No let up, things keep coming!!

The day after my last post I went to hand back the Holter belt at the hospital and took a few hours out for a little trip while they were checking it and producing the diagnosis. As the border is a few miles up the road I decided to go to Fülek to get a geocache and look around there.  Unfortunately I was too early for the castle and while I did wait for it to open at 10am, by 10.15 there was no sign of anyone, so I decamped back to my doctor.

Fülek Castle

Surprise, surprise!! The belt found nothing untoward with my heart.  This is now the third time that happened, but this time (due to my cardiologist being a sweetie) I was promised that should the  arrhythmia return any time, I can ring him and he'll rustle up a belt at short notice, so I might wear it while the arrhythmia is still happening. We'll see!

At the Fenyves

On Wednesday we went out for lunch with Sheila, as it was her last day, and had a lovely lunch at the Fenyves Inn in Szurdokpüspöki. The weather was really crazy, one minute wall to wall brilliant sunshine, not a cloud in the sky, the next a massive downpour drowning everything. Luckily we were already at the restaurant when the skies opened, but on our return home we had to sit in the car for about 5 minutes for the shower to subside before we could get into the house.

Macbeth

On Thursday we took Sheila directly to the airport which happened with no hassle, no jams or any other problems on the roads. We had a quick bite at a nearby Tesco's and then deposited her at the airport. The care of disabled people, provision of wheelchair and helpers has improved considerably since 2 years ago, but it is still nowhere near perfect.  Still, it is a step in the right direction, so let us hope the next time it will be perfect. We managed to get to the flat in no time at all as I was due for a performance of Verdi's Macbeth in the Opera House. Something weird happened while there. 1. I was totally on my own, neither Bozsa, Andor or Kati turned up. 2. half way through the interval I felt so unwell that I had to go outside for air. By the time I started getting a bit better they wouldn't let me back in as the second part had started, so I went home. To be honest, that was the best solution, as in the calm of our cool flat I soon recovered.  I think it was the lack of oxygen that got to me. No air conditioning to speak of, a full house and sitting just under the ceiling in the gods, just got to me this time.  It is a shame, as the performance was excellent and I love Verdi.  Such is life!

The  cake

The kiss

On Friday we went for the full diagnosis and recommendations for Roy's check-up which started with a big cock-up. I failed to notice a change of address for the doctor in the confirmation e-mail and we went to the wrong place.  Thankfully, it wasn't far to the other place, but we were rather flustered once we got there.  The news was OK, nothing serious was found. The recommendations included further investigation of his kidney function and a few X-rays.  We have started those and will hopefully get the all clear after a few weeks.

The vows

Saturday dawned beautiful and we were keeping all things crossable crossed for the weather on the day of Bozsa and Árpi's wedding. Évi and Klári turned up on time, but Jutka (what's new?) was late, so she didn't get her promised shower, we just bundled her into the car and off we went.  We were amongst the first to arrive, even though it took us a bit to find the hall. The ceremony went off with no mishaps, although I found out later, that the happy couple was late because Glenn, their border collie managed to roll in something rather smelly just before they were to set off. A quick bath for the canine delayed them a bit, but by not much.

The ring

Bozsa looked like a dream, Árpi was his usual cheeky self, they looked very much in love and ecstatically happy, so it was a brilliant event.  Back at the house we had champagne, savouries, then the wedding cake(s), followed by wine, soft drinks and strawberries. I wished them lots of happiness and I don't think I have ever meant it more than I did this time. If there is a couple on this planet who deserve to be happy, it's those two!!

What a waste of good Champagne!

On Sunday I decided against the hash, mostly because my cold was back with a vengeance. The really good news of Sunday was Lewis Hamilton's first win of the season in Monaco.  To be honest, I really didn't want to watch, as I get really depressed when he is not doing well.  Mostly, because it is very rarely his fault. If he is to blame, that is one thing, but continuous breakdowns of his car and other mishaps are really frustrating. However, this was a rainy Monaco GP, which is pretty rare and I cheered up as soon as I heard that fact.  Lewis is a real wizard in the rain, so I was hoping.  He was his usual super brilliant, this time helped by somebody else's misfortune, namely Ricciardo, whose mechanics failed to turn up with his tyres after calling him for a tyre change.  Poor Ricciardo, I really felt for him, but I was over the moon for Lewis.

Richard Branagh as Wallender

Television is slowing down for the summer, but I am still watching Wallander and Hinterland. There are similarities between the two, but I think Wallander is finishing, while I hope they will carry on with Hinterland.  Still, nowadays the most successful things can still be scrapped on a whim, so who knows?

