Back in the village

The day after we arrived back in the village we were both looking forward to a long stay, which was much overdue. Both the house and the garden needed a lot of attention and we set about gardening and tidying/cleaning as much as we could. The roses were in full bloom much earlier than usual, so we had to weed and water the roses, as well as do something about the greenfly and the black fly.

My favourite two-tone rose

The weather has gone really weird, heatwave one minute, deluge the next. This, needless to say, made the garden like a jungle, almost impossible to keep on top of the mowing and weeding. I have never seen the herb patch like it is this year.  Almost all of them have gone to seed and those that didn't were larger and more prolific than ever before. They usually look like this at the end of July or beginning of August. Amazing!

Plums, still green

Unfortunately, the fruit crop is not going to be amazing this year either.  But at least it looks as if there will be some. The hothouse atmosphere favours fungal infections, so one rose is already suffering from it and I fear for the fruit too.  And that's assuming there are no more thunderstorms or hailstorms this year. If you think of it, in April last year we lost all our fruit crop at the blossom stage due to a snowstorm.  This year April was like July, with heatwaves and drought. But, of course, there is no such thing as global warming. All a lefty invention indeed.

Mishka hussar and me

Feri, my geocaching friend from Pécs, invited me to cache with him on Saturday, as he was working close to town and wanted some company.  Originally I was supposed to go in on Friday evening, but the weather then turned really cold and rainy, so I thought I would leave the decision to Saturday morning, as I could catch an early bus and still be in town in time to meet Feri, should the weather improve.

Wildlife on a monoument

Thankfully, all the weather forecasts were wrong and there was no rain, but there was a lot of sunshine all day Saturday. In fact, it was back up into the 30's Celsius, so we sweated a lot. However, as it is about 5 or 6 months since I have seen Feri, I forgot how good a company he is.  He is awfully laid back, no ulterior motives, some chatter and a typical WYSIWYG type of fellow.

Millennial Monument

We changed the original caching plan, which had a lot of hiking type caches in it, to one where most of them were quite close to the car, should the skies open.  But they didn't. We ended up with nine caches at the end of the day, including a moving one.

The chateau with the wild park

The places visited included several round a biggish lake, a large metal statue of a hussar, a historical theme park, several walks around the ancient capital of the country, a lovely old chateau and its wild park, the moving cache that travels along the National Blue trail and finally a really weird place where the village bought an old metro carriage, painted it with psychedelic colours and erected it in the middle of the village as if it was coming out of the hill behind it. I love weird things and this looked really funny.

I stayed in the flat overnight and caught a really early bus on Sunday morning to be at home by breakfast. I watched the Monaco GP and felt sorry for Lewis for coming third, but loved every minute of it in spite of it being a boring procession in the first 2/3rd of the race. The last third was fascinating, although Lewis could not get ahead due to tyre worries and a few other problems. I loved that Ricciardo won, he is such a genuinely nice bloke.

The old metro carriage

This week is devoted to some housework, some gardening, but also a couple of days of caching. Not in the sense of looking for them, but actually getting on with my accursed spring series, which now feel that they would never be finished.  Unfortunately, spring after spring turns out to have either disappeared, or to have fallen down and be unusable, dried up and/or have other problems that make it not worthy of a cache.

The new lookout tower above the quarry

On Tuesday I went out with Roy, as not only the spring series was sitting on my conscience, but somebody nicked my cache I placed a couple of years ago just over the border, so I had to go and replace it with a new one. That done, I have then visited one of my adopted ones and improved it a bit, followed by another place which turned out to be neglected, dried up and no use for a cache.

Old fishing lake, now rather overgrown

At this place there was a dodgy looking dirt track which amazingly Roy was prepared to drive down on. I think we ended up with some scratched paint, due to Roy driving in the bushes, rather than falling into deep ruts. Still, while the drive in was exciting, the place was useless for a cache, so I am glad I didn't do miles of walking as well as end up with nothing.

