My 'Trusty' Collie

Again we ought to be up early this morning because we are planning to orienteer for the first time since Christmas. We've opted to miss out on what would most probably be an excellent street event in Lincoln in order to run round a muddy wood somewhere near Barnsley. All for Doggo's sake. That's not to say he wouldn’t love a street event, because he would. All those lampposts etc to sniff out and wee up but it would simply be a nightmare and also understandably dogs are not allowed.

As we lay in bed, none of us look keen, least of all Doggo and it's all supposed to be for his benefit. Sod it, it's Sunday morning, so we shag first, we'll just have to be late for the orienteering.

A while later we are finally heading up the M1, late but not disastrously so. This rules me out of a brown (the longest course), not that I'm going to get too upset about that, but I should have time for my usual blue.

Get there and it doesn't look terribly dog friendly, lots of roads surround the woodland. Then we have a string of disasters on the start line. First Doggo gets tangled up in the start line, but there's nothing unusual in that. Then they hand us a map which seems to be a blank piece of paper, all white with just a few dashes on it. All white in orienteering means widely spaced trees with no variation, e.g. featureless = I get lost. The dashes correspond to paths but as usual there are more paths than dashes, it takes a while for me to discover what they regard as a path and what they don't.

Then to cap it all, just as we set off, Doggo snaps his collar. Too much excitement, too much pulling. He doesn't look fussed. He was expecting to be let off anyway so he can't see what the problem is. Who needs a collar anyway? I take 5 minutes or so fixing his collar, I'm determined not to have him off the lead until he's calmed down a bit.

The course is a bit of a stinker, although I've done worse. I even have to climb down a cliff face to punch one control. Doggo rubs it in by sitting at the bottom of said cliff face next to the control, smiling, smug, as he watches me clamber down. If only he could punch it for me.

Things go from bad to worse. I twist my ankle on one of the many broken branches. I sit down until the pain subsides and the world stop spinning. I realise that I have lost my 'trusty' collie. Then I see him, miles away, running with another group of orienteers. I call him back. He comes reluctantly, looking well pissed off, he'd much rather be up front with the 'proper' runners. He gives me a 'I didn't realise you were injured look' but it's not convincing. I hobble round the rest of the course.

We come well down the bottom of the results, which is disappointing after some mid table finishes recently.

On the way home we decide to cook a family meal, so we drop in at Sainsbury's and get all the stuff to do a three course Chinese. Soup, platter and three main courses. It all goes down very well and even keeps Son in our company for twenty minutes or so, which is a rare treat. After quite a good alcohol week we even treat ourselves to a glass of white wine, leftovers from New Year you understand.

Just to spoil the day we embark on another Catherine Cookson, this time 'The Man Who Cried'. We make it to the end of part one, without committing suicide, just. L offers an early night. I'm not convinced its sex she's after though, she's just trying to get out of watching part two. I hope it's only in two parts.