The Don Valley Brickworks

We went for an outing to these disused brickworks where the clay exctraction site has been turned into a lovely park with ponds, ducks, walkways and sheer cliffs on the sides. The old factory is being converted into an environmental centre and should look really good in a year or two's time.

The other day we ordered a new stroller for Callum which arrived today. It is really posh and is much more comfortable for both him and Meaghan. Tonight Roy had a massive steak dinner which Alex cooked on the barbecue. So far he had big prawns, big steak, both of which are treats for him. I am having sushi tomorrow and unfortunately it is getting close to us leaving. Another bad bit of news is that we can't stay with Stephen en route home, so I booked 3 nights in a B&B in Kemp Town plus the last night in the usual Horley B&B. They only had a "superior" room left, so that night costs almost as much as 3 nights in the Kemp Town B&B.

Another funny event tonight concerns the cat. She has disappeared into the ceiling tonight and we had to chase her out of there. She has now settled on our bed, where she spends most nights. Lovely creature, I like her, even though Alex is not keen. As it is getting close to midnight I am off to bed.

The second week

Not quite a full second week, but so much happened it feels like it. The weather unfortunately turned a bit cold and rainy, so we couldn't do too many outdoorsy things. We walked, however, to the Danforth and did some shopping one day and followed it up with some more shopping the second day. We bought a travelling cot for Callum and ordered a stroller (pushchair come pram for you Britishers) on the Internet and generally played a lot with the munchkin whenever we could.

Heather and Lyle arrived on Thursday and we all celebrated Alex's 35th birthday at a greasy spoon type cafe which resembled Gutbusters in Brighton for those of you who hail from that neck of the woods. Alex bought himself a beautiful telescope with the money we gave him, which pleased me no end.

Then on Friday we departed to St. Catharines to stay with Heather and Lyle for a couple of days. Callum made a fantastic leap in development right on the first day: he noticeably became more aware, focusing for longer times, following us with his eyes, talking to us and able to hold his head up better. He suddenly became a lot older right in front of our eyes. A true dialectical turn of quantity to quality that was.

I managed to photograph some of the fantastic fall colours on the Sunday on our walks as the weather cheered up by then. On our way back to Toronto we passed through Niagara on the Lake where some beautiful vistas proved to be quite photogenic.

We are now staying at Alex's until we depart on Saturday. Hopefully the weather stays good and a few outings can be arranged. Next post probably later on the week either still from here or from England.

The first week

We have left home a week ago and time flew past in a whizz. After our lovely time out with Ruth on Thursday we were supposed to have lunch with Katy on Friday but she had to dash off to Kent on union business. We did go for lunch at the Black Lion though, which is walking distance from Stephen's house and had their daytime special. That was so cheap that it was probably reasonable by even Hungarian standards nowadays.

The weekend started fairly early when Ruth picked us up at 8am with Ian in tow. The trip up to Cambridge was totally uneventful and we made excellent time, so we didn't have to use the Park and Ride. Parking is not nearly as expensive in Cambridge as I thought. Mind you, compared to Brighton anything is cheap.

The street event was quite good and I came 8th out of 23, which in my current state is reasonable. We went to have a little walk round Cambridge, then had lunch and watched the punts go up and down the Cam. Soon after we left for the Travelodge. We had a nice comfortable night followed by a fascinating wildlife show through the window of our room of a weasel, mobbed by two magpies, hunting for rabbits. A few minutes later it appeared again, but this time with a large, plump bunny in its mouth, trying to take it to his burrow in a hurry. I did not have the camera to hand, which was a shame.

Sunday's event was in a scrappy forest and I was entered for the wrong course. Ended up running up, doing 4.9k which was longer than my course in the Extra Long Championships in the Spring. I was running against women all my junior, some by 15+ years and wasn't last. In fact in that field I was one of only two W60's (the other lady did 82 minutes) and with my 66 minutes I beat 45 women who were all (but one) younger than me. Altogether a satisfying result, even though I felt like an asthmatic goat going round. I can't breathe well since my flu and the three months gap in orienteering will take a great deal of time and effort to get over. Losing a few pounds would also help!!

On our return we managed to catch the last 23 laps of the Brazilian Grand Prix and the celebrations that followed. It was fantastic to watch Jenson Button winning the 2009 driver's trophy, albeit he will only be presented with it a lot later. Then came Stephen's Corn Exchange gig, which was brilliant and we even got invited for drinks afterwards. I made two new friends: Corry Shaw and Julia, Stephen's new PA. Lovely women, both of them and Julia is half Hungarian as well. Small world!!!

And then we came to Canada. The trip was uneventful, although this most certainly was the last time we flew with Canadian Affair. The seats are so narrow that it was extremely uncomfortable, especially that I couldn't read my book without my elbow ending up in my neighbour's side. We were very jetlagged, but spent some time with Alex, Meaghan and Callum on the first day. After a good night's sleep we feel a lot better today and spent a lot of time with Callum who is delightful. I also picked up my new Flip video camera, which is fantastic. The guesthouse where we are sleeping is OK. Bit tatty in places, but will do. It is reasonably priced and we have a whole little apartment with kitchen, bathroom and a good room. The bed is extremely comfortable and we even have cable TV. On Thursday it is Alex's 35th birthday and on Friday we are off to St. Catherine's to stay a couple of days with Meaghan's parents.

