to have some juice in them. Unfortunately, the beautiful, large and very tasty Beszterce plums have all dried still on the tree. They are hardly dropping, but even when they do it is not worth picking them. 

The beautiful rose in the courtyard

Johan has also offered that we can pick plums from his garden, so on Saturday I went over and picked a good bucketful of his fruit. Afterwards I dead headed my roses in the courtyard and one of the deep reds looked every so pretty. On top of all this activity, I am also trying to sort an event that we have decided to take part in at the last minute. My hashing group regularly organises an  away hash and gathering in and around Balatonalmádi, based by Incredible Hulk (aka David) and Paprika Smiley, both of whom have houses in the town. We have not yet taken part, but I haven't seen David for a while, and also still have some caches in the area to get, so we decided to go.

Our terrace in the Red Cat B&B

We were very lucky with our usual B&B, because in spite of being on holiday that week, he offered that he will arrange it with his staff to let us in. I have forgotten to ask how to pay him, but I can always ring him later about that. The Hash run starts in Balatonfűzfő and ends at Paprika Smiley's house in the centre of Almádi. There will be two beer stops and one for pálinka. Even ice cream might be possible, so unless the weather is too hot, I might join them and Roy can hang around in a pub or restaurant or even in PS's house at the same time. If the weather is too far above 30 deg C, I will join Roy, as I am incapable to cope with heat of that magnitude.

The approximate route of the Hash on 1st August

We will go down on the Friday, try to find and log a few geocaches en route, then go to the B&B and end up with meeting Hulk, Haggis and Paprika Smiley. Other paperwork and computer work included the incredible frustration of dealing with the National Directorate for Alien Policing in Balassagyarmat. Johan bought a long house in the village and I have helped him so far with the Electricity, Gas and Water Authorities to transfer the ownership and therefore the responsibility for paying the bills for those services. However, this fancy sounding "Authority" is another type of animal. I have to admit that they have improved a great deal from the old days, the place is now full of university graduates, quite polite and civilised staff, while the common and garden variety of copper, especially in the countryside, is still a nice bloke.

The Balassagyarmat OIF building 

The downside, however, is that most of them are still very much of the old Prussian culture of being a "job's worth", following the book to the last stupid letter.  Johan wanted to apply for an ID card, which is for EU citizens in other EU countries. All those years ago when Roy had one, the application was about 10 minutes and one short form. Now it is dreadfully complicated and occasionally impossible. We both tried to register to get an appointment in Balassagyarmat, but couldn't. The compulsory verification e-mail with the security code would not arrive. Neither on Johann's e-mail, nor on mine. We went anyway, hoping that there will be an empty half hour somewhere in the schedule, so that we could be taken. Met with a really nice, polite, knowledgeable and helpful young woman, who told me all the nitty gritty of what Johan would need to apply, but let us know that appointments can only be applied for on line in the central system. I explained that it would not send us the code, so we couldn't apply, and that there is no point turning up, because they are usually fully booked and cannot do anything about that.

The booking system that does not work

On returning home, I tried to find any other telephone numbers and finally arrived at one called Call Centre. I tried that and talked with a lovely young man this time, who was also very polite and helpful. He assured me that it wasn't me who  was doing anything wrong, it is a glitch in the system, which has been around for months and unfortunately, they still have not worked out what is the cause of it. So poor old Johan is stuck. I know there are bureaucracies in the world which are just as insane as the one in Hungary, but I cannot imagine that any other country would have a service centre that would insist that you have to book an appointment on line and then have a system that is faulty and they can't repair. Or if they have one like that, they would not be flexible enough to make an exception for those that fall victim to the glitch in THEIR system. 

A bowlful of nice traditional blue plums

The plum picking is going on and so is the watering of the trees. This is the first time since we lived here that we have to water them. I am dreading the water bill, but what can we do? As soon as I saw the completely dried up beautiful Beszterce plums I knew that we need to water them until at least all the plums have dropped. My two little three year old Japanese Flowering Cherry and the Bronze Maple trees are getting some water too. They really need it, because their root system is still young and especially the Maple is struggling in the drought. 

Johan enjoying his chicken and chips

The one good thing about our disastrous Monday was that at the end of it we went to the Stone Bridge restaurant in Héhalom for lunch, which was much enjoyed by all three of us. This time it was Roy's treat, and Johan did say that he will have to go there again. As it happens, he is taking us there again for lunch tomorrow, to say good  bye before we leave for the Balaton and before he leaves on Sunday. It is his treat this time, but the venue is the same.

Laci's successful booking on the screen

And after all this I had a stubborn attempt at doing something about poor Johan's problem. The woman at the office in Balassagyarmat told me both in person on Monday and on the phone later, that I should get a friend to try to book a slot for Wednesday. At the time I was too angry to register it, but later I thought I might try it. I rang Heni, but she was too busy, so I tried Laci Nemesházi and he was willing. And then the website collapsed. I thought there is a curse on this whole thing, but I still kept trying and once it was back I quickly rang Laci and he managed it. Good job that he had the quickness of mind to take a screenshot of the successful booking of the appointment, because the actually promised confirmation e-mail had never arrived.

Laci's e-mail about no confirmation e-mail

So this morning we got going again. The appointment was for 8:30 am and we were there by 8:15. Not a soul anywhere, but eventually the women in the office turned up and we handed over all the papers. She took them and about 20 minutes later turned up again saying that we have not brought 3 months of Johan's bank statement printed out. I was very close to screaming at her, but realising that that would not facilitate a friendly solution I asked why she didn't tell me on Monday? She kept changing the subject, like any true bureaucrat would do when he/she knows that it was their fault. Anyway, the little copper in the corner was very sweet and helpful and described the route to a print and stationary shop where Johan could send the required pages attached to an e-mail and she would print them for 100 forints a page.

The lovely printing shop in Balassagyarmat

We left and found the place closed. It wasn't quite 9 am yet, so we were hoping that she was just a bit late. And she did turn up about 5 minutes later. She was really lovely, helped us, we sorted the e-mail and in 10 minutes we were in the possession of all those pages on paper. On our return to the office, the woman who was dealing with Johan's papers kept coming up with new things he had to write down and or declare and or fill out. What was supposed to be about a half hour appointment, turned out to be 2 and half hours. Finally, it was done, Johan had his registration card and a promise of his address card arriving in 2-3 weeks by post.

Johan with pork, mushrooms and chips

My God, how I needed to be out of there after this. Johan had a headache, I was totally zombified and couldn't even sleep in the car en route home. We got home for midday, then, after a short rest, went back to the Stone Bridge for lunch at Johan's invitation and had fillet of pork with mushroom sauce and potatoes. A  cucumber salad and a cabbage salad made it perfect. I couldn't eat all of mine, so about a third of it came home with me for tomorrow's lunch. 

"Fabogár" where Johan couldn't buy his presents

Johan wanted to go over to Pásztó to the wooden memorabilia shop to buy some presents, but unfortunately it was closed. Once there, we tried to think of some other jobs, like builders' merchants, but while we found one open, they didn't have what he needed. Once he owned up needing stuff for a lime wash and some iron grills to put into cement, Roy mentioned that he had some from a couple of years ago and was gladly parting with it to help him. So, this is a very short version of this extremely busy week, which, of course, hasn't finished yet. We are off to BP tomorrow and to the Balaton on Friday for a party and some caching. Post can be expected from me next Wednesday, provided I am still on this planet and am compos mentis.