The mundane and the brilliant

Last week was spent in town, still struggling with the aftermath of the robbery, but hopefully these are now the last knockings of it. Other than those jobs, we also had some fun, so all in all it was OK. Finally the weekend was brilliant, so I am happy, if somewhat done in physically at the moment.

Starting with the early part of the week, I paid two visits to my mobile network providers, where I met a delightful young woman who was really, really sweet and helpful. Events like this cheer you up no end, so I had quite a lot done. First I went to cancel my contract on my mobile dongle for the netbook as both were stolen and she talked me into upgrading, rather than cancelling.  The new one is a bit dearer (by about £3 a month), but provides a free WiFi dongle, so more than one device can use it at the same time.  Great! Then she sorted my biggest pain relating to my mobile, i.e.: the short and quiet rings. Unfortunately the loudness of the rings could not be bettered, but she solved the problem of me getting to my calls just as they go to the message box: she got rid of the message box.  Yippeeeee! Those that are important will ring again and those that are not, who cares about? She also mentioned that I could get a better contract as mine is over 2 years old. So a couple of days later I went back and we did that as well, so I now have 3gig data a month and 90 minutes of free calls for -again - only for a fraction more a month.

Then I went to sort my phone at the Nokia Service Centre, as it would not download photos and they suggested a complete upgrade. UPGRADE is one word I detest with a vengence, as whenever I tried to upgrade anything in my life before (electronically spleaking, of course!) nothing but grief and stress followed.  Still, I suppose I had to take the plunge if I wanted to carry on using it as a camera as well as a phone.  Amazingly it came out OK. At the Service Centre it didn't work after the upgrade, so they didn't charge me anything.  Once I was at home, it did work, so that's sorted and for free! Since then I found that it doesn't quite work on all my computers, so perhaps it depends on the age of them, but as long as there is one that the phone is willing to dowload the pictures to, I'm happy.

On Tuesday I went to the baths, where I had a very good time until I discovered that my favourite friend slipped and fell and was just about carted off by the ambulance men as I got to the part of the baths where he usually hangs out.  I do hope he is OK, but as I was too busy to go again this week, I will not find out until next week or even later.

On Thursday I had my mammography appointment, and it looks as if it is OK. I have not been back to my GP yet with the report, but the specialist told me that other than a few calcified cysts - which are supposed to be normal for women of my age - all looks fine.  Have to go back once a year, so that's not too drastic.

One of the protesting cars

On Thursday the loss adjuster came, I got all the forms to fill out and it looks that we might still get some money back on the stolen goods. I didn't realise, but we were covered for up to 5% of the value of the contents in our house insurance. Mind you, I don't trust insurance companies, so I am not celebrating yet. On my way back from the insurance company, where I deposited the filled out forms, I saw a demonstration by motorcar, which I thought was a crazy idea.  The very purpose of a demonstration - apart from expression of discontent - is to talk to people about it.  See if they agree and join you.  Not very easy from a car, is it? I was just thinking that when a Russian girl asked me what the demo was about, and I had a really good discussion with her about not just the demo, but the world in general and Russia and Hungary in particular.  I got her number, I will follow that discussion up, you never know, I might make a new friend!

The hole with the 100 year old broken sewer below

Old Victorian sewer pipe in pieces

Also on Thursday we had a lovely lunch with our friends Nata and Colin, who are always good company, and they didn't disappoint this time either. Roy and Colin always disappear into the dim and distant past with their childhood memories, Nata and I just listen and imagine what they could have been like as boys. En route to the restaurant we came across a rather large hole in one of the roads near the flat. The guys "looking into it" told us that a XIXth century sewer broke and we managed to take a photo before they put those massive vertical walls in to stop it collapsing.

One of several guys "looking into it"

Finally, the guy turned up with the electronic door chips too, so less and less things are outstanding, which gets us ever closer to the time when we can start really forgetting about the robbery.

A folk dance group at the pig fest

And then came the weekend: Juniper Cup in the South, which is amongst my favourite events. The big pigfest was on again, but this time without too many of those weird home-made gadgets that amused Roy so much last year. I had a very pleasant surprise upon arrival, namely the most welcome fact that I didn't have to pay for my orienteering. Nobody told me about it, but apparently the organisers wanted to express their thanks to me this way, over my efforts of bringing foreign orienteers to their events over the last few years.  How kind! I didn't do it for the money, that's for sure! It is a quality event in those aspects that I value and think important: good terrain, good maps and good courses. So, I was only thinking of the enjoyment those orienteers, nothing else.

