Yet another seriously busy week

Monday started with a visit to a variety of shops, including the Central Market and our favourite toyshop. After about a couple of hours we felt that we have bought all the presents that we wanted to. Callum's was duly posted and the rest will be presented personally in a week or so's time. Once we popped all the shopping home I managed to get a quick appointment to have my ears syringed, which restored my hearing so sorely missed in the last week or so. In the evening I went to the theatre for a poetry reading interspersed with songs - a novel idea that was very well done. Tuesday I visited a friend who works in a path lab to have a special test done to see if I managed to get rid of my Lyme's Disease.  The results will be a few weeks yet and I am not optimistic, as this disease is - I'm told - hellishly difficult to eradicate.  We'll see! In the evening we had a couple of friends for dinner: Roy cooked a fantastic curry and we all had a lovely chat and a good few drinks afterwards.

And this weird looking chicken takes us to Wednesday.  I went geocaching in town with my friend Klari. I listed 8 caches and we actually managed to do 7 of them.  The last one got benighted and we left it. Having started on the left bank of the river we then got to the island where we got two caches.  There was a little zoo near the first one on the island, full of weird little feathered things, like this one above.

After the island we crossed over to the right bank where we found this medieaval looking steep street leading us to the grave and statue of a Turkish soldier from the XVIth century.  It was like travelling back in time.

 Gul Baba's statue

 One of the decorative mosaics on the wall by the grave

 The Grave from the outside

Gul Baba's grave inside the small building

On Thursday we went to the Bank partly to get some money and partly to set up a direct debit for the water bill. We also tried to get a book of paintings I forgot to buy some weeks before, but having travelled all the way to the Gallery, they told me it was sold out. :-( However, in the evening the play I went to with another friend was excellent.  A slightly weird version of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire started a bit slowly, but got into its stride by the second half with some superb performances from the principals.

Friday was also devoted to geocaching, this time with my friend Jutka and slightly further out of town than on Wednesday. The second cache was 3 metres up in a tree, which was unclimbable.  Well, at least by me, as I decided that a few more years on this planet was probably more important than getting the cache. If you look at the picture: I would have had to climb out to the second bump on the tree on the left.  No chance, said I and retreated. Otherwise it was a rather religious caching day with quite a few of them being near churches, chapels, stages of the cross and other religious places.

These three pictures were taken high up on a big rocky hill above the town, so the views would have been gorgeous had there not been fog and slight drizzle about.  Still, the whole place was quite spectacular, even without the views.

This little chapel was in the old German cemetery, which seemed to have uniformed graves and very neat walkways.

Stages of the cross up another hill in a spiral with the cross, Virgin Mary and a to me unknown saint on the top.

We took public transport back to the car and I was at home in time to have a quick shower, change and be off to our favourite Thai restaurant for a meal with yet another good friend visiting town. That Thai chef is so superb that I am yet to have a dish that is just good, not absolutely brilliant, like my glass noodles with king prawns, egg and vegetables was that night. With a crisp large glass of dry white wine I was a very happy bunny indeed. We decided to come back to the village a day early, but there is yet some more gardening to be done as in the garden centre, where we went for grass seed, we spotted some cherry trees at half price.  We bought two, so there's some digging and planting that will be happening on Tuesday with Sanyi's help. On Wednesday we are off back to town and then on Friday we depart for communing with family and especially with latest grandson.

KB (again) and orienteering amidst a Pig Fest

This weekend turned out to be interesting, to say te least. Initially I wasn't sure whether we should go at all, as I had a violent head cold with sneezing fits and a blocked nose. However, as I had a concert on the Friday night we had no choice. Some of you may know that Kristof Barati, one of the best violinists in the world, is not someone whom I would miss, not even at death's door.  So we went. He played Bartok, Dohnanyi, Paganini, Saint-Saens and Sarasate. The second half was full of virtuoso stuff, which was breath taking, even though it looked as if it took its toll on his fingers. A delightful evening in all, he never disappoints.

