A lady of leisure

Well, I've now had one whole week of my maternity leave. And I'd highly recommend it. The two top tips that I've been given by various people were:

1. Get as much rest / sleep as you can, while it's still an option; and

2. Make the most of being able to do simple things like meeting friends for lunch, or popping out for a swim... before you have to start thinking about taking prams / changing bags/ car seats etc. etc. with you.

So I've taken the advice to heart, and afternoon naps and cups of tea with friends have made up a good proportion of my first week off work!

Whilst I'm here, I thought I'd share a photo of the lovely bunch of flowers that I was given on my last day at work. The photo above was taken 9 days after leaving and the flowers are still looking beautiful!

Creatures of the Night

Going through a little phase of night-o at present with my 3rd event in a month coming up this weekend.

To non-orienteers, I normally get a "you're not quite right in the head" look when night orienteering is mentioned. Is it not dangerous to run round a dark wood