Turf Zone – LondonShadow
Popped into Edinburgh the other day to bag a few elusive turfer uniques that had appeared, and also to try and swap some earrings I’d bought for ChoccyMuffin but discovered she already had them – I bought little plastic duck earrings at a craft stall inside The Tron. With earrings swapped no bother, I wandered and bussed about the city bagging those ephemeral turfer uniques before they vanished to other turfers. Started with RoboKop, at zone HunterSquare, followed by Philbers, at zone Bonanza2025. The final one was called JediRob, at InchToll located behind Cameron Toll Shopping Centre. Just hope this turfer isn’t a Sith Lord from the Dark Side?
Now, while it’s very pleasing to add another three turfer uniques to the tally, plus another grabbed later that evening in Dalkeith, SimBat at ThriftShop zone, I also managed to take the next zone in my quest to complete the Edinburgh Roon Mission, 140 zones scattered across Edinburgh, to be taken in alphabetical order. The zone was LochrinBasin, zone No 69 in the to-do list. This gave me the impetus for another session today.
My first zone of the session was No 70 LondonShadow, located on London Road, that’s the far side of Calton Hill from the city centre. Now, I’m parked near Blackford Pond, out with the parking control zone but that leaves me with a fair cycle to LondonShadow, over 2 miles as the crow flies and even further when you follow the streets and paths which I had to do as Brompton have yet to include a VTOL* option in their range of accessories. And, as you might expect, I bagged a few zones along the way, something that would later scupper me totally and bring my turfing session to a complete stop.
All seemed to be going well, 71 LookAtCraig, 72 LoveGoesOn, 73 MagdalaSteps, 74 MarchmontCres and 75 MargaretsWell, down in Holyrood Park, and where I stopped for an ice cream. Mind you it did cost £5.00 for a medium cone with chocolate finger but it was really welcome after miles of pedalling. 76 McEwanHall was next, followed by some confusion with me thinking I’d screwed up and should have taken 77 McEwanSquare. However, everything was fine. Then it wasn’t
78 MeadowWalk fell without issue, then the Turf Gods said, told you not to take any zones earlier! Yes, you’ve guessed I’d blocked myself by taking zone 79 Melville earlier in the morning. And with no other turfers in the area, I’d have to either call it quits and wait 23-hours until I could take it again or think of something else. So, I thought of something else by recalling another option, one I’d used previously when I found myself in the same situation.
What I needed to do was create another turfer and use that to take the zone from myself. Then, after the block time cleared, I could take it as PlanetGary. So, new turfer FattiesFitFine was created and the zone was taken. I should say the term Fatties Fit Fine is from a decal you get on Surly fat bikes and is nothing to do with large people who eat too many pies! All fine and dandy so far but not for long. My next target zone was 80 MiddleMeadow and guess who held that one? Aye, some daft Brompton-riding nutter called PlanetGary.
Okay, repeat previous exercise. Remove turf app from phone, create another new turf account (another new turfer would also give me a turfer unique to take as well), wait a little while for the block to clear and take the zone again as PlanetGary. Well, that should have worked as it did only minutes ago, but it didn’t. The app kept popping up with an error about sending the confirmation code email. Tried all manner of fixes to no avail and was eventually totally scuppered, even PlanetGary could not log onto the turf app. Bugger! That will teach me to a) take zones I would need later and b) create other turfers to help me out. Of course, it all worked fine once I was back home. That will teach me. Turf Gods having a laugh I suspect!
*Vertical Take-Off and Landing.
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