Then on Saturday we went South for the last O event of the season. I never realised that it was coinciding with an Autumn Pig Fest that was being held in practically the same place as Assembly, so Roy could have quite a lot of fun while hanging around, waiting for me to return from my run.

The whole area was full of sausages, crackling, roast pig's bits, any bits you care to think of, some live mangalica piglets as well, then sweets, and lots of booze etc., etc.

However, in spite of all this delicious stuff, what got Roy really excited was the ingenuity of ordinary people with which they fixed up the rotary spits and other bits of equipment from bits and bobs that they had lying around at home.  His absolute favourite was the rotary spit manufactured at home from a bit of a bicycle, a motor from a windscreen wiper, two cogs of a bicycle chain welded together, a car battery, steel rods and supports. We were told that this contraption could spit roast anything up to a 120 kilo side of beef.

My run was OK, considering I couldn't run much, but in juniper jungle it's better to go slowly anyway. I finished without any big mistakes, which is good news in and of itself on this kind of terrain. 2.3k took me 41 minutes and that was considered a good time. There was only two of us in W65 and with the other competitor taking 90 minutes+ I was first.

Our accommodation was the next item of interest which turned out great. What was really fantastic was the quality of the renovations that our host lavished on what must have been originally a completely derelict hamlet in the middle of absolutely nowhere on the prarie. Roy did not enjoy the mile and a half of sandy lane full of bumps and hollows, but on arrival we were enchanted.

The group of buildings included a covered outside barbecue area, the owner's accommodation, two houses for guests, a covered garage and a swimming pool. Inside the decorations and the furniture were beautiful aas well as very warm and comfortable.

Before dinner we took some pictures outside again while the sun was setting.  There was a magical atmosphere to the place, even though the owner's politics was not exactly to my liking. Still, I didn't let it spoil my enjoyment of a place that was very reasonably priced and of a level of comfort very rarely found in these type of establishments.

Dinner was taken at a nearby inn, the food was delicious and plentyful and we retired feeling very relaxed and happy indeed  The following morning, after paying our bill and making our farewells we journied to the second day of the event, unfortunately by now without the pig fest. It was perishingly cold, but in my trusty wool mixture helly under my O top I was OK. The course was 3k long this morning and that took me 55 minutes and again, that was also considered a good time. I must admit I was pretty knackered by the end, but I loved it all the same.  Some Norvegians, whom we got chatting to, suggested that there was no need to put some controls into the dark green and I had to agree.  On the other hand, what's the point of the juniper jungle without impossible controls, one might ask?

So a fairly eventful weekend came to a close.  Roy was quite anxious to get going, but I had to wait for the presentations, which this time meant a certificate and a small present for my overall win. Now we are spending a whole week in town with so much to do that normally I would take about 3 weeks over.  Let's hope that my cold subsides and that I stay healthy to see my little Xander in a fortnight's time.

Gardening, orienteering and geocaching [in other words a normal week:-)]

It is still very busy in the garden, even though it is now November.  I still haven't got round to covering up my roses, although there is no panic as the weather is amazingly mild still. The latest is that having quite accidentally met a guy from a neighbouring village who was selling fruit trees a few weeks back while walking around the village with Val and Alwyn, finally we ran into him again en route to orienteering on Saturday. We arranged buying two pear, one nectarine and one apricot tree which he duly delivered on Monday. I also bought 15 raspberry bushes from him so today Roy was planting the raspberries and tomorrow Sanyi is coming to dig the holes for the trees. I couldn't get any peat and manure in Tesco yesterday, so we will have to do with the bag we have.

The orienteering was in quite reasonable weather and there were three runs in two days. The above  map is of the Saturday morning run in Eger and the first 8 controls were in free order. 39 was the one that foxed most people.  It took a while to spot that the flag was on the other side of the high fence, which in fact was a high wall, so you couldn't see through it. Tricky bit of fun that was.

