I had a sudden revelation today while out turfing on the bike, that turfers live in a secret world of their own. As we go about the business of turfing, most people, i.e. non-turfers, muggles if your like, to borrow a well-known term from Harry Potter, another secret world, are none the wiser. Not a clue do we present of our favourite pastime, though, at times, we might offer some odd behaviour that might cause onlookers to wonder. Such examples might be holding our mobile phone at arm’s length through a metal fence for between 18 and 30 seconds or wandering in circles while cursing the skies. But other than a few strange activities, turfing is a secret world known only to the initiated.
And today, only the initiated would know what I was up to as I pedalled Mr Bumble, my single speed Brompton along the canal towpath from Falkirk, aiming for a target zone called NoPuncture, the furthest point I planned to reach. However, when I think about that, I sure not all turfers will realise I was tackling another section of the mission called Canal Quest 754 Westbound. My plan today was to pick up where I left off after my previous session, at zone SeeTheWheel in Falkirk and make my way to Kirkintilloch for zone NoPuncture as mentioned above.
However, not all went strictly to plan. You might think following a canal path and taking the zones you encounter would be straight forwards, and indeed, much of the session was exactly that. Yet, I found myself in a pickle when I encountered two zones, one called North and another called South. I should say this pickle was entirely my own fault for not fully concentrating on the golden rule for this type of turf mission. Take the zones in the correct order.
Of the 211 zones required for this mission, zone South is 146 and zone North is 147. But did I take notice of that at the time? No, I did not and suffered the consequences. What I did, daft laddie that I am, was to take zone 147 North first, thus effectively screwing up my session for the day. What I did was take the zone then continue a few more zones before stopping for a regular check that all was well. And, of course, all was not well. The mission table had stalled at zone 147 North. At first, I thought that the web site was simply not updating and would catch up in due course. That was an error on my part.
So, I decided to keep on turfing, as far a zone 160 ggiRrednaC. This would leave only another 61 zones for the final session out towards Bowling, a trip for another day. It was only on the return cycle to Falkirk that I worked out my error, taking the zones in the wrong order. Bugger! That meant the 10 or so zones I’d taken would not count towards the total. But knowledge gained, they were all uniques and I still get the points. Overall, not a bad day with 35 miles cycled, 56 zones taken and 12,000 points in the bag.
I also added another Monument zone to the collection, BonnyMemorial, in Bonnybridge. Well, I thought I’d taken the zone but for some reason I didn’t get it. I entered the zone, heard the taking zone alert, then somehow didn’t get the zone. Perhaps I strayed out of the zone when I looked at the names of the fallen on the memorial. But it will always be there for another day. More soon.
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