Day 2 Juniper Cup W654 course

Day 1 was a shortened course and I felt that

Day 1 Juniper Cup W65 course

it didn't really take us into the hardest juniper jungle. I was very slow, but reasonably accurate. My great rival, Ildi beat me by 47 seconds, so I was really fired up to beat her on Sunday to get the overall first place. Everything went absolutely swimmingly until the penultimate control.  Honestly, I was going so well, like I was on rails.  Then I committed the number 1 cardinal error: deviated from original plan. I thought to go along a very clear vegetation boundary to the corner of a patch of white forest, take a bearing there and go in slowly and carefully.  But en route I spotted a nice reentrant which basically should have led me to the control, but for some unknown reason (probably oxygen debt) I turned right when within 20 yards of the control. I spent a good few mintues before I relocated off the original attack point (the corner of the white forest) and got it in one. I suppose I can be proud of relocating so calmly and efficiently, without any help from anyone, as I was totally on my own at that stage. From there I also wandered about a bit, (including going off the map) now due definitely to tiredness and finished at bang on 50 minutes.  As Ildi started a full half hour after me, I had to wait to find out how she did.  Amazingly, I beat her by 6 minutes, because she made more mistakes and definitely bigger ones.  A lovely little certificate, a plaster ornament and a bottle of dry red was the sum total of my winnings.  Hooray! That was a brilliant weekend!

Basket maker's stall at the pigfest

Potter's stall at the pigfest

The choice of goodies at the pigfest: roast pigmeat, crackling, sausage, brains and all the salad and pickles you can eat

Tomorrow we are off to the village, where the cefre is going to the still and I will come back before Roy due to concerts.

A brilliant bit of luck and an excellent weekend

On Thursday we came into town as I had a concert and while the weekend's orienteering would have been accessible from the village, as we promised to give a lift to two of our friends to the weekend's orienteering events, we had to start from town anyway. The day started with something really brilliant still back at the village, though.  We were getting ready to depart into town and the first job was to visit our car dealership where we were planning to pay a fortune for a new set of keys. While packing up I spotted the old rucksack I used as a regular bag before some months ago I moved my stuff into the one that got nicked recently.  I looked inside and discovered with great delight the bunch of car keys that we thought was stolen with the rucksack. Apparently, totally unbeknown to us, we have been travelling around without a spare car key for up to a year.  This time, however, this bit of fantastic luck had saved us from unneccesary hassle and expense! Imagine the frustration if we did find this just after we paid for the keys!

After arriving in town we went to see some friends, one of which offered to countersign my passport application and had a lovely time with them.  Such lovely people and their newly redecorated and refurbished house looked really posh.  The lunch was delicious too, so our stay in town this time had a fantastic start.

Várjon Dénes

In the evening I went to the Music Academy for my concert and Várjon Dénes was excellent. Haydn and Chopin was on his program and we had the usual encores at the end. I was lucky that the organiser of that series of concerts was kind enough to spend a lot of time identifying and then printing every stolen ticket for me, for the remainder of this year and the whole of next year and I could pick them up that night. I will be in Mr. Jakobi's debt for the rest of eternity!!

Friday was a walking about day when we personally went to a lot of places until we were both totally exhausted.  Mind you, that is not very difficult nowadays, as we get tired ever so easily, presumably due to lack of sleep and the other after effects of the last couple of weeks.  Anyway, we started  with the post office where the passport application got posted. Then the key cutters to see if they can help us with some of the other keys that were stolen, and they could.  Hopefully they should be done by next week. Then we went to the Panasonic shop where they phoned from earlier that the camera battery charger and the spare battery had arrived and picked those up. We also looked about amongst the new cameras and probably will buy a new one after Christmas. The visit to another concert hall was less successful than the night before as they could not replace my ticket, but there might still be luck with the agency through which I bought it. The rest of the time, before we went for a meal, was spent with "normal" shopping (paprika shakers for Stephen, light bulbs, batteries, a telephone charger and two pairs of shoes for me). Then had a very late lunch at one of our favourite restaurants and then home.  Good job there was nothing planned for the evening as we collapsed into bed quite early, even without doing the packing for the weekend, which had to be done the following morning.

Ács Kúria, Bodony - the gorgeous B&B where we stayed

We left at 7am, picked our friends up at 7.15am and were on our way to the Matra by 7.30am. Roy and I felt that we were due some good luck soon, and I am happy to report that this weekend was therapeutic in a way we didn't dare hope.  The trip was straighforward, the O events excellent, the accommodation perfect, the restaurant where we had dinner superb and I actually won my class and came home with a medal.  Just what the doctor ordered!!

