Catching up with old friends

Four old friends came over for a long weekend to catch up on old times. Needless to say that the forecast of heavy snow for today was absolutely spot on. We went to the big covered market, which was great, especially that I finally found Stephen's gulyas creme, but waiting for the tram by the Liberty Bridge we could hardly see the eagles on the top and the opposite bank with its hills has completely vanished. Three of them went to see the Degas to Picasso exhibition in the Museum of Fine Art in the afternoon which was also great. The rest of us stayed at home to rest. Apparently 55 pictures from the Pushkin Museum in Moscow were excellent. I regret not going now, although I was a bit tired. Out to a veggie restaurant for dinner in the next few minutes.

Snowed in (again)

It is blooming cold again, but at least we can enjoy feeding the birds. (see above!) I have been to the Opera and the Theatre since I last posted. Don Carlos was superb: the best performance I have seen for years. Sitting up in the gods is really lovely - we are close to the gorgeous Lotz frescoes on the ceiling and level with the enormous chrystal chandelier. Acoustics are so good that we hear perfectly. The play on the following day was unfortunately dreadful. It was a musical comedy created out of the 39 steps and I nearly went home in the interval. I have no idea whether it was just this version and it may have been quite OK in London, but I doubt it. I think the whole concept was crap.

Stephen and Lucy have been to Canada this week and seemed to have had a good time. Judging by the pictures Callum enjoyed Uncle Stephen's visit too. Mind you, God only knows how much time he could spend with him in his 2 day visit which also included 3 gigs, which I gather also went very well.

Alan, Steph, Maureen and Andres are coming this weekend, so we should be busy. Until then I am deep into Rumpole of the Bailey, which just sort of jumped out at me from the bookshelves and as soon as I started reading one I realised how funny and enjoyable a read it is. I have also bought the entire 7 series of Rumpole on DVD on the net, which should arrive soon.

So, it is rather cold out there, but there is always something to read, watch, sort and enjoy indoors.

The coolest little biker on the planet

I am bombarded by cute pictures from Toronto which I then have no self control to keep to myself. I know this is very sad, but all grandmothers are supposed to be like this, aren't they? And if you are a cyber granny like me, it all ends up on the net.

The forgotten last race

I was reading up on some past posts when I realised that while I did mention the Juniper Cup in passing, there was no report and maps as promised. Better late than never, so here goes:

This event was back in November as the very last before orienteering shuts down for the winter. It is usually down in the sand dunes on the great plain and this time we were back to the most impossible version of that vast juniper jungle around Bocsa.

On Day 1 I made a massive booboo in exactly the same bit of it as I did some years back when we were there last. If you look at leg 4 the original plan was not bad, I just chickened out in the last few metres. Admittedly, it was total jungle by then, but if only I just persevered a bit longer I would have made it. The scale was only 1:7500, so we are talking about a very small amount of distance, after which I would have been literally on the flag. So much for Day 1.

Day 2 got even worse, as I managed to fall over twice and then break my glasses. Now that was rather hilarious, as this time, the glasses having flown off my nose, landed so close to me that I fell on them. Normally they can be found in one piece and I run on, but this time it took me several minutes and the help of a young girl to find my lenses which fell out of the now totally disfigured frame. I finally got all the bits together in my hand (not having any pockets to stash them in) and carried on. Without my glasses I can just about see the terrain, but not the map. If you have a look at the leg times from then on, they tend to be on the long side. The totally annoying part is that the girl who helped me find my lens probably went off to the same control where I was heading, but I thought she went too far round to the West. Afterward I worked it out that if I first went the same way as she did - along the green going SW and then up along the veg boundary NW I would have got there in no time at all. Never mind! I still came second and there were others who took even longer with eyes that could see.

The first event this year will be roughly in the same area again, although probably not in this much jungle. I will try not to kill myself or my glasses and put in a slightly more respectable time.

The new Iceage

Although the thaw has just started over here, the new iceage has still got the UK in its grip. I noticed that Stephen has expressed a certain amount of annoyance at the weather - well, anything that makes him have to walk 500m to and from his car is worthy of being annoyed at!

This morning there was a mysterious mist laying in the valley outside and while the photo does not give it back totally, it was fascinating to watch. Good job Roy cleared a path down the drive, it is now nicely clear with the grass showing through.