Richard Harrington in Hinterland

After coming into town because of Sheila's departure, we had to stay not only because of the doctor's appointment and the wedding, but a couple of performances for me at the beginning of the following week.  During the day, however, the weather got so hot, that it was tempting to stay indoors.  Still, I decided that we should go somewhere at least once, and eventually we did that twice, once on Monday and again on Tuesday.

The watchtower from 1844

Monday's trip was to the outskirsts of the city by public transport to pick up a couple of geocaches and then have lunch somewhere. District X. is now a sea of housing estates, but nearly 200 years ago it was orchards and vineyards.  The good folk who hated poachers nicking their fruit, built a lovely little watchtower to catch them from in 1844, which still stands to this day.  Cache no. 1 was near that.  The second one was a few more stops down on the same bus route by a pretty little lake surrounded by a park.  The lake was once a clay pit, which filled with rainwater after the brickworks have shut. The cache had two parts, one on a lamppost, and the other by a memorial to the brickworks.  Roy especially liked the latter, which was nicely done.  At the very end we got caught by a quick fierce shower, but otherwise the trip was very successful.  We returned to the Jelen for lunch, which was delicious as usual.

Lovely old stamped bricks in the Brickworks memorial

On Tuesday I decided that we were going for a hike in the Buda Hills. There are still quite a few caches up there that I haven't got, so I planned a circuit of about 5km and suggested that Roy takes notice of his doctor's advice with regard to losing weight by taking some exercise and come with me.  Amazingly he agreed. The weather was a bit hot, but the route took us into the woods, so it wasn't too bad. Once we got off the bus no.21 at its terminus in the forest we started down on an old, probably ex-military road with potholes and slowly disappearing tarmac on.  At the end of that there was a very mysterious large building behind tall trees, guards and dogs and I remembered that the map said that once there was a small airfield there.  A couple of dogs barked and one guy told us that the area was private.  We quickly turned left on an ancient looking metalled forest road and scarpered. Not more than 5 minutes later we heard the noise of a helicopter, which landed in the grounds of the big house and then took off again. It either brought or fetched someone, obviously.  I wonder who that was.

An old communist era watchtower early on our hike

The first cache was called Buda's Switzerland.  Unfortunately, the view was not out of the ordinary, although quite pretty in its vicinity, I presume that was because the trees have grown up over the years as well as the environmental restrictions meant that the cache had to be placed within a few meters of the road. Neither of us felt energetic enough for climbing rocks, so we said good bye to the view and proceeded to the second cache. After some ups and down (some of them quite steep!) we found it under a rock near the top of a small mountain. By then we were not far from the same bus stop where we started, so after a couple of hours of pleasant ambling we were back on the bus.

The view from our first  cache

An old boundary post near the 2nd cache

Lunch was taken at Normafa, up in the hills where there always had been a hikers' rest type restaurant, but nowadays it had gone upmarket both in quality and price.  I don't mind the latter, provided the former also applies. Roy had chicken in a lemony sauce with Duchesse potatoes; I had pike perch with a delicious potato and onion salad. All was helped down by some Slovenian beer. We were at home by 3pm, so I could have a rest before departing for a concert in the Music Academy. My beloved Kristóf Baráti was playing violin/piano sonatas with Richard Goode from the States.  Mozart, Brahms, Janacek and Beethoven were on the program and all of them, but especially the last one, were superb. I had a very good seat this time, but I was on my own, which is often the price I pay, as very few of my friends can afford the dearer prices.

A smiley Kristof Barati

A pensive Richard Goode

Tonight I have an opera performance of The Tempest, which is something totally new to me and I hope I'll like it. I not only don't know Thomas Adès, but have never heard of him before. The opera had its premiere in Covent Garden in 2004 and had been performed in many places, the last time in Vienna last year. It should be sung in English, I presume, but we'll see!!

Must go now. We'll return to the country tomorrow sometime, so I'll post from there next.

The saga of the last three weeks

The first week after my last post was a bit more relaxing than the two before it, but we were still busy. Once back in the village the garden became the main focus.  The grass had to be cut again, weeding had to be done and watering occasionally.  The weather stayed quite good, interspersed with the occasional shower.

Roses, peas and herbs with new path between them

The peas were growing nicely, the herb garden was looking gorgeous and even one or two parsley plants have survived the winter.  Unfortunately, I forgot to buy parsley seeds when we were shopping, so planting those had to wait until I can got the seeds the following week.