It was one of those events that tried to squeeze a lot into a short day and a half. There were three runs in barely over 24 hours, plus a maze between runs 1 and 2.  Saturday had two sprint runs, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The morning run was totally in parkland around a hotel and an old sanatorium. Unusually, it had a fair amount of climb, which you don't normally get in a park.  The afternoon run was like a downhill slalom, as they marched us up to the top of the wooded hill opposite the hotel for the start and then we came all the way down to the same finish area as in the morning. I have always said that sprint orienteering is not necessarily for those that run  fast, but for those that think fast.  I managed to beat my main opposition in both runs, although not by much.  She did have a bit of a brain fade at the end of her second run, so I went into Sunday with a 2 and half minute buffer.

Eger Grand Prix, Day 1 am

Eger Grand Prix, Day 1 pm

Parádi Kisvendéglő, the little rustic inn where we had lunch

In the evening we had a brilliant dinner in a restaurant that we remembered from 9 years ago when the Hungária Kupa was in this area and thankfully it was still open. We had local dishes and I couldn't finish mine, so I had half of it packed up and ate it cold for lunch on Sunday. Yum, yum!!

Eger Grand Prix, Day 2

Sunday was a real forest event with steep gradients, glorious beech and oak woods with a small amount of pines, lots of stones and rocks underfoot and even a run through the finish area, even for old girls like me.  It was both technically and physically hard, but I loved it. Both myself and my main rival had brain fades, but hers was bigger than mine, so while she did beat me by 4 seconds on the day, I won overall.  No presents in the organisers' budget, but a lovely, heavy medal for my collection. I also collected my replacement maps from two weeks ago, which a couple of kind people brought for me.  All in all a billiant weekend and at the end of it we even got back in time for the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Lewis locks up at Interlagos

Lewis didn't win this time, but second place will do.  Hopefully he can either win or be second next time too and that should be enough for the overall championship.  All crossable things are crossed for the next two weeks, until the Abu Dhabi finish.  Let us see what, if any, extra excitement is brought on by the double points at the end!

The aftermath

We all know about delayed stress in theory, but I can tell you, it is not nice to live with it in reality. Ever since the robbery I have mostly been dealing with the fallout and even though I have kept busy and cheerful, it must be eating away at me inside, because my health is deteriorating. I still can't sleep more than 4/5 hours a night, and now seem to be down with something like gastric flu, which might even be something a lot worse.  Still, I would say the dealing with officialdom and replacing things are mostly done now, although quite a few things are in the process of being sent, so I can't say it has all finished.  The longest will be the passport, which is 8 weeks from when they get all the papers in the post.  Not exactly 21st century method of paperwork, but who am I to complain?

Last Monday's good news was an excellent concert with Isabelle Faust, although the orchestra was rather mediocre. An early piece of Bartok was brilliant and I loved the tones of her Strad, which is only a single year younger than Kristof's.

On Tuesday we had lunch with a family history friend of Roy's who was really nice. The restaurant had changed hands since we have been there last, but it was still very pleasant with good food.

The star event last week was a 60th birthday party for a hiking friend, where I could reconnect with him and his entire group of friends whom I have lost contact with in the last couple of years. We had a good time and one of them came up with the idea of bringing the group out to the village for a hike later on in the month. It should be really good, as they are a nice bunch who enjoy exercise, food and drink in about equal measure.

Now we are in the village where we have done some gardening and resting.  Amazingly some of the roses are still producing blooms in November.  I couldn't finish the pruning as I didn't have the heart to chop them off. I did prune the raspberries, although I had no idea how much I should cut them back, so they are about 18 inches from the ground in height.




The kitchen garden is also still producing stuff, including a plump strawberry, which I spotted from the corner of my eye. Initially I thought it was a leaf that got red through frost, but it was a really nice surprise to find the strawberry. The Brussels sprouts are also growing well, I am wondering if they will have some sprouts on for Christmas?

You may have spotted the other two, yet unripe strawberries on this plant.  I think that would be close on a miracle if those got ripe, now that the frost is coming.

And this is the last white pepper crop, which since got sauteed in olive oil and bottled. We have never done anything like this before, we'll see whether they keep or not.

Orienteering, hashing and a break-in

At the beginning of the week we got back to the village and I was going to go into town for a concert on my own to return to meet Roy somewhere en route to Miskolc for the orienteering long weekend.  Finally, he took pity on me, drove both of us into town and then we left from there to go East.

