Four years ago, to the day, on the 21st of December 2020, at precisely 12:41:19, I started playing the game called turf, taking a zone called Pittendreich from a turfer called féarglas. The zone was located only 100m from the house and gave me my first ever 185 points. Since that day I’ve now taken over 12,100,000 points, over 4000 zones with over 2700 of them uniques and a whole bunch of medals to boot. I’ve also reached the Rank of 56 – Turf Angel. The stats also state I’ve walked, kick scooted or cycled over 26,000 km or over 16,000 miles, though I suspect the true distance is somewhat higher.
And here I am today still playing the game called turf, still taking zones, still collecting points and even the occasional, though increasingly rare, turf medals. And I ask myself why do I keep on turfing? Why do I go out on my trusty bicycle, almost every day, in almost any weather, to take a few zones, add a few more points and simply carry on turfing? And strange as I may seem, the answer I’ve come up with is, I’m not really sure why.
Perhaps it’s that fear of losing all that has gone before, all the millions of points, thousands of takes and dozens of medals. Not to forget all the FTT zones, the First To Take zones. And all those turfer unique takes as well. And of course, giving up turf would leave a void in my existence, a gap, something that would need filled with something else. That would not be a problem, I have a whole list of things to do, a list created before turf came along and pushed them aside into the back of the cupboard.
Before turf I was going to do whole host of other things. For example, look at the many ways and means of creating fire without matches, the flint and steel, the fire bow and a few others. Another was to look into the topic of slingshots or catapults, that childhood wonderful device I had when I was a naughty wee boy, delving into ballistics, ammunition, range and so on. Another, cycle all those waymarked trails such as the John Muir Way and the Southern Upland Way. Yet I’ve done none of those nor many others I’ve not mentioned. And am I bothered? Well, no, I’m not. I’m still a turfer, still turfing.
I guess turfing allows me to combine a few of my interests. One is cycling, building bikes, buying bikes and riding them to strange and interesting places to take zones. Another is photography, mostly of zones and another of writing blogs about my turfing adventures here on Planet Gary. Oh, not forgetting riding my kick scooter as well. I have been tempted a few times to give up the game called turf, having lost the magic spark that kept me interested. Yet, the spark was always there, forever lurking in the background and just required something to rekindle the fire, something like a new medal coming along or taking FTT zones before the local rivals get them. Though you need to be pretty sharp for that.
But what of the future, what in the game called turf will keeping me turfing? Well, a few more medals would not go amiss. Perhaps one that makes better use of zones with attributes such as collecting railway station zones or holy zones as in the Ghost Minute. I always think it a shame that we have zones with attributes yet only make minimal use of them. Hint, hint.
In this coming year I’m going to make a determined effort to make more turfing/cycling videos and have made a good start when an early delivery from one of Santa’s helpers brought a neat wee drone called the DJI Neo which will add some of that impossible footage I’ve always wanted. Of course, along with all the usual turfing activities.
A good start will be making videos attempting some of the more difficult to reach and isolated zones, for example, zones PriestlawHill and MeikleSaysLaw in the Lammermuir Hills. I’ve also requested a new zone down in the Scottish Borders, at the Three Brethren, so fingers crossed on that one. And the lure of buying another fat bike is strong in this turfer. Dear Santa, please… Sorry, Dear ChoccyMuffin, can I purchase another bicycle?
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