The arrival of winter, some roses and the pálinka

It's only four days since I last posted, but I would like to get my posts back to their normal Wednesday schedule, so here it goes. 

This year's pálinka

My parting shot last time was about all my tasks that I have to do and all the catch-up I have to do, so I am starting this post with listing you the chores I actually have done and finished in the last five days: 1. Extended all my caching logs with text and photos; 2. Finalised our 2024 Christmas Newsletter and sent it out; 3. Caught up with all my US procedurals, 21 episodes; 4. Did all necessary admin to do with geocaching, including moderating; 5. Fetched pálinka and bottled it into 31 various sized bottles with Roy; 6. Read, actioned, filed and/or deleted my outstanding e-mails; 7. Filled the bird feeders with seeds; 8. Listened to Alex's podcast with Cheri di Novo about the US election; 9. Filled our pillboxes with meds; 10. Watered my indoor plants and cacti. 11. Finalised all content within the St. Nicholas geocache, which will go out in front of our house on 6th December. Now only two major tasks are awaiting my attention: 1. Washing clothes and 2. Fire up the pottery stove. The latter is a bit late, due to me having had a tummy bug during the last few days, as well as the need to safeguard the right knee's recovery.

Cache hidden in the tub

Starting content of cache

Another interesting thing that happened these last few days was the discovery that a few roses are still producing flowers, while proper winter has arrived with 3 or 4 inches of snow. Those photos were quite unique, I do not remember any years that snow and big roses would have been together. On the indoor plant front we also had a nice surprise. Our potted plants, including cacti, have the bad habit of flowering when we are not at home. This is especially frustrating with cacti, as most of them only flower for 24 hours. Thankfully, the Christmas cactus is an exception, and we came home to some glorious pink blooms on ours. I could see the buds before we left and was convinced there will not be any by the time we got back, but it looks like they have just started blossoming, so we are really pleased about that.

My beautiful salmon rose by the gate

And the deep red rose in the yard

Roy had started his usual autumn sort out in his garage, workshop, the barn and the storage room in the Bunkhouse. Currently he is throwing out surplus bottles, as he said he could hardly enter the storage room for bottles being everywhere. We have also given away a lovely, large, pure wool blanket, that we hardly used in the last 20 years, as I read on the I💖Bér FB group that a very poor and very lonely old lady in the village needs lots of things to make her life more bearable. Shamefully, the social services normally offered to elderly people by the village authorities somehow had forgotten about her. This morning I had a message from Dani, who had drawn my attention to the old girl, that she had slept extremely well last night on account of being warm under the blanket.

Pink Christmas cactus's first bloom

The whole pretty Christmas cactus

Christmas presents and arrangements for Christmas itself are shaping up. We usually get Stephen and Alex buying the present for the grandsons and we send the money. Recently I sent the money for Alex's birthday present, although I have not yet seen it on Messenger. Perhaps it hasn't arrived yet. On the other hand the Xmas presents are being organised and Stephen's Christmas visit is also on the horizon. He is arriving on Christmas Day in the evening and is leaving in the morning on the 27th. Typical short visit, but we are used to them by now. He is bringing Valéria with him, which is great.

The Bunkhouse and the Farmhouse under snow

The back garden and the Pavilion under snow

 

I think that's it. Hopefully, the next post is due next Wednesday and then we will be properly back to schedule.

Geocaching in the South, Ági's 70th birthday and the 26th, and final, little train cache

Things have been rather hectic lately, but what's new? The delayed caching in Zala, due to the flu/Covid, has put our last two trips away a bit too close to each other. Unfortunately, most things that could go wrong, did. First the weather was typically uncooperative, in having lovely sunny days when we were at home, and dark, depressing and cold ones when we were away. Secondly, my lower back, which I have had problems with since I was a teenager, started up in a big way and finally, I do not think I have properly recovered from illness when we started intensive caching. As a result, (I think), I did something to my right knee, which was jolly painful and is still not quite right.