I also returned to the transcription of the Szirák birth registers between 1895 and 1900, so that occupied my time quite a lot that week.  When faced with a problem I tried to ring Bocsor Laci, but he was never on Skype.  That was suspicious, as he seems to live online, so I had to ring Csaba in Berlin to tell me what was going on.  Apparently, while I was not in touch with Laci, there was a palace coup and Laci is no longer in charge of transcriptions. Csaba gave me his new Skype address and that of a young guy who is now the font of all knowledge on transcriptions. I rang him and while he seems a bit less manic than Laci, he is also exactly the type that seems to be de rigeur in MACSE, i.e. obsessional and heavy going. I thought that nobody could outdo the length of a phone call with Laci, but this new guy Tamás is worse.  Well, never mind! I will make sure I only ring him as a last resort.  I also spoke to Laci, who seems a bit down, due to having been sidelined, but at least the effect of that was a 5 minute phone call, which was great!

Alexei Volodin

On Thursday I went to town for my concert and the way of travelling was great.  Instead of leaving on the last direct bus, which leaves at 9.05 in the morning, I went at 5 to 4 in the afternoon and changed in Héhalom. The service was absolutely brilliant, it was on time, I hardly had to wait to change and the coach that arrived from Buják was big, comfortable and of a temperature that was bearable, unlike the normal one from Bér. As its route included the motorway, the change to the trolleybus was straightforward and I was in the flat by 6pm.  Brilliant! I will do this again.  The concert was great too. Alexei Volodin is a real virtuoso, but with a sensitivity and insight into the pieces he played that made the experience extraordinary. Bozsa and I enjoyed it tremendusly and hope that he will return in the future to delight us some more.

The only downside of the week was a strange bug that I must have caught either in the East or just on any part of the public transport system where people seem to cough and sneeze with gay abandon. It gave me horrendous headaches, a nasty cough, loose bowels and recently an inflamed left breast.  As it wouldn't shift, I was debating whether to leave for town early and go to the clinic with it, or persevere and hope it settled down. This was really weird as I have never had one of these, but the internet seemed not too panic stricken about it, so I am hanging on. It even occurred to me that it could be connected to my accident nearly two months ago, but I hoped it wasn't.

Richard Osman and Paul Merton in HIGNFY

TV has cheered me up that week, though, as Have I Got News for You is back and the idea of the rotating chair is great. So far my favourite is Henning Wehl, a German comedian, whose dead pan face, silly smile and fast and very witty oneliners got me giggling till my side hurt. Hinterland is back as well. God, are all Welsh people this brooding and sad? Still, I watch it as the stories are quite interesting and the acting is good.

On the American front, May is, of course, the month when all series end.  We have had a good few last episodes already, but the big sensation is the ending of The Good Wife. The creators of the series said the following: "The ending is supposed to be unsettling. But we don't think characters need to avoid tragedy to be embraced. We were tempted to have Alicia chase after a man in the end—stop him from getting on a train or an airplane at the last minute, hold him, kiss him. We like those endings. But there was something false about it here. It isn't who Alicia is. In the end, the story of Alicia isn't about who she'll be with; it's about who she'll be." I totally agree and I sort of liked the ending and would definitely have hated it all mushy, as that is not Alicia. On the other hand, they could have at least given us a hint about the direction she might take.  It seemed a bit as a non-ending.  I will miss her, but just as in NCIS where Michael Wetherley is already in a new series, probably created just for him, I'm sure Julianna Margulies is going to be back in no time at all.

Julianna Margulies and Josh Charles in Series 2.

The above paragraphs were written about 2 weeks ago and then forgotten. My cold and my busy schedule just completely discombubulated my brain, so it was only recently that I have discovered that nothing has been posted on the blog for 3 weeks. In 8 and half years a gap this big has never happened before.  Life is throwing a treble whammy at us at the moment: 1.) we are insanely busy; 2.) we are getting too old to multitask and therefore can't cope with half the stuff we need/want to do; and 3.) we are both a bit below par physically at the moment, so prone to be just too exhausted and forgetful. Moan over, here's a telegraphic version of the last 2 weeks.

The concert on Thursday, as I mentioned above, was magical. Volodin is a wizard, we both loved his performance. The following few days in Ber were dedicated to the garden again (when it didn't rain) and cleaning/tidying the house for Sheila's arrival.  One Monday, however, the sun shone so beatifully that we decided to go for a hike/geocaching trip to the Matra.  Amazingly Roy has not only driven me there, but actually hiked with me most of the way. The rocks at the end got the better of him, but he spent a good time sitting and dozing on a rock ledge waiting for me, while I climbed to the top and got the two geocaches.

Roy on the hike in the Matra

The following Tuesday had a phenomenal concert back at the Music Academy. Baráti/Várdai/Várjon were on the bill and Bozsa and I simply melted into our seats, it was that good. Impromptu chamber music groups are usually superb, as the members are soloists, but happy to co-operate and do so at a very high level.  We heard some of the best played trio pieces ever and went home in seventh heaven.

That week was full of theatrical entertainment for us and Wednesday had Edward Albee's Who's  Afraid of Virgina Woolf? in it.  Great performance from the Central Theatre by the Opera House and both Jutka and I thought that small theatre worth patronising in the future.

