Three concerts, a rediscovered restaurant, a Hash and a new tractor

On Friday we travelled in for the start of my classical music marathon.  I actually had tickets to 4 concerts in just over 24 hours.  Unfortunately 2 of them clashed, so we went to the Palace of the Arts to listen to Brahms's 1st and 2nd symphonies and gave a friend the other tickets.

Ivan Fischer, principal conductor and director of the BFO

Kristóf Baráti and Klara Würtz

The Budapest Festival Orchestra is always a delight, but this time they were especially good. Brahms's 3rd and 4th symphonies were on last September and I had tickets then as well.  This time I went with Bozsa and we both enjoyed it tremendously. We had tickets quite far from each other, but there was an empty seat right next to me, so she came and sat with me in the second half.


On Saturday we had two concerts, one in the morning and the other in the evening - both with Kristóf Baráti and Klara Würtz, who were playing all 10 of Beethoven's violin/piano sonatas.  We missed 4 on Friday night, but saw (and heard) the other six in two instalments.  They were superb as ever and even entertained us with a small round table chat after the evening performance. They are such brilliant performers and such lovely, approachable people with both feet firmly on the ground.  I love them!!

Roy, a piece of steak stuffed with mushroom, cheese and onions, plus a couple of great potato cakes.

The Kehli Restaurant

 Between the two concerts we went to fetch some T-shirts and decided to revisit a really lovely restaurant in the area which we discovered about 3 years ago and then never visited again.  It was still as nice as we remembered it, the food and service excellent, good value for money and a real, oldy worldy atmosphere. The weather was so good that we sat in the courtyard garden and enjoyed the warmth under the trees.

Rabies, Baldric and Tititata

On Sunday it was time to join the Hash again, before that we put in an hour or so at a rubbish clearing campaign in the old Jewish cemetery.  We know the place well, although we have not been for about 2 years and in that time the caretakers have changed and some clearance work had been done on the overgrown old part of the cemetery.  We picked rubbish until it was to leave and join the Hash.

Hulk, Rabies, Baldric and Tititata round the table at the Kehli

Hulk was live haring again and he did put  some interesting rock climbing bits into the route.  Haggis, who had to be somewhere by 2pm gave up the rocks a third of the way up, but the 4 of us (the three in the photo and me) persevered.  The views were spectacular in several places and the circle hilarious.  We even had a complete stranger giggling her head off at our songs and then asking if she could video us.  We said yes and I am now dreading us turning up on You Tube singing silly hash songs. We retired to the Kehli, which meant twice in 24 hours for us, but a new experience for most of the others.

Roy on his new acquisition

And then on Monday, after some shopping for food and a few other bits and bobs we got back to the village. The new little tractor mower, which was delivered just before we went into town last week, now got its first run up and down the garden.  Initially it went really well, but after about half an hour it refused to budge. Obviously some transmission problem, we thought and rang the guy we bought it from. After I described what's going on, he diagnosed a displaced drive belt.  At 6am the following morning he appeared like clockwork and fixed it. We used his presence to order a rear mulcher which will cost another 75 quid, but as the collector is rather heavy to empty all the time, we thought that would be better.

Today we had the insurance man call, as we had to buy travel insurance for our trips this summer, then we went through our house insurances (4 of them) and adjusted the cover and the cost.  One of them especially must have had some administrative cock-up, because after revision the cost came down by £100.

And the last good thing to come out of this week was that even Roy started preparing for our trip to Montenegro and Albania via Bosnia. I managed to get hold of my ethnic Hungarian Serb friend and we are staying at their place on the first night. It will be nice to see them and then spend three leisurely days pootling down towards Dubrovnik, where we'll pick up Ian and Ruth and then turn South towards our goal.  No further posts until after we are back sometime around 4th or 5th June.

The hashers' weekend and a full day of geocaching

It turned out that all the hashers were planning to arrive on Friday night.  The final count was 9, so there was going to be 10 hashers and Roy. I got up nice and early and spent about 3 hours putting out the markers for the route. I planned to take them up near the andesite, then going behind the mountain, which I have never done before, then push them up to the top of the andesite from the back for a view point and home from there. The weather was very humid and I was quite wet by the time I got home.

