The war spirit is ....

alive and well in Bér. We managed to finally gather our wits and catch the bus to Bér yesterday. Everything looked OK, but as soon as Roy turned the water on it was raining indoors in several places. We quickly turned it off and started searching for the source(s) of the leak(s). The main one looked like it was in the plaster board wall of the upstairs bathroom. The plumber who did it originally was thankfully at home, which was lucky as recently he had been working in Austria for months on end. He came eventually (he has a drinking problem and I think he might have been on the juice yesterday afternoon) and regaled us with stories of various disasters in all the villages while the really cold spell was on a couple of weeks ago. It must have been when I was freezing my butt off in the streets of Cambridge as the temperature plumeted to -12C.

Last night was really funny and Roy and I felt that this must have been how Britain felt in the Blitz, especially on the colder nights. We put on all our clothes: I was sitting around watching TV in two fleeces and my down jacket, wrapped in a blanket and still feeling cold. Roy doesn't feel the cold as much as I do, but even he was considering putting more layers on eventually.

The plumber promised to come this morning and thankfully his wife must have hidden all the palinka bottles well because he did turn up and was (and still is) quite sober.

After cutting a big chunk out of the plasterboard they found the errant pipe (see below!) and it honestly proves that all the curses we heaped onto our original plumber - who still works with iron, rather than copper - was probably right. You can see that the pipe actually gave way, got itself a bump and split. Iron would never have done that.

After that we were hoping that we had found the majority of the problems and things would improve. No chance! When the plumber started putting pressure on the central heating system it turned out that there were two more bubbles in the pipes to the library radiators which then promptly proceeded to soak my entire book collection. I think I know what I am going to do in the next 4 to 6 months: DRYING BOOKS!!! One needs a real sense of perspective to survive disasters like this with a degree of serenity. I only had to think of the victims of the current recession, people who lost their jobs, their homes and who live with extreme poverty and hopelessness and that helped to put this into perspective. I am not very happy at the moment, but neither am I depressed or too upset. Such is life!

Must go now as we are off to the builders' merchants for pipes, taps and other plumbing paraphanalia.

Portugal

Needless to say the WiFi in Portugal didn't work. Ian could get on it with his iPhone now and again, but nobody that I spoke to could get any joy out of it with a laptop/netbook. Hence the fortnight gap in posting.

The flight was uneventful, met up with Ian and Ruth easily and arrived on time. Picked car up which turned out to be a fantastic Peugeot 308, enormous for about 130 quid for a week. Mind you, with the extra charge for comprehensive insurance and the two extra drivers it finally came out at £230, but even that was reasonable. As it was diesel, we only paid another £15 a head during the week for fuel, in spite of the fair amount of motoring we did.

We got to Viseu in about 90 minutes, although the mysteries of the motorway tolls left us baffled. Some bits were with gates, some with electronic eyes and we decided not to stop at any of the gates and pay the lot at a Post Office later, as advised at the Europecar desk.

Viseu is a very pretty little town. We walked into it on the day of arrival, although the sun was setting, but the pictures still came out nice. (see above!) Lovely historical centre, pretty trees, fountains, flowers (in February!!)and a nice laid back atmosphere. The hotel was not nearly so lovely, a bit dilapidated, no central heating on, so I had the air conditioning on - operating as a heater - the whole week. Initially no hot water either, but if you let it run for about 100 years it finally came through. I can't complain, though, as the staff were friendly and helpful and it only cost 200 Euros for the week. It was also very central, so we could walk everywhere.

The first day we went on an outing to what looked like a National Park on the map. We had no idea what to expect, we just got in the car and drove. The countryside looked really beautiful all along, with big rocks, mostly pine trees (a bit like Scots pine) and villages with fields round them. We stopped in a town called Seia and then looked for the road on the map that would lead to the park. No luck! We could not find it. So we went more South and thought of trying what looked like a country lane, possibly without tarmac, later. Well, the EU must have coughed up for new roads in that area, because we found a brand new lovely wide tarmac road leading straight up into a bare, Moon like landscape of gigantic boulders and finally the highest point of Portugal with an operating ski slope. It was a magical trip, if only we could have enticed Ruth out of bed sooner, we might have even made it without being benighted at the end of it. Still, that day will go down in the annals of Grant family history as an impromptu, unplanned fluke of a day which ended up absolutely magical.

