WTOC in Olomouc, Czech Republic

We have just got back from the Trail-O World Championship in Olomouc and while it was exhausting, it was also an exciting, exhilarating and fascinating adventure. The team (see picture) was made up of 3 paralympic and 3 Open (any ability) competitors and they have all done extremely well.

For a first attempt having a 10th place in the paralympic class and a 12th place in the Open class was excellent. It was such a joy watching the 6 of them gelling into a real team - watching, helping and looking after each other. Those with more experience were teaching the others and generally they were all having fun. Having worked years to have Trail-O accepted by the Hungarian orienteering establishment, these good results hopefully have gone a long way towards achieving that.

We also had a chance to look at the main event, the Foot-O WOC. We saw the Long Qualification races and even ran in one of the spectators' races that day. We also had a look at the Middle qualifiers, but as only one Hungarian made it into the final, we didn't wait for that one. Just as well, as the trip home was very uncomfortable with the 5th passanger in the car we had a lift in.

Finally, I don't wish to comment on the organisation of the Czech Hana SK, as I would like to keep the tone of this entry friendly. We will show them next year how to do it!! We also had a less than pleasant experience at the Clinic, but the less should be mentioned of that the better.

Apologies to my non-orienteering readers, but nothing else occurs to me at the moment. Except the fact that I did come back to an extremely pleasant surprise when examining my bank account. TP had paid my lump sum bang on the earliest day they could (1 day after my birthday) and now we know we can pay for the car and the wedding - the two major expenses of the year - rather than just hope we can! :-)

New car + O maps

As promised here are three of the five days from the Hungaria Kupa last week. Apart from the sprint race in a very pretty park around a lovely lake, most of my courses were devoid of brain work and consisted mostly of struggling up and down steep gradients. Hungarian course planning can be good, when you get an intelligent planner, but this event was mostly planned for the men and especially the Elite. Old girls, like me, didn't get a look in. Still, I enjoyed the holiday atmosphere and the lovely weather.

And finally we fetched the little car. It drives beautifully. Ride height is way off the ground, the engine purrs like a pussycat, acceleration is great and the air conditioning sublime. Especially in this heatwave, which keeps temperatures on or above 30 degrees Celsius.

I am gardening and catching up with paperwork, doing translation and just chasing my tail as usual. Paul Frost and Lynne Walker are coming for a visit tomorrow and after that we are off to WTOC in Olomuc.

Hungaria Kupa, Philip's visit, the car and high finance

It has been quite a long time since I posted anything, so let's see what has happened in the meantime?

Most of the week before last was spent at Ber. We did a lot of gardening, grass cutting and generally tidying up the garden. I even managed to get round to pruning the apricot tree, which was probably not quite done at the right time, but as I have been planning to do it for years and now was the opportunity to do it, I went for it. Amazingly, the poor little tree has produced a nice little crop of apricots, which I am really looking forward to harvesting as soon as we get back to Ber, hopefully tomorrow.

By the end of that week the money arrived from Britain for the car, so we came in by bus on the Sunday afternoon to deal with it. After a certain amount of shenanigans we managed to get a few forints over the odds in exchanging it, although due to currency fluctuations we still lost at least 300 pounds in the transaction. Such is life!

On Monday we went out to Cinkota to pay for the car and arranged to pick it up the following Tuesday. Late that day Philip arrived from England bearing some useful gifts, like Cheddar and other goodies. He also brought us a Sky box, which he managed to pick up for about a third of what we have paid for one 2 years ago, but then again, Sky has produced Sky+ since then and the price of the ordinary box has dropped.

On Tuesday we went to pick up Papi's car, which he very kindly offered to lend us and departed for the Hungaria Kupa in Tata. The pictures above are all from the beautiful town of Tata, about an hour West of Budapest by car. The orienteering was not the best, but bearable, although the heat was horrendous, which made the steep mountains and fast parks rather hard. Unfortunately my class was devoid of quality opposition, so my impressive tally of wins is not as meaningful as it seems. Still, I am now a proud owner of 4 yellow jerseys, a gold medal and a carrier bag full of pasta (courtesy of the pasta manufacturing sponsors).

As I do not have a scanner in BP, the maps will appear later when we got back to Ber. With a bit of luck that should be tomorrow by when we have been promised the car. In the meantime we have watched in horror on the live departure screen today that Philip's flight has been delayed by 2 and half hours - poor man, he must have got rather bored of Budapest Airport by the end.

Sign off now as I have rabbited on long enough. Hopefully the car pick up will go off without a hitch and the next post should come from Ber. Some longish gaps should appear later on in July as we are off to Czech and I am off to Sweden later.