Turf zone – MusselLagoon
Day Six and the quest for the Diversier medal continues. With most of my local patch around Bonnyrigg mostly taken, other than the Mayfield area of Dalkeith, I felt a change of scenery was in order and despite the ever-changing weather forecast being for rain showers with optional thunderstorms, headed bravely off down to the coast at Musselburgh, of course, carrying a full set of waterproofs just in case. My plan was to take all the zones in Musselburgh, ranging as far west as the harbour, and out east to the outskirts of Prestonpans. Wallyford was optional, depend how I was feeling, and the weather.
The day started around 8:30 am after a welcome starter coffee and four-fingered Kit-Kat, and some 40 Km (or 24 miles) of cycling later, ended back home around 1:30 pm. In the bag was another 70 round uniques (plus another 15 non-round-unique takes in the passing) added to 142 tally from previous days, giving a rather pleasing total of 212 zones. It’s great to be making better progress than the past few days. Only, and I say only rather quickly considering the effort still involved, another 288 to go to reach that distant 500 round unique zones and that cherished Diversier medal.
Turf zone – ElectricFeet
The weather turned out far better than expected. As far as the heavenly wet stuff goes, the only shower was around 10.00 am as I entered Musselburgh but it didn’t last too long. The remainder of the day was a mix of warm sunshine with cooler periods when the sky was overcast and a cool, but welcome, wind appearing from no-where. A fine collection of Cumulonimbus clouds across in the Kingdom of Fife suggested the thunderstorms were happening to someone else. Not that I’m complaining, though as a keen cloud-spotter and member of the Cloud Appreciation Society, thunderstorms are one of my favourite weather events.
One problem you face when cycling on showery days, is what to do with your soaking wet waterproofs after the rain stops. Option one – keep them on for a while and allow them to dry out a bit. Or option two – pack them away wet and have to pull on cold wet waterproofs when the next showers appears. I tried option one but was soon far too hot when the sun came out to play. Best option I had was to stash them on top of the rear rack. They didn’t dry out very much but, with no further showers, were not needed anyway. One just needs to remember to unpack them and hang up to dry when back home.
Turf zone – EskMutheBeaks
In order to keep track of my takes, I divided Musselburgh into sections, starting with the Stoneybank area, followed by Fisherrow. Then it was onto Levenhall Links, the town centre, the Pinkie area and finally, Inveresk. I find it keeps things manageable if you divide a larger area in smaller sections and, if possible, take all the zones in that area. Then you only need remember the areas you have taken and not all the zones themselves.
Very conspicuous by an almost total absence were any other turfers. Normally, the place is buzzing with them, taking the zones you’ve just taken, blocking the zones you are about to take and so on. All jolly good fun, though sometimes challenging as well. In fact, I’m kind of kicking myself about starting the Diversier medal just now, during the holiday period, when this would have been the ideal time for a go at the Greed-300 or even Greed-350 medals. With fewer turfers about there would have been a better chance at hanging onto zones for longer. Having said that, I’ve just noticed that turfer DrG has taken most of the Musselburgh zones from me. Oh well, never mind.
Turf zone – RiverEsk
I asked for some feedback on my posts yesterday and one suggestion was to say a little more about the zones themselves, for example, what I thought of the zones and which zones would I recommend. To be honest, I struggling a bit with that today. However, let’s give it a go. Zone WindsorGarden is a lovely spot to stop for lunch and there’s a nice bench to sit on. At zone Lewisvale, it’s worth checking out the caged birds and the seven zones located along the sea wall at Levenhall Links are all exactly the same, though the views across the Firth of Forth are pretty good, as is the variety of our feathers friends out in the bay. At zone HolyInveresk, head round the back of the church and onto the high ground in the graveyard. The views are most splendid.
And finally, there’s one wee tip I’ve been meaning to mention for some time. When stopping at a zone to check the Turf app on your mobile phone, if you stop in the shade, assuming there actually is some, you can see the screen so much better. And it’s also a welcome break from the sun. Bye for now.
Copyright ©2021 Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.