This is Saturday afternoon's course, which was a lot more primitive, in effect a street run with very little navigation in it. Unfortunately my 5th control wasn't there, but fortunately I found the tag, so I went on.  Apparently they found it about 50 metres away, but once the tag is found you stop looking, don't you? The weather stayed fair and we had a reasonable night in the hostel.  Unfortunately our favourite restaurant was having a bad night with extremely noisy children everywhere and even worse service.  We had to wait nearly an hour just for the soup and more than an hour for the main course.  We were about to leave when it turned up.

And on Sunday we attacked the steep hills in even better weather, in spite of the dire forecast. I thought this was quite good, even though I was nearing 20 minute km's. That's mostly due to my unfitness, but also the horrendous climb. The map could have been better in places, but all in all it was a fun weekend.

And then Monday came and I went to the Great Plains with Andor to visit a church (see above!) where Vilmos Aba-Novak painted some amazing frescoes in the 1930's.  This was initially a cultural trip to look at the frescoes and - of course - Andor brought his camera stand to take some nice pictures.  Then we went to recce the village where a geocache could be placed, found the place and placed a microcache in a clever and tricky hideout.  I am not letting on where, just in case any of my readers want to go and find it for themselves! :-)

This is Andor's photo of the chancel and the chancel arch which are covered in Aba-Novak's frescoes. Apparently he incorporated many people he met in the village in the frescoes, including the then vicar, the person who commissioned the frescoes, the local shopkeeper, the local apothecary and finally himself.

Christ with his warning fingers. I find his almost caricature faces amusing. I wonder if this was the face of someone in the village?

This is hell on the right half of the chancel arch. The left one of two guys in the bottom right hand corner is the shopkeeper, who apparently used to cut up the end of the salami into the painter's breakfasts and that is why he was painted in a less than attractive manner. The one on the right was the apothecary who having admitted to being a mixer of poisons reckoned he'd go to hell for sure and didn't mind being depicted as such.

 Christ's right hand as saying stop to evil. Many of the saints  are also wearing the faces of the locals, some of whom were up in arms about their frescoes, petitioning for their removal, but the bishop and even the Pope declined to agree.

This is an image of the painter himself. Apparently he always put himself into his works of art, although never in a central or important position. After we finished inside the church and placed my third cache we got back into the car to find some caches in the neighbouring villages. The plan was originally to find 6, but the weather turned really rainy and cold, so we just did 4.  Also, those other 2 were at the end of 3 and 4 mile long drives on unmade, very muddy and narrow roads, so I wasn't going to risk my car's bodily integrity just for a couple of caches.  Although, we did decide that we will have to come back next summer, as both caches, especially the one nearthe recently renovated ancient chapel, really interested both of us.

The first cache we found was behind this lovely old chateau, which currently is the Police Museum, but having closed for the winter we couldn't see it.  We found the cache though in a small woodland behind it.

In the next village we visited there was this impressive early 19th century stone bridge, which is still used for through traffic and the cache was very near it by the river. The description on the net said that you will need half a litre of water to get at the cache. Roy immediately worked out, long before I left home, that it must be down something, possibly a pipe where you can pour the water in and that will float the cache to the top.  That is exactly what's happened. Very clever, I like tricky, but not impossible hides like this was.

And finally we got to the nearby biggish town to find two caches, one of them a multi. This picture was taken in the main square where part 1 of the multi was. We then found the second part easily, while the third part, the cache itself was missing, as it has been for months, but we could work the password out virtually.  By then it was still raining on and off and was getting dark.  We hesitated whether to risk getting benighted in a thick forest on the floodplains of the local river in search of the next cache, but eventually went for it.  We took the car as close to the cache as the Tom Tom would lead us and then walked the remaining 300 metres. It was dead easy, as it was exactly where it said: about 7m from the bank in a very large hole in a thick old tree.  On the way out we almost ran so that we could see where we put our feet. Since then the moderators have got to work and I hope that my latest, (3rd) cache will be published on both geocaching sites soon.

The rest of the week is being spent in the village, to be followed by a trip into town on Friday, after which we go orienteering for the last time this year, as the season closer is this coming weekend on my beloved sand dunes in the South. The week after that we are staying in town as plenty of things await our attention.  The trip to visit little Xander is approaching, I can't wait!