Barati-Vardai-Varjon trio

On Thursday Sheila was arriving, but I had a ballet to see at the Opera, so Roy went out to the airport to fetch her. The ballet was based on Shakespeare's (400's anniversary year!!) The Taming of the Shrew, with László Seregi's choreography and Karl Goldmark's music. I never thought I would like it, but I did. It was probably the best ballet I saw since Les Sylphide a couple of years ago.

Sheila was at home by the time I got back from the Opera, it was so nice to see her again, as she hasn't been for a couple of years. Last year we went to see her in Cornwall, which was also great. On Friday we all journeyed down to the South of the country to stay in a B&B and the program consisted of orienteering, geocaching and bathing in thermal medicinal waters.  The latter never happened, as Roy and Sheila didn't fancy it, the orienteering was great, much enjoyed, but pretty exhausting, and the geocaching was successful as over the way down, while there and en route home we bagged 10 caches, so I was happy.

Sheila and Roy having cakes and drinks en route down

The B&B was very good. For £7.50 per person/night we had a large room with en suite bathroom and kitchenette in a lovely, quiet part of the town near the baths. The 'O' was very technical and both map and courses were first class. I didn't enter the last day, as that was to have long courses and anyway, in my present physical shape two days are plenty for me.

Day 1 Open course

Day 2 Open course

Once back in town, we did sort of towny things, amongst them trying out a new thermal baths, as we missed it down South.  It was a lot cheaper than the fancy ones and the water just as good.  I might carry on going there in future.  Sheila enjoyed it too, we had a good time.  On Wednesday night I finally saw "Diggerdrájver", the play created from the blog of a guy who moved to England from Hungary and while not an overly educated person, has such a brilliant style on his blog and so many intelligent, funny and quirky ideas, that somebody made a play out of it. I loved it.  He was so honest, but still full of emotion, observation about the life of an "economic migrant", that the topic was very current and enjoyable.

Epres Attila as Digger

On Thursday we went down to the village where just as she was getting out of the car, Sheila said: "I love this place!" That really warmed the cockles of my heart, as I do too. Since then we have been busy mowing the grass, planting parsley, watching TV and then on Friday night I went back into town for a couple of days due to a planned hike/geocaching trip which I didn't have the heart to cancel and attending the Hash after about 2 months.

A restored early medieaval crypt, site of our first cache

The caching hike was brilliant, if somewhat exhausting. The final distance and climb were 18km and 725m. We spent about an hour or more looking for one cache, which we had to give up on, but we did collect 6 caches, had good exercise and saw the spring forest in its amazing beauty. I had to promise the girls that I will never again plan one this long and hard, so there should be shorter ones coming up in future.

One of our glorious views on our hike

Our trek with the wiggle in the middle when we got lost

Cross section of our height and climb profile on the hike

On Sunday I went to half a Hash. How do you do that? Well, by abandoning it half way round. After Saturday's 18km's and with my cold still lingering, I was totally done in after about a couple of hours.  I think the live hare was heading for the top of the next mountain, and I just had to chicken out. As it happens, I was lucky: in about 1km down the road there was a bus sitting at its terminus, which then left 2 minutes later.  I got home pretty quick and nursed my aching muscles, joints and bones. I returned home on the last bus, which was so horrendously uncomfortable that I decided: NO MORE BUS TRIPS UNTIL LATE SEPTEMBER!!! They are usually clapped out, very old ones with no air conditioning and hardly any suspension. It was as good as a 2 hour sauna session, which I didn't need!!

The Hash crowd at the trail head

Today I went to the hospital to be fitted with the Holter belt I mentioned in the last post.  This takes a 24 hour continuous ECG, which I have to take back tomorrow morning for download and analysis.  I tried to tell my doctor that I have had these before and they were no use whatsoever, because my heart knows when it is being monitored and behaves like an angel. Well, he said we should try and see if we can glean anything from it, so I agreed to wear one for a day and a night. To make sure that it might be under duress, on the way home from the hospital I went to get the cache that I couldn't find last time, as I got going on the wrong path and couldn't cut across.  I did it today, it was dead easy, no probs.

I think I will have to stop here, if for no other reason but my head hitting the keyboard. I need a nap.  Taraaa everybody, speak to you next week! (perhaps!!)




PS: I had some complaints about some missing pictures, so I had to put them in. The chapel and the tank are both at the 1956 museum where we had a cache on the way home. The rose is definitely the first that has come out like this in 2016.

