David Currie

We had to rush away from our hotel this morning – fortunately without a hangover but with less sleep than one might have liked. The occasion to drag us from our bed? The annual Furrow Hoppers relay organised by Wimborne and, this year, being held at Blandford Army Camp.

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We can now breathe a collective sigh of relieve as the Junior Inter-Regional Champs came and went this weekend. Things didn’t get off to a great start when we returned from control hanging to discover that start times had been put back an hour due to transport problems (two squads missing minibuses and a third stuck in traffic). Fortunately the extra wait didn’t result in any controls wandering away and, indeed, we didn’t suffer any vandalism all day.
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At the cost of having to listen to the two England goals on the radio, we went to the SCOA AGM this evening. Normally this is an event that I’d be happy to give a miss but Christine is currently JOK President and consequently obliged to attend. On top of this, Allan Farrington (the SCOA Chairman) was promising a sprint event. This turned out to just consist of a run round the permanent course contained within the grounds of the Worthy Down army camp but it was still good fun. Controls could be taken in any order and I think my route choice was less than optimum. My time of just over 20 minutes also wasn’t helped by overshooting three controls and taking some time to relocate in amongst all the buildings. This was three minutes slower than the course record held by Richard Barrett of BAOC (albeit with a different starting point).

We correctly predicted that we would be busy with the Inter-Regionals this weekend and consequently didn’t volunteer to join the SOC Spitfires for their journey north of the border to the Harvester. Unfortunately, looking at the results it looks like they experienced more than a few delays on the ‘flight’. Julian seems to have trouble getting the team airborne and Mike must have almost stalled in the middle! I’m in the office this week so will hopefully make the Tuesday night run and look forward to hearing the crew’s tales of woe.

102After the England-Paraguay match was over we headed out to Bordon Heath again to tag control sites. It was nice to be there in the sunshine for a change although let’s hope it isn’t quite so hot on the day or there will be juniors melting all over the place! At least they won’t have to experience the assortment of midges and mossies that abounded when we finally left around half nine in the evening. I didn’t envy the army cadets who were out on the area under canvas. As predicted, the bracken is now over a metre high in some places but in general it shouldn’t impede progress too much although later runners may benefit from elephant tracks in to a few controls. The stinging nettles are also pretty viscious but are mercifully few and far between.