The first event was the Night Championships, but there are no photos of it as I didn't feel risking the camera in the awful weather.  The temperature dropped to 3 degrees in the evening and it was nearly snowing. The walk to the start was 1200 metres with 120 metres of climb, so it was almost as much as my course.  As it happens I was careful, went slowly and fell onto every control cleanly.  I came second to my friend Ildi. I don't have the map (more about why later!!), so you can't have a look, but the course was OK. While I was out in the forest at night, there was thankfully no rain.

Having got a silver medal for my placing in the Night Champs, I got another one on the following day, when my team came second in the first Sprint Relay Championships. Not bad going: two silver medals in two days! In fact the relay one should have been gold, but our second runner got somewhat discombubulated in the middle of his course and it took him 2 minutes to work out what he has done.  That put paid to the gold medal! :-(

Other than orienteering we were also doing some geocaching.  This machine, which was a digger down a mine extracting coal when it was in use, is hiding a small, flat metal box with a logbook and password in it. We had some adventures trying to get to it, initially without success due to the TomTom going barmy and sending us anywhere but were it was.  Finally we worked it out and got the cache easily. We also went up to the ZOO, where there was a virtual cache, so the total was 2.

In the evening we walked to a restaurant where the food, the service and the prices were excellent. And I'm afraid this is where the good news end.  From here on there was only grief, stress, trauma and unhappiness.  As we got back from dinner I noticed an open window and knew instantly that we were robbed.  There was a break-in and thusands of pounds worth of stuff was taken.  We lost about £1500 worth gear, our friends even more.  Funnily enough, my biggest source of stress was not the loss of electronics, but the personal things, like passports, diary, code and address books and all the chargers and cables that went.  It will take me weeks, if not months to recover all the codes and entry ID's, but at least now I am busy fixing it and that is therapy against delayed shock and depression.

And then Roy came up with a great idea and sent me to do today's hash.  If all went well, I could not have attended as we would have still been at the orienteering event today, but as we cut it short and came back early, I could go and have a good time, which I deserved after all the trauma of the last few days. We numbered 9, which is a good crowd and ended up doing a long hash up and down big hills and in forests for over 3 hours.  In the meantime - as the clocks had gone back today - it was getting darker and darker and also colder and colder. Still, it was fun and I am glad I went.

On the hash we had some lovely views, saw some pretty plants, trees and even a parapenter taking off and floating about right in front of our noses.

We went to one of our favourite restaurants for food and drink after the hash, this time without Roy, who decided to stay at home on account of being still quite exhausted after recent events and with the weather having turned really freezing.

And just to prove I have not forgotten, the reason why you cannot see any scanned maps in this post is because the Night Champs map was in the rucksack that was stolen and we left before they gave back the map from the second day.  :-(  However, once they appear on RouteGadget, I will cut and paste one or two here for those of you who are into these things. Now my job for the next week and probably a few more afterwards, is to replace, recover and reorganise a lot of the stuff that was taken, including all internet codes and ID's, so I should not be too bored for a while.

PS: Finally, the Routegadget maps were posted on the net, so I can include my Night Champs course map, but without my actual route.  Not that my route would have been particularly exciting, as I took the direct route virtually on the purple line most of the time.

The week of the perfect days

Having discovered a concert midweek that I have forgotten having bought tickets for, we decided to stay in town for an extra week.

She is Japanese/Swedish and is in her eighties.  She played beautifully, I was glad I didn't forget to go. The next interesting, possibly even perfect day was on Thursday. As I have not been to the baths for at least 18 months, I decided to go, now that we were in town.  The weather was lovely and I was looking forward to it. Medicinal thermal waters are ever so good for a variety of ailments, of which I have many, arthritis being the main one.  After changing I felt a bit disappointed when I saw my favourite pool totally empty.  Of all the weeks, I had to pick on the one when they are doing maintenance on the adventure pool where I normally use the powerjets of water coming out of the side of the basin to massage my lower back.  Never mind, I thought, I go inside and see if any of my old friends are around.  And guess what? Imre, my absolute best mate, who took me into their group and is always such a lovely guy to chat to, was sitting quietly in the usual corner all on his own.  He was really pleased to see me and I was delighted to spend a good two hours with him catching up.

Far left corner where I soaked up the water while chatting to Imre

As I was leaving the baths I phoned Roy and we met up in one of our favourite restaurants where I have not been for at least as long as I haven't been to the baths. And something really magical happened there as well: Roy's favourite waitress, who frequently asked after me, Roy said, in the last year or so, spotted me and went into raptures. She stayed at our table for at least a quarter of an hour and we chatted and caught up, like I did earlier with Imre.  This day was really shaping up to be a memorable one, not only for catching up with old friends, but for the pleasure they gave me for being so happy to see me.

The Flintstones style decor belies the quality of the food and service here.

