Örebro Kalendar 2022

Sunday 27th November sees the start of a fun, and if you choose, a challenging event in the turfing world, Örebro Kalender Turf 2022. Participants undertake a turf assignment each day. It’s all a bit of fun and you never know what the assignments are going to be until each day. This year there are two sets of challenges to choose from, easy or difficult. I’m going to post my personal experience of each assignment here each day. You can see how I faired with the assignments last year here.

The rules are fairly straight forward. Timings are UTC, standing for Coordinated Universal Time. No time adjustments are required at this time of year in the UK as British Summer Time is not in effect. The assignments should be completed within the 24-hour period, namely midnight to midnight. There will be a prize draw for all turfers who finish all the assignments.

You need to keep track of your own assignments (not sure what they mean by this?) and after the final assignment you need to send an email to: orebroturfers@gmail.com. Include your turf name, actual name and whether you passed the easy or difficult kalendar to be included in the (digital) prize draw.

The daily assignments are posted online on the Örebro Turfer’s website and on relevant Facebook groups (links below). Kalender Turf image courtesy of Örebro Turfer’s. For turfers in Scotland, the Turf Scotland group on WhatsApp will no doubt be a mine of useful information, witty comments and the usual turf banter.

Some useful links:

• Örebro Turf website
• Turf Outdoor Addition Group Facebook
• Turf Örebro Group Facebook

Sunday 18th December – Day 22

Easy task: last Day: “God Jul” / “Merry Christmas” Visit zones that contain the letters to one of these greetings in their zone names. The mission is completed when you’ve gathered all the letters in the chosen greeting. Capital or lowercase letters don’t matter.

Difficult task: Must do both Swedish and English greetings!

Saturday 17th December – Day 21

Task: visit zones that holds the letters C A L E N D E R T U R F in their zone names. The mission is complete when you’ve gathered all twelve. Capital or lowercase letters don’t matter.

A non-turfing day today, unfortunately, mostly spent down in Selkirk doing some DIY for my mother. Main task was insulating the kitchen floor/basement ceiling with solid insulation. Of course, this required relocating all the lighting fittings, power points and all associated cabling. Which in turn disturbs 150-years of accumulated dust, soot and other suspicious materials. Then there’s all the resident mice, rats, goblins, ghouls, bogeymen and giant red-backed spiders that live in the dark, spooky and haunted basement, all of whom are rather annoyed at being evicted. And add to that, hand-sawing polystyrene insulation leaves me looking like Frosty the Snowman, covered head-to-foot in white polystyrene beads and dust. It even manages to get through three layers of clothing! And finally, all that sawing, drilling, measuring, marking, man-handling, drilling, screwing, hammering and not forgetting actually thinking it all out, leaves me totally knackered. However, turfing tomorrow, with luck!

Friday 16th December – Day 20

Task: visit zones whose names contain the letters in your alias (turf name). The mission is complete when you’ve gathered all the letters in your alias. Capital or lowercase letters don’t matter. You also get to choose someone else’s Turf alias as well if you want.

Plan for this morning. Zones with letters to make turf name PlanetGary. Decided to add to the task by only going for the first letter of the zone name. Zones for this task as below. Zone A7View will also give me the Skåne Calendar task, take a zone near a grocery store, in this instance Tesco.

• Pittendriech
• LadyMarion
• AuldChester
• NotFencedIn
• Eskbank
• TongueSpatula
• GroovyFarm
• A7View
• RobinAndTuck
• YourDiary

Thursday 15th December – Day 19

Points hunt ! Collect 100 points. It’s up to you which categories to perform and you can do them any amount of times. Points are earned for all categories that fits your take. E.g. Castle zone named “CastleTen” gives points for being a castle, for beginning with letter C and for having “ten” in the name. All categories concerning letters are not case sensitive.

5 points:

• Visit a bridge or Holy zone
• Visit a zone where the name begins with A, B or C
• Take assist

10 points:

• Visit a monument
• Visit a zone with “ten” or “tio” somewhere in the name
• Visit a zone in the last minute of any calendar hour. E.g. 8:59-9:00
• Grab a zone from someone that got a Gold medal
• Grab a zone from someone with the letter P in their name (alias)

20 points:

• Visit a Ruin or Castle
• Take 185/1 zones

30 points:

• Given for every third attribute zone of the same type you visit.
• Take a neutral zone

40 points:

• Visit a zone where the zone name starts with U, X or Z

100 points:

• Visit a Water zone

? points:

• Do a crowdy. 5 points for every turfer included. Not everyone needs to be in the calendar.