The good news of the visit was that en route home we found a restaurant/pub in a village about half an hour or so from home, which we sort of knew, but never before stopped at.  It was brilliant! Nice ambience, friendly and efficient staff, good food at silly prices and draft beer at 80p a pint. No need to tell you that Roy was extremely happy. I offered to drive the rest of the way, so he had a gypsy roast with cucumber salad and TWO pints. Happy chappie indeed!

A happy Roy after a good lunch

Today was a busy household day: we did some cleaning, 3 lots of washing, I have filled our medicine boxes, popped down to the chemist in the next village for some of my medicines as well as for a quick shop for things that we have forgotten yesterday, and made my friend Klári's bed as she is coming out tomorrow.

The newly found pub

She had an operation some weeks back and while she is on her feet now, she still needs company to be around her. I invited her to come hiking with me, and as long as it is not too demanding, she said she would join me.  Roy is rather happy about this, as he would not have to come to my next geocaching outing. So  Klári and I are off tomorrow to visit the other adopted cache, which is pretty good, so it should not give me too much work, I hope, and then do another little hike from another village to a supposed spring, to see if that might be worthy of a cache.  My suspicion is that it will either not be there at all, or dried up and neglected, like so many others before it. We'll see - said the blind man!

Weather is still like in the palm house at Kew Gardens, but I am praying for some breeze tomorrow. Will report back on that trip in my next post. TTFN!

The long weekend

Last Thursday we returned to town, as we had to see our friends Ros and Ian to hand them something to post for us at home. I then packed and got ready for my trip West with my friend Gyuri to do a spot of geocaching.

Gyuri at the first lake

The plan was originally to have a threesome, but our friend Judith had fallen off a chair and has to wear a strict belt with no bending and very limited movement otherwise, so it was just Gyuri and I. He picked me up at the prearranged place and off we went. Needless to say that he had all sorts of plans that I didn't know about, but he is just like that, one has to get used to it.

Golgotha on top of the hill by the chapel

He bought some stuff for the club at home and we had to deliver it to the Chairman, who thankfully lived not a million miles from our route.  Still, we didn't really start caching until about 10:30, which is a seriously late start. The program was to pick caches up as we progress towards our B&B westwards and that is what we did.

The lake at Tata

Places visited included a lake, a hilltop chapel with stages of the cross around it, a mining museum, a lovely old theatre, another 2 lakes, a steep hill in a town where you could have 360 degree panoramic views from, several lookout towers, an old boats' museum, a ruined castle and finally the world famous horse breeding centre in Bábolna. Good and very busy first day.

The next day we were doing a circular trip out, as we were booked into our B&B for two nights. This region where we were has been a very marshy part of the Danube's ecosystem, which unfortunately got very dry after Slovakia dammed and diverted the main riverbed. Later they managed to come to an agreement that enabled the dried out parts to receive some water, but it is no longer as romantic and biologically diverse as it had been before.

Chapel on top of Tata at the Eagle's top

Still, we saw some lovely places, many oxbow lakes, gravel pits, cut off bits of the river where people can fish or boat or just have a good time. There were embankments built up to prevent flooding everywhere and recently they covered quite a few of them with tarmac, so we could drive along them to see more in a day. We met lovely fisherfolk, gorgeous waterbirds, visited a fantastic and enormous set of locks and lock gates. We nearly saw (the water levels were too high and covered it, so we didn't) a concrete boat, which seems quite like a contradiction in terms.

The Radnóti memorial

We also saw the memorial to one of Hungary's greatest 20th century poets, Miklós Radnóti, at the place he was shot and killed by an SS officer in 1944 on a forced march to a concentration camp. That was a very moving experience, especially that he was, and still is, one of my favourite poets of all time.

The lake at the village of Levél

While we were having all this fun, a certain young couple tied the knot, but we saw nothing of it and felt all the better for it. On Sunday we stayed mostly in the same area, but we also popped over the border, which was amazing as it led us along the dammed river, where there was an enormous lake. I have already been on it more than 10 years ago when travelling by hydrofoil to Vienna, but it looked even more impressive from the bank.