Friday was the day of my thyroid ultrasound, which, as far as I can tell, was also OK.  I haven't yet been to the doctors to discuss it, as we are back in the village, but will do so next week. Straight from the baths I went to another restaurant where Roy awaited and we had a lovely meal there as well.  There is some staff turnover there, we noticed, but the new boys and girls are as delightful as the old lot was.  It must be managerial policy to only employ sweet, friendly and very efficient staff.  I can't tell you whether I go there because of their delicious and very reasonably priced food or for the chatty, friendly staff.  Probably both!

Roy in the hills at the top of a steep climb

Glorious view looking NW

And then came the weekend.  The weather was positively summer-like. Sunny, warm and with a light breeze.  Perfect! Roy and I went to the Buda hills to mark out the route for Sunday's hash run and I noticed that there were a couple of geocaches near our route, so I attempted those as well. The main event on Saturday was the fact that Roy came with me, helped me and walked the entire route with me up steep hills, down steep dales, totalling at least 4 or possibly a bit more kilometres.

The "Lion Rock"

While I climbed up a massive rockface to the second cache, he sat comfortably on a bench right next to the "Lion Rock" below. This cache hunt was a bit hairy.  Basically, the problem was that I approached it from below. As I found out later (on my return trip), from above it would have been a lot less strenuous and positively less dangerous.  However, I always liked scrambling and while at my age my joints complain bitterly, I still loved every minute of it.  The view from the cache was breathtaking.  Unfortunately I was photographing into the sun, so the pictures ended up a bit hazy.

Sándor Jávorkai

Ádám Jávorkai

In the evening I went to a concert, which finished this perfect of all perfect days in superb fashion.  The soloists were two brothers  Sándor and Ádám Jávorkai. Sándor plays the violin, Ádám the cello.  They are both virtuoso players, for whom nothing is too hard. But, the magnificence of their technique was nothing to their personality, which brimmed with vitality, enthusiasm and reckless fun. It is a shame that they live in Vienna and are so much in demand the world over that they do not give performances at home too often.

On Sunday I had two main events planned: 1. an orienteering run; 2. the hash. As I volunteered to do some haring for the hash sometime, it was the details of the orienteering event that gave me the idea to offer to hare the hash run at the same place on the same day. On Saturday we put the signs out and on Sunday I was keeping my fingers crossed that they should still be there. Fallen leaves, naughty children and hundreds of feet that walk, run, walk the dog etc., etc. in that lovely suburb of the city, they are all enemies of fragile signs made of flour.  Still, both the orienteering and the hash went off very well.

2.3 km, 140 m climb = 50 min

 In the orienteering event I chose the shortest technical course, which was 2.3km but with 140 metres of climb. I totally missed the best route to control 2 and ended up climbing a massive hill, which I could have gone round at its bottom.  Other than that I think I chose good routes, but due to the steepness and roughness of the ground I did more than 20 min k's.  It took me 50 minutes and I wasn't last. My course was shared with the guys of the same age group and I managed to beat all but three of them!

Hulk, Run by Batteries and Genital Man waiting for lost souls

Parapenters on the other side of the airstrip

After I changed, had my sandwiches and my drink, the hash group arrived.  There were 7 of them, which nowadays counts as a well attended hash run. What, however, was very unusual, that the runners outnumbered the walkers.  Only 2 of them plus me walked at the back and the other 5 were runners.  Some of them got rather lost, but finally we got together for our circle time, which was hilarious, as usual, and was accompanied by the singing of ribald songs, much to the amusement of passers by. One or two (presumably the ones that understood our songs) looked expecially amused.

Baldrick, Titi Tata and Rabies waiting for their lunch

The final pleasure of an already seriously fun weekend, was spent in yet another one of our favourite restaurants, where all, but 2 of the hash group plus lazy bugger Roy had a delicious lunch and a few beers.

Roy and Hulk

This morning we departed into the countryside, via Tesco, where I have discovered a 50% discount on red tuna. I couldn't resist that delicacy, which even with 50% off was not cheap. This time the phone didn't ring, like last time I was cooking tuna, so it did end up nice and rare. Roy had a nice big chunk of pork fillet and we both had boiled potatoes, sprouts, while Roy had mushrooms and I a bowl of salad as well to accompany the feast.

My big chunk of red tuna looking gloriously pink in the middle

The weather is turning cold again, although it is still beautifully warm during the day. The sprout plants are getting quite large in the garden, although there is still no sign of sprouts on them; the cefre is still quietly bubbling away and the potted basil survived the 10 days we weren't here. On Thursday we are off for a very long weekend of orienteering in the hills, I'll post after we're back.