Sunday 4th January
Off to a great start, ending up with 94 zones and over 22,000 points. Rosewell, Bonnyrigg, Eskbank and Dalkeith all falling under the spell of the PlanetGary turfman. A veritable sea of little white dots on the map. And in the latter stages, I noticed something strange occurring. My takeover time appears to be taking far less time than usual.
My takeover time currently stands at 18.6 seconds. Deduct from that the 5-second bonus for leaving your GPS on and you get 13.6 seconds. Yet I was barely stopping within the zone to hear the nice lady inside the phone tell me “Zone taken”. Then I noticed I had become royalty. My turfman icon was wearing a golden crown! Well, a yellow crown actually. I now held Region Lord status.
This is where a turfer holds the most zones in a region, in this instance, Scotland, and gets a 5-second bonus which shortens their takeover time. Meaning my takeover time was now 8.6 seconds. And I must say very noticeable when out in the field taking zones. I can only recall one occasion when I held Region Lord before and that only lasted seconds before vanishing as it was pinched by another turfer.
One thought that came to mind while I held the Region Lord bonus was should I make an attempt at bettering my current time of 7:45 on the Loanhead ferret run. A 5-second bonus for 9 of the takes would make a huge difference to the time. I say 9 zones because the counter starts after you take the first zone.
However, tempting as it may be the temperature was 3 degrees below and knowing the route of the Loanhead ferret run follows an old railway line with low-lying stretches that hold the cold, I decided that a high-speed cycle in the dark without knowing if there were any icy patches would be folly. I task best left for another day. And no point planning anything for the following day as I had family matters to attend to down in the Scottish Borders and in any case, I had lost the Region Lord bonus by morning. Hopefully, I might be able to hold the Region Lord bonus again sometime in the future.
Tuesday 6th January
I was so enthused about turfing on Sunday, keen and raring to get out there each day and collect as many points as I could. However, Monday saw me visiting the Scottish Borders to take my aging mother to the hospital, along with my sister who had been bitten by a friend’s dog. Not the most cheerful of days and I’m surprised how it effects my mood, which in turn, affects my enthusiasm for turfing. I guess also that lost day’s turfing has seen a 20,000 points gap open up between self and the leader, a gap I had hoped to keep to a bare minimum, if possible.
Now, in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, the Post Office has a motto over their portico. “Neither rain nor snow nor glom of nit can stay these messengers about their duty”. And while the spelling is incorrect due to some letters having been stolen, I’m going to adopt a version of my own for turfing. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these turfers from the unimpeded taking of zones.”
The correct version comes from the Herodotus quotation used on the General Post Office in New York City which reads: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” which has become an unofficial motto of the US Postal service. I shall try to keep this in mind when I find myself making excuses not to go turfing. More soon.
Copyright ©2026 Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.
