"...I'd like you to write a blog post about the club and what you think about orienteering. Will you be able to do that?"
and I replied,
"Yeah I'll definetly do that. Sounds good. LOL."
Well then I went downstairs, made some food, ate it, listened to some music, made a tea... then I remembered what I was meant to be doing and started to write this post.
Has anyone reading this post ever heard of orienteering? No... I can hear a few sprinklings of yes... for the benefit of everyone I shall talk about what orienteering is.
Basically you have a map and other useful tools like watches, torches, x ray vision glasses (the last one was a lie) and you have a wide area where you have to tag certain points within a certain time... that's the basics of it anyway. The area that this is done is varied; woods, fields, mountainous regions and so forth.
Kiran is a keen orienteerer. We visited an undisclosed Leicester pub and talked together with a cider and a beer. The conversation turned to the orienteering classes that Kiran had been going to and on a friendly whim he said that the next class would be the next day and I should go with him.
I believe in the well known philosophy know as 'F***k it' and so I immediately said YES!... and that was how it all began.
To be honest I never even knew that this whole thing existed until I was enlightened by Kiran. The one thing about competitive stuff is that I'm not at all competitive in any way, but I'm up for a good laugh so this new experience was going to be beneficial one way or another.
I set off in Kiran's car and got to the the location, a sports field behind a school. There were about six other people there between the ages of about 12- 70 including the two of us.
We did the starting exercises,
1. Jogging in a circle while throwing our arms around the place for some reason.
... and...
2. Doing funny walking like John Cleese... the latin term being Walkinus likius eiya spazzus.
Then it all truly began.
It was completely dark when we started the main activities. We had twenty minutes to tag all of the locations that were somewhere within about four of the fields in front of us. I hadn't got a clue what was going on so I teamed up with Kiran. After the first try we were told that we would do the whole thing again but this time we had ten minutes to do the exact same thing... which left everyone taking part knackered.
Each of us had been given a tag that you strap to one of your fingers... an electronic tag (that works like the ones that I believe must be somewhat similar to the ones that get convicted of crimes... I'm just saying...).
Kiran seemed to do really well with reading maps... I had no clue so it was my duty to hold the torch.
How did I find the experience? Intriguing.
Intriguing is the word.
I want to try fire walking next... and jousting.
Over and Out.
ED.
*In order for me to push myself to do it I shall say that I will be writing a blog post every day in November because I did it in February last year. Now that it is recorded for all to see in blog form... it is law.
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