I will upload a video about Callum to Flickr later, in the meantime enjoy his little cutie mush on this blog!!

Hike with Ruth

We have landed at Gatwick on time, Stephen and Lucy fetched us and we were in bed by midnight on Tuesday.

Wednesday was spent doing a bit of shopping and now I am the proud owner of the second volume of Michael Palin's diaries. That bloke should be on prescription for depression. I have never laughed as much reading a book as I have done reading the first volume, so I am looking forward to being entertained similarly this time!! I also got the 5th season House DVD and another one of Sharpe with 14 full length episodes for £30 each.

We had fish and chips with Wyn prior to a very good lecture on Christ's Hospital School at the SussexFamily History Group meeting in the evening where Roy could catch up with a lot of old friends he had not seen for yonks.

Yesterday the weather cheered right up, so we went for a hike with Ruth around Kingston near Lewes. You can see the pub where we ended up for lunch, Roy peering into an old Hillman Imp, the phoney 'old' mill being built on the Downs and the lovely friendly horse we met on the way in my pictures.

This morning Roy had a very painful leg, so I think today will be reasonably uneventful, although we are meeting Katy for lunch at the Basketmakers, so we will have to go out. I love that pub, I hope it is still the same as last time. All being well, we are off to Cambridge at 7.50am tomorrow.

Return to the fold

Last weekend I went orienteering for the first time since 12th July. Probably the longest gap ever since I started orienteering that was not occasioned by dead season or no events to go to.

Well, I must admit I did better than I thought I might. Not so much the winning, as that was not difficult, considering there was only two of us in the class the other lady being a lot older than me. It was the fact that I could still run a bit (not a lot mind!) and that with some mistakes, but the mapreading was OK as well. After the first day I was so stiff, plus I strained a ligament in my leg, that I hobbled like I had a broken leg. It got better for the second day, when I concentrated on running with small steps, not to aggravate the ligament, which was on the inside of my right thigh and managed with just one mistake.

The terrain was forested sand, a bit like sand dunes, except there was even less contour detail and a lot of thorny vegetation at this time of year. I like technical areas like this, although I wished I was a bit fitter for the soft sand and a bit more with it for the tricky navigation. Still, I survived it, the ligament has settled down since (touch wood!!) and the only injuries still being seen to are two enormous blisters, which were expected after this long inactivity. I have to toughen up the skin on my feet if I want to run a bit more in what remains of the season.

As we are off to Canada next week, there are only the Cambridge Street Race and the CompassSport Cup Final prior to a few more events in November, like the Spartacus Cup and the Juniper Cup. The latter is going to be very similar to last weekend, so I hope my brain will be more in gear by then.

Next post is likely to come from Canada or a bit before, depending on time and Internet connections. I am taking the new Kitten, let us see if she will like Alex's WIFI?

Happy Birthday Roy!!!

We had the usual hiking crowd descend on us for Roy's Birthday weekend. There were 31 of us on the Saturday hike, although Roy did not join us. Still, he helped with making the fire for the couldron gulyas, which was delicious. He enjoyed his cake, which looked very sickly, but it turned out to be made with cottage cheese and it was very yummy. He also contributed to the meal by making two trays of crumble and some baked apples. We had a good weekend all round, especially that the weather was unseasonably warm, in spite of the Met Office promising us a 5-6 degrees drop in temperatures.

The piccies are: the couldron over the fire; Andor and Lajos carrying it into the cellar to keep it safe from enquiring wildlife (including Böbe the dog) overnight; Andor trying to work out why his GPS is showing the wrong way, (dying battery!!!); a nice old chateau in one of the villages we hiked through, now a school; some of the crowd after we managed to find the spring in the woods.

There is quite an interesting story over this: in the old days these springs were properly looked after by the foresters or water bailiffs, so they were kept clean and free flowing. In the last 20 years (along with lots of other nice things) these were allowed to fall into disuse and now there is just mud there and the whole area is overgrown and neglected. Shame, because the forest around it looked glorious. We also lost a few of our group who insisted that it was too hard to carry on in the forest and returned to the cars on the path. Shame!! It was their loss.

Harvest Festival

Just a few pictures of the Harvest Festival which was put on by the Slovak minority in the village wearing their lovely traditional costumes. I attached a couple of my late roses too, especially the white one is lovely as I rarely manage to grow pretty white ones. They are too vulnerable to all sorts of diseases and pests.

After my visitors departed last week I got busy with Francesco's arrival and then with the HOV Congress. It was well attended and the interest of the audience was evident even though Francesco's speech with the translation probably ran for too long. I got very tired by the end of the day, but enjoyed it all the same.

This, of course, meant that I missed the Harvest Festival, but at least Roy took some lovely piccies of it. Finally I managed to delete about 1400 pictures from my camera, which was well overdue. I discovered that my camera has a facility by which the card does not get full until it reaches the maximum number of pictures at the smallest size it can take. Even if you set the size high, rather than declaring itself full at that resolution, it keeps reducing the size to fit on as many as possible. Interesting, isn't it?

I am back in the village now, pears are the next to be bottled, but today I am having a rest, which I need after I got up at 4am to take Francesco to the airport.