The harder calendar: Collect 300 points.

Good Luck everyone !!!

Sorry to say I didn’t try very hard for this one, in fact I didn’t try at all, simply went for a walk and hoped for the best. Managed a pitiful 70 points. Made another video instead.

Wednesday 14th December – Day 18

Easy task:

1. Visit any attribute zone.
2. Visit a zone north of the first taken attribute.
3. Visit a zone east of the first taken attribute.
4. Visit a zone south of the first taken attribute.
5. Visit a zone west of the first taken attribute.

Difficult:

• As above but at least 3 of the 5 zones must be attribute zones.

Notes:

• Don’t visit any other zones in between these 5 zones.
• Except for in the requested direction, zones can be located anywhere.
• It doesn’t matter if more zones than the first also have attributes.

I feel a trip to Edinburgh for this one. Might just pop into Helly Hansen shop and look at winter boots. Christmas present to self. Perhaps Cotswold Outdoor, Graham Tiso and North Face shops as well. I’ve decided that all takes should be attribute zones. My zone plan for today is below. Zone Waverley will also give todays task for the Skåne Kalendar – visit a zone with the Railway Station attribute.

1. Warm Up – John Lewis (Coffee & Scone attribute)
2. Start – ScottZone (Monument attribute)
3. North – StAndrewsZone (Monument attribute)
4. East – Waverley (Railway Station attribute)
5. South – StGiles (Holy attribute)
6. West -StCuthbert (Holy attribute)
7. Finish – ShopsZone (Winter Boots attribute)

Mission accomplished but no winter boots. And yet another Turf Video.

Tuesday 13th December – Day 17

• Simple: take zones with 4, 5, 6 and 7 characters respectively, in this order.
• Difficult: take zones with 9, 8, 7, 6 and 5 characters respectively, in this order.

Both these options are a lot more challenging, at least for myself personally here in Bonnyrigg, than might first appear, mainly due to the lack of zones with names 4 or 5 characters long. Locally, I only have two 4 and 5 character zones to play with, zone Mary, up near Easthouses in Dalkeith, and zone Flash, located at to top end of Bonnyrigg. Options for the others zones does not present any problems.

If I tackle the 4, 5, 6 and 7, simple option, I’ve a 10-mile walk ahead of me. If go for the 9, 8, 7, 6 and 5, difficult option, the distance reduces to a 6-mile walk. Of course, on the bike completing both easy and difficult options would be a doddle but it’s well below freezing outside and my don’t-like-the-cold nippy toes say don’t even think about it! So, on with the hiking boots and out for a walk. I’ll be going for the difficult option this time because, strangely enough, it’s easier. You’ve read the blog now watch the video!

Monday 12th December – Day 16

• Easy: take three zones in a row. The next zone must have equal or more characters.
• Difficult: same as above, but seven consecutive zones.

Completed this one while tackling the Skåne Calendar task, zones are KirkCockpen, LadyMarion and RobinAndTuck.

Sunday 11th December – Day 15

• Easy: take three zones in any order. 170, 140 and 125
• Difficult: take six zones in any order. 185, 185, 170,140, ​​125 and 80

Had this one been any day before yesterday and any day after tomorrow, I would have relished the challenge of finding all these zones. However, I had both my Covid-19 vaccine booster and my flu vaccine jabs yesterday and I feel totally crap as crap can be today. And in any case, there are no 125’s short of heading into Edinburgh, though no problem with 170’s or 140’s here locally.

I’ve been thinking about creating a turf advent calendar for Turf Scotland next year and have started compiling all the different tasks and assignments I’ve come across. At the moment, I may do something slightly different, offering a choice of an Easy task, a difficult task and a third task called Mission Impossible. Feel free to send may any ideas? Back soon.

Saturday 10th December – Day 14

• Easy: take any four attribute zones.
• Difficult: take any eight attribute zones.

