No hiding place

31 Jan.and the racing begins in earnest. The cloud and rain has lifted and you can now see for miles. Temperature a little cool and a little windy but pretty ideal for running. A 30 minute drive to the event. Am feeling a little nervous as I know I am not fit and still not sure how the calf will hold up under competition conditions. Try and get a good warm up. Meet and have a good chat with Norman Jones, an old orienteering friend who now lives in Portugal. Will be running the same class. Non orienteers reading this might want to switch off for the next 10 minutes. Middle distance race of 3.7k winning time likely to be just under 30 minutes. Get called up and wait at the map box. 300m run to the control flag, try and not race off, concentrate, work out route to first control but not before realising I could have saved a few seconds by not going to the start kite. No problem with 1. 1 to 2 drifted a little right onto the rock but could see the bolder, passed Graham Urkhart and said hello, did this break my concentration? Messed up 3 by thinking the hill top was in a reentrant rather than on the spur. Lost at least 2 minutes and relocated at 14. Really annoyed with myself. Rest went ok, hesitated at 7 and stupidly dropped into the reentrant after 11 rather than going round the top of it. It was difficult to find a clean way out. In total at least 3 minutes lost. However my time of 31.21 puts me first apparently, although I haven't seen the official results yet. Must concentrate more tomorrow. Then back to Marvao for the sprint race. The village is embargoed from 14:00 which means two hours of sitting round in the car in the car outside the city walls. Valerie meanwhile is cosied up in the cafe in front of a log fire. They walk us up the steep rocky slope to the start just outside the castle walls, then off into the technical bits. Run goes well even though the calf is very sore. No results up yet, will report tomorrow, but for this race was competing against the 50 plus so stiff competition.

Murky Marvao

Although we reached the heights of 17 degrees at one point on the drive down, the average has been 9.5. Bit warmer than Bournmouth though as I understand there were snow flurries in the New Forest last evening. Marvao where we are staying for four days is the highest village in Portugal. The downside being its now up in the clouds, or so I thought. Having dropped down to Castelo de Vide where the event centre is, we discovered that everyone's weather in this area was drizzle and poor visibility. Our host promises better for tomorrow. The training area 12k to the north west was a bit scrubby and I hope they are keeping the better areas for the races tomorrow and Sunday. Marvao itself is a wonderful fortified hilltop village, with stunning views (so we believe) all cobbled single track streets and alleyways, steps etc. Getting the car around it without scraping something has been challenging. So the only thing to do this afternoon is adjourn to the local hostelry with its log fireplace and a beverage or two. The hospitality of everyone we have met, both on the journey down and the places we stay has been wonderful. One small example was at a roadside petrol station and cafe where after ordering drinks we were offered some hot snacks free of charge! Just had two coffee and two donuts total cost 2.48€. Did I mention that at one point on the way down through Spain diesel was less than 1€ a litre!

Will the last one out turn off the lights

Three days driving into Portugal so a bit to catch up on. Weymouth to St Malo went without a hitch. Valerie had to put her car with the lorries as it had the bikes on top, but we managed to find each other in the lounge. St Malo to Saint Valerien was little fraught as most of the three hour drive was in the dark but Valerie did a fantastic job following me, particularly though Nantes. So we arrived at La Landerie a little frazzled. Annie cooked us a wonderful meal and everything was ok with the world again. Tuesday and we dropped Valeries car, our bikes and other worldly goods (that would fit in to the Mazda) off at La Grange. Our holiday really started at that point. Drive down to Dax and a pleasant hotel. Parking in the street though. Why is it I only kerb my alloys in France. Last time was Antibes! Lack of hot water in the hotel which the owner was most apologetic about. He had forgoten to turn the valve! Sorted for the morning though. Then two days driving though Spain into Portugal with a stop at Tudela de Duero, which included a two hour tour of the local vineyard with wine tasting of course! The title of this piece isnt really descriptive of Spain but it isn't far off. We travelled from the North East to west central and the amount of ghost towns and enclaves is frightening. The roads are fantastic, some lorries, very little business or private cars outside the major cities. Scenery is stunning and such a pleasure to drive through. Our base for the next four days is Marvao, the highest village in Portugal, currently in the clouds with minimal visibility. Sprint race round the place on Sunday could be fun. The hotel we booked is being renovated and wasn't finished in time for our arrival. The owners are most apologetic and have put us up in another hotel nearby which is fine and we get dinner on the house tonight - result. Well that's the update. Will try and write more often so there isn't so much for you to digest. Gavin and Valerie.