Ági and David on the dance floor

So, no more whingeing, let's get on with it! Day after I last posted we went to celebrate Ági's 70th birthday in a lovely community centre close to her flat. It was so lovely to see upwards to a 100 people, from all aspects and times of her life coming together to celebrate her and to enjoy themselves in the process. The program was mostly about sitting around with people you already knew, and/or circulating and making new friends. It was all laid back a relaxed. Ági made a lovely speech, then we had food and drink, followed by 3 enormous and gorgeous cakes and the final activity was Scottish dancing, which takes a big chunk of Ági's life. Roy and I didn't dance, and that was just as well, as it was during this party that my right knee started misbehaving.

The Children's Railway engine

On Monday, and in spite of my dodgy knee, we went to get the final choo choo train's cache in the Buda Hills by public transport. The weather was reasonable and, thankfully, the most we had to walk was about 2 or 300 yards from the bus stop. We found it and even had a chance to photograph one of their locomotives, that has unexpectedly chugged past us. 

An old geodesic tower in the puszta

A nicely renovated smock mill

And after all this excitement, we packed up and disappeared in a Southerly direction to do a bit more geocaching. This trip was, thankfully, only 3 days, and the highlights this time were not the caches we found, but the accommodation and one restaurant/bar. The two overnights were in Szeged and Gyula. The first one is a large city, the second one a smaller country town. Originally we were going to stay two nights in Gyula, but while putting the cache list together I realised that there was no way we were going to get to Gyula in time on the first day. So I changed that booking to one night only and found a gem of a hotel in Szeged for the first night instead.

Roy admiring the room in Science Hotel

 

The hotel is called Science Hotel, in English as I have written it here. Pretty new, modern, laid back and with all comforts that we normally are not used to. It was a total fluke that I found the special offer and without realising how good a deal it was, (less than half the normal price), I booked it. It was while checking in that I realised that their basic price for a double room is 100 Euros, and we got ours for 42 Euros. It was great, but an even bigger sensation has happened, when having asked where they would recommend for us to have dinner, they suggested the John Bull. Obviously all the better places in Szeged have English names nowadays.

Roy's steak in the John Bull

My prawns in the John Bull

 

It looked and felt like a British pub. We couldn't get a table, as it is so popular that even on a cold, dark and windy midweek November early evening they were fully booked. However, a really nice waiter suggested that if we do not mind sitting at the bar, we can have dinner there. That was a stroke of genius, as by the bar, we had the barmaid to chat with and generally take part in the social life of the place. The food was out of this world, Roy had a piece of steak that shut him up for ages. Apparently, they ship their stakes over by air from the US. It looked and tasted, Roy said, exactly like a Yankee cut, inch and a half thick steak would. I chose prawns grilled on skewers, with aromatic rice, and that was absolutely delicious too.

The big wheel in Szeged by the Dome

The Dome at night in Szeged

 

The place in Gyula, albeit in a different price bracket, but was also very nice. The price we paid was similar to the one in the Science Hotel, but there it was their normal price. However, the building is brand new, it's decoration, furnishings and general atmosphere was also very nice. We had an enormous king size bed, with great comfort, and the dinner was spent in the first restaurant we came across, while walking towards the centre of town, and proved an brilliant find. We were the only customers, as it was still very early in the evening, but the waitress was an absolute gem. Born and bred in Gyula, she was chatty, friendly and the definitely the life and soul of the place. Roy had a fantastic, beautifully garlicky gypsy roast, and I had a combo of a large bowl of chicken noodle soup followed by a pancake filled with walnut cream and served in a large amount of dark chocolate sauce. Yum, yum!!!

Gyula castle at night

Nice autumn colours in Gyula

 

After all this, I must tell you a few things about the geocaching, although we were a bit unlucky here in the flatlands, as quite a few caches were neglected, missing or in stupid places. In spite of this, we finally managed to get 20 of them, which for a bad weather, cold, November midweek effort wasn't too bad. The ones that I remember, (usually the really nice or the terribly awful ones), are the three highest points of the county caches, of which two was in the middle of puszta, forcing poor old Roy to drive miles on soft sand, which is not his favourite pastime. Still, we did find three of these and I have 9 left to get before autumn 2025, which will not be too difficult.

