I’ve had a cold/infection for the past few days, and inevitably Ian came down with it as well.  By departure day I was starting to feel better, but Ian was copping the worst of it.  It was not ideal to have a 5am wakeup, a full pack up, a steep flight of stairs to get cases down, a 7.30am arrival at the airport, a 2 hour flight, a long wait in baggage claim, a long walk to the car rental desk, a 3 hour drive, and a trip to the supermarket.  But we finally arrived in Colne, a small village about 30 minutes north of Cambridge, which will be home for the next 6 nights.   

England is frying.  We could see it from the air; now that we are driving, we can see the roadside vegetation, usually so lush and overgrown, is crispy brown. Gardens and lawns everywhere are dead or dying.  You can smell the stubble.  It feels exactly like driving in central Victoria in January.  The car is very similar to last year’s – I adapted to it instantly, and began to feel as if I’d never left.  Things that used to freak me out, are now second nature.  I understand the weird road signs and lane markings.  I follow the etiquette without giving it another thought.  Within 5 minutes of being in the driver’s seat, I’d gone native.

This morning was the first of three planned orienteering events – a UK Urban League event in Wellingborough, about an hour to the west. Unfortunately Ian was not able to go, so I set off alone.  There were plenty of friendly people happy to chat, before and afterward.  As always, my DROC top caught people’s attention and I was plied with questions about orienteering in Australia.

The area was newly mapped, and extremely interesting – not wonderfully scenic or particularly charming, but a complex area of two housing estates, either side of the main road.  Sounds dull, but this particular estate features myriad tiny laneways and cutthroughs, which are all hard to spot until you are right on top of them.  Punctuating them are teeny tiny grassed areas, many of them artificial knolls (also crispy brown).  A bit like piazzas and monuments in Venice, close reading of the map was needed to see the shapes of these little parks, and the positioning of the trees.  Relocating was tricky.

The course planner did a good job of ensuring route choice on every leg; kudos for keeping us out of the conventional streets, and exclusively in the best bits. There was no dead running. In fact there wasn’t a lot of running going on at all.  I played it safe on most legs by picking a direct line where possible, rather than trying to navigate too many corners and angles, and having to stop to read the map every few seconds.  It worked for me right up until no 16 (of 21).  I still don’t quite know what went wrong, but somehow I circled back on myself and found myself near 15, which I’d left a few minutes ago.  I tried another tack, with a similar result.  Third time lucky… grrr.  I was fine again after that, but physical and mental tiredness, and a very sore toe, slowed me right down.  Despite that, it was really good fun, an excellent map and a great course – though at 4.7 km, a bit on the long side for me at the moment.

The remaining afternoon was notable only for resulting in a pile of clean clothes.