Little chapel at the 1956 museum in Kiskunmajsa

A T-55 Russian tank at the 1956 museum in Kiskunmajsa

The first full rose of 2016

An insanely busy fortnight

I think I left the last post off at having been to Arpi and Bozsa's house on the Saturday.  That really was a very nice day. On Sunday I went to the theatre with Jutka, this time to a modern take on Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. I enjoyed it, as the words were Shakespeare's with slight alterations at times, but always adding humour.

The wrought iron staircase rail in the clinic

Tuesday was Roy's checkup which took about 4 hours, during which they tested, examined, investigated and prodded him with kindness and efficiency.  The place was situated in an old posh villa and it really felt like a sanatorium with soft voices, permanent politeness and know how.  We have not yet seen the final results in writing, but the upshot was (thank goodness!!) that for his age he is great, although needs to lose weight and exercise more. What's new? Perhaps now that somebody else told him, he might do something about it. Since then his lab results came through attached to an e-mail and those are also pretty good for someone approaching 75. In a page and half there were only three results that were slightly off target.  His uric acid was a bit high (I knew that from his gout attacks), his good cholesterol was just slightly under the required level and another long code, which apparently has something with kidney function, was also a bit low.  Hopefully we will go and see the doctor, once the results are in writing, to interpret and explain it all and hopefully suggest treatments, medicines and/or activities to remedy anything that we might worry about.

Roy busy mowing

After all this we decided that we must pop down to the village to mow the grass and pick up our post. We chose to go by bus and as we caught the early one, we were there by 8.45am. We both worked on the garden: Roy using the tractor to mow the largest bit, I was using the push/pull petrol mower to do those bits that the tractor doesn't get to plus did a bit of weeding.  We watered everything in the evening and Roy even did a bit of strimming on the edges to finish it all off.  We went straight back to town the following morning on the 9.05am bus.

That evening I was due at a Kristóf Baráti concert where he was playing Mozart with the Mozarteum Orchestra from Salzburg, and it was absolutely heavenly. I was sitting in the last row of the gallery on the right which provided me with perfect view of Kristóf and the delightful conductor, who was also brilliant. All for the princely figure of £5.

Lunchtime on top of a big rockface

Saturday was the day of the Judi hike, which is walked every year on this Saturday in memory of the sister of a good friend near the anniversary of her death. Andor, her brother, planned the hike and in the 12km of pootle in gorgeous weather (the weather forecast was awful, but obviously wrong!!!) we went past glorious views and had good chats with friends we have not seen for a year.  The dinner of green bean soup and cottage cheese pasta went down very well indeed.  As we both used public transport we could drink as much as we felt like.

The weather turned awful on the Sunday (the forecast was obviously right, just with the wrong timescale!), so neither Ian nor I wanted to go to the Hash.  So we decided to have dinner together instead.  We took him to the Kiskakukk, which is a bit on the dear side, but that didn't bother any of us there. We went back to his place afterwards for coffee and had a good chat.

Grigory Sokolov

Monday was mostly spent packing and preparing the list of caches to get during our trip to Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county starting on Tuesday. But before that I went to a concert given by Grigory Sokolov, who was not only breathtakingly brilliant, but gave us 7 encores!!

Robi, Zsuzsi and Roy - my partners in crime

And then we left to slowly pootle down to Nyíregyháza, where we were staying in a small hotel for 4 days. Zsuzsi and Robi were to join us, but they were going to commute daily from Robi's mum's place about an hour's drive away.

The general idea of this trip was to go and see as many as we could manage of the dozens of medieaval painted churches which have been renovated recently with EU money.  These little churches were absolutely amazing. Practically none of them had towers, as after the ban was taken off Calvinists building churches, they still forbade them to build them with towers.  Later on, they all built belfries made of wood right next to the churches, but not being integral to the church building, as that was allowed.

The particularly picturesque church in Csaroda

The most attractive feature of these churches was the painting of the furniture, the pews, the galleries, the pulpit and especially of the ceiling.  In some cases, when they set about repairing the damage done by the 2001 big flood by the river Tisza, they ended up finding truly medieaval wall frescoes too. In the meantime I was also geocaching, as practically all the nice, interesting and unusual sights that we went to look at, somebody had already placed a cache nearby.

Robi at the door of the church in Csengersima

On Wednesday and Thursday Robi came with Zsuzsi, but he stayed behind on Friday. The first day was exclusively put aside for churches.  I think we went to see about a dozen, although not all were open and some even had the keyholders doing a bunk. Never mind! We took lots of lovely pictures of them on the  outside. On the second day we had not only churches, but mills, horse gins and a couple of museums.  The second museum was in an old synagogue. That was very good indeed and the building itself was almost the biggest attraction.

 The bell tower in Lónya

En route there I managed to collect a moving cache, which I placed near my first find there.  It was moved on almost immediately and then found by lots of other people too. On our last full day, I went and collected the same moving cache from a different part of Nyíregyháza and decided to return with it to Bér when leaving to go home. More about this later!