A gorgeous forest flower I found on Friday

Round the table on Friday night

In the evening we all had Roy's veg soup and opened a few bottles of our home made lecso and added some kolbasz and/or hard boiled eggs. The booze was flowing rather freely and while I have retired just after midnight, many more (including Roy) stayed up until 2am or even 3am.

Haggis on Saturday morning

On Saturday morning some of us (like Haggis) were up nice and early looking very pretty and eager to go.  Others, on the other hand, looked like death not even warmed up. Still, after a nice big breakfast, most were ready to be off by 10.45am. We moved the hash run to Saturday, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but looking at Hulk's general state I was beginning to have my doubts.

Limbering up before running off

Needless to say the run divided into two clear groups, that of the runners and the walkers.  One of the runners asked me if there were any false trails and I answered no. Unfortunately, I misunderstood the question and they took this to mean that one marker was enough to carry on. I have never been to a hash where one was enough for the right trail, but apparently it can be done like that, so confusion rained for quite a while before I cottoned onto the con.

On the steep hoof up to the andesite

Once we got to the back of the mountain most of them found the way up to the look out point which was very popular again. The view from up there is magnificent and I didn't realise that out of the 9 of them only 4 had been up there before. 4 out of the 5 that have never seen the columns had left us on the top and went investigating them. While they were discovering all this we had a rest (like the Hulk), some of us were taking pictures (like me) and the rest investigated the fauna and flora of the rocks.

Wild pansies in the shelter of the rocks

A gloriously colourful lizard posing for a photo

Panoramic group photo on the top of the rocks

Hulk is slow to recover from the night before

Baldrick under the andesite columns

Baldrick and Tititata having a rest by the boulderfield

The hoof down the mountain back home was slow, but at least nobody could get lost. As us walkers got home the faster walkers and/or runners were waiting for us by the back gate.

Hulk, Sex Tax and Tititata on the grass

The circle went off without a hitch. While Hulk was agitating for being allowed to take part in the circle in a supine position he was made to get vertical, which did him no end of good. Not least enabling him to partake of more beer - you know, hair of the dog and all that!! At the end NFHN Judit had her naming and henceforth is known as Twin Cheeks.

The newly named Twin Cheeks

Rabies with the roast pork

In the evening everybody partook of Roy's lovely roast pork dinner with every conceivable trimming known to man and woman.  There was even rhubarb crumble made from our own rhubarb to follow.


On Sunday morning Colin expressed his wish to see around the village which could have been due to him being really interested in our little village or perhaps his unwillingness to undertake another long hike. Either way we had a really lovely time with pootling along to the war memorial, followed by walking up to the church where there was a service in progress, so we scarpered quick.  Walked up to the cemetery and then back to the church, where the service has finished by then. We were shown round the church by András Sulyán, Chairman of the Churchwardens, who also happens to be my electrician. A brave, but small group had even undertaken climbing up into the church spire right to the bells.

Tititata in the belfry

We also went up to the row of old wine cellars, finding that this time we failed to dodge the cross country bike race which was on all weekend. And while their noise and pollution was not particularly welcome, we managed to take a few good action photos of the occasion.

Competitor no.686 crossing our path

And finally we ended up at Mill Court, the lovely new development at the top end of the village for lunch. Mr and Mrs Bánfi, the new owners welcomed us with lovely food and good hospitality. The restaurant is not yet fully open, but we were treated with great kindness and enthusiasm.  Anna explained that her brother and cousin will be managing the restaurant from next spring and then they will be open all the time.

Roy and Feri with the old key to the Mill

Roy presented the old Mill key mounted on a piece of wood to Feri, which he was very pleased to receive.  This key was on a junk heap when we once visited the Mill being restored and Sex Tax rescued it for posterity.  Roy mounted it and this was an excellent opportunity to make the presentation.  Especially that Sex Tax was present as well.

Owner and chef, Anna, in deep conversation with Colin outside the restaurant

On Monday the house was eerily quiet. I went into town, saw Sex Tax and his flat which is now beginning to look really gorgeous. He brought another vanful of furniture, two Laura Ashley settees, various small pieces and a beautiful old long case clock. He also showed me a very old Hungary map, which he had framed and which I perused for ages.  I love maps, I must admit!!