Lock gate on the big dam

Finally the last day was spent in Sopron and its environs and that was much fun as well.  Once at home I had all that paperwork to do: log all my finds, upload little stories and photos, enter those that are on the other site (geocaching.com) as well, plus update my password data base. I also had a concert on the Tuesday night, which was really brilliant. Piotr Anderszewski, a Polish/Hungarian pianist was playing Mozart and Poulenc with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It was superb and his conducting skills were also amazing.  How he could play large pieces on the piano, while conducting as well, I'll never understand.

The chateau at Fertőd, the Hungarian Versailles

And then finally we left town and have just arrived in Bér a few hours ago.  Since then I have done a load of washing and put it outside in the glorious sunshine to dry and now am indoors in the cool sipping a drink and occasionally typing on the computer.

The plans for the next week/10 days include trying to finish my series of spring caches, which still have a long way to go; travel to replace one of my caches that had disappeared; tend to the garden and the herb patch; pick cherries, should they become ripe and possibly even make jam.

The big church at Fertőszéplak

All the best to you all! Next post probably next week or so.

6 geocaching trips, 2 hikes and a few visits

As I haven't posted in a fortnight, this will have to be a telegraphic post, or I will never get to the end of it. About a couple of weeks ago we started a really hectic schedule of events, visits and extensive geocaching and hiking, which made sure that I had no time for blogging.

The big church in Veresegyház near BP

On Thursday, 3rd May we departed from Bér and pootled into BP on an unusual route, doing some geocaching. I was going to visit the site of that mysterious spring that nobody knows about, but unfortunately the otherwise lovely, but a bit stupid lady who was going to show me where it was, finally worked out that she had no idea herself.  And all this in the sudden tropical weather of over 30 degrees Celsius, I wasn't amused.  Still we visited a few caches after that futile trip and were happy to arrive in BP in good time.

Crossing the lake on the ferry

Bozsa came for my concert ticket for Friday, that I couldn't attend, so that she could take Árpi instead.. Then on Friday morning we departed towards Monoszló, caching all the way.  This time we chose the Southern side of Lake Balaton and it was quite enjoyable. We crossed the lake at Szántód and were at Pityu's place in good time for dinner. David and Ági arrived a lot later and we played some cards before retiring.

The Abby CHurch at Tihany

The following morning we departed for Tihany, where the big geocaching hike was taking place.  The weather was in the 30's and with high humidity as well.  There were about 40 people who turned up and we got going with great expectations of a good day. My orienteering friends Laci and Márti have turned up as well and we had a good time until I started feeling unwell. It must have been the barely 4 hours' sleep as well as the heat and humidity, but long before half way round I had to stop.

A beautiful wildflower, the names of which escapes me

Thankfully, we had  two cars, as Pityu turned up late with Ági's son Tamás, so Pityu could take us back to David's car and then we all went back to Pityu's. David would have loved to finish the hike, as he felt perfectly well, but I promised that the next time we are down there, I will go and finish it with him.

Ros and Ian in a beautiful meadow

Sunday we didn't do much and left quite early to make sure we get home safely. The week beginning with 7th May was terribly busy. It started with yet another hike, but this time with our English friends, Ros and Ian.  Roy was only joining us in the restaurant afterwards, but the hike with those two was delightful.  The weather cleared up, it wasn't terribly hot and not at all humid, as there was a pleasant breeze all day. We completed 18 kilometres with about 400 metres of climb in lovely broad leaved forest and hills, occasionally interspersed with conifers.

Ros and Ian by the big cross on the top

Originally we planned to find 4 caches, but we ran out of time for the last one as we were running late for the table booked already. We had two reasons for running late: 1. I managed to misplace my car keys as I was getting out of the car, so we spent about three quarters of an hour looking for it. Eventually we found it, but then had another set-back by not finding the hiking path markings in a new development, so we lost at least another half an hour there. The rest went without any hiccups, including a 45 degree slippery, rocky hillside that we all climbed up grabbing trees for safety.

Another pretty wild flower en route

The dinner at the restaurant was delightful: we sat outside, the service was great and the food excellent.  Obviously the company wasn't bad either - Ros and Ian are always a delight to be with, whatever the program. I was amazingly well, considering this was only 2 days after my mishap in Tihany, but I am sure this was because the weather had changed and I could breathe better.

