Radio Orienteering - Brown Clee = 5 Visits to Tx3

It was a very pretty location - but it was getting a bit tedious

(we think there is a duff cell in the battery pack and the Tx reset overnight)



8:00pm - putting the Tx out as the sun sets - over the wall is a memorial to the airmen who died in flying accidents on the Brown Clee Hills




SAAB 1 : SEAT 0 (Robert V took his sump out - my car just got a bit dirty)





Route to Tx3

TX3 nestling under the beeches

A little trip to Swedish Day at the Haynes Motor Museum





I have put an offer in on this one (SAAB 99 Turbo)



Needs a bit of work - but at least it will fit in the garage...

Back to Nottingham University for the British Elite Sprint Orienteering Champs...



This is M- block - where I lived, studied and suffered for a whole year



A control in the quad at Sherwood Hall - apart from the windows now being double glazed - not much has changed (at least on the exterior) - I guess it is all wired and networked now.



Tessa Hill (Harlequins) - Elite A Final (Starting)



Tessa Hill (Harlequins) - Elite A Final (Finishing)

Above - Star Trek @ the IMAX - what a shiny bright future
Below - Star Trek 1996 - oops!

A visit to "tick off" the Glyderau - above - the South side of the Snowdon Horseshoe (saved for next visit)




Tryfan - looking ominous - never seen it from this angle before - it has been 18 years since I was last here



Above: Glyder Fach - and the Cantilever - still there!

Below: "Another notable feature, west of the summit, is Castell Y Gwynt, (Castle of the Wind), a spiky rocky outcrop" - it was added to the Nuttals - so I had to climb it - 3 attempts - bottled the first two and then followed some proper (German) alpinistes to the 'summit'.

From Elidir Fach - not much of a peak - but what a view (I suppose it is obvious - mountains look more spectacular when you are not on them!)

Garden looking nice again...

A quiet scene from my evening commute home
Not bad for 4 miles from the centre of Birmingham
My commute is 1620 metres - all of it through Bournville
and some of it past woods like this.

ARDF (Radio Orienteering) on Lickey Hills 26th April 2009



Preparation the night before (Bob's Tx are not as ergonomic
as would be ideal - lots of screws to undo!)



It is means to be a running, not a kneeling, sport



Running Repairs



Lots of multipath on 2m

Another trip to the dog racing - this time to Perry Barr

Food was simple but nice and there was lots of it

I did not place any bets - my entertainment was watching everyone else
gambling!

Some days after our trip on the Severn Valley Railway

Mummy had radio 4 on in the kitchen and the news reader said "...David Cameron..."

Arthur (who is three) said "NO! It is David Williams..."

................NO..........................YES

A little trip on the Severn Valley Railway...





Looking out for the animals at the safari park





Gordon as in "of Khartoum" and not Gordon the Big Engine

Strange "Jewel" plants at Coughton Court (National Trust)
Waxy leaves meant that the droplet of water was standing away
from the leaf surface and there was a 'cats-eye' internal reflection effect





Below - A Euphorbia? Above - not a Euphorbia



There was an Easter trail (Cadbury's Eco-Eggs) and a "duck race"

The events manager is the one in the waders
(staff said "the race was his idea so he can be the one to get wet")



Intercepting the stragglers

back again - Mr Moss added another peak in the Carneddau - its not a Nuttall by about 1 metre - it is that tiny little knoll on the ridge in the centre of the photo - called Clogwyn Llech Lefn (SH709627). I find it hard to believe that is was 4 years since I was last here...
Blog entry - May 2005

This time no buzzing from buzzards - displaying (male) and fleeing (pair) red grouse, a peregrine and a pair of (probably) snipe.



View back the other way - can't quite see the car



On the very steep slope down from Bwlch Y Tri Marchog
(Pass of the Three Knights/Horsemen/Riders)
A lovely sheltered spot out if the cold wind -
time for a Chomp and a good look the view - happy days!



It was a bit of a steep descent
- my GPS said >100% for much of the way (I guess that is 1 in 1)

Earlier that morning I climbed Drum -
and in the summit cairn / shelter was a single stalk of broccoli
still shrink wrapped and looking supermarket fresh.
It seems to have been carefully placed
My camera was all fogged up so the picture is unconvincing.
I have a strong feeling that I have seen something exactly like this before -
only I can't remember which other mountain it was on.

Is it some form of perverse vegetable challenge?
A keeping test? A joke? Who knows?
Certainly it must take more calories than a given mass of
broccoli is worth to lug it 750 metres up a mountain.

ARDF in Pamber and then the Frimley
We went to feed the ducks - but they were not hungry - so Kirstie ate the bread
We then went to the playground -
It was, as ever, reliably cold
I think there must be a wormhole through to Antarctica

I got interviewed at work for our fairtrade blog

Chisinau, Moldova

We used to have trolley buses - in Moldova the Maxi-Taxi (white van with seats) is faster and a bit more comfortable



Tea at "Andy's Pizza" - the one close to my hotel (in the building that looks like an ocean liner) also serves rather nice Moldovan food



I had a tasty soup and



a rather nice earthenware pot full of roast pork with 'other things'.




and they even signpost where you can get a...



... Balti!

Moldovan is not that difficult to read
(is really tricky to parse when heard)



Gate guardian at the airport - lovely!



Oops! - something happened to the pound sterling while I was away...



Chisinau has more foreign exchange shops per street-kilometre than any other place I have been - about one every 30 metres on the way from the station to the town centre.

Chisinau, like Birmingham has a rotunda...



Was meant to be a luxury hotel - but something went wrong with the design and is now let to migrant construction workers

Here is the Birmingham one for comparison:



an unfortunate poster of a Turkish airliner apparently grounded in a
Dutch bulbfield...



unfortunate in the light of...



being a recent photo of a Turkish airliner really grounded
in a Dutch bulbfield.