Ah, an easy one, well, the easy one is easy, the other one isn’t easy as it’s difficult, which isn’t easy, if you see what I mean. Mind you, the difficult one might be easy to some turfers and the easy one might be difficult. And difficult might actually be impossible to others. Of course, it might all boil down to the question, what actually do we mean by difficult and easy, or easy and difficult? I suppose easy would be, well, easy and difficult might be less easy than simply easy. Oh, by the Powers of Castle Grayscull, go and have a coffee and a Kit-Kat, Gary!

P.S. took the easy option, take any four attribute zones.

Friday 9th December – Day 13

• East: Take four zones in any sequence starting with the letters T, U, R, F.
• Difficult: Take eight zones in any order starting with the letters T, U, R, F, G, A, M, E.

Did my planning for the Skåne Calendar tasks this morning but it’s not really suitable as I’m not very keen cycling on icy roads and paths, so I’m giving that one a miss today. However, today’s Örebro task is mostly off-road around Dalhousie Castle and the woods around Newbattle and hard frozen ground makes for excellent fat biking with the Surly Pugsley, or simply a nice walk in the woods. My zones for this assignment: TheRedWoods, UpperDalPath, RecentBattle, FatBikePath, GroveFarm, AncientBattle, Mary and EquinoxZone. No blog this time just a wee video instead.

Thursday 8th December – Day 12

• Easy: take a “Calendar Turf Minute” zone.
• Harder: take 3 “Calendar turf minute” zones. (Example 07:59.25, 11:59.55, 22:59.33).

This entry includes both the Örebro and Skåne Calendar tasks.

Both the Skåne and the Örebro advent calendars are fairly easy today, even the harder option from Örebro. But to start off, I decided on Skåne first, selecting a nearby zone with the word south in the zone name, zone SouthEskAside, located by the River South Esk near Dalhousie Castle. Actually, I was very tempted to go for all four cardinal points, a zone with the word north can be found in Newbattle woods and both east and west can be seen in Mayfield, in the same zone name no less, WestIsEast. However, that’s would mean having to go to Mayfield, and the zone is right up there near the top of the hill.

Really wanted a more relaxed session today, so zone SouthEskAside was ideal. Watched a male Goosander hunting for fish in the river. They usually fly away as soon as a human appears but this one hung around seemingly unconcerned. Might be one from Musselburgh. They are all more chilled out with humans, being used to seeing them all the time.

Now for the Örebro event task, take 3 “Calendar turf minute” zones, for example 07:59.25, 11:59.55, 22:59.33.

On the way to zone SouthEskAside, I noticed it was five minutes to 11.00. am, and I was not all that far from zone DeanWoodTurn. Could I make it in time to complete a Calendar turf minute? Not walking, that’s was for sure. Running, perhaps? So, ran I did, not so easy wearing walking boots and carrying a rucksack. I was close but not close enough. Entered the zone at precisely 11.00 am, just out of time. Oh, well, plenty of time left for more tries elsewhere later.

“sometime later that afternoon”

So here I am, loitering suspiciously near zone Pittendreich while I wait for the exact moment to step into the invisible red box. Dog walkers and other passers-by looking at me wondering what I’m up to. Thankfully, I can pretend I’m on the phone. But eventually it’s 14:58 and I can take the zone.

Then same again later on after dinner. This time zone WayOfBaird and I’m much more exposed here as I again let the minutes and seconds shave time from my existence until 15:59 when I can take the zone. As usual I’ve arrived far too early with too much time to spare. I say hello to a woman passing. She ignores me and speeds up her pace. If I’m here much longer someone will call the authorities.

Yet later again, this time zone Brixwold, down by the Pittendreich Burn. It’s much colder now, the last of the snow that didn’t melt is now crispy frozen, crunching under foot as I walk to and fro, passing the time until zero minute. And yes, far too early again. After what seems an eternity it’s 18:59 and seconds later, the zone is mine. Mission accomplished for another day.

Wednesday 7th December – Day 11

• Simple: take 3 zones where the zone name consists of eight letters.
• Difficult: take 8 zones where the zone name consists of eight letters.

