Day 5 of the Olympics

Fantastic day today. I managed to watch some of the Olympics and 2 out of my 3 countries have got some gold medals today. Britain had 2 golds: Helen Glover and Heather Stanning won the women's pair in rowing and Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins claimed Britain's second gold by winning the men's cycling time trial. To cap it all Hungary not only had a gold, but a World Record as well when Daniel Gyurta won the 200m breast stroke in fine style. The current standing of the medals is: Great Britain 2golds 3silver 4bronze 9 in total; Hungary 2golds 1silver 1bronze 4 in total; Canada no golds 1silver 5bronze 6 in total.

Wiggo was absolutely amazing, such a nice man with a gorgeous attitude. He went and talked to his fans, rather than chat with the sponsors and bigwigs after winning the Tour de France and in Hampton Court he searched out his family and talked to the fans, rather than be fawned over by the press and other sycophants. I love the man.

Daniel Gyurta is only 23, but he won his final in emphatic style. Such a nice young man this one too. Answering the question about how this World Record and Olympic gold will change him, he said, perhaps his trophy cabinet will get a bit fuller, but that's about it. Ahhhhh!! I also like the two women winning the rowing, both of which are in the Army and are due to return to Afghanistan some time. Their humility and common sense approach was refreshing. I don't always enjoy highly competitive sport, but today I most certainly did. Now all I want is Canada to put in some brilliant performances, so I can cheer them on as well!!

Plums, storms, nightlights and Elian

Just a very quick note before breakfast. We have been in the village since I have last posted and life just pootles on in its inevitable rustic way. We had Juci come and do some cleaning on Friday: she did the Farmhouse and all but the kitchen in the Kottage. The Kottage kitchen is still awaiting my attention, but since then the weather has been so atrocious that I hardly stirred outdoors.

After long weeks of high, tropical heat stormy weather (as seen on photo) had arrived all over the country. We thankfully didn't have hail stones, like some areas, but it chucked it down intermittently for the last three days. Last night's storm was the most impressive - I heard some people mention on the radio that water was coming through their walls and all round their window frames. Frightening!

The plum season is in its full swing and this picture is just a small bowlful of what we are having in large quantities. Interestingly, the dark blue plums suffered from the drought and shrivelled up before getting to any size, but these yellow ones are plentiful. Having said that, they are not enough to fill 4 barrels for the palinka, so we asked around just in case somebody had fruit they didn't want in the village. And we found one!! Our plumber's grandparents have passed on 3 years ago and they still haven't managed to sell their house and garden. To cut a long story short, we have spent 2 exhausting hours yesterday picking up tons of their plums (mostly blue ones), so we now have 1 and half barrels full. Hopefully, from the rest of ours and theirs we should fill our 4 barrels.

Now, is there anybody out there who has some inkling what this picture is of? Well, Lyle might! It is one of his lovely, practical presents that he gave Roy on our last visit to Canada. Every single one is a gem, very useful and we are using them as and when we need them. The only one that is permanently fixed is this clever LED night light, which is now, as you can see is installed just above the approach to the front door and is excellent. Thanks Lyle! The reason why I thought of photographing it is because it came to my attention last night while we were securing the house prior to the storm arriving, to be followed by no computers, no TV and prepared candles just in case the power goes. Amazingly, it didn't. I say amazingly, because this village is prone to electricity outages at monotonously regular intervals for no good or discernible reason. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised if then at the one occasion it could be explained it functions perfectly. Mind you, it did have a few little wobbles, but survived the storm thankfully.

Finally, the latest picture of new grandson and heir, copied from Facebook. Previously I had a chat with Emily, Lucy's sister, on the topic of Elian's habit of sleeping most of the time. She commented that when she was on baby watch (like the other night) he seemed awake most of the time. One of the reasons, one supposes, must have been what is written on this bib. Ahhhhhh!!