The only bit of news since last post is that I managed to get to Hatvan by bus to do some food shopping with Nelly. I filled the big rucksack, but felt too weak to walk about with it, so spent nearly 2 hours in the bus station waiting for the return journey.

Roy is getting on with my ancestral lines - mostly doing the research on the Internet. He has now got a thick book of the Czettels and a nearly as thick one on the Posners. This morning he was doing Frankls, Roths and Schwarzes, so he is happy. I suppose the sincerely annoying habit of no index to any of these collections on the net comes in handy when you are at a loss of what to do, because looking through hundreds of scanned images is definitely time consuming.

We are staying here until next Thursday or Friday at least, as I am awaiting the start of my favourite series on Ch5: CSI New York (let's see who survived the machine gun attack??!!), CSI, NCIS and Numbers. That'll take me to Wednesday, so we can leave after that. I know this is sad, but one needs the occasional diversion in the winter when there is no orienteering, moving about is difficult and the big pottery stove is all nice and hot to sit by.

Callum's greatest hits - latest edition

I have downloaded these pictures from Meaghan's Facebook page along with a few more. He is really looking very grown up, even though he is not even 5 months old yet. His eyes are definitely gone dark and his mouth is now positively Turner rather than Grant. As for the Cool Dude pictures with the sun glasses, well, what can I say? Sitting under the Christmas Tree makes you think that if you get a present like that for Christmas you should be very happy!!!

We are still snowed in, so there is nothing new to say, other than I have really managed to seriously annoy myself (again) this morning. I have found a fantastic word in Lexulous on Facebook which gave me 70 odd points when I realised too late, that if I put it two rows lower it would have given me around 100. Less haste, more speed! Very true!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

You may all wonder what these pictures are, but I thought it might be useful to put them somewhere on the Internet for posterity. The years they were taken are sometime between 1974 and 1976-77. They are mostly Alex, as this little album that I came across was about him. I am still looking for the one that is mostly Stephen, I am sure it'll turn up soon. Obviously they are priceless not only for baby pictures, but to see how thin Roy and I were all those years ago. I don't know whether to be pleased or cry??!!

Today has unfortunately been a bit of a nightmare for a variety of reasons. Our visitors (all 20 of them) have finally departed, which was great, however, this time there was a fair amount of damage, which is not nice. We have lost at least 4 palinka glasses, which would not be too much of a problem, except these were special ones Roy was given by Kati in the pub and as she has since left the village it's a shame. I suppose we should have put them away, but how could we know? Other damaged items include a completely shredded standard lamp and one broken bed leg. One wonders what they were all getting up to over there? The glasses are obvious, but the other two not so much. I wasn't well enough to go hiking with them, but I don't think I missed much as they only went out once and then to the Andesite columns which I have been to a thousand times before.

Today's extreme frustration included one of my computers which has never been much good, but it certainly outdid itself today. I put one of the mobile internet dongles into it and it took exception to it. It wanted to reinstall the software from it, which was already installed, then it never managed it, so after about half an hour of the hourglass going round forever I turned it off. That was the big mistake. When turned on again it did not want to boot. It got to the Welcome screen and no further. It took me over 4 hours of trying to manipulate it in Safe Mode: uninstalling the offending software did nothing and doing a complete hardware diagnostics found nothing wrong. Then I did a System Restore, that also did nothing. When I was just about on the verge of chucking it out through the window I remembered that somewhere in the hundreds of pages I read it said that if one System Restore does nothing, you should keep going back and back to earlier dates until you find a previous state that does. I never believed it would do anything useful, but tried in anyway and finally that is how I got my poor machine back. It is still totally unstable, has hiccups all the time and is as slow as an army of snails, but at least it boots. (Sshhhh, touch wood and all that!!!)

Roy is currently roasting a piece of pork with the most delicious crackling on it you have ever tasted. As you know I do not eat meat, but have been known to fall off the wagon for a piece of crunchy crackling. Well, today I have sinned again and it was extremely delicious too. Must go now, as the same useless computer mentioned above has finally started doing anti-virus software updates, but with the mobile internet being seriously slow I left it alone to chundle along for about and hour and half. It must have finished by now, I hope, so I am off.

Very Happy New Year to you all! Speak to you soon!