Shuttlecock Sport

We completed our visit to my mum's home town by checking out Zoli, my 16 year old nephew's new sport, something called Shuttlecock (or labtol in Hungarian which translates literally to foot-feather.)

I'd never heard of it before and wasn't surprised to find out that, internationally, England are crap at it, though probably because nobody plays it over here. Hungary and Germany are the best teams in Europe, with Hungary apparently better at the moment, whilst Vietnam and China lead the rest of the world with the former being world champions (I think?

It's played across a net, much like badminton or volleyball, but the shuttlecock actually has feathers and the rubberised end is made up of a number of discs and a rubber dome. You can only hit the ball with you feet and parts of your body but not the hands.

Well, we had no idea what we were going to see when my nephew said, let's go down to the local school gym to watch a practice session. They obviously take it very seriously in Ujszasz and there were about twenty kids split across five areas of the gym, three of which were set up with a net supporting teams of three, two and single pairings taking on each other whilst the other two areas were for pairs practicing passing and shooting the shuttlecock at each other.

When someone was tired in one of the games, they'd drop out and enter the practice area whilst someone who'd been practicing would enter the game.

It was fascinating to watch their dedication. My cousin told me how he was looking forward to travelling to Germany and France to compete on an international level. I was mightily impressed.

After this we went back to my Uncle's house and had a lovely cold dinner. Lunch tends to be the main meal in Hungary and generally, Hungarian families will only eat something cold in the evening. In this case it was bread with slices of salami and peppers. Delicious in its own simply way really.

After this we bid our farewells at the train station and got on a more traditional, non compartmentalised and unfortunately slow train for the journey back into Budapest.

Though obviously still tempered by my gran's illness, I was nevertheless happy that we'd manage to achieve so much today and that everyone had managed to meet my fiancee.

The next day was our last and was in reality only a half day, so we packed, slept in and then went out for an early lunch finishing off with some fine Hungarian cakes from the lavish Cafe Gerbeaud.

A fitting end to yet another fine holiday.