Dinner party/weekend O/geocaching

The dinner party with our Dutch neighbours went really well. As we have been mostly based in the village lately, the food was running out. Roy started digging in the freezer and realised that somewhere in the back there was a big chunk from a leg of pork, which would roast well. So we ended up with a beautiful roast dinner of pork, potatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, carrots and Brussels sprouts. The latter went down especially well with Noud, who seemed to gobble it up like there was no tomorrow. He obviously liked it and I feel, probably, did not get enough of it at home! :-) Brussels sprouts that is. I ate everything except the meat and was so stuffed by the end that I couldn't move. They brought us a nice plum pie and we fixed up a fruit salad out of our own bottled peaches and pears, plus some fresh apples and red currants which were a present from Nelly. Roy put a little palinka in the fruit salad, I threw in a handful of our own walnuts and squeezed a large heap of whipped cream on top for those that wanted it. I even tasted both sweet courses, which was naughty of me, but they were delicious. All of this was washed down with a couple of bottles of good quality red wine, so the guests didn't want to go home, even though they were leaving the following morning.

On Thursday evening we left for town, followed by a leisurely pootle down to Bakonybel for the first event of the Pannon O-days in the Bakony mountains. I have looked up the details of several geocaches en route and even the weather was kind to us. We started with a long forgotten, small ruin of a wayside watch tower from the Turkish days (16th-17th centuries) which was very easy, but it amazed me that how many times I have driven right past it without noticing it. The raison d'etre of geocaching was definitely realised in walking the 200 yeards to discover it en route to the cache.

The next one was also not too far from the road amongst some gentle bare hills where people have been placing names and messages formed from white stones on the ground. We couldn't park near the cache, so I had a bit of a walk, but the view was very pretty and the weather pleasant. Even Roy got out of the car and followed me with the Tom Tom in his hand, although I met him on my way back.

The third cache took us up a steep hill along the stages of the cross and the view from there was pretty nice too. The actual cache was down a cliff face amongst the vegetation and for once I chickened out and read the password on the back of one of the big crosses at the top. The time was getting on and we thought that we would do probably only another 2 or three before heading to our rented little village house and then to the event. As it happened the God of geocaching decided otherwise.

It was a three part cache in memory of three miners who were taken to their deaths for their beliefs in WW2. We found the first one not far from the car park on an electricity pole. To be actually correct, Roy found it. The second one was about half a mile away in a tree, just behind the statue of a martyred miner. That was great too. In that we were given a set of co-ordinates where the actual box was to be found further up the valley in the forest. The walk was really beautiful, along the route the miners must have tread all those years ago. We walked past a sylvan chapel with a big cross, but then trouble struck. The canopy was too thick, my old GPS started cutting out. Finally it gave up due to insufficient signal strength. The Tom Tom, that thankfully we brought with us from the car, still had a signal and with the help of that we found the quoted beech tree, but no cache. Like two truffling pigs we were practically on all fours, digging up the forest floor to no avail. We had to give it up, thinking that either it was gone or we were in the wrong place. Since then I looked on the web site and somebody found it the day after we were there, so it is likely to be the latter. :-(

So we finally arrived at the event with only a short time to go due to the delay at the last cache, so I had to change quickly and tear off to the start. The first day was on a weird little hillside, full of tussocks, long grass, humps and hollows plus rather thorny bushes and undergrowth. The map was 1:4000 scale, which caused me some befuddlement at first, but it was an excellent and very accurate map, so I got used to it quickly. This, of course, did not stop me doing lots of very weird route choices, but I did manage to beat everyone, albeit the French lady in second place was less than 2 minutes behind me. Day 2 and 3 were up a mountain forest half an hour away, but before that we had to take possession of our renovated little peasant house. We loved it. It was stylish, quite modern and comfortable, but with respect for its age and country style. Excellent wood work, lovely brick flooring, barn doors and lots of things that Roy enjoyed too. In the meantime Roy made friends with a New Zealander and that definitely made the weekend for him. He is the nicest, most patient guy on the planet, but too much foreign yacking will either put him to sleep or get him fed up after a while. With Michael from NZ he had someone he enjoyed chatting with and so did I. He is over for the Mountainbike World Champs next month and doing a few multi day events in the meantime. At the end of the weekend we invited him to visit us in the village, I hope he can make it, as he seems lovely company.

