Cemetery, kids orienteering, Sheila's departure and the mountains

I am on top of a mountain using my recent investment of a mobile modem. Yippeeee, great not to have to return to 300 e-mails!!

Short resume of the last week:

Monday we went to the cemetery. Primarily to enquire about how much it is going to cost me to keep my parents ashes at the cemetery for another 10 years. After the initial outlay of about 50 quid in 1980 and subsequent renewals costing roughly the same, they now want nearly 200 quid. Sod that!! - was Roy's comment and I totally concur. Thankfully, since the fall of communism they have relaxed their atavistic fear of anything to do with death in Hungary and now, I am told, you can take them home. That is exactly what we are planning to do when we get round to it next year.

However, the highlight of the trip was a visit to parcel 301. This was one of about 2 or 3 areas hidden away in the far end of the cemetery where in the stalinist days they buried all those who have died in prisons, torture victims and especially all those executed and tortured to death in and after the 1956 revolution. It is now a beautiful plot, tastefully renovated and a lovely memorial created to all those who have died.

This, we followed up with a lovely lunch at the old rifle club, now a gorgeous restaurant. The cakes you could kill for there and we took 3 home for later.

Wednesday was rather full of activities: Sheila went home and Roy saw her to the airport, where, apparently, she was royally treated and taken by wheelchair all the way to the plane. I, however, was in a park, running around as one of the organisers of a children's orienteering event. It turned out to be a fantastic day, in spite of the fact that the results printer died on us half way through. We were helped out by a nearby school where we ended up using their electricity. About 350 children attended and due to the enthusiasm of the teacher and his sports club who put this together, who brought his mobile rock climbing wall and other activities, everybody had a lovely time. The orienteering course was also well received, so much so that it was on television in the evening and the local aurthority was impressed as well.

On Thursday we departed once again for the Bukk where we are now. The weather turned cold, but at least I have Roy with me this time, so I am only cold, not lonely as well, like last time. This weekend I am running in the Hungarian Night Orienteering Championships and another two events on Sunday and Monday. The following week I am working with Laci on my course and his and when I got home next Friday I have only one evening to recover before travelling to Ljubjana for another two Trail-O Events.
PS: Won W60 at the Night Champs, which wasn't particularly difficult as there was only 2 of us in the class. However, when you look at all the classes that were on my course I managed to beat all W60's, W55's and M75's as well. I was the only one under 40 minutes, my friend and rival Klari managed 42, all others were in the 50's and the other lady in W60 took over 100 minutes. I congratulated her on her perseverence at the presentations.

Sunday's event was dreadful. The gung-ho planner, who managed to overplan the night courses, but at least that was a championships, tried to kill off allcomers on Sunday as well. There are obviously several Mike Elliots all over the world, but this one is only a pipsqueak of a youngster, but his courses were monstrous. Added to that, the weather deteriorated further, so my 54 minutes for 2.8km, while seemingly too long, still seemed a good time. I fell over several times on slippery rocks and fallen logs, so it felt more like a survival race than orienteering. They cancelled the presentations, mostly because everybody had gone home by then, it was that cold. The car thermometer showed 5 degrees Celsius when we finally got going.

The really bad news, of course, is that if this weather holds, that will scupper the rest of the week which Laci and I planned to spend fine-tuning our courses and doing the controlling for each other. Shall I rub it in that having left everything to the last minute, he is now in a lot of trouble, having wasted 4 days of precious holiday? Well, let us hope that the rain stops soon and we can get some work done before Friday.

Summer flowers and trip up Gellert Hill

I just had to snap the acacia trees in full blossom and my first roses before I left Ber for Budapest yet again. The view from my window across the valley is still very pretty as well as the view up the back garden from Sheila's room. It shows the parasol and the swing on which Sheila managed to knit or do her sewing until it got too hot. The last couple of days before we left were so hot that we had to hide indoors from 36 degrees Celsius outside.

Yesterday we had a nice dinner with Robert and Volker after which they went off to the Opera, I went to the Theatre and Roy went home with Sheila. Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks by Richard Alfieri was a hoot. I never heard of this author before, but he was very funny as well as deep about the human condition.

Today we went up to Gellert Hill which is the best lookout point for view over Budapest. Roy insisted that he had not been up there for nearly 40 years. I think that is a slight exaggeration, but certainly he has not seen the view from up there for a while. I have been many times in the last 4-5 years as it is mapped for orienteering and there have been several races up there. Both Sheila and Roy were fascinated by the view and we will surely be back there soon.

Three sprint races

For those of you who are into orienteering maps I have uploaded three of them here. The last few weeks were full of sprint races as the Hungarian Short Distance Championships were held last Saturday. I only went to the Gyongyos Kupa to practice my sprinting skills, but it was great fun. At the Champs I only had one run as oldies, like me, do not get a qualifier round any more. However, at the Gyongyos Kupa I did both morning and afternoon.

Maps 1-2 are the two parts of the qualifier of the Gyongyos Kupa, which at 1:2000 I couldn't get onto the scanner. The terrain was a nice housing estate from the old days and Gyongyos being a reasonably civilised country town, the park around the blocks was in good order.

Map 3 is the final in the old town centre of Gyongyos and if you enlarge the picture you can see a few tricky legs where the best route went through buildings, courtyards and open entrance gates. I managed to find all of them and also slowed down enough not to mispunch, which was the fate of many competitors.

