Turf Zone – TheKelpies
There are many different words ending in ography in the world, and just and many ending in ology. Geography gives you somewhere to turf, geology gives geography something to stand upon, which is just as well. Meteorology gets you soaking wet, freezing cold or sweaty hot, depending what the weather gods decide. Then you have astrology, the creation of nonsense based on other nonsense, yet people believe. But there’s one word you will not find in the Observers Book of Ography’s and Ology’s. That word is turfology, the study of the game of turf, turfers and all things turf.
The very first zone I took was zone Pittendreich, a good stone’s throw from the house, well, perhaps more in slingshot range from the house. My first ever 185 points. It was taken from Féarglas, the turfer who brought Turf into my world when she was featured in a BBC News article way back on the 20th of December 2020. It’s still there online if you want to read it. That was almost 4-years ago and here I am still turfing and still managing to post a few blog pages on the very same subject. I don’t know if you are amazed but I certainly am.
Actually, 4-years isn’t very long when you look at some others turfers, a few who have been turfing since the Game of Turf arrived in Scotland around 10-years ago. And this got me thinking about what keeps us turfing. Of course, the answer is fairly straight forwards, collecting points and medals, achieving League positions, or not as the case might be, climbing up the Ranks, participating in turf events and so on. And not forgetting the PG Turf Advent Calendar 2024, if I may say so myself. But here’s a thing, what prevents us from giving up the game of turf? That’s a more difficult question to answer. Let us delve in the mysterious world of turfology.
Module 8 of the BSc in Turfology at the University of Life, the Universe and Things we think are Important but aren’t Really, goes into the topic of how we are unable to stop turfing in considerable detail. Reasons are wide and varied. For example, we might find ourselves unable to stop turfing because it gets us out of the house and away from annoying partners, the bairns, the live-in granny, even that bloody smelly cat from next door that decided to move in. Another example might be the dread of not having an excuse to pursue that theory of N+1 when related to the acquisition of further bicycles (for turfing use, obviously).
But joking aside, giving up turf can be difficult. It has not been known as Turf Addiction without reason. One sign of Turf Addition often reveals itself when turfers get together. For example, turfer HappyHibby visited myself and ChoccyMuffin the other day and what did we talk about. Yes, you’ve guessed, turf, turf and more turf. We did pause for a nano-second to drink tea and scoff goodies, but straight back to turf talk again. A sure sign of Turf Addition.
So, why is giving up turf often a challenge. Perhaps it’s the thought of losing your position in the League. All those months, even years, of effort going to waste. Or you’ve reached a certain Rank and only require another 100,000 points or so, or if you are a Mega-turfer, only another few millions of points, and you might as well keep on turfing. Of course, you can easily decide to stop turfing but actually doing so in another matter.
Once you make that decision to stop turfing, even after a few days, doubts can creep into the empty space in your brain once dedicated to turf. You might find yourself getting slightly anxious, a little twitchy, and sweaty palms, that sort of thing. You see your League position slowly dropping towards relegation, the gap between you and the bottom of your group now closer than you can bare. That dreaded white triangle getting closer and closer.
You see new zones popping up on your local patch and find it hard to resist the temptation to take them. Then, along comes a new Turf medal, like the Daily 5 or the Monument series. Perhaps some turfer uniques not in your collection appear nearby and you just have to get them, before the competition does. There always seems to be something that gets your attention and keeps you turfing. Oh well, better go and take some zones then.
Copyright ©2024 Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.