Days 2 and 3 were fascinating. I am not fit enough for so much climb and such rough terrain under foot, but the good planning and technical nature of the courses (especially on Day 3) really made up for the huffing and puffing up hillsides and the head high stinging nettles and brashings in places. I loved it. I managed to be first every day and kept the field behind me in the chasing start on Day 3 too. There was, unfortunately one bit of the forest that seemed to have had a bad effect on me. See if you can work it out which bit! Not difficult, I made a big boo-boo on both Saturday and Sunday on it. Thankfully I had 6.45 minutes in hand on Sunday, so it didn't make any difference. I am now the proud owner of yet another gold medal, a lovely bottle of red wine and a book about the village where we were.

Now we're home, the garden is still lovely, the fruit on the trees is ripening, so much so that Roy had filled about a third of the first cefre barrel with yellow plums. If all goes well and our plans do not have to be changed we will be in the country for the next 5-6 weeks. Obviously there will be some orienteering in that and the occasional trip to Tesco's and to market, but I intend to enjoy the summer in peace for the next few weeks.

Agricultural report

I know I posted yesterday, but today we have done some very useful and at the same time fun things, so I must report it. The hint in the title would suggest that we have been working in the garden. True, but only partially. First of all we harvested our onions. Pratically all of them, with only one or two exceptions, had their upper bits wither into a yellow heap on the ground. So we thought that must mean that we have to pull them up. They looked gorgeous and we then started to think what to do with them. About this later!

Once these were harvested we set about picking up fallen fruit, initially apples and plums. This summer the start of the cefre season falls in mid-July, so the plums are going into the cefre barrel to be rotten down for palinka, the apples for a bit of apple sauce to go with the roast pork dinner tomorrow evening with our Dutch friends. Yesterday when coming off the hill in the car we met 3 of our 4 Dutch friends walking up the hill towards Viragos. About 5 minutes later there was a downpour and they didn't look properly dressed for such an eventuality, so I fear they all got soaked. We'll find out tomorrow evening if they did!

We have also spotted a couple of other parts of the garden which has come on by leaps and bounds in the last week. First of all the two tomato plants that Roy grew from seed have produced some nice looking fruit. They look like plum tomatoes, but I am not sure, because these are a bit peculiarly shaped, even for plum tomatoes. Anybody knows what exactly they are?

And finally, the grapes amazed us. These are nothing special: they were given to us by a good friend in the village who had passed on since, but we love looking at them and remember him. They are very nice tasting, but because they are the basic grape onto which the varieties are grafted, the bunches are quite small and full of pips. On the other hand, this year they are looking larger and more numerous than ever before, so perhaps they like the overly hot weather and thrive in it. As we only got them to provide shade over the Bunkhouse patio, eating them is a bonus anyway, but spitting out the pips tends to get a bit tedious after a while.

And then finally finally, let us return to the "What to do with the onions?" question. Roy went to the shelf, grabbed the old Mrs. Beeton's type cookery book for a recipe on pickling onions. He really misses his pickled onions nowadays, so we decided to pickle the small ones. We had to soak them in salty water twice and then spice the vinegar a bit and bottle them like that. The recipe never said how long they have to stand in the vinegar before you can eat them, but we'll find out later, no doubt. And here endeth the agricultural report. It was fun and hopefully we will be able to eat and/or drink the results later.

The girlie weekend

First of all the weekend did have two guys around for a while and one (Roy) all the time, but it was still primarily a girlie thing. The short term male (so to speak!!) was Andor who turned up on Friday around 11am by bike to stay until the following morning. At least once every summer he does this, as he is a fit old geezer and 85kms out and the same back the following day is nothing to him. Also, he wanted to see us in Ber where he hadn't been for a while and as this Friday was the best for him, he was given dispensation for being a man.

