Apologies for the non appearance for Utup yesterday.

Icy conditions near home put paid to an early start. Bit of a clue how bad things were from the previous evening when preparing to go to bed only to look out the window to find that the car had slid 6ft down the drive. Another 2ft, and the back wheels would have been off the pavement and on the road!

So had to nip out to prevent further slipage using some block paving sand and two bricks lodged behind the back wheels. A line drawn on the ice acted as a marker for the front wheel, so I could check at regular intervals for further movement. Thankfully it stayed put, not sure what else I would have done had it kept moving though. So Saturday morning was spent clearing the drive of ice and a walk to the garden centre on the main road to collect some grit. It only came in one bag size (large) so it was a slow walk back, lots of huffing and puffing.

If the neighbours haven't already knicknamed me as the 'batty old spinster' from no 55, then they will now.

All the prep work meant I was able to venture out for some orienteering later in the day, one in the afternoon and back again for a night 'o' at the same venue. Caused some hilarity with the regular orientereers on my return to the finish at the end of the afternoon event, when I told them that for the section in the 'maze' where on my map it said 'use the maze map' I thought it meant memorize the map on the board at the entrance. I hadn't seen that there was a copy of the maze map printed on my paper map. The maze was constructed using a series of 6ft high mesh fences with a sparse hedge. You could see the controls, but couldn't get to them.

Fared worse in the evening using the printed map in the maze, this despite new batteries in the headtorch. None of the other controls were in the same place this time, I know 'cos I checked the list of control descriptions with the afternoons' map before setting off. So despite new batteries, and having a general idea of the layout of the course I still contrived to finish last again.

Fortunate for the organizers that I can't do any of the remaining 3 events, think I should stick to daylight ones for now until I can learn to use my compass better.

I should be out (weather permitting) for a utup on Thurs and possibly Saturday.

TF