Dateless Score

Faced with driving 200 miles, paying £18 and then running a very long way with a lot of "up and down" though a pleasant but easy forest I missed out on the Southern Champs and took the opportunity to set a 2011 time in the Harlequins Orienteering Club "dateless score" at Sandwell Valley

This being to visit all 20 of the permanent course controls AND the visitor centre AND starting and finishing in the same place - time limit "31st March".  Sandwell Valley/Dartmouth park is where my grandmother used to take me when I was very little and my father used to a) collect shrapnel and b) fish for pike during The War (the pond on the west of the M5) and my Aunty lives just off the map south of #17.  I was two and a half minutes faster this year than last - the weight training must be paying off.

On the way home I passed "25 High Street" - this is where my grandmother lived all through my childhood - it always was in part a dental surgery - you get used to the noise.

Here it was that I was, during the school holidays, taught to cook - first recipe was "Lamb and Potato Rissoles" - which I repeated this evening - but sadly never having found what happened to nanny's amazing 1930's vintage semi-automatic potato scrubber the spuds were hand peeled.