Gizi on the trail

On Tuesday I had an appointment with my homeopath, followed by  a fantastic geocaching day with Gizi, my new caching friend. I drove North out of town and we did 7 caches, although as I have already had one of them I could only log 6.  We had a wide variety of caches, ranging from the drive in with 10 metres to the cache from the car park, to one which was straight up through a jungle or not so straight up, but relentlessly uphill for an hour through overgrown thick forest.  The weather was hot, but we found them all and took some lovely photos. I have included a few pictures below:

Gizi and me on top of the first hill

An old geodesic tower deep in the forest

An XVIII. century bell tower

A new wooden bridge across a stream

XVIII. century chateau, currently operating as a school

A XVIII. century manor house nicely restored

Two funerals, Alan's visit and some expensive plans.

Don't panic, no family deaths, but both are sad, even though I didn't know one of them. The first to die (some time ago apparently) was a geocacher, who was the partner of a lovely lady I am planning to team up to do some caching with. As the weather cheered up I rang her to see if she felt like going out together in search of some caches, but she told me that the funeral will be on Wednesday and would I ring after tha please. We, of course, had Alan arriving on Thursday, so I haven't rang her yet, but will do this week. On the other hand, the other old man that left us all of a sudden was a good friend we both liked and whose house we stayed in all those years ago while the bunkhouse and the other buildings were being renovated. He had a fall and died as a result of an operation he was having.  His funeral was also on Wednesday, but we were not told and I am a bit upset at missing it. I will have to go and offer my condolences to his widow later on today, but I feel really dreadful at not having paid our respects last week.  The system in these parts does not involve invitations and somehow the village telegraph did not get as far as our door.

The old apple tree in the back in full blossom

Alan on a steep mountainside

And then Alan arrived on Thursday. We took him to the village first where the weather was OK, if not unduly sunny, On Friday, which was a public holiday, I took him off on a hike in our own nearby hills, but over different ground from before.  We managed to go through a really steep bit, which I didn't realise at the time was a harbinger of what was to come the following day.

Our houses from way above the village

On Saturday we departed quite early to go orienteering and while the weather didn't look very promising we happily pootled off into the mountains to the East of us.  The higher we got the darker it got and the rain started even before we went out into the forest.  I offered Alan the chance of giving it a miss, but he bravely insisted that having come this far, he might as well try orienteering for the first time. Our courses were the same length, but he had a lot more climb than I did. His course showed some singular lack of knowledge of the rules of course planning and ended up a great deal harder than it should have been. As beginners' courses have no set start time I went with him to the Start, spent a few minutes explaining a few things on the map for him and off he went.  My start was about 20 minutes after that and I got round in what I thought was a slow pootle, but was back in 36 minutes. The event itself was over three days and as we only attended one of those days my result was not going to count overall, but I was pleased to note that on the day I have beaten all the other girls in my age class and won. Alan took somewhat longer, but when he turned up he looked wet but very happy. Considering that he had never tried it before, considering that the course was far too difficult for a total beginner, not to mention the steep, muddy, rocky terrain and the pouring rain, I think he deserves a medal for just getting round, for not giving up and finishing with a smile on his face.

The Edenkert Inn and Restaurant

As the weather was not particularly better even later we left and motored slowly but surely towards town.  We stopped en  route at our friends' restaurant, the Edenkert, by route 21 and had a really lovely lunch, after which I did the driving so as Roy could have a pint or two. I knew that it has been a while since we saw our restaurant owning friend, but never realised that it was so long ago we last visited him and his establishment that he had broken up with his wife and divorced her in the meantime. Such is life, isn't it?

Looking up from the courtyard in one of the blocks

We got back to town so early that Alan and myself even had the energy to spend an hour and half walking about, tracing some interesting buildings in the vicinity of the flat which were mentioned in a lovely little book I bought some years back on the recommendation of another of our regular visitors. Unfortunately, nowadays every block of flats has a locked security door/gate, so we could only get inside on a few occasions when somebody either went in or came out. Some offered up some amazing beauty, mostly of the wrought iron variety, but the atmosphere in these old blocks is usually quite unique, even when  they are dilapidated, never mind when they are renovated and look great.

