Autumn colours, more walnuts and apples, BK concert and a medal (or two)

On Tuesday we arrived back in the village.  The sight that welcomed us was magnificent. First of all the roses were still in glorious bloom, but then we realised that in the back autumn had arrived.  Many of the trees were changing colours and out came the camera.

One interesting event this week was that I got interviewed by a researcher from the Wellcome Foundation about my memories of the fight against polio in Hungary in the 1950's and 60's. She asked lots of questions over the phone and we chatted for almost 2 hours.  Apparently they are running a magazine and I will be in it. The work in the garden is still pretty ferocious. We are still collecting and burning walnut leaves; we are still picking up walnuts, harvesting apples and pears and making apple sauce. One day Roy made a dozen bottles of apple sauce and I harvested the mint and made two bottles of mint sauce. On Saturday we had our gardener in to mow the grass and having picked up the walnut leaves he could make mulch out of the grass cuttings and the other (non poisonous) leaves for covering the roses and strawberries with for winter.

Saturday was probably the highlight of the week. We were expecting friends for the weekend to stay with us for the Orienteering Championships which was held about 35 miles up the road. However, Klari discovered that there was a concert on Saturday night where our beloved Kristof Barati was playing along with the pianist, Gergely Boganyi about 25 miles in the other direction, but about half way between town and the village.  So, we worked it out that both of us could go to it and then return together to us in the village for an overnight stay prior to the orienteering.  We also invited one other person to come to the concert who was staying for the weekend anyway, thus the three of us enjoyed an absolutely glorious time listening to that heavenly Stradivarius and its master playing Bach, Beethoven, Bartok and Franck.  Ahhhhh!!

And now we come to the orienteering. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. And although the start was 2km and 220m of climb away I have even got a minibus ride up halfway, so I only had to walk 1km and 100m of climb. I had a good run, although no. 1 was a bit of a problem and not only for me. We all thought the map was not exactly how it should have been at that point. Never mind.  I got a bronze medal, which was only one of three medals I took home. Other than the bronze in the championship I got a silver in the combined championship of 2013 in W65 plus a gold medal (albeit made of pottery) for my win two weeks ago.  That was the event when we had to leave early and Kriszti had just brought it along today.  Together with my prize of a superb bottle of red wine which is going to be drunk on a special occasion later on in the year.

Now we are expecting Alwyn and Val tomorrow as they are returning for their bikes and staying for just under 48 hours.  If the weather is decent on Tuesday I'll take them off for a spot of geocaching.  That should be fun!!