Another day stuck at home while the plasterer skim coats the internal walls in the new porch. I’d hoped he would not take all day and I could get out on the bike turfing but it was 4.30 pm before he left, so another turfing day lost. Thankfully I’m not going for anything requiring lots of points. But, after dinner, it was time to go. The weather forecast was for sub-zero temperatures so I wanted to get cracking before the ice and frost started to take hold on the paths and cycleways.

I’ve been in the habit of tackling both the Örebro and Skåne Calendar tasks at the same time and I’ve been finding it difficult to write two separate blogs, so from now on I’m combining the two into a single blog entry and will post the same page on both calendar pages.

My challenges for this evening are:

• Skåne: take zones that together contain the letters I J K L M N O P.
• Örebro: take 8 zones where the zone name consists of eight letters.

I started again using https://turf.lundkvist.com/ to list all the zones locally and extracted the most suitable zones. Next, I took a screen shot and marked each zone in blue, copied the image to the mobile phone and would use that as my route guide. The zones for the Skåne task were easy enough and I just managed enough local zones with eight letters for the Örebro task.

With the weather forecast so cold, I made sure I would be warm and toasty this time. Last time I didn’t have enough layers on and was chilled at times, particularly on the long downhill runs when you are not pedalling enough to stay warm. So, this time it was t-technical shirt, long-sleeved t-shirt, fleece jersey and cycling jacket. On the legs, two pairs of cycling leggings. I find if you keep the core body warm the extremities such as hands and feet also stay warmer, well, at least a little bit longer.

My plan worked out just fine and it was only in the low-lying areas that I encountered frozen ground, for example, down in Ironmills Park for zone WeirHere, and along the River South Esk at Newbattle. At times the path was dry and the tyres almost silent. At other times, alternating between splashy and sploshy where wet, and crispy and crunchy where frozen. Just needed that little bit more care to avoid mishap.

Actually, I did have one moment. Not due to ice but bad planning. On my makeshift zone map I’ve tagged the wrong zone and had to backtrack to take the correct zone. The zone was Langside at the top side of Dalkeith and, of course, where did I notice this? At the bottom side of Dalkeith and had to cycle all the way back uphill. Bugger!

By 8.30 pm, I was back home, both missions accomplished. And most of me still warm and toast other than my toes which were fair nipping a bit. Not sure what to do about that? Back tomorrow when we have snow forecast!

Tuesday 6th December – Day 10

• Easy: take three zones in a row where the subsequent zone must start on the letter that the previous zone ended on.
• Harder: Same as easy calendar but the last zone’s ending letter must be the same as the first zone’s first letter. The circle is complete.

Tricky ones these mainly due to the need to visualise lots of zone names at the same time. However, a request on the Turf Scotland WhatsApp group and a helpful suggestion from turfer Artful made all the difference. Load up UrbanGeeks, draw a polygon around the turf area you are looking at, download the polygon as text – zone names, into a .txt file. I then pasted the names into Excel and started juggling names about, eventually finding what I was looking for. Note that names ended and beginning with the same letter make things easier.

• For the easy task: CockpenBypass, SouthEskAside, ExitRosewell
• For the harder task: HolyDalkeith, HolyBuccleuch, HalfwayPath.

Monday 5th December – Day 9

• Easy: take 1 yellow zone and at least 3 red zones.
• Tougher: take 5 yellow zones and at least 20 red zones.

My plan today. With very few zones having been taken locally around Bonnyrigg since yesterday’s round reset, if I wanted to tackle the tougher option, I’d have to cycle down to Musselburgh to take at least 20 red zones. However, I really wasn’t in the mood for that having been turfing in Musselburgh twice recently. And the weather was quite foul with miserable showers forecast all day. So, I decided to settle for the easy option, taking 1 yellow zone and at least 3 red zones around Eskbank and Dalkeith (all from turfer MuttsCycles), then do some normal turfing in Dalkeith and bag all the neutrals. This should also satisfy the requirements for the Skåne Kalendar, i.e., take zones that together contain the letters A B C D E F G H. And as it turned out, the first 8 zones I took did just that. More by chance than any forward planning.