Beautifully renovated chateau in Zsáka

Other places we visited, without any particular order of preference were : a good few pretty lakes, churches, a beautifully restored smock mill, a crater lake made by an underground gas explosion, the puszta, a walk in the footsteps of Munkácsy, one of the most famous painters of the 19th century, a pretty chateau and a few others that escape me at the moment. Photography was dodgy when it was raining, but I still managed to get a few good shots to use here, on FB and in other online stuff that needs photos.

Old brick church tower in Herpály

 

We got home to BP on Thursday, slept there overnight and then came home to Bér yesterday. We did have a phone call from Pali while we were still in the South, that our pálinka mash was taken to the still and got distilled during the weekend, so today we will visit Pali and see if we can bring our hootch home to a happy Roy, who has missed it for so long. I have no idea how good this new distiller is, but no doubt, you will hear from me sometime in the spring, if it is drinkable or not. It has to rest 3 or 4 months to get clear and the taste to get refined enough.

A typical shot of the puszta

Must go now as my poor tummy thinks my throat had been cut. Must have breakfast and then get on with lots of jobs that had been neglected while we were away. Next post sometime next week, depending on how am I proceeding with catching up with my duties at home.

Geocaching in Zala county

I'm a bit late, but we have been away and so busy that I've hardly had time to breathe. Last week, before we went away, we had good news about the pálinka distillers. Apparently, Pali was going to take the mash during the weekend, or even before, and the guy would do it over the weekend. As it happens, we did have a phone call from him on Sunday, telling us that both his barrels and ours have now been taken to the still and he will go and fetch it once the guy lets him know that they can be taken. We are both keeping our fingers crossed that the mash has really survived the year and the new chap knows how to do good pálinka.

Father Christmas, bringing a Xmas cache to every county

Other stories include the Father Christmas cache  that I have undertaken to have in Bér. This year Marcsi, the organiser, decided that at least one of these caches will have to happen in every county. Finally I volunteered for Nógrád, so I had to decide where to put it, prepare a big box, buy some presents and sweets to put in the box and then write the POI and send the details to Marcsi. I will be very interested how many people will come to Bér for my cache, and whether we will be able to keep it safe. We decided to put it on the outer corridor in front of the Bunkhouse, but take it in between 10pm and 6am every night.

Kereki castle's ruins

 

We left Bér on Friday last week, because I had to go to the hair dresser and she didn't work on Saturdays. I also started writing the cache lists for our next trip, which is next week, but thankfully is only for three days. Never before did we have two trips so close together, but due to our flu/Covid, the recent one had to be postponed and so we have the two so close together. We will be going South, and stay in B&B's in Szeged and Gyula.

The pretty little chapel in the woods

So, after spending a fair amount of time packing, we left BP quite early on Monday morning, heading to the SW. The first day was spent caching in the county of Somogy, on the South side of the Balaton. I had a couple of interesting hikes: the first to a beautifully renovated and updated castle ruin, the next to 3 caches on the other side of the same hills the castle was on. The latter included looking for another highest point of a county, this time Somogy, some interesting cellars cut into loess and an old geodesic tower.

One of many lookout towers on this trip

Later we went to see a cute little chapel in the middle of the forest and a few others en route to our first day's accommodation in Nagykanizsa. This was on the first floor of a 1950's apartment building, beautifully renovated and updated, with all comforts. The beds were comfortable, we had our own little kitchen and it was a good beginning for the week. Dinner was had in a nearby restaurant, where Roy made friends with an English couple from Doncaster and had a long and enjoyable chat with them.

The Fishermen's Villa, our second night's accommodation

Day 2 was still spent close to the Balaton, but we had started to navigate our way towards the Göcsej region of Zala county. This is an area neither of us knows or had been to before. It is supposed to be full of lovely little hills and valleys, vineyards, and other oldie worldie places. Overnight, we had a fascinating experience by staying in the absolute back of beyond, in a Fishermen's Villa by a lake. It was a rather large, recently renovated and updated house, belonging to the local forestry and open up for us by a really lovely lade. We had the whole place to ourselves and we were warm, cosy and very comfortable there.

An oil well

The following, our 3rd day, we carried on travelling West, into the heart of Göcsej, and while some caches were missing or very hard to find, had another good day. The only downside of the whole trip was the weather. After weeks of mild, beautifully sunny weeks, as soon as we left home, the weather changed to winter, cold nights, very overcast and depressingly dark days, cold temperatures, although we were lucky that there was no wind and/or rain.

One of many reservoirs, turned into fishing lakes

That night we stayed in a B&B in Lenti, which is extremely close to the Slovenian border and which was the least comfortable of the B&B's we had This one was a bit stuck in the old days and was the most expensive. We did have breakfast included at this place, but on the whole we liked this one the least. This area is full of lakes, mostly artificial ones that were created as reservoirs, but most of them were very picturesque and pleasant to walk by. We looked at some lookout towers, and especially, being in Zala, memorials to the heroic oil workers still working locally in Hungary's only oil fields.

An ancient beech tree in a reserve

Finally, we arrived in the county town of Zala county, Zalaegerszeg, around which we did some nice hiking and caching. The accommodation there was of very high quality and reasonably priced, so Roy stopped grumbling about his back ache. Talking of back aches, mine was having a field day with my painful lower back during all this time. I suppose we will have to shorten our away days, as we are no longer up to the physical demands of driving, hiking and geocaching.

A lovely old chateau, now a cultural centre

The total finds on this trip were pretty high, I planned to get 40, including the very last narrow gauge railway cache, and we did make that figure. Not 100% exactly the same ones as planned, but still 40. The only change was that the last one had to be left off, as Roy got very tetchy and was eager to get home early on Friday, but the missed one was replaced by a moving cache in Keszthely, which amazingly waited for us right through the week, without being moved on. I took it with me and will be placing in in Gyula next week.

Csömödér narrow gauge railway engine

 

Now we are back in BP, trying to rest up a bit, catching up with paperwork and general admin, e-mails etc. Tomorrow we are due at the 70th birthday party of a very good friend, on Monday we have appointments at the hygienist and on Tuesday we are off for a spot more of geocaching, this time on the Eastern side of the river Danube and staying in B&B's in Szeged and Gyula. Hopefully, I will be able to put together another post next week, once we got home to Bér next Friday or Saturday.

Covid

We definitely worked it out that we both have Covid. No testing, so you can't be sure, but now I know that this is more than any flu. I was getting better and then had a relapse because we went to Tesco to buy some food. It feels as if it will never go away. I hope I'm wrong, but it might be long term. Some damage might have been made to my lungs, which might be permanent. Who knows? What is definite, is that this is long in terms of tiredness, feeling week, giddy, muscle, bone and joints aching and very disturbed sleep.

Roy's Gypsy Roast in the Eden

This last week was, again, spent mostly in bed. The only time we went anywhere was to Hatvan Tesco, where we bought some food and even that exhausted me completely. The only nice thing about that outing was that we went to the Eden on route 21, which we used to frequent a lot in the past, but have not been for several years. Gyula, the owner was there, just inside the front door and greeted us nicely. We had lovely food, Roy had a gypsy roast and I had bone soup and mushrooms in breadcrumbs. He aged a bit, but so did we, but his business is thriving, as at least half of the very large dining area was full of diners on a Monday lunchtime in November. It was nice to see him again and having a chat.

My mushrooms with breadcrumbs in the Eden

One day Roy surprised me with a lovely meal, which I do not think he ever made before. He called it "surf and turf" and honestly it was delicious. He managed to dig out a piece of steak from the freezer, as well as some plump and juicy prawns. He had the large part of the steak, while I had a small piece, but we both had about the same amount of prawns. It was served with chips and peas and I made a nice salad to go with it too. Yum, yum!!

Surf and Turf, the most delicious dish

 

Most days were really spent like the one before, me in bed, on my phone or on my laptop, Roy doing the odd bit of gardening, burning leaves, chopping wood, while I was watching TV on my laptop, and doing some paperwork, as usual. This week I was doing some phoning around and managed to catch up with stuff that has been hanging around for ages. Most important of that is a solution, hopefully a good one, to the debacle around the pálinka mash. After a full year of promising all sorts of crap, the distiller we have used for over 10 years admitted that he might not restart his distilling business. His father has just died and he had lots of trouble with the authorities about getting his licence back after last year's repairs.

Rézkatlan, (Copper Vat) distillery near Pásztó

So, Pali mentioned, while I was talking to him on the phone, that there is a distillery near Pásztó, which is only about half an hour by car from here. I searched for it on Google and found it. I even managed to talk to the owner and he seems keen. I told Pali this, and it seems that we will put our barrels together and after he sorted the transport arrangements get our mash distilled at this new place. Unfortunately, Pali is in hospital this week, getting ready for his big coronary surgery in January, and when he is back, we are going away on our postponed jaunt to Zala. So, this has been put off for a few weeks again, but hopefully, will be sorted before the end of November.

Dymo tape printer

I have also ordered a few things online in recent weeks, 2 of them have already come and one was ordered this week. The ones that were delivered were a Dymo machine with tape, so that we can renew our alternative passwords on my caches, the other was two large boxes of probiotics, which had 10% off, so I bought two. The latter also got us free delivery, so that was good. The one I ordered this week was a Christmas present for Meaghan. Apparently, she likes owls, so I bought a ring with an owl on it from an online jewellers, who are closing up and the price was heavily discounted. That one has not arrived yet, as it is coming from a long way away, as well as having to go through customs. Talking of presents, Alex finally worked out what he wants for his birthday and as he can get it with discount in Canada, he'll get it and I'll send the money. I think due to its price which is around $Can 600, this will have to be his combined birthday and Christmas present.

Meaghan's hypnotic owl  ring

Roy managed to get our local car mechanic to switch the tyres from summer ones to winter ones, so that is yet another chore that has been ticked off. Lately I started having what felt like a relapse in my condition, but hopefully it is just a sign of my impatience that makes me feel like that. Towards the end of shopping on Monday I did feel dreadful, so this does mean that next week, while caching in Zala, I'll have to be careful not to overtire myself. 

The dark and sinister program

 

The rest of my time, as I wrote already, was spent in bed, and at least that made sure that my e-mails were up to date, I caught up with my US procedurals and I even tried a few from the UK, including a frightening, based on a true case, story of a serial killer. Until I Kill You on ITV was frightening and uncomfortable at times, but very interesting. Anna Maxwell Martin and Shaun Evans were absolutely brilliant and the British detectives as negligent and misogynist, as usual.  I watched the actual documentary, with the real victim, which was also sobering and fascinating. 

Let us see which one will start WW3!

Today is the US presidential election, which seems so 50/50 that nobody knows who is likely to win it. I have been listening to the CBS broadcast already, but the extent to which there will be turnout, coupled with lots of millions of postal votes, I don't think we'll know the true result before the weekend. Possibly later if Trump starts throwing accusations around if he loses. What a farce, but unfortunately, the US is a country that whatever happens there is likely to affect the rest of the world too.

The narrow gauge railway's original line

As our postponed caching trip is coming closer and closer, I had to finish the cache list, which I was putting off due to being pessimistic about recovering sufficiently to go. I think we will go whatever, and should it be difficult physically, then we just cut down on the number of caches. As long as I get at least 15, including the last narrow gauge railway cache, I'll be happy.

Some of the caches round Gyula

 

 

I haven't even started the Gyula list yet, also thinking that we might have to cancel it, but as that one is only for 3 days, hopefully we will manage it. We are off to BP on Friday, as I managed to get an appointment with Timi, my hairdresser. On my last visit, I got her to cut off less than normally, to see how that goes. It didn't go well, so I'll be back to have it cut really short, as usual.

I hope Ági's 70th Birthday party will be a hoot

We are unlikely to be back for several weeks, as we have the Zala trip, followed by Ági's 70th birthday party and the dental hygienist. Once these are done, we will be off to Gyula for another 3 days' geocaching, then back to BP and finally to Bér. Next week post will have to be done at one of our B&B's, let us hope the WiFi is sufficient there.

Flu, more flu and even more flu

We eventually came down to Bér on Friday last week, but not so much due to Roy's flu, but mine. On the same day that I posted last week, I started feeling really bad in the afternoon. Every joint and muscle in my body hurt, I felt sick, I had a headache, but the worst was the coughing. I had two bouts of Covid, and the two together wasn't as bad as this flu. In fact, it may have been a new strain of Covid, as we will never know, because there is not only no testing by the Health  Service any more, but you cannot even buy a test kit for money at the pharmacy. Typical Orbán regime nonsense: "if we do not test, we will not have to admit having an epidemic". They have been doing this for years now, so we got used to it. Meaghan gave me several boxes of 5 tests, which the Canadian health service was handing out free, but all of those are now out of date, so I didn't bother.

The future of hiking, in the Börzsöny on April 13th 2024

I was still feeling awful, but we had to return to Bér, due to the guests we were expecting, as mentioned in last week's post. Eventually, they stayed three nights, instead of one, and today we are expecting Dani's family to stay and while they are only supposed to stay for one night, who knows? Dani and Lili are very flexible people, and in a way I am glad that we were here, (due to my illness), at least we could accommodate them this week. The extremely painful coughing lasted 5 days, which was hell. By today, I am almost free of coughing, except first thing in the morning, when I still have to cough up the gunge that collected on my lungs overnight.

Remnant of the rails in the Black Valley

Another really irritating fact was that this week the weather has been, and still is, gorgeous. Mild, still with absolutely no wind and bright sunshine most days. I am always missing good weather by being ill, and this autumn is no different. We postponed the Zala geocaching trip by two weeks, so now it will start on 11th November. I bet you, the weather by then would have turned wet, cold and windy. I sort of knew somehow that we would not be able to go this week, so I only started writing the cache list a couple of days ago. This flu, which I am now absolutely convinced is a Covid variant, having heard from a friend that he also had it and was convinced it was, gave me brain fog. Writing the list took me, so far, at least twice the normal time it usually does.

Lovely Börzsöny meadow on April 20th 2024

The one advantage of spending most my time in bed is that I could catch up with some paperwork. A couple of months ago the main admin person of one FB group where I was the moderator, has given up her position. It was a little bit rude that she didn't talk to me about it, just used the system to ask me if I were to take it on. I didn't want the group to die, so I said yes. Now, I had a closer look and changed some photos, and rules and hopefully it will not give me too much work.

Talking of work, I have also spent a few days uploading hiking photos onto another FB group, which I have sort of forgotten about. The one where I am now the admin concerns the Cserhát, the range of hills where we live.  The other one is a group concerning the next range of hills, the Börzsöny, just West of us. As it happens, all three geocaching hikes I have organised this year, took place in the Börzsöny, so I looked for the photos and uploaded three separate albums. They are getting lots of likes and a few comments. I wish I could encourage more people to do the same in the Cserhát group, they are not as enthusiastic about posting as the members of the other one.

Up to the ridge at the latest hike on 12th October

I'm still doing a bit of Alex's financial paperwork by filing his expenses in date order in an Excel file, and that is up to date now as well. My e-mails are also not very easy to keep up to date, but I am almost there now. Also, my usual US procedurals have restarted again, (a full month later than normal), but I have been watching those as well. I also postponed the hygienist by a week, hoping for a less coughing and more normal self by mid-November.

View from the ridge on 12th October 2024

 

To cheer myself up, I also started planning caching activity in 2025 already, and the first hike's location and route is as good as planned. The main reason for choosing the location, was that a new young guy, a fellow cacher, has offered his help. He lives nearby and might help me with the logistics. It is a part of the country where I haven't been for a very long time, so I am already looking forward to it.

Raven's Cliff in the Börzsöny on 12th October 2024

So, that's all for now - I do hope that I will be over the flu, or whatever else this is, by the time I post again. 

PS: As both of us having the flu, obviously, didn't produce any photographs, I took these here from the photo albums of the three major geocaching hikes this year, all three of them in the Börzsöny.