A 1930's block with interesting curved balconies

On Sunday I took Alan to meet my hashing crowd which was always a tricky proposition, because you never know who is turning up and what exactly is going to happen.  When I hashed in Sussex, that group consisted entirely of runners and you could be fairly sure of the difficulty level, length and terrain of the runs. This group, on the other hand, has runners (some fast some not so much) and walkers, and I was really hoping that some of my best friends, who are mostly walkers, would turn up and keep me and Alan company.  Needless to say that didn't happen.  Quite the contrary, we had some Canadian visitors, amongst them a super fit young man, so the group very quickly separated into, fast runners and slow walkers.  After about an hour and several kilometres we got to a place where we couldn't find the markers any more, my knee started hurting and looking at Alan's face he didn't look as if he was enjoying himself much either. A marvellous stroke of fate provided an extremely useful tram stop just a few yards away, so we scarpered. Jumped on the tram followed by the underground, from which I went home and Alan went to the Historical Museum to study the country's medieval history, or so he said.  As it happens, he spent a good two and a half hours there and read through the entire exhibit, bringing him almost completely up to date. He was very polite in voicing only mild criticism of the probably outrageous right wing bias of how they interpret our history nowadays, or am I the prejudiced one to think so? Who knows?

The Hash crowd before setting off

While on the underground it occurred to me that Roy was expecting a phone call from me with the information of where we all went to dinner, so that he could join us.  Normally, that is what usually happens, but having abandoned the hash run I was on my own and he had to be satisfied just with my company at the Jelen, which is our absolute favourite restaurant at the moment and where he had a giant burger I had a large bowl of glass noodles with veg and prawns.  That was delicious and quite hot.

János Balázs

Félix Lajkó

In the evening Alan and I went to a really interesting, if peculiar, concert.  János Balázs and Félix Lajkó were playing improvised pieces together. The jury is still out for me whether I really enjoyed it or not. It was very skillful and one has to admire these two guys' ability to improvise for well over an hour in complete harmony, playing technically hard, sometime virtuoso music, but in the first few pieces I felt there was not enough variety, and later they seemed to tire.  Interestingly, the encores had more life in them than the improvised pieces, perhaps because those were not truly improvised and thus they played with more assurance and elan. I am glad I went, but I am not sure if this is totally my cup of tea.

The Branta Birding Lodge in Bulgaria

On Monday we took Alan to the airport and ourselves carried on driving to get back to the village. It is a great shame he can never come for longer than 4-5 days. I can't wait for the days when he retires and will have more time to spend with us.  In the meantime, hopefully he will come again next year and there might even be a bird watching trip to the Black Sea together this autumn if we can organise it. I have a really lovely FB friend who has a birdwatching lodge a couple of hours South of Varna by the Black Sea and as long as I have someone come with me I would love to go.

McCullogh tractor mower

And finally, just to fill you in on the not entirely definite, but very likely expensive acquisitions we are planning this year.  The one that is reasonably urgent is a tractor mower as we are getting far too old for mowing 2/3 of an acre with a push/pull mower.  The guy who does occasionally come to do the mowing is not always around and is costing money, so we might as well take the plunge now. We are looking at a machine in the £1200-£1300 range and I'll post about it if and when it happens.  The other thing is not particularly urgent, although it might be. The little car is getting towards its 7th birthday in a couple of months and we started looking around for a replacement before it starts getting to that "expensive parts need replacing" stage. The fiance of one of my very good friends drives a Dacia Duster which I have always liked the look of. But as there are a hell of a lot more considerations in the purchase of a vehicle than looks we started investigating its price, its variety of options and, of course, we asked him.  He was very pleased with his, he said, he'd had it for nearly 3 years and had nothing but pleasure from it.  That's good news, I thought, so we are beginning to investigate trade in values too, in order to see if we'll trade the SX4 in or keep it as a good quality second car.  We might do that, but it all depends on what they offer for it and whether it carries on being a good girl or not.  So watch this space and we'll put you in the picture should anything happen in the car purchase line.

