Turf Zone – A7View
You go to bed to sleep, well most of the time. Occasionally, I have thoughts other than sleeping but those rarely come to anything, mores the pity. But you find yourself waking up around 1.00 am and no matter how hard you try sleep eludes you. You try the old go for a pee trick, drink a glass of water and nibble some of those tasty digestives calling your name from the biscuit tin. Gary, Gary, eat me, eat me. Okay I will. Yet, 2.00 am comes around and you are still awake. It’s like something in your brain has been activated that creates pointless thoughts just to keep you awake. By 3.00 am you’ve had enough and might as well go turfing.
I might as well stay local to Bonnyrigg, having lost all my earlier zones either to my wife ChoccyMuffin or local turfer sjami44, so plenty zones for a good turf session. As usual when “clearing” Bonnyrigg, my first zone was Pittendriech, also the very first zone I took when I started turf and that will be six years ago this coming December. More in Turf Blog 21-12-20
And the first interesting event of the might occurred as I was approaching my second zone of the session, Brixwold. First, I heard an almighty bang emanating from the road ahead of me. I could not see anything from where I was cycling but just had to be nosy and discover what was going on. The loud bang was an odd one, more a double bang, each part different but linked with each other. I thought gun fire was most unlikely. A drive by shooting is not a thing here in sleepy Bonnyrigg. An early Halloween firework also came to mind but it was probably just a car crash on some kind.
And indeed, it was just that. A private hire car was stopped beside the pedestrian crossing, hazards on and the driver talking on the phone. No-one was hurt and the car appeared undamaged as far as I could tell, though the driver? said something about a deer and he had two punctures. Looking up the road towards town, I could see the two traffic island bollards were smashed and lying on the road, scraps of plastic scattered about the place. No sign of a deer mind you. Did he swerve to avoid a deer? Did he crash into the two bollards or where they already lying on the road and he struck them? Who knows?
Anyway, on with turfing. Did the usual circuit of Bonnyrigg, following my usual plan as shown above. One thing about local patches is no need to have the phone screen on, saving battery power and more gentle on the eyes at night. Allows you to turf on automatic pilot as you know where the zones are. But then you get caught out sometimes, for example, when a zone is relocated. And this is what might have occurred at zone NotBonny. Until now you usually had to venture into the tick/dog shit infested grass beside the pavement to take the zone, occasionally and if lucky, you might take it from the pavement.
But tonight, and thankfully, I had been pre-warned that zone NotBonny had been relocated. Otherwise, I’d be tramping in the dark in the tick/dog shit infested grass searching for the zone. Wisely, the zone had been moved across the road towards the future junction turning. No more risk of steeping on a fresh one or picking up a sneaky little blood-sucking blighter. In fact, the zone was originally further in to where ii is now but I requested it be moved as there’s a hidden ditch in the long vegetation. Perfect location for now, at least until future construction works begin as this area is classed as light industrial/commercial. That will probably be ages away as everything went on hold following Covid.
The session continued pretty much as normal, three sightings of foxes and cats everywhere. Might have glimpsed a tawny owl crossing the cycle path but not sure and too far away. Bonnyrigg is definitely Planet Cats at night, though a few stray humans were also sighted. I do wonder where they’ve been or are going to at 3.00 am in the morning, especially when you encounter a young girl lurking in an alleyway in the town centre. Just the night life of Bonnyrigg, I suppose.
A new zone is always welcome, especially when you are lucky enough to get an FTT, or First To Take and we are fortunate this morning with just that, new zone BonnyFit in King George V Park. I didn’t get an FTT this time, ChoccyMuffin got this one earlier but I do need to incorporate the new zone into my Bonnyrigg circuit. This can sometimes be a challenge, particularly when you want to avoid that time-wasting in and out zones. I much prefer to include new zones as part of the circuit. Zone BonnyFit was easy enough. My default circuit follows zones Bonnyrigg, GeorgeWarMem and DobbysSock. Easy enough to revise the route, adding BonnyFit between Bonnyrigg and GeorgeWarMem.
Now my next interesting event of the morning, a UFO! Yes, a genuine UFO. Well, it was an unidentified flying object when I first spotted it high in the sky to the north west. Of course, if you think of a UFO as visitors from another planet, well, that’s about as unlikely as being allowed to purchase that £150,000 Landrover Defender 110 Octa 635hp V8 I keep looking at online. But until I discovered the string of about 15 lights I saw in the night sky was actually a row of Star Link satellites, it was a real UFO to me! Bit disappointing that, really, discovering that they were only satellites. Seems that SpaceX launched them in batches and they form a “train” for a few weeks before they spread out into their designated stations. The light from them is actually sunlight reflecting of their solar panels.
And finally, a few words of caution. I was down at Aberlady Bay the other day and spent some considerable time in the long grass but didn’t pick up a single tick. However, during a visit to Lugton Bogs near Dalkieth I noticed no less than 5 nymph stage ticks crawling up my legs and I’d been careful to avoid patches of bracken and long grass. And later when doing a final check before heading home, spotted another 5 on my ankle. This last bunch were the tiny larva stage, smaller than poppy seeds. The next day, also found one on the t-shirt I’d been wearing. Be careful out there. Back soon.
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