A medal, some lovely caches and a Moggie

This was the Championship weekend and a good one it turned out to be. Earlier in the week we decided to give a lift to two of our friends to the orienteering, provided they don't mind coming geocaching with us on the way down. This they said they would do So I set about looking up a few caches which were not too far off the M6 and - if possible - contained some interest for Ildi and Klari, our friends. Klari is into church organs, so 3 out of the 4 caches contained churches and organs.

There was a 5 point multi in Ercsi first, then a lovely 17th century baroque organ in an otherwise ugly modern church. The reverend himself showed us round in that church, including a lovely story of the building and the organ. My friends were allowed to sit by the instrument and play a tune or two on it.

Next came a village which we have seen by travelling through it many times before, but this time we stopped as well. A beautiful interesting design for their church, village hall and council, built of stone and wood produced a fascinating impression.

Finally, a tiny little village nestled in some picturesque hills gave us some further adventures. We climbed to the top of the wooded hill at the end of their single street, talked to some villagers on our descent and eventually gave a recital on the harmonium in their little church accompanied by a lovely old lady singing in German. Very pretty and memorable.

The orienteering was interesting, probably in the Chinese curse sense. Rain threatened but never materialised, the forest was rough, steep and full of stones, undergrowth and a lot of climbing and the whole affair was wrapped up in a nasty fall which gave me a painful bump on my right knee. I came second within only a minute of the lead, so without the fall I probably could have won. Well, that is life. This result, along with another second place in the combined championship for 2012 was a reasonable medal haul and the first such success since my illness in 2010.

Roy had a lovely time too, as a long promised visit from a 1969 Moggie kept him happily occupied for ages. He now has a project in tracing the history of the little car through the Morris Minor Club and other internet sources.