Béla, our guide: one of the nicest blokes on the planet

On Tuesday Roy went for his check-up with the urologist and all was well.  I also handed in my letter of complaint to the director of the clinic, answer to which is still awaited. I will have to do something soon, as my digestion is still in a mess, but I was hoping to hear something by now.  However, it doesn't surprise me at all, I am never going back there, that's for sure.  Any legal action will have to be considered, but I suspect we will just write it up to experience and move on.

Water lilies

Wednesday was spent packing and preparing for my 4-day trip away over a long weekend between Thursday and Sunday. The first two days I had Mariann for company, the second two days Gyuri. The venue for the first two days was the Tisza-lake, which is the second biggest stretch of water in Central Europe, after Lake Balaton. It was dammed back in the 1970's and is now an absolute haven for birds, fish and all manner of recreation. The highlight of the trip was a 4 and half hour boat trip with an outboard motor and a lovely guide, who took us to all parts of the lake and where we managed to find all geocaches that can only be reached from the water. It was a lovely, simple boat for 4 passengers and the guide and we all had a ball.

A black-crowned night heron we passed

After those two days Mariann went home and I was picked up by Gyuri, coming up from Békéscsaba, and we went North. We first attended the 35th Geocaching Festival and Competition and then went caching ourselves for the rest of the time. The weather was very hot again and one day we cached for 14 hours, which was definitely a bit exhausting. The total tally of the four days was 45 caches, which was not bad, and finally Gyuri delivered me to Hatvan, where Roy waited for me at Tesco's. We shopped and drove home happy.

The invincible red 44

I even managed to watch the Spanish Grand Prix, which gave me some joy and Lewis won again and is now ahead in the championship.  Only by 17 points, but it is a beginning, which hopefully he will build on.

An old quarry lake

As we arrived home we looked at the garden, and thankfully the grass was not as high as it could have been.  There has been a fair amount of rain and plenty of strong sunshine, so we expected it to be up to our knees again, but it wasn't. We set about mowing it already on Sunday and all day Monday, and I am happy to report that it has been done. It isn't easy, as our garden is sloping and has many nooks and crannies where the tractor can't get to. Those bits have to be done by a hand-pushed petrol mower and by a strimmer.

Some spectacular rocks in the forest

I also did some washing and started the preparations for this weekend, which is yet another 4-day geocaching trip, but this time going West to the Slovakian and Austrian border. This trip was originally for three people: Judith, Gyuri and me, but the silly moo fell off a chair and done herself in.  So it is a 2 person trip again with just Gyuri and me, but we should have a chance to gather quite a few caches again. Today I spent all the day writing just two third of the cache list, tomorrow I will have to finish it. I am also way behind with my TV serials, but those will have to be watched on catch-up next week.

Must go now as I need my beauty sleep. Thankfully I had a couple of hours sleep in the early afternoon today, so I am not as knackered as usual. But I still have to go to bed early, so I can get up early and do all my chores. Next instalment, hopefully, next week, but don't bank on it!

Back in the village

When we got back home last Wednesday, the grass was terribly high, but still within a manageable state. We started mowing straight away and are still doing it a week later. The trouble is that not all of the garden is accessible for the tractor, so other parts have to be mowed by a hand pushed mower plus the edges by the strimmer. We are both getting too old for this and are thinking of employing a gardener.  If we can find one, that is.

The lovely Brazilian tablecloth

Then on Thursday the long-awaited tablecloth arrived from Brazil. This was a such a saga! Roy did some family history research for a lady in Sao Paulo and she sent me this ethnic piece of handicraft as away of saying thank you. It must have cost her a fortune to send, as it came by DHL. They were quite co-operative as regards to delivery and allowed us to change it three times.  Due to our itinerant lifestyle we changed it from the village to town and back again, before we got it last Thursday.  It was, and still is, gorgeous.  Such a beautiful piece of embroidery and crochet work, that I will have to look after it carefully, to make sure it stays beautiful.

The glorious panorama near the moving cache

The rest of the week was interspersed by little outings and then hiding from the heat indoors and resting.  The weather has gone completely crazy - I have never seen such a heatwave in April before. But, of course, there is no such thing as global warming or damage to the ozone layer, is there?