But later that afternoon, my wife Cathryn, a.k.a. ChoccyMuffin, was out in Bonnyrigg and took 12 zones from me, thus creating 12 reds for me to take back. Adding this to the 5 reds I took this morning, means I only required another 3 reds to complete the tougher challenge and these were available down in Kirk Bank Wood, courtesy again of MuttsCycles.

Interesting that this is the second challenge made more difficult by the lack of other turfers, rather than the usual problem of too many turfers, the other one was where assists were required. So, after tea, a quick round of Bonnyrigg gave me the 12 zones taken by ChoccyMuffin and a dash to Kirk Bank Wood brought me to the target of 20 reds. Tougher assignment complete.

Sunday 4th December – Day 8

• Easy: take 3 neutral zones.
• Tougher: take at least 30 neutral zones.

Even before the Round reset at 11.00am, taking the easy option of three neutral zones was still actually possible. There were quite a few zones still at neutral status dotted around Bonnyrigg, some at Dalhousie Castle, some at Gore Glen and a few along the River South Esk near Roslyn and in Dalkeith Country Park. However, I really wanted to try for the more challenging 30 neutral zone option but that would have to wait until after the Round reset. And, as I was off down to Selkirk for the day to visit my mother, that would have to wait until the evening.

It was after 6.00 pm before I was able to get out on the Surly Ogre to grab at least 30 neutrals around Bonnyrigg, happy that no other turfers had been there during the day and I’d have to cycle further afield for alterative zones. Changed turfing days indeed. It was not that long ago when, even in Bonnyrigg, you had to start bagging zones sharp after the 11.00 am reset to have any chance of getting them.

The evening was wet, cold and miserable, not very encouraging weather for spending 90 minutes on the bike to take at least 30 zones. In fact, I was very tempted to quickly take the three nearest the house but told myself not to be a wimp, don your waterproofs and get cracking. Actually, the rain had stopped by the time I’d taken a couple of zones and stayed reasonably fair for much of the session, only the last few zones were taken in the rain. The good thing about this Örebro Kalender assignment is that it’s exactly the same as the one in the Skåne Kalendar, so both tasks completed in the same session.

One this I dislike about wearing waterproof 0ver-trousers is the rustle-rustle as you pedal. Really must look for some cycling trousers that are waterproof and fit better. Will include something in my letter to Santa this year. Back tomorrow.

Saturday 3rd December – Day 7

• Easy: take zones from 3 different turfers. (Or at least 3 re-visitable).
• Tougher: take zones from 10 different turfers. (Or at least 10 re-visitable).

A quick look at the map on the Turf website showed that taking zones from 3 different turfers was easy enough. No need to even leave Bonnyrigg. However, taking zones from 10 different turfers would require a good two hours turfing further afield. Which of the two I’d actually go for was again dependant on when the builders finished working on the new porch. It was the turn of the roofers this morning, installing a membrane on the flat roof section and re-instating the existing roof tiles where the porch roof joins the main roof, and as luck would have it, they were finished by 11.30 am, so after grabbing a quick early lunch, I set off on the Surly Ogre to hunt down some turfers, or rather, their zones.

Turfer Aibo had been stealing all my zones in Bonnyrigg this morning, not that I mind as she a lovely lass, so my first target of this assignment was Aibo and zone WayOfBaird. One down another nine to go. The next closest zone owned by another turfer was WaverleyPark, and that turfer was ChoccyMuffin aka my wife Cathryn. And I suppose I’d better say she’s a lovely lass as well or I’ll be sent to bed without any supper! Two in the bag, now eight to go. My third take was zone Wishart, owned my Bicycle Repairman MuttsCycles. And that’s all the zones locally held by other turfers; the remainder will require some cycling.

I now had the option of either heading into Edinburgh or down to the Musselburgh area. I discounted the Penicuik direction as there are really only three active turfer in the area, not enough of them to get me to ten. As for Edinburgh, a busy Saturday before Christmas just wasn’t attractive. So, Musselburgh it was.

Dalkeith Country Park had some zones held by Ramesses, the founding pharaoh of ancient Egypt’s 19th Dynasty and apparently a keen turfer, much to my surprise. Zone ParkOfSteel was the easiest option to reach, bring my count to six, almost half way there. After that I was a long haul down through the park to Musselburgh for the next turfer-held zone, HaughsSteps, relieved from turfer Cruachan, who also holds most of the other zones in the area. Five down, five to find. Exactly half-way there.

