David Currie

905We arrived at Saturday’s orienteering a little later than planned. Emma had been up for hours in the night for no particular reason but compensated by getting up late in the morning. Having arrived shortly after 11 at Island Thorns (via Fritham) there was still just about time for both of us to get a run. Christine went out on the green whilst I started off with Emma and Duncan on the yellow. The planner warned me that the rides weren’t particularly buggy friendly and, given that Emma needed to try and climb every tree we passed on the 500m walk to the start, it wasn’t a difficult decision not to do the whole course. In fact, we’d only done two controls by the time Chritine came to relieve me and they then spent most of the time I was out playing in the stream on the way to the next control.

I ran the blue (the longest course on offer) taking just under 45 minutes for 7 km. It’s a lovely bit of forest to run in with nothing but beech leaves on much of the forest floor (although they did rather too good a job of hiding the marshes in places). I can’t claim a clean run with a bit of hunting for controls sunk in pits but it was enough to see off the competition. Most importantly though, it was a lovely day with blue skies and warm sunshine and everyone enjoyed their day out.

It was the CompassSport Cup first round at Longleat today. We were expecting minor chaos as a result of the change in parking but in reality, dropping Christine and the children off at assembly and then getting the minibus back from the house worked very smoothly. Christine was running first and I took the children round the Dr Who themed string course. I have to wonder how many of the participants actually know who Dr Who is but at least Emma was able to understand the world’s worst knock-knock joke afterwards! It also has to be said that they did have a very impressive Tardis stationed at the start.
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884On Sunday we went to our first orienteering event of 2011 – an SOC local event at Lucas Castle and Highland Water (starting near Bolderwood). It was a frosty start but blue skies meant it turned in to a lovely day. I took Emma and Duncan around the white course. Duncan was asleep before we left the car so was pretty quiet until near the end where he started to object to being in the buggy. Emma enjoyed herself but, as always, needed some edible bribes to keep her going to the end of the course! We arrived back just before Christine so she could take over the reins whilst I went out on the brown course.
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As we left the end of the M27 on Sunday morning the fog cleared and we arrived at SOC’s Fritham event under beautiful blue skies. There was still some ice around but it had generally softened sufficiently so as not to be dangerous. Christine took Emma and Duncan round the white course whilst I did the brown. I really enjoyed the course. It was well planned with a good mix of long and short legs and well chosen control sites. Fritham is a delightful area to run round and Steve Keyes (at least I think that’s who it was) pushed me round the second half of the course which added to the fun. Typically, I finished to discover that Jonathan Crickmore had taken nearly five minutes less and the gap between us was then filled by the usual suspects as the day progressed pushing me down in to fifth place in the final results.
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Last weekend was the final of the CompassSport Cup up in the Peak District. We’d spent the night before with one of Christine’s cousins giving us the chance to meet the latest arrival in their family. Christine was off first and I was going to take Emma and Duncan around the white course but was told that I couldn’t go out on the area before my run. With no string course either we just wandered around the sunny but cold assembly area aimlessly until a long overdue Christine finally reappeared.

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