Map 4 is from the Sprint Champs and this was a proper 1:4000 map in a hilly ex-industrial town where choice of shoe was quite a problem. I wish I wore O shoes, as even the town part of my course was mostly on grass. As I wrote before, a small amount of hesitation towards the end cost me the gold medal, but I was still satisfied with my performance. It was only afterwards that I managed to totally cripple myself by getting off a bench too suddenly and pulling a ligament in my groin. Such is life!

Sprint Championship and Pecs

This weekend we took Sheila to the Sprint Championships followed by visiting Pecs on Sunday morning. Komlo was a great venue for the Sprint Champs and I very nearly won. L0oking at the split times I lost it on some hesitation at the end. I had a slow start, a good middle bit and a wobbly end. Well, 19 seconds is not the end of the world and a silver medal is still nice .
On Saturday night we stayed at the Racz Tanya, where I have orienteered some years ago. Had dinner on the terrace with views to die for. (see piccies!)

Sunday morning we decamped to Pecs, saw the Dzsami, had ride on little sight seeing train followed by lovely ice cream, then left for home. Lunch en route in the Bagoly Csarda was great and home by 4pm. Off to Ber first thing tomorrow morning.

Sheila's first outing

Sheila arrived on Wednesday for a visit. We were happy to see her arrive ahead of schedule, well done Ryanair!

Thursday we haven't done much, but today we went to see the Chateau at Nagyteteny, which has a permanent furniture exhibition in it. The majority of the pieces were from Italy, France, Germany and Austria, with a few good Hungarian pieces thrown in. Baroque and Rococo are not quite my scene, but a few classicistic items (some of them English), some of the French inlaid stuff, some pottery and most of all the pottery stoves were magnificent. I even saw some chests with linen fold carvings on, which were termed "gothic" and looked impressive. We missed the flower festival, which was last weekend, but still managed to catch a couple of the exhibits that have survived to the following Friday.

As you can see I was busy photographing all the pottery stoves, some of the furniture, pottery and one chandelier. Sheila needed to sit down quite often, but as we have practically had the entire chateau to ourselves, that was no problem.

Afterwards we had a nice cake and a drink in a nearby cafe, did some shopping in OBI and were home by 4pm.

Tonight I saw an excellent, if somewhat frenetic version of Ray Cooney's Run for your Wife in a nearby theatre, which made me laugh non-stop until my side hurt.

Tomorrow we are off to the Sprint Championships in the South, followed by a little sight seeing in Pecs.

Nagymezõ and other delights

I have just spent nearly a week up on the Bükk plateau in glorious warm weather, getting a lot of work done. Unfortunately I cannot post any Trail-O pictures as they are confidential, but some of the beauty of the place can still be seen from these photos. The first one is from the first Model Event terrain, which is quite small, but perfectly formed!! On the same map you can see this memorial to foresters who have died in the line of duty. It is a shame, that along with so many other things, this has stopped with the advent of capitalism in Hungary. The last name on it is from the 80's and while I would like to believe that no further accidents have happened in the forests of the Bükk since then, it is not likely. The next two are of lovely flowers: violet first, but I have no idea what the yellow one is called. That grew round one of the timed controls of the first Model Event. Finally a magnificent tree before its foliage is fully out. These areas are above 800 metres high, so nature is a bit behind here even though it was beautifully warm.

Unfortunately the accommodation was spartan, cold and very lonely this time. The previous place, which was luxurious with cable TV in every room, central heating, good food etc. got sold and the lady we usually deal with is trying to take this hostel over instead. Hopefully by the next time I go she will be fully installed there, but this time it was still the old regime, no heating, very few people and an atmosphere of a graveyard. On the way home I bought myself mobile internet, so hopefully I should be able to download e-mails in future as there was good mobile reception there. We must have been close to a mast, which is lucky. I will also take a radio to cheer myself up in the mornings and evenings and a bedside light. I took quite a lot of reading matter, but was unable to read them due to insufficient light.

Things are shaping up in the mountains. We are having about 90 entries now, which is promising. I have finished planning my Day 1 course, although the map has actually just been finished while I was away. Next time I might plan a few more controls on the bits that were still unfinished this time and then will have nearly twice as many controls as I need. That will give a chance to both IOF Advisers to suggest which ones to discard.

The model Event area is a lot better than I remembered. The only worry is that unlike the competition day map, which is superb - absolutely correct and detailed, this mapper is not nearly as good as expected. He is nowhere near having finished either, but what I have seen so far is not a patch on the others. That course is nearly done as well, although I did it without a map. Now I can tell him where the map needs to be 100%, let us hope he rises to the challenge!!!

Must go now, partly as I have a lot of work in the house, garden, on the car etc., etc. partly because my arthritis in my left hand is so bad that I can't type much more.

Tipo Kupa and Spring Flowers

Last week was devoted to the garden and spring cleaning. The first picture shows how nice our tulpis were earlier on, but by now they have all finished. Roy suggested that as I had to go to BP on Tuesday for a meeting, on our return we should visit the nursery where we bought the pelargonia last year. Well, that turned out to be an expensive visit. We bought 7 hanging baskets, some pansies (they were free), a few gerbera plats, some pepper plants for the veg patch and replacement pelargonias for the places where they didn't want to revive. The yard now looks great as you can see and Roy planted his lovely pansies in old wooden washbowls.

After some heavy cleaning and tidying in the house we departed to the Tipo Kupa, where I managed three very good courses (see maps above!) in some lovely, steep and rocky mountain forest and managed to beat allcomers. Not that it was too difficult, as most of my usual opposition was either away or running up. We also had guests staying as the event was in commuting distance and we all had nice big feasts and good company during the long weekend.

Must start packing now, as I am off to the Bukk for a week's Trail-O planning and Roy will stay at home looking after the place.