Dacia Duster

This week we are preparing for more visitors as the hashers are coming at the weekend. Some are arriving on Friday, some on Saturday. We are probably going out for a hike on Saturday with Roy preparing a roast for dinner, followed by a rhubarb crumble. Sunday is the hash run (I am hare), followed by a lunch out at the Mill Court, which we have just found out accepts guests provided they pre-book. How many are coming, when, how and what they want to eat on Sunday (if anything) is still to be decided.  Knowing the predictable trait of unpredictability in the hash, God only knows!

Dentist (final), flowers, tomatoes (planted), a hike and a death

Last Tuesday at the dentist proved to be the last visit and while it took her some pulling and shoving to remove the teeth, even though they were only fixed with a temporary adhesive, once she fixed them with permanent adhesive all was well. I think we will stick with this lady dentist as she was very thorough, careful and attentive and even though Roy needed an extra £140 worth of temporary set of teeth while his gums were healing, it altogether only cost £810 for the upper set.  We'll see her in 6 months and then she can advise about the lower set.  I reckon Roy should carry on with the lower set as it is, until it becomes uncomfortable and she seemed to agree with me when I last mentioned it.  We'll see!

Nice mixed coloured box of geraniums

On Wednesday we journeyed down to the village via Tesco and a few garden centres.  We bought a good few geranium plants which needed immediate planting, but we put it off until Thursday as we were both rather exhausted from the shopping and travelling.

Lovely red geranium

On Thursday we planted the geraniums in several window boxes and the yard started to look quite pretty. While gardening we had to keep our eye and ears peeled for the post and the bell as we were expecting the burglar alarm man and a delivery of a new contract for my phone. Both arrived, I signed the contract which the delivery person took away with her and the burglar alarm man took less than half an hour to replace the battery in the central unit which fixed the problem with the Farmhouse alarm system.  We also commissioned him to purchase new sensors for the Bunkhouse alarm system, which got into a habit of going off randomly, much to the chagrin of the village population.  Especially when doing so at night!! That'll cost about £75, but hopefully then we can turn that one on again as well without falling out of bed most night for no good reason.  The last few months we lived without alarms, (one turned off, the other not working at all) which we didn't advertise, but we didn't feel too safe all the same.

Sturdy little tomato plant

On Friday I took Nelly to Hatvan, where we started at the weekly produce market, followed by Lidl and Tesco. I bought lots of lovely fruit and veg. plus a good few more geranium plants.  I also bought some tomato plants which the lady who sold them to me swore that were tough enough to risk late early morning frost.  She suggested that I don't buy peppers yet as they are much more sensitive than the tomatoes.  On our return we planted all those as well as the parsley seeds. Nelly gave me one of her dill seed packets, but those have not yet been planted as I can't decide where to put them.  They do grow rather tall, so I will have to think about them.

Andor looking superior

Lunch break on the hike

Forest flower

Lovely sylvan setting on the hike

A wood carving in a garden

Andor and his daughter Dora eating pasta

The view of the other side of the valley

The view from the top of the back garden

Saturday I jumped into the car and travelled to town and out through the other end to the West of the city to join a large group of friends (about 20) on a memorial hike for an old member of the group who died about this time of year 13 years ago.  Apparently they do this hike every year in her memory, but for me this was the first time I joined them for it. It wasn't very long, about 7km, and afterwards we went to the house of one of the couples for sour bean soup and pasta with curd and bacon bits.  It was very seriously delicious and the company enjoyable.  We even had good weather, so it was great.  Everybody asked after Roy, who decided to stay at home, supervising the last bits of building works around the garden.

Camilo Cahis

Today the weather broke, which I am sure I am responsible for by watering the garden last night. We also had some really bad news today: Camilo, a Canadian friend, who was Alex's close friend and co-worker died on Saturday by taking his own life.  He had been struggling with depression for years, but it came as a shock as he showed no deterioration in his condition recently. He was only 33 and while it is a tragedy in and of itself, it was also traumatic for Alex who discovered him and is now dealing with the fallout, making arrangements (his family are abroad) as well as trying to cope with the work all on his own. I know the saying goes that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but I am still worrying about him from afar.

Hopefully the rest of the week will be more cheerful.  We are off to town on Thursday as Alan is arriving for a long weekend. He'll spend one day in the village, then another day orienteering with us, followed by a day in town, going on a hike in the hills with an international group in the morning and attending a concert with me in the evening before going home on the Monday.  It should be fun, I hope!!