The site of one cache I didn't find

Other than mowing and watering the garden, the other activity this week concerned geocaching, what else? However, before that I had a few miserable days with a very nasty sore throat, followed by what seemed like a plague of mouth ulcers. I am still certain that all this had something to do with my endoscopy, but finally (and not until after I realised what a boon in such situations can mouthwash be) have I sufficiently recovered to go out.

The village blow us from the lookout tower

First little trip out included a visit to a moving cache and the finding of another two ordinary caches. The second outing included placing the moving cache in another place and trying to survey 3 more springs, not all of which was successful. Unfortunately the springs in Nógrád are much neglected. The hills and forests, as well as most of the villages, are very pretty, but poor on the whole. Somehow the traditions of care and maintenance of natural phenomena, like springs and wells, has long ago gone by the wayside, so an increasing number of springs that I visited were dry, neglected, often completely collapsed. At this rate my series of 11 springs might end up as 6 or 7, although somebody suggested that I adopt some already existing, but neglected, caches by springs into my series and thus save them. I might have to do that, we'll see.

Pretty wild flower

Currently I am writing up lists of geocaches that I will go and try to find in May.  There is a silly number of geocaching trips coming up, as May seems to be very popular all round for caching. This weekend we are off to the peninsula of Tihany, for a geocaching hike that I have been organising and staying all weekend with our friend Pityu. We are also caching en route down to Pityu's place, so that needed a list.

One of the picturesque, but neglected springs

Next Monday I am going on a hike with Ros and Ian, as we have not spent much time with them lately and I thought to take them to a part of the Buda hills where I have never been before and where there are 4 caches I haven't yet got. That was the second list.

A hunting lodge in the form of a tower

Following that Monday, I am off to the Tisza Lake with Mariann on Thursday to do some caching en route down (list for that trip is still to be written) and then have a motorboat trip on the lake in search of water-borne geocaches.  That'll be a first for me, and I feel very excited about it. Once we finished there, Mariann is going home and I will be picked up by Gyuri, coming up from Békéscsaba, en route to the Geocaching Festival just above Eger. There we will cache for about a day and a half, after which Gyuri goes home and so do I, except this time by train or bus. The list for this trip will, hopefully, be put together by Gyuri.

Another lovely wild flower

The weekend following that one, I am away for 4 days (Thursday to Monday) also for the purposes of caching, this time in the West of the country, so you can appreciate that I have a lot of lists to do. I asked Gyuri to take on the Festival list, but offered to do the one for those 4 days the following week. So paper-work at the moment is rather heavy, and then came the call from London, would I do some transcription work on a video? Of course I will, I can never resist helping them, I suppose that is why they always call me when they get stuck.

The path on which I returned from the last (non-existent) spring

Must go now, as my head is hitting the keyboard.  I have been up since 4am, so it is time I hit the sack. Next post hopefully after the weekend.

Starving, hiking, caching and hospital

Well, the gastroscopy and colonoscopy on Monday was not the favourite day in my life, but I tell you about that a bit later. On Friday I had my pre-procedure blood test and an ECG which were all normal. Afterwards we went to the Panasonic service base to have the camera I dropped repaired. They said it should be anything between 1 and 2 weeks and about £60. I suppose that's not bad, assuming, of course, it will not have to have a new lens.  In that case I think I buy a new one.

The Chateau at Nagykovácsi

On Saturday, by which time I started to lose my strength to do anything energetic due to the starvation diet for Monday, I went to a hike which we attend once a year in memory of the sister of my friend Andor, who died on that day 15 years ago. Thankfully, the average age of the group is now so high that nobody could do more than about 5 miles, so even though that there were two mountains en route, (one small and one bigger) I managed OK. On top of the first mountain there was a cache, which Andor found and we all logged. The views from there were gorgeous too.

The view from the top of the first mountain where the cache was

I also went geocaching on my own before the hike in Nagykovácsi. As the hike only started at 10 o'clock I left home at 8am, arrived at Nagykovácsi just before 9am, found the c ache in the park of the chateau and even managed to catch the bus to arrive at the hike's meeting point by quarter to ten. 

