David Currie

Yesterday I sneaked out for a couple of hours in the afternoon to go to the Army orienteering at Ocknell. I didn’t really have my head in gear at the start. Having had to go back to the car to pick up my compass I then failed to use it on the way to the first control and paid the price. I wasted four minutes circling around the depression where the control lay. This delay meant that I then had Mark Saunders on my shoulder, pushing me on until, at number 12, I went too far right. He spotted this but overcompensated. Unfortunately he corrected more quickly. I wasted another two minutes and only caught glimpses of Mark in the distance in the last part of the course. My legs were starting to tire at this point from the strength sapping mud. Without those mistakes it would have been a great result, with them, mediocre. If, by any chance, I learn to navigate whilst in Norway then I might just be dangerous! The worst part? Making up the time by working in the evening!

Sadly I’m not going to be around for the next SOC street event to be held in Valley Park this coming Thursday evening (see the SOC website for full details – anyone is welcome!) but this did mean I could help Christine with the planning. The area is fairly constrained due to the large blocks of woodland dividing up the housing so it was largely a case of shuffling around the controls from last year a bit. I think we’ve introduced a few new decision points and I’m still not clear in my own mind what constitutes the best route to collect all the controls. It took me nearly two hours to get round two-thirds of the controls but then I was walking with Emma in the pushchair and we did have to stop at the swings! I’ve measured just one possible route choice on the map (not necessarily the best) and at around eight miles I believe it should be possible to get them all. There’s a challenge for the keen reader if ever there was one!

The first round of the CompassSport Cup was scheduled early this year. The event for our area was at Yateley Heath and Minley Woods. For a change I was off before Christine which meant I was probably a little more focussed when I reached the start. Matthias Mahr was starting a minute before me which I hoped would lead to a good race.
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467Today we went orienteering on Saturday for a change! SOC was re-running the colour coded courses from last year’s event at Burley West but in reverse (a good way to use up spare maps). Having previously done the long-O the blue course was new to me whichever way you looked at it.
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On the way back from visiting my folks we had planned to go to the Southern Navigators event at Ash Ranges. We managed to squeeze everything in to the car and get away from Harpenden within five minutes of our scheduled departure time. An empty M25 proved too good to be true and we spent half an hour crawling towards Junction 3 of the M3 where the motorway had been closed due to a burst water pipe. Consequently, we arrived at the event just after Christine was due to start.
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I nearly didn’t make the SOC street event on Thursday night thanks to Virgin Cross Country. I’m working in Reading this week and next and the train, for what’s only a 45 minute, left half an hour late. A quick change at the University Playing Fields and I made it to the Crown Inn in Highfield, Southampton with minutes to spare before the start.
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We were over at my parents in Hertfordshire for the weekend and had consequently entered the CHIG event at Epping Forest. We nearly didn’t go as Emma had decided to have another wakeful patch of a couple of hours in the middle of the night – something she seems inclined to do when we are away from home. Christine had therefore let me have a lie-in (until eight!) and we had just two hours to pack everything in the car, hot foot it over to Epping and get Christine to the start…
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