On Friday afternoon, before the girls came, Andor and I went up to the mill to have a look around and were very lucky to run into the owner, dr. Banfi who showed us around and enthused about his plans for the entire project. They are getting on with it pretty well and the opening date is now set for 26th July 2014, St. Anne's day. Recently they started on the fitness suite/games room, which will be housed in a hexagonal building further down the hill from the B&B/restaurant. Since my last visit they have also finished the upstairs of the inside in the mill, started fitting out the two guesthouses and worked on the dams and depth of the stream. Unfortunately, up at Viragos the owner had renovated the spring that fed the stream and not having consulted any experts on how to do it had managed to cut off the water. According to dr. Banfi the matter is in hand. Kowing his personality and position in the world, I have no doubt the problem will be fixed.

Three of the girls: Klari, Jutka and Kati arrived around 6pm, while Bozsa who had to work until 6pm rolled in at 9.30-ish. We all had a good meal together and retired reasonably early. Before that I got a few nice birthday presents: a DVD, bottles of wine and a couple of speakers from the girls. Andor didn't know it was my birthday, but still brought me some lovely blueberries. On Saturday we said good-bye to Andor as he rode off; breakfast was agreed for 8am, followed by a look around the "estate" and a visit to the mill. Just as we walked towards the gate we saw dr. Banfi driving up. He let us in and showed us around (this time only for a short time), but it was really lucky that I could introduce him to my friends. They liked him and the mill development, hoping to come and visit it once it is finished.

Lunch was paprika potatoes with sausage, which was devoured with gusto. The weather got very hot and humid again, so we put off the walk up to the andesite columns until later. In the meantime we listened to some gorgeous classical music from CD's that Klari brought and from my collection. The weekend turned out to have a baroque bent, as most of the composers we fancied listening to were from that period. Finally we got going to the andesite around 5pm, still in hot and humid conditions. I decided to walk up from the back, as that is quite gradual, if somewhat overgrown. Kati managed it, albeit slowly and when we got to the top the view was magnificent as always. Another great thing also happened: the wind got up and blown away the humidity. From then on we all loved it even more, even on the dodgy, rocky, unstable downhill below the cliff. At the foot of the mountain we met Istvan, the Lutheran pastor from the village who was out walking his dogs. I told him that I have not seen him for ages (which was true), and he invited us to the service on Sunday. Being an atheist I wasn't going and neither was Jutka, but the other three went and had a nice time listening to Istvan and the old little organ.

Saturday night was another early one, although the girls were chatting till late, I was told on Sunday. I slept like a "shot bear" to use one of Andor's expressions. The hike to and from the andesite is not long: about 5-6km at the most, but the rocky, steep ground in places, plus the overgrown paths took it out of us. My knees were aching from the descent. On Sunday after breakfast Klari, Bozsa and Kati went to Church and Jutka and I joined them later as they were coming out. They loved the service and even the sound of the little old organ, although some of its registers didn't work, Klari said. The pastor was very happy to see them and welcomed them to his congregation. Afterwards we went for a walk along the row of old cellars and got lucky again. Just as we passed dr. Banfi's back garden he came out and offered us a view of his cellar with a taste of some of his wine. We didn't say no and had a very pleasant hour sipping champagne and chatting to him about his life, his job and his children.

We got home around midday, had another classical music session, followed by a delicious bean soup cooked by our resident, voluntary cook, Jutka again. The last program of the weekend was a drive up to the top of the hill above the village, about a mile away, where there is a hotel and other interesting developments. We found the owner in there as well and he showed us round his little empire, presented us with a card and some palinka at the end. Some of the adornments in and around the manor house/hotel was not necessarily to everybody's liking, but it was still a fascinating experience. Not to mention the palinka, which was first class. We had the Alexander pear one this time, it was delicious. All in all the weekend was fantastic. I loved the girls' company and I think they had a good time too. We might make these weekends regular, say 4 times a year with one in every season. We also had amazing luck in always running into the owners of places and the pastor, so a warm welcome, a guide, several presents and a well organised tour was had by all. I know I missed my vocation by not going into tourism and hospitality, but this weekend, with its variety of activities and places to see came together completely by fluke. Still, how does that saying go: you make your own luck!