In the hotel we discovered another couple of orienteers whom I have known from the old days and having breakfast with them in the morning became a lovely pastime. They are retired teachers who live by mostly travelling the world, cycling, motoring, orienteering, bowling and having a great time. Both Alwyn and Val are very nice, lively and entertaining people, who are not only very good company, but have a world outlook which is quite similar to mine. Having them around was a real bonus, which made the week even more fun than it otherwise would have been.

Friday we went to the two Model Events, which was an eye opener to the rest of the week. Steep, enormous rocks, thick vegetation, steep hillsides and very technical orienteering were awaiting all of us. My physical shape is poor, so I was taking it easy, but its technical nature promised great fun.

Day 1 and 2 were in a forest very near Viseu, where we were staying. The longest course was on Day 1 where I had 4k with 185m of climb. I managed it in just over an hour and was 9th out of 30 in W60. I went rather steadily through some really nasty jungle, but enjoyed it. Day 2 was a middle distance race, so we had 2.5k and that was my best day in 6th place. On the evening of Day 1 we had a night sprint in Viseu itself, where I managed 4th place, but could have been possibly 3rd if I didn't have problems with seeing the map in places. In the afternoon of the second day there was a TrailO event which Ian had entered me for, but keeping to my promise to myself from 2009 I refused to compete. I did go, though and had a look at a few controls and felt really happy that I stayed right out of it.

Days 3 and 4 were about a 35 minute drive away and the first of them was a World Ranking Event. Some of the best in the world,Thierry Georgiou and Simone Niggli amongst them, were around. I was beginning to tire, so only managed 10th and 8th and ended up 8th overall. Not bad, considering and I was happy with it. Georgiou said in a speech that this was the best Portuguese terrain he ever ran on and I also thought that it ranked amongst the best I have ever seen anywhere. Val ended up second in W60, only beaten by an amazing Lithuanian woman who was pretty fast. There were some Hungarians there, two of which were on the podium in M/W21B.

We managed to pay the motorway tolls in the Post Office and during the week have also seen a few lovely Mardi Gras processions of both adults and children. Food was variable, but the last night with Val and Alwyn we found an amazing little restaurant where I had baked cod with an onion sauce, yum,yum! The previous night Ian and I ate a massive cauldron of shellfish with rice in another restaurant, which was also amazing.

We said good bye to our friends on the last morning, drove to the airport and got back with no hassle. Lovely week, good company, amazing orienteering and further insight into a country I have only ever been to once before and in a totally different part of it. Now for dealing with 200+ e-mails and other accumulated chores!!

Cambridge and London

The plane was a bit late, so I missed my bus. I had to hang around nearly another two hours for the next one, but the compensation was a really nice, friendly, kind and chatty driver who kept me entertained all the way to Cambridge. Found the hostel OK, but Alan and Ana were missing. They only turned up the following day, but at least they managed to borrow a car, so the trip back to London on Sunday was comfortable. Due to my later arrival I missed the first session and was so tired that I couldn't face walking right across the city to the pub where the rest of them were. I hit the pillows quite early.

The weekend school was brilliant. I met some really lovely young people, the kind we didn't have too many of in the recent period until the last few years. On Saturday morning Dan's leadoff on Philosophy was superb; in a topic that normally tells me nothing I haven't already heard before, he managed to get ideas across which were new and interesting to me. Very bright young man with a promising future. In the afternoon I joined the workshops on the First, Second and Third Internationals, which were also brilliant. Fred and Marie introduced the topic very well and even the discussion was lively and interesting. That day the only bad aspect was one of the halls where there were some slightly open windows which made the temperature well below 10 degrees Celsius and everybody was slowly freezing. The other room was much better, so we went there to warm up in the afternoon, even though I would have gone there anyway as I was interested in the topics there.