Andor and Gábor, his grandson

Unfortunately, once we went back to our friends for lunch, I started getting quite rattled.  I suppose I must have started feeling very tired, but also the awful Hungarian habit of insensitive questions about your health and the non-acceptance of a NO when offered food and drink, made me rather tetchy. Still, I had a lift home from a couple of people, which was convenient. Unfortunately they were not particularly gracious and chucked us out some way from our flats. Luckily I was quite close to my trolleybus line, so I caught one and was home in good time.

The Trap Cafe, where we went on Sunday

Sunday was spent at home, because that day I was not allowed any food, only water or clear soup.  As we didn't have any of the latter I was on water only. We did spend a short amount of time around midday when Roy and I went to one of his favourite bars for a beer for him and a bottle of still water for me. He likes to sit by the open French doors, looking out to the shops on the opposite side of the road and watching the passers by. It was very hot that day, so it was nice to be just inside, out of the sun.

Our hiking group

Then at 6pm I had to take the first dose of laxatives that are compulsory before one of these procedures. Confusing advise leaflets and terse or non-existent instructions from doctors, coupled with contradictory ones when asking different people, didn't make my rattled nerves any better. Needless to say I didn't sleep very well and spent the time after 3am on Monday in accute discomfort. I had these things before, but I have not remembered anything this uncomfortable. We both started getting dissatisfied with this clinic, which served us well in the past, but seemed to have gone downhill in the past year.

Around the trig point

One of my objections was that in the last few days they have changed the time of the appointment twice, once by half and hour and then on the morning of it by one and half hour. I didn't make a fuss  because I was trapped by the virtue of the last 5 days and you had to be grateful they didn't cancel altogether. Even though, I was fuming that something that you pay about £450 for, is this disorganised.

Our foreign visitors

Once we were there I was really happy that we arrived almost an hour early as they produced the usual myriad of forms to fill in, which is a daft idea just before the procedure when you are nervous and can't concentrate. Then an interview with the anaesthetist was hurried and totally inadequate compared with the one Roy had at the other clinic last month. I was getting more and more pissed off.

Climbing up to the first mountain

And then came the real frustrating punchline: I was told that I should have stopped taking my blood thinners a week ago and why didn't I? Cos nobody told me to - was the answer. Now that was serious negligence, especially that they had the chance to do it on several occasions. First the gastroenterologist last Monday during my appointment, second the lady who rung up on Friday to put the start of my procedure on by half an hour and whom I did ask what the situation with my medication, as I wasn't told which ones I can carry on taking and which ones I have to stop and when. She answered 'no problem, keep on taking them!' And then on Monday when somebody else called to put the start on by a further hour and a half.

The senior contingent who went round, not up and down the mountain

Finally they did it, but were unable to remove a polip, which would have been dangerous by causing serious internal bleeding. This adds a potential £250 expense, as I will have to go back to have it removed at a later date. There was no mention of this at the debrief, which was hurried anyway, as I was the last patient there before they all went home. So, we are not going back there ever again, that is for sure, exept for the three-month check-up with Roy's urologist who is a lovely guy and who had done right by him, so we might as well. This whole thing cost £495, so I think the quality of the service was probably worse than in a poor, badly equipped state hospital. We are definitely switching to the one where Roy had his operation and hope that is a somewhat more adequate outfit. Judging by Roy's experience, that is very likely.

Duna Medical, where Roy had his op back in 2014, 2 years before they opened

And just a postscript to the above: when I started eating solid food this morning I felt a strong pain in my throat. A strange pain I have never felt before, not like a common all garden sore throat. It then dawned on me that they must have managed to damage my throat and palate with the endoscope, which has never happened to me before, even though I had gastroscopies in the last 20 years, both in the UK and here.

End of moan! Today we are resting, but will have to go to the pharmacy for a medicine I was prescribed and buy some vegetables for a bowl of cream of vegetable soup, which I love and which, hopefully, will not hurt my throat too much. Next post next week, I hope, after we went home tomorrow and started mowing the grass (probably knee high by now) and do other countrified chores.