It took quite a bit of time to locate zones not held by Cruachan, but zone RomanBrig gave me turfer SeaCat, zone BalcarresRd gave me turfer CabinFeather and zone WindsorGarden gave me Bythesea. I now had eight in total, just two more required to complete the assignment. I now aimed for Wallyford, as there were three zones there not held by Cruachan. As I rode along, I was conscious that I might need alternatives should Cruachan take these before I got there. Thankfully, he was not out turfing in the area. For my eighth take, zone Wallyford at the railway station was taken from TheInquisitor and not far away another zone, OliphantRoute, held by ESOC-HR.

And that was that, ten zones taken from ten different turfers. I must say it was quite enjoyable simply hunting down the ten zones and not bothering too much about other zones or points. And, there’s more. I’d also taken a few additional zones along the way, zones with attributes, and that allows me to complete today’s task for the Skåne Kalendar 2022, take 3 zones with different attributes. Magic.

Friday 2nd December – Day 6

• Easy:  take 5 zones of your choice.
• Tougher: complete a Stamina, 50 zones in 24 hours.

I was keen to try for the Stamina, 50 zones in 24 hours, and would have done so during the day but stuck in the house with builders all day meant that wasn’t to be. And by the evening, well to be honest, I just could not be bothered. So, an easy pootle about in the bike locally gave me my 5 zones of choice, and a few more. Oh, and I also wanted to test my latest purchase, a Hope District Plus rear light for the Surly Ogre.

Thursday 1st December – Day 5

• Easy: take a zone containing the letter A.
• Tougher: take zones freely containing the letters A, B, C, D, E.

The easy option is easy enough as is the tougher option, at least here in Midlothian, Scotland, with no less than three zones containing all five letters, TheBackdoor, PeacocksBeard (2 mins from my house) and BridgeWatcher. For Edinburgh, we have BeachDay, BraidsCorner, Calderbridge, CanSeeBridge, DarkBeach, LadderOfJacob and LochendBygate. Good luck all.

Turned out to be a bigger challenge than originally thought. Not the actual zone take, PeacocksBeard contains all five letters. It was getting there that was eventful. Firstly, I wanted to avoid the builders working on the porch in the front driveway, as they would be after coffee and chocolate biscuits. I only have my cherished Kit-Kats and no-one is getting any of them! So, decided to go over the back fence to avoid them. Thinking I’d return the electric drill I borrowed from the neighbour, I grabbed that and climbed said fence. However, officers in a passing police car saw me and immediately stopped to ask what I was up to.

Of course, not carrying any identification, I was handcuffed, bundled into the back of the car, placed under arrest and informed of my rights. Then followed 30 minutes of twenty questions about what I was up to, including a breath test and drugs wipe. Eventually, I was frog marched back to the house, still in cuffs, past the curious eyes of the builders, managed to prove my identity, was de-arrested and finally released. Starsky and Hutch seemed none to happy to see me on my way.

Okay, start again. After making coffee for the builders – and handing over some Kit-Kats, a difficult thing for me to do – I again started making my way to zone PeacocksBeard. This time I left the drill behind to be returned another day. Passing the house of another neighbour, a very attractive young women, I heard someone calling my name. “Fancy coming in for coffee and Kit-Kats, Gary? Fresh scones in the oven!” As she was only wearing a small towel wrapping about her, I politely declined, though was most tempted by the offer of Kit-Kats, and the scones. “Sorry, rushing off to the dentist. Another time perhaps?” Making my escape, I realised I’d forgotten to bring my mobile phone, so back to the house again.

By now I wondering if this turf assignment is jinxed? I’m now down to the Pittendriech Burn but the bridge has collapsed following recent floods, so a long detour is required. I also have to pass the same police car I encountered earlier. Starsky and Hutch watched me until I was out of sight. I could almost feel their eyes burning into the back of my head. What a challenge this assignment is turning out to be. What else could possibly go wrong?