The social in the evening was great, if a bit noisy for my old and sensitive ears, but the atmosphere was so nice and all the youngsters delightful, that I was very happy indeed. On Sunday the last session was led off by Alan, who is always a joy to listen to, and this occasion was no exception. Under the stern gaze of John Maynard Keynes in Kings College we celebrated the history of our organisation and its brilliant future. On the trip back to London we went shopping at Tesco's and had a gorgeous roast dinner together. Marie and Naja from Denmark came to stay at Alan and Ana's as well, so it was a very jolly party indeed.

This morning (Monday) Marie, Naja and I went to the Cortauld Gallery in Somerset House to see the glorious paintings there. The emphasis was on impressionists, but many periods were represented from medieaval to contemporary. I discovered some very well known, famous paintings, which I never knew were there. It was very nice indeed, especially that between 10am and 2pm on Mondays entry is totally free. I found one of my absolute favourite paintings, Modigliani's Nude, which was quite an event for me to see in the original. There were plenty of Seurat, Cezanne and Renoir, a few Gaugin, Van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec and many, many Monet and Manet on the walls. Amongst the modern paintings I found many names I have never heard of, but even some of those talked to me, especially the ones with very bold shapes and colours, but not all. It was very tiring and after about an hour and a half we came out. We then proceeded to walk along the Strand all the way to Trafalgar Square, then down Whitehall to Parliament via Horseguards Parade and back up to a pub for lunch. Naja went home, Marie stayed as she had other plans in town later and I returned to my dear friends' house for a rest. Just one funny aside at this point: while typing Whitehall I made a typing error of a Freudian kind - I replaced the 'w' with an 's'. Nuf said!

This was a very good day indeed, but I think tomorrow I will take it easy, considering that I have to leave at 5am on Wednesday to make my flight from Gatwick in time. Further reports from Portugal, if the promised WiFi in the hotel works.

A perishing but great weekend

Five of my weekend guests arrived on the Friday and a further three on Saturday. The latter were supposed to turn up by 10am at the latest, as it happens we had to wait for them until midday before we could set out on our hike. As a result of the late departure we had to scrap one of our highlights, but it was still a great hike. At one stage we found ourselves in a whiteout like snowstorm, which made an already hairy trip more dangerous. Most of us were falling in all directions slipping on the ice hidden by the fresh snow. We still enjoyed it as you can see on the happy faces in the pictures. I don't think it was more than about 12km, but it took us about over 4 hours. It did include two stops: one at a little forest church with an ancient stages of the cross monument, the other at a hostelry for palinka and warmth. I managed to find one of my geocaches of the day (actually it was Nerrillee who found it), but the other one fell foul of the cutting of the trip short due to leaving late and the weather being atrocious.

Once at home a big feast was devoured with relish. Erika made tortillas and Roy contributed his famous mushroom paprikash. Some of his palinka found dome devotees amongst the gathered crowd.
Sunday found us rather worn out from Saturday's exertions, plus Lisa went down with some virus, so a depleted band of happy brothers (and sisters) set out for an amble within the village in the now much improved weather, which was still perishing but the sun shone and the snow sparkled. We had a look at the new development by the stream and then walked up the hill to lunch at Viragos.

At the end of the day Agi and David gave us a lift in to town where we are now. I am off to London and Portugal on Friday, so the next post will be sometime, but I'm not sure when.

Bird Quiz No.2

I apologise for the bad condition of these pictures, but it has to be taken through glass, otherwise they instantly fly away and also by the time I get round to photographing them the sun has gone round the house to the back. The quiz is about my new visitor, who is much larger than the rest of the tits and finches, but has a definitely seed eating beak. The smaller birds are not afraid of it and they happily chomp away on the sunflower seeds which disappear very fast in these Siberian times.

Talking of Siberian times, there is a photo of our outside thermometer this morning and that wasn't first thing but around 10am. You can also see a picture of the inside of our large stove, which is now throwing out such heat that you can toast cheese on it. Not that I would, you understand!! :-)

Erika has just phoned, because she got lost in the next village 5k away. She managed the rest of the 75k perfectly and then she had to get lost there. Never mind, hopefully they'll be here in a minute and then I will have some lovely company for the weekend.

