Turf zone – RosewellPath
I have come to the firm conclusion that the human body was badly designed, especially where the back is concerned. Well, my back in particular. Yes, the God of Evolution has a lot to answer for. It’s all down to our brain evolving faster than the body and our decision to walk upright. Not sure exactly why we wanted to walk upright, possibly to get a better view of the sabre-tooth lion looking to take us for lunch, check out what the neighbouring tribe was up to or perhaps we just wanted to wear the latest fashionable sabre-tooth lion fur hat. Who knows?
Our spine is basically designed as an arch, with all the soft squishy bits hanging in a bag below. It was never designed for us to walk upright. The loadings are just plain wrong, ask any structural engineer. My outing the other day to Galashiels and Tweedbank took its toll on my poor old back. I suspect due to me carrying the Swifty up and down a multitude of steps and stairways. I think I’m going to have to be a tad more careful with my route planning and avoid, or at the very least limit, such areas. I guess I’ll just have to miss out zones where steps and stairs are involved or take the long way round.
I’ve been out of any serious turfing action since last Thursday, other than a short walk around Bonnyrigg and a rainy walk around Dalhousie Castle, where I spotted a small squadron of butterflies/moths in the grass at the WitchesHouse zone I’d never seen before, tiny dark brown jobs with silver tips to the forewings. The ever-useful Internet revealed they were Chimney Sweeper moths.
Having lost most of the zones I’d recently held, I’m going to start off with some easy-to-reach local zones using the Surly Ogre bicycle. Rosewell, Bonnyrigg, Dalkeith, Newtongrange and Gorebridge all have zones for the taking, so I’ve no need to travel far today to get a few more points towards the 500,000 target I’ve set myself. Mind you, I’m beginning to think such a target is going to be a challenge indeed and I’ve bitten off more than I can turf.
Coffee and Kit-Kat time is 9.00 am precisely, but after that it was turf time. As usual, I like to check out the competition before heading out, see who is out and about turfing, on my local turf, so to speak. A quick scan of the turf app showed little activity, other than a turfer called BiggusDickus across in Newtongrange. Now, with a turf name like that they are either bragging about certain parts of the anatomy or trying to be cool. I just couldn’t decide which it might be.
However, the elderly gnome that runs my long term memory storage facility was jumping up and down to attract my attention. I’m sure I’ve heard this name before but couldn’t recall where. A quick search on Google revealed all. BiggusDickus, a fictional character in the Monty Python film, Life of Brian. Which means the turf name BiggusDickus is official cool and thus recorded in the Planet Gary archives in the cool category. Mind you, the character had a wife by the name of Incontinentia Buttocks, which would be really cool as a turf name. Any takers?
My turf run started with a handful of local zones and from the very first zone the GPS on the phone was acting up. I was finding myself taking zones in places where I’ve never been able to take them before, way off the mark from previous visits. However, by the time I’d reached Rosewell, it seemed to have settled down and was back to normal. Not sure what the issue might have been. In any case, I was still able to take the zones.
After completing Rosewell, it was back down through Bonnyrigg, picking off all the zones. ending up with some 35 in total. However, after two hours on the bike my back was beginning to ache again so called it a day and headed for home for some lunch. I was intending to turf Eskbank and Dalkeith but may need to leave that for later, and perhaps on foot this time. Back soon.
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