Well, is it turned out, plenty. First, I’m attacked by two yapping Yorkshire terriers, soon followed by considerable verbal abuse from the elderly owner. Next, two youths on an electric scooter made a swipe for my mobile phone in passing. But I saw them coming and thwarted them. Then at the zone I’m having trouble with the GPS and need to restart the phone, all taking time and looking mightily suspicious to Starsky and Hutch who pull up at the junction and sit watching me. For goodness’ sake, what’s going on?

However, zone PeacocksBeard is finally taken and soon I’m back home without further incident. Time for a coffee and Kit-Kat. Bugger, no Kt-Kats left. Guess who got the last of them? Hope tomorrows assignment is less stressful!

Wednesday 30th November – Day 4

• Easy: take two 170p/+2 zones.
• Eager: do an Eager Ferret Run (10 zones in under 10 minutes).

Again, confined to base all day for building work puts any chance of an Eager Ferret in safe conditions during the day out the window. The only location I could reach is Loanhead, but knowing the route well, I’m not taking any chances as the route, an old railway line, might still be holding icy patches from the current cold weather, and patches of slippery wet leaves do not make for furious cycling. However, the easy option should be easy enough in the evening. And indeed that was the case. Later in the evening a nice if somewhat cautious stroll, due to hidden icy patches, around Bonnyrigg, gave me the required 170p/+2 zones. Easy.

Tuesday 29th November – Day 3

• Easy (or perhaps challenging?): complete an assist at a zone.
• Mission Impossible: complete three assists with three different turfers.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted! Being tied to the house all day with builders working on our porch, I’ll not even be able to get one assist today, so a bit of a stopper for me this one, and I suspect quite a few other turfers as well. Mind you, that will not stop me continuing with the other assignments where I can, for the fun of it.

Monday 28th November – Day 2

The assignments for today are:

• Easy: take one 185/1 zone.
• Tougher: take 25 zones including at least one 185/1 zone and two 170/2 zones

Having been stuck at home all day keeping an eye on the joiners and electricians who are working on our new porch, it was the evening before I was able to get out on the bike and grab a few zones. With temperatures due to fall to around freezing later, I was keen to be out early. As with yesterday, I was able to stay local to Bonnyrigg, thanks to turfers Wintergreen and CSL, who were in the area yesterday turfing around Bonnyrigg. It was chilly tonight with temperatures down to 4 Degrees C., though it felt colder at times and my fingers and toes were fair nipping by the time I’d finished around 7.30 pm. A dash around town gave me 32 zones, same as yesterday, and enough to satisfy both assignments for Day 2. Back tomorrow.

Sunday 27th November – Day 1
The first assignments are:

• Easy: take 1 zone with any type attribute, e.g., bridge, holy, etc.
• Tougher: take 25 zones including at least 3 with zone attributes.

Yes, today is Day 1 on the Örebro Kalender Turf 2022. A series of 24 turf assignments in the form of an advent calendar, one to be completed each day. However, this year we have a choice, take the easy option, in this instance, taking 1 zone with any type attribute, e.g., bridge, holy, etc, or the tougher option, taking 25 zones including at least 3 with zone attributes. As it would only take about 5 minutes to complete the easy option, I decided to go for the tougher option, but to also include the easy option as well. In other words, tackle both easy and tougher assignments at the same time.

So, for starters I needed 25 zones I could take which also includes 3 zones with attributes. Luckily, Bonnyrigg had 16 zones siting at red status with another 16 in nearby Rosewell. And with 13 of the Bonnyrigg zones being held by my darling wife Cathryn, aka ChoccyMuffin, I just had to take the opportunity to annoy her by taking them, as she did to me yesterday. Four of the zones have attributes, so that aspect is covered as well.

Bright sunshine and clear blue skies made for some pleasant turfing. However, a cool wind had you zipping up in the exposed areas and thinking about removing a layer in the sheltered sunny areas. It was one of those days where it’s never warm enough to remove a layer but cool enough to chill you in the shade. But overall, a pleasant enough day and 32 zones taken with 4 attribute zones. Day 1 assignments complete. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

But that’s enough turf-stuff for today. I’ve just discovered that Westworld Season 4 is now available on Amazon Prime. A whole eight new episodes to watch. So excited! Back again sometime, unless I get cloned. Hmm, I’m beginning to question the nature of my reality. Is this Now?

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