Will post when I get a minute, but doubt it'll be before they all went.

Bird Quiz

If anybody knows what these birds are, do please let me know! For the first time ever I have seen them on my feeder, which made such an exciting change after several years of great tits dominating small bird life in these parts.

Apologies for the poor picture quality but when I tried to open the window to get a clearer view they all flew away. So this is taken through the window and in less than optimum light conditions. Still, their colours and patterns are quite clear, so I hope someone will let me know, either in a comment here, or via e-mail what they are.

Geocaching (again)

After a blustery and snowy Sunday - Monday was much improved so we decided to go out for a few more caches. I love geocaching, but that day turned out to be a lot less fun than I expected. The first cache was in a village where a famous writer lived. I had no trouble finding it, hidden down a tree in a lane by a pretty white church. It was on the web site as a traditional cache, so I thought that having found it that was it. Until I read the logbook which then suggested that I had to go to the Museum and read some number on a board. Cheeky, I thought. A traditional cache and then you find out it is really a multi. Needless to say (I found it out since) that it used to be a multi, but they put it back to a traditional because the Museum is closed for refurbishment. However, they forgot to cross off the second instruction, so I ended up very confused. Never mind, I thought I would still get this find credited as it was obvious that I couldn't get in to a closed Museum.

After this we went to a nearby village where the cache was hidden at the foot of a tree on top of an ancient hill fort, now thickly forested. I left Roy at the bottom by the row of wine cellars (sadly closed) :-( and climbed straight up. Found the exact co-ordinates, but no sign of cache. There was a suspicious looking large hole at the bottom of a tree, but still no cache. I was getting a bit p....d off by now, considering my lack of success, but I took some pictures and hoped to have it credited on the basis of the photographs.

When I got back down to Roy and the car I was seriously considering jacking in the whole thing, but felt that at least the next one should be done, as it is en route to home anyway. We got going and stopped in the village appointed (although the village name plate was missing) and asked where the stages of the cross were. The locals looked very puzzled, but thankfully we managed to work out that we stopped one village too early, so we motored on. Before that we did try to put the coordinates in the TomTom, but it decided to send us on a 25 mile trip in a Northerly direction, so we were puzzled yet again. Never mind, perhaps I made a mistake with the co-ordinates or printed the wrong details on my sheet, but as we could now see the village where we should have been on the horizon we journeyed on. Upon arrival we had our sandwiches and then tried the co-ordinates again, same place 25 miles away. Now I decided that I must have got myself confused when copying the details from the web site and the weather seemed to turn as well, so we decided to call it a day. On our way out of the village we suddenly spotted the blue house with the path next to it which was supposedly the departure point. Looking up on the hill we saw the big cross and even spotted the finger post right next to us that pointed up the hill directing you to the cross. Hurraaahhhh!! We must be in the right place. At this point we realised that we were very silly assuming that I boobed with the coordinates as having the hand held GPS, we could have checked. We did so straight away and discovered that our poor old TomTom must have been having a bad day, because everything was correct and all I had to do was to climb the bloody big hill right above us to the big cross and find the cache. This I duly did, so we amassed a grand total of 3, having suffered all kinds of mishaps and frustrations. Sill I can't complain as I was out in the fresh air, had some exercise and took a few really lovely photos of the glorious countryside around me.

Upon arrival home I put my finds on the web site: it accepted the password without the one from the Museum for the first - GREAT!! - the second was put up without the password, and the third normally. Having re-read some of the comments on the hill fort one it transpired that the last time anyone found it in situ was at the end of September, nothing in the following 3 months, then one person at the beginning of January found it accidentally in a bush 30 metres away from its place and another poor bugger 5 days before me couldn't find it at all. Since then the owner of the cache has accepted our find based on the photos, but only after I nudged him by e-mail. Great fun this geocaching lark, I must say!!