The Forgách Chateau in Tuzsér

We have seen so many glorious sights that it would take a post of about 10,000 words or more to do them justice.  Interestingly, if I had to one attraction visited in those 3 days, I would have to choose a chateau which had no cache near it. I vaguely remembered reading in one of Travellina's posts that she visited the Forgách Chateau in Tuzsér near the Ukrainian border in the extreme NE of the country and that it was a superb, if somewhat expensive renovation.  It now operates as a 5* hotel with 12 rooms/apartments, costing between £75 and £375 a night. As we arrived in front of a very expensive looking wrought iron gate, the security man told us that we can't even set foot inside the garden and could not take photographs either. We asked very nicely hoping to be let in, when I heard the noise of a car behind me.  It was a large Mercedes tank, out of which a guy stuck his head and asked the guards who we were. He said: Tourists. What do they want? - asked he again.  To go in and take photos from the garden.  That's OK he said, so we went in. I was just about getting my camera out when the security guard's phone went and he was told that he could guide us into the building where a young lady is waiting to show us around.  We were suitably flabbergasted, but found out that the guy in the Merc was the owner of the place and we were allowed in at his express permission.  How nice!!

A dining room in the cellar

Well, the place was. We saw the photos of what it looked like when he bought it. A complete ruin waiting to fall down altogether.  As we saw the most expensive apartment, the function room, the smoking room, then the cellar, then the Wellness Suite, followed by the garden, Roy mentioned that he could see the owner must love the place, or it could not be so perfect. That was the point when we found out that renovating chateaux is only his hobby, his real business is having 3 haulage companies. Aha, I thought, that would explain how he could find the 40% of 700,000,000 forints as the EU only financed 60%. Eventually we worked out that 280 million forints is only a tad over £700,000, which is the price of a not too expensive large(ish) house in the South of England.

The smoking room in the Forgách Chateau

On Friday Robi got frightened of a bit of rain, which finally never happened. Zsuzsi came alone and we did only one church, the rest were chateaux and museums. The museum in Kisvárda was especially interesting.  It was housed in the old synagogue of the town and it was in near perfect condition. The exhibitions inside were also quite lovely.  They showed the trades, craft, art and in general the life of the people in the area in the past. We had a really good time in there and even the cache was easy to get, because the lady at the cash desk took us outside to see the marble plaque on which there were the clues.

On arriving back to the hotel we said good-bye to Zsuzsi, sent our love to Robi and went to have dinner. We had an early night after gathering a few caches to get en route home. The trip back was delightful, the weather good and the three caches easy and interesting.  After some Tesco shopping we got home mid-afternoon.The grass needed cutting again, the garden looked like I never weeded it before and generally there was lots to do.  We also discovered that the Dutch were back, but upon meeting up with them it turned out that they were going home on Tuesday.  We managed to miss them almost completely by being away for this long.

The last of the three caches en route home was near here

I placed the moving cache by the Second World War memorial in the middle of Bér. I have just looked on the internet and somebody already found it at 5pm the same day, but didn't move it.  So it is still there. Today we went to visit my cardiologist, who was satisfied with my progress after a cardiac ultrasound. He wants me to wear a Holter belt for 24 hours, which will happen in about 3 weeks. On our way home I tried to find a cache without success, but I think I would find it now if I tried again, as I followed my route on Google Maps and now I know where I went wrong.  As it has not been found for almost a year, I think I will have a go next time I am in the area.

I have a concert on Thursday, so I will pop in to town just for that and come back on the early bus on Friday morning.  Let us hope Roy can be left alone just for one night without doing anything silly again. :-)

Tyres, boots, sandals, O, doctors, homeopaths, theatre and an art critic

This post will contain the happenings of 10 days, but enough happened in those days to fill several posts. On Thursday, 7th we travelled in to town via the garage where we bought the Duster, to have the wheels changed to the summer ones. Rather than just having two sets of tyres, we bought two sets of wheels, so the rubber doesn't have to be forced off twice a year. The garage stores our other set right through the year, so this makes it quicker and safer all round. The service is still pretty top notch there, let us hope that it continues in this vein!

In the evening I had a concert in the Music Academy, which was pretty good.  The pianist was the Austrian, Stefan Vladar and he played Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. I have never heard him play before and considering that he is from Vienna, that's quite surprising. I loved his style and hope to hear him again in the future.

Stefan Vladar

Friday started quite early as we had visits arranged to two museums.  The first was to the Military History Museum where a good friend and fellow orienteer, Ábel Hegedüs gave us a detailed talk on the history of Hungarian maps, starting in the mid 1700's all the way to almost the present. We looked at some amazing old maps (unfortunately not the originals, only copies), and managed to find Bér on most of them.