First full week at home

The heatwave continues. Every day is over 30C and most early afternoon is near 40C. Consequently from about 9am to about 7pm we hide indoors. Initially jet lag still laid us low, then the heat and finally we had to do some work outdoors, although we tried to confine it to the early and late hours.

These were some of my roses that survived so far, due to the care and attention they got from Attila and Irenke. Finally we managed to get ourselves into some sort of a shape to pack and leave for town again on Thursday as we were leaving early on Friday morning for a trip down South to visit Robert and Volker as well as do some O and Geocaching over the weekend.

Andor arrived in good time in the morning, so we managed to leave at 8am in reasonable temperatures. Roy missed the exit to get on Route 7, but this gave us a chance to discover a new way round future traffic jams and get to the 7 just as easily as before. We used a good few of our well known ways round places where there are too many traffic lights, or speed restrictions and/or speed traps, so it was still within reasonable temperatures that we got to the site of the first geocache. This was a glorious chateau (see picture!)whose progress we have followed over several years now and we found that the outer renovations have been finished. Unfortunately there is no more money for the inside, but at least it looks gorgeous from the outside. As for the cache, we were relying on Andor's GPS and I don't think he has ever updated the info on it, so the co-ordinates he gave me got us to the site of the old box, which - as we found out since - had disappeared a year ago. Mysteriously though, we found it on the ground and then were surprised later that the system did not accept the password. I have sorted it with the cache owner since, so no bother, but I must impress on Andor to update his GPS information in future. We then moved towards Siofok, where we were going to three caches: one just before on a hill near some vineyards, one in the wall of the locks on the canal that drains the Balaton and finally by a fantastic modern church designed by Imre Makovecz, world famous for his rustic, wood built churches with amazing decorations. This one was no exception, I loved it.

We even managed to fit in a trip to a free beach on the South side and have a dip before arriving at the orienteering in Keszthely. The event started at 6pm and my start was about a half an hour later. The organising club is noted for its enthusiasm, but not its efficiency and I'm sorry to say the latter was much in evidence. The start was a bit late and generally things were a bit hectic. Still, the maps and the courses were fine, and as far as I'm concerned that's what matters. I won the first day, although the field was not exactly challenging as opposition goes. Still, I managed my sprint course quite fast in spite of the temperature that was still well over 30 degrees Celsius at the time.

We had dinner en route to Robert's place when the skies opened. There was a spectacular thunderstorm over the lake and it lasted about an hour. Good job we were under cover and ordered food. I had an almighty enormous pike-perch straight out of the lake. It nearly beat me, I was truly struggling by the end not to waste any of it. The following morning we tore off to Day 2 of the event where the heat was even worse than the previous day and I had 155m of climb on my 2100m course. I felt a bit rough en route to the Start, but perked up on the course and had a really good run. Mind you, that is a relative statement, as I did over 20 minute km's, but it was still the best time. The prize was a lovely bottle of local wine and I got another gold medal after my win at the Night Champs a month before.

In the evening we had a scrumptious dinner cooked for us by Volker: the meat eaters had chicken and pork which they assured me was delicious and I (and them) had a lovely vegetable + feta mixture of a myriad of veg and spices, which was also delicious indeed. We went for a late night swim in the lake and generally had a good time. Roy, unfortunately, faded out, mostly due to dehydration and the heat, but the rest of us were up late. We had breakfast together in the morning, after another swim in the lake and then Andor and I went geocaching. Roy came with us, but was only doing the driving. We got three caches: two church ruins and a lookout tower. At the latter the description of the cache's location was "amongst the stones". When we saw that the entire forest was covered in stones and rocks, we were none too pleased. I found it eventually, but caches like that annoy the hell out of me, I must say.

We returned to Robert's to say goodbye and were soon on our way home. Robert and Volker are always enjoyable company and their hospitality is fantastic. They also have a cute little dog, Oscar, whom I love dearly, although you can never tell, whether you get a wagged tail or a gruff growl from him.

We dropped Andor off at his flat and were indoors by 5.30pm.