Turf Zone – NewtonChurch
Well, I’m a wee bit behind on my tasks in the Turf Scotland Advent Calendar 2023, with No. 10 – Precision Turfing, still to be attempted but did manage to complete Tasks 12 and 13 this morning. No 12 is called Turfomino, where you essentially take some zones and the last letter of the zone must match the first letter of the next zone taken, and so on. Seems easy enough but there’s an additional piece of mischief, the zones starting or ending the letters T, U, R or F, should not be used. That does make a difference. By some margin.
I started by listing all the zones on my local patch, then started juggling them about to get the 10 zones required for the Challenging Option. After an hour, I gave up and expanded the area to include more zones. After more time than I care to recall, managed to get a set of 10 zones that comply with the requirements. Then I notice a problem, I forgot to remove the zones starting or ending the letters T, U, R or F. So, back to start and begin again.
Again, after far too long at the computer, eventually drew up two sets of 10 zones that looked right. The first set involved considerable effort, the second sets even more so, and that was deleted. The zones were:
A7View, WayOfBaird, DalkeithHouse, EnterRosewell, LouisaGorton, NoHorseFires, ShielBurnOne, Eskbank, Kippielaw and WhichKing.
I basically started in Eskbank with zone A7View, returned back to Bonnyrigg for zone WayOfBaird, then all the way across Dalkeith and into Dalkeith Country Park for DalkeithHouse. Then a long uphill slog back through Dalkeith, Eskbank and Bonnyrigg and onwards to Rosewell for the next four zones, EnterRosewell, LouisaGorton, NoHorseFires and ShielBurnOne. Next, yes, you’ve guessed, back to Eskbank for train station zone Eskbank. The final two zones were Kippielaw and WhichKing in Dalkeith.
Took me about 2 hours hard pedalling in the rain. Tough passing all those other zones and not taking them but that was part of the challenge. And actually, quite enjoyable to simply be out cycling again. Now, onto task No. 13, called Save The Planet.
The task seems simple enough, take some zones and write either 4 or 8 lines of Vogon Poetry. You can look that up on Google but it’s from Douglas Adams book/film/series The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. So, here’s my efforts, based on the zones I took for task No. 12.
A7View, WayOfBaird, DalkeithHouse, EnterRosewell, LouisaGorton, NoHorseFires, ShielBurnOne, Eskbank, Kippielaw and WhichKing.
Of King Keith, one fires and burn a way,
Enter Louisa Gorton, by law no baird,
View which horse bank the 7 kippie shiel,
Esk House well dal, Rose the way.
Not sure that’s even poetry, never mind bad Vogon poetry. Back soon.
Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.