An old map from the 1930's

State Mapping Institute's map museum

The second part of the morning was about a km away, at the State Mapping Institute, where an exhibition went through very much the same period, but the two ladies telling us about the exhibited maps and other objects had a different angle.  Both of them had a connection to the place all their lives, through their parents' and their own careers. As in all countries, mapping had a military aspect, not only to start with, but up to this day. Unfortunately this place was very hot and stuffy, so after a while we were glad to leave.  Overall, it was an interesting morning, if somewhat tiring.

Afterwards we went for lunch in a nearby restaurant, which we have last been in with the hash crowd some months ago.  It was nice again, and with the nice warm sunny weather we should have sat outside, but nowadays all terraces around restaurants are full of smokers, so we had to be inside.

After lunch we went shopping which actually turned out to be extremely successful.  Our idea of a good shop is knowing exactly what you want, go to the right shop to get it, make a quick decision, pay for it and leave. Exactly in this manner we managed to buy a new pair of hiking boots for me, a pair of sandals for Roy, a nice new large tablecloth and 4 pairs of sheer socks for me to wear with my trousers. All this in about an hour and a bit, which was great!!

The palinka still at Czetis House in Szár

The weekend was spent helping at the yearly big event of my orienteering club.  We got allocated to Start 2, which was thankfully right next to Assembly and where only M/W10 and 12 plus W14 were starting from with the Open technical and Open beginners in the other lane along with the taped/accompanied M/W10s. Mostly there was just 3 of us, but when we had a rush on, we had more helpers for a short while and then at other times we were down to 2 or even 1, once the rush was over. The real bugbear of the weekend was the sudden drop in temperature accompanied by storm force winds.  Thankfully our tent was solidly built and survived without much trauma, but by Sunday afternoon we were all heading for pneumonia all round.  I have not been so thoroughly frozen through in the spring for years.  Good job I actually took lots of extra clothes, hats and long johns, otherwise I would have had to drive all the way home (just over an hour away) for more clothes.  We stayed overnight at some friends who lived a few hundred yards from Assembly, which was nice. On Saturday evening we went for dinner at a nearby village at the recommendation of our host. What we have discovered was a brilliant place where apart from having the restaurant they also make palinka.  The first sight upon entering is the massive, two vat still which unfortunately was not working at that moment. They told us that in the late spring/early summer they start with Morello cherries and then get through the season with pears, plums, grapes etc. until the following February. The food was quite good, although there was not much choice for me and they forgot Roy's pickles, but brought them quickly after we pointed it out. They also had a craft beer, which was really tasty and very reasonably priced. They are not the cheapest on the whole, but costs were still acceptable. I think we will be back when we are in the area.

On Monday, 11th we had a full program of events, but it all fitted together perfectly and was an enjoyable and productive day.  It started with a visit to my homeopath, who confirmed that my digestion is in a bit of a mess, which I have suspected for a while.  She changed my probiotics both in brand and dosage. I am now taking double for a week, then to go down to the normal dose. After that we made our way to the clinic where Roy saw a nice lady doctor who advised a set of tests which will happen next Tuesday and Wednesday. Third event of the day was happening in the Gellert Hotel where we met Robert and Jane Waterhouse, who are researching the history and art of 15 Hungarian artists that have lived in England.  They are planning to put on an exhibition of their works and life stories in about 2 and half years' time in Harrogate.  Our connection to them is through Henrik Ripszam, (one of the 15) whom Roy researched for the recently published Volume 1 of The History of Hungarian Orienteering.  We spent 3 and half hours with Robert and Jane and it went past in a blur that felt like 10 minutes.  Great, lovely, interesting and interested people whom we were extrremely pleased to meet. We will get an invite not only to the grand opening of the exhibition in 2018, but to the press launch in London a few days before. Great!
                             

Robert, Jane, me and Roy

After we left our new found friends in the Gellert, we journeyed on to home (Roy) and the theatre (me) for an interesting new take on Shakespeare's Hamlet. It seems that due to the 400th anniversary of his death, there is Shakespeare coming out from every tap in these parts. I enjoyed it, in spite of having been very little actual Shakespeare spoken on stage all evening.

Tuesday was spent at home preparing for our three days away in the country. And now I need to make a new, interim title for the remainer of this blog post.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST - OR THE END OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP

You may have guessed that this interim title refers to our three days away, but let us start at the beginning! This trip has been planned for quite a while, but at the last minute I added Roy to the mix, due to his funny turn and me not daring to leave him behind for that length of time on his own.  Originally it was planned for only Gizi, my geocaching friend and myself, and the activities were purely concerning collecting as many caches as we could get.

