An epic epistle

Hello to all,

Sitting in the caravan, nice and early, having a deliciously healthy breakfast – local redcurrants, banana, yoghurt and a tiny sprinkling of quite decadent crunchy muesli!! Today we are having another of those strange Hungarian weather days – it is warm, but the strong gusty wind has a cool edge to it – hence having brekkies indoors!!

I had a chat with the site owner (who looks like a combination of a young Omar Sharrif and George Clooney!!) about the weather – and he did say that in the last few years  it has definitely become more extreme!! When it rains here (not so often apparently) it is like a torrential downpour with very strong winds (almost a short sharp storm in fact) and not at all like the gentle British heavy rain.  Here everyone runs about madly looking for shelter from both wind and rain!!! The word tempestuous comes to mind…..The caravan had a good buffeting again last night…more tempesting??

We have had a busy couple of days, having gone into Pecs to register for the WMOC on Wed and spent the morning and early afternoon sightseeing with dad making me walk almost every street and back alleyway (recce?) and despite having my sensible walking sandals on had hot throbbing feet by the end of the day!! Had them up on the dashboard almost all the way back to the caravan – this always works wonders.

The city centre is quite lovely. The old part of the town, mainly inside the old city walls, or the remains of, is mainly pedestrianized so very civil!! Must admit though that people in general drive at a fairly sedate pace here, especially when compared to Switzerland where overtaking everywhere seems almost obligatory!! Dad says also that cycling here is a pleasure as the roads are so so quiet!!

During our city centre rambling we came upon a fabulous cake shop – and if there is one thing in the world that dad cannot walk by it is one of those!! So we stopped, had a coffee n cake! Unbelievably cheap esp compared to France.  Cakes varied from about 70p to £1.25 for gateaux type concoctions.  Mine was a coconut roulade type with a cream cheese filling and dad’s an Esterhazy walnut gateaux – heavenly.  So for the princely price of £4.50 we get two coffees and two cakes… will be doing this again I think.  Dad intends to stock up for the weekend’s running with brownies from there – monster chunks of goo….good running fuel.

We think that because Pecs was a cultural capital of Europe in 2010 the city centre has had a makeover?  It all seemed incredibly clean, almost sanitized, and freshly painted – esp when compared to London. The whole place seemed to have a good vibe though, lots going on and lots of people just hanging out in cafes ec.  The pace of life is def a lot gentler here which I just love.  Could quite happily come back for longer. 

Yesterday dad went for a run in the forest south of Orfu – and I stayed on a strand (man-made) by the larger lake.  Like Italy, one has to pay for life’s little luxuries here and even though I was only going to be there an hour and half had to pay £3 for a half day ticket!! Ah well, I sat in the shade of a walnut tree  watching various parties of school children at play – one of which was having boxing lessons under the direction of the most tattoed man I’ve ever seen. A sort of gentle giant as his voice and manner was very soft with the children despite being almost as wide as tall !?! He seemed to be teaching them how to protect their faces from the blows. The youngsters all showed him great respect and called him  ‘Meistr’, in fact all the children we’ve seen (and that’s a lot) seem very well behaved – there is often only one teacher in charge of 20 or so!! In Britain you’d have almost as many staff as children – or is that just health n Safety gone mad ?

We stopped at the end of the lake to take some photos and discovered to our great delight that there was a fruit tree, well loads in fact - they were sort of a cherry plum (we actually had one at the entrance to our drive though not planted by us – a bird offering ?) and the red ones were delicious so we’ll have to go back for another few handfuls as they ripen. Cherry trees are absolutely everywhere too.  Drove into a cracking storm on the way back……clouds black as hell….

We spent the afternoon at the local spa hotel (again!) keeping an eye on the storm clouds above us and rumbling thunder as we sped up and down the lanes in the outdoor pool (have now decided it is 35m in length) – dad to ease his weary legs and me just to enjoy the swim/sauna etc……the sauna here is 94 degrees whereas in Ringwood it was 84 ! quite a difference. Every time we have been there we have had to pay a different amount and received a different deposit at the end!! There seems no rhyme or reason to their thinking or is it just incompetence??? Whatever, we love the place and don’t quibble about their pricing, much!! Dad is flummoxed by it all….I just think it’s cheap as chips and am thankful it’s so near. I’m sure Bath Spa is a lot heftier in price and wouldn’t offer the magnificent surroundings.

Anyway, today is housework day – washing, changing beds, clearing car etc so got to go.