Concerts, geocaching and two more medals

The concert at the Opera was quite interesting. Robert's free tickets were for a reasonably nice place down in the stalls where I haven't sat for years. My subscription tickets are up in the gods, as they are cheap and due to the superb accoustics of the building just as nice to enjoy the opera from as anywhere else.

Tuesday arrived with a pleasant temperature and promising no rain. Met Andor at the prearranged place and we started with the arboretum just up the road. Then came a nice slow walk down to the 'Bottomless Lake' which was surrounded by a nice park and where - unfortunately - I managed to slip on a ramp and bump my pelvis.  Not a happy start to the day, but I managed to forget about it quickly. Next stop was Andor alma mater, the Technological University where the cache was easy, but we both got told off for taking pictures inside.  Still, the central hall, with its grandiose style, was quite impressive.

Next stop was the Infopark which is surrounded by quite a few large modern university buildings. One security guard came over and asked what we were doing, but thankfully accepted our explanation. Once we bagged that one we walked along the river to a lovely place, which I heard about, but had never seen before. In the South of the city  there was a winter port which got quite derelict by the 1960's and 70's with only some boat houses and self-built shacks housing people, some livng there right through the year. Finally at the turn of the century they decided to clear out the rusty hulks of abandoned ships from the bay and bulldozed the shacks too. It is now a park with lovely walkways, cycle lanes, cafes and restaurants.  We had such a lovely time there and had lunch too.

After we walked back to civilisation we caught a bus to the terminus of the currently still being built 4th Metro line to get a virtual cache there.  Got friendly with a lovely old man who told us that they used to have a box some time ago, but now it's gone. We got the virtual version and then found where the metro is surfacing before the terminus.  Whether I will live long enough for them to finish building the damn thing is another matter entirely!

From the Metro terminus we walked to a nearby park which unfortunately was being restored with lots of diggers and workers about, but I still managed to take several pictures of the impressive bull statues in the centre. Apparently the story behind the hill the bulls are on is that a large truck carrying tons of concrete beams got stuck there and after several attempts to shift it, they gave up and buried it there and then.  It is still underneath, if you believe the story.

Next came a bus ride to the actual reason for this day, the location being a tiny little lake on the outskirts of the city where Andor grew up.  He managed to reminisce about swimming and fishing there, running away from policemen chasing them and even being cheeky enough to throw stones at the policemen.  Never knew Andor was such a hooligan in his youth!! :-) The cache was very cleverly hidden, but I found it straight away.

It was getting dark by now, so we settled for 8 caches for the day and will start with the 4 remaining ones next time. On Wednesday Klari dragged me to a fantastic concert where for a silly amount of money we heard some heavenly pieces on chello and piano from Schumann, Kodaly and Chopin.

And then the weekend with its three orienteering events arrived. Friday it was a street event in the Castle District and the weather was still really nice. I loved my course, enjoyed running around the tourists and managed to be second behind an Austrian lady who beat me by 31 seconds. I got a sweet little square shaped wooden medal to add to my collection.

Saturday/Sunday was a two day event in some glorious hilly woods near our friend Eszter who kindly offered accommodation which was gratefully accepted. Day one I plodded slowly round and was beaten by my good friend Ildi by 5 seconds.  A Slovakian lady was about 2 and half minutes behind me, with the rest of the field out of contention.

Day 2 was completed at a leisurely pace, mostly because I was pretty exhausted, but also because there was a fair amount of climb on steep and rocky hillsides, so running was out of the question even downhill. I don't heal very quickly in my dotage and as I value my knees, ankles and other joints I took it easy.  However, I did not make any mistakes and what happend is very typical of me.  Not winning either day (the Slovakian lady was fastest on Sunday and I caught Ildi between 6 and 7) but by being generally accurate and consistent I won overall. The rain did not start until the presentations which were held partly under canvas.  We brought Eszter into town and then got home in time to watch the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.  A good weekend overall! Tomorrow back to the village after some shopping.