Győr City Hall

The advantages of having Roy along were: 1. built-in driver; 2. somebody to mind the car while we are off getting the cache and a few besides.  The first day in Győr went very well. The weather was very good, if anything, a bit too hot, Roy did all the driving and we managed to get 7 caches, 4 of which were multiples.  All in all we visited 22 places, 20 of which gave us the 7 caches and 2 more of yet another multi, which we didn't finish.  I must admit, I only did that one under duress, as Gizi conned me into getting them with loud declarations of "It's only over there, across the bridge!" It was a lot more getting round an island the wrong way, but I put up with it.

The grave of Bela Szechenyi and his wife

After finishing there we journeyed on to Sopron, where our B&B was situated and where we were going to get as many caches on the following day as we could. Roy was going into the centre of town on his own, leaving Gizi and me to our own devices in the car. I didn't realise that Gizi already had quite a few of the caches I planned to get, but offered her the choice of starting with those neither of us had and only going onto those she has already found once we finished those. For some reason, she said that she definitely didn't mind visiting ones she didn't need, so we got going.  The weather was cooler, which was nice and we successfully navigated round quite a few.  Unfortunately by mid-afternoon I got very tired and my basic dislike of multis resurfaced.  Half way through one of them, as 4 o'clock passed I told Gizi I couldn't carry on.  And this statement had produced the most violent fit of pique from her that was as shocking as it was unexpected. Admittedly, our approach to geocaching is at some variance, but until now it hasn't caused too many ructions.  Well, she made up for lost time with her outburst, the major gist of which consisted of blaming me for her having wasted her time and money coming all this way for nothing, because I wasn't willing to carry on until it got dark, like we did the day before.  Unil then she was most sympathetic over my heart troubles, but this time her real attitude showed itself with as much vehemence as she could muster.

The Szechenyi Chateau in Nagycenk

First of all I was shocked, but then tried to placate her by promising that I'll talk Roy round to stop en route through that village the following morning to finish the multi, but by then she worked herself into such a frenzy that she resembled the classic case of a furious baby throwing her toys out of the pram.  You could tell by then from the look on her face and her body language that she couldn't stand me any more. No amount of reasoning had any effect, so I shut up too and just drove. Upon arrival back at the B&B she told me that she decided to do her own thing for the rest of the evening, wasn't coming to dinner with us as planned and would see us the following morning.

Cute little steam engine in Nagycenk

This pleased Roy no end, as he found two nice restaurants nearby, so we could walk there together and had a lovely evening there.  We definitely had a lovely time, not only because we were together, but because Roy met two old guys with whom he struck up a friendship and had a lovely chat.

Mr and Mrs Stork renovating the nest

The following morning there was more toys being chucked out of prams, as Gizi told us that she has just checked out, already had breakfast and just hung around to ask how much she owed us for petrol. I did ask what she was planning to do, but there was no information forthcoming, although she did mention that she was going home on the train. Good riddance, was Roy's comment and to be honest I felt the same. Thus the interim title now has some meaning, although I was definitely sarcastic calling ours a beautiful friendship. Roy always said that she was using me for transport and company to caches she was too afraid to tackle on her own and I always defended her on such occasions.  This unwarranted meltdown proved that Roy was right, which I have willingly acknowledged to him.

A small sylvan church in the middle of nowhere

The most amazing upshot was, that Gizi had actually robbed herself of a lovely, leisurely pootle back to town, taking in a wide variety caches, amongst them churches, castles, cute little villages, an interesting Cold War monument and finally a brilliant mock Tudor chateau. We picked up 10 caches, while having tremendous fun. As it happens, even I came round to the view of considering her absence an asset, as with her attitude of concentrating on quantity and speed, while our purpose centred always on quality and a leisurely pootle, we might have clashed all over again.

A neglected old palace in a sorry state

We got home just before 7pm, rather tired, but very happy. And then today we had the long awaited visit to Bozsa and Árpi's new house in Csobánka, which was, yet again, a thoroughly enjoyed 6 hours, as they are such a lovely couple that spending any time with them is always a treat.  First they showed us round so thoroughly that we got into every nook and cranny from the cellar to the attic. And the garden, of course!! Then we had some snacks, chatted a while and then went on a walk round their village.  That was pretty glorious with many trees in full blossom. After a little rest at home we then went to lunch together in the next village.  Lunch was great and on our return we had strudel and coffee. I could hardly move, I ate and drank so much, Roy much the same.  Lovely day, fantastic company and brilliant weather.  What more could you want?

The site of our last cache, a beautifully renovated chateau

Must go to bed now as it's well past midnight.  Good night!!!                            

The view from Bozsa and Arpi's garden

Glorious blossom we met on our walk

My walking companions

Arpi ouside his gate