Right when I felt overjoyed that I had managed to sort all of last month’s pictures thematically, I realized that I still had several which were ‘orphaned’- shots I took randomly because I could (just so that I never pass by a good picture if it’s there) or ones which were born with the rather more prosaic purpose of being posted to Instagram.

Among them, seasonal but gratuitous shots of tulips ( from either the Wild Flower Bar or Hunyadi Market) and a seasonal, as in cats are always seasonal, shot of my sleeping cat. The two excuses I have for the rather miserly shot of the Chain Bridge going green for Saint Patrick’s Day are stout and whiskey, and I feel that these circumstances alleviate any crimes against framing and exposure.  I have also very maturely pictured my first ice cream of the season, you should be informed it came from Moritz Eis, it tasted like Rom tricolor and was exquisite. 

As I felt bad about leaving them to their sad fate of gathering virtual dust in a folder of miscellanea, I have therefore decided to re-instate the monthly random post, and added some timely observations about the first sings of spring in Budapest, which you can indulge in below. 

• At the same traffic light, someone waiting clad in full winter gear, puffa jacket, woolly hat and thick boots and someone else in shorts and tank top. Ice cream parlours shyly reopen, same people in puffa jackets shyly indulge in some ice cream.
• Traffic gets noticeably more hysterical, as people start to drive faster like sap rushing through new plants, and open windows allow for better placed insults and more satisfactory airing of grievances.
• Runners on Margit Island suddenly quadruple at most hours of the day and there’s always someone wandering aimlessly on the running track and making everything worse for everyone. Sometimes the someone is a dog and it licks your ankle distractedly, just because it felt like it.
• 7 AM means some industrious workers (one wonders how come there are so many industrious workers in Budapest, but believe me, there’s armies of them) start to drill a hole in the pavement. They are about to fix something mysterious. Come summer, the hole grows bigger, nothing is fixed. They start drilling at 6 AM.
• 8 AM means the same workers are having coffee at the corner shop. They have successfully woken the entire neighbourhood. Their job for the day is done.
• Brits in flip flops and T-shirts, possibly on a beer bike, possibly singing really loud just so that you know they’re coming. Alternatively, the exasperated honks of cars stuck behind the beer bike in the Oktogon junction will do the job. Just so that we are fair to our Brexiting brothers and sisters, the same functions can be occasionally fulfilled by the Dutch or the Germans. Like in one out of 100 occasions, but still, it has been know to happen. 
• The Madách square hipster tribe, until recently grumpily stuck inside minimal bars, specialty coffee shops and fusion restaurants, staring into the abyss of their Mac, are now grumpily stuck on the terrace of said places, staring into the abyss of their Mac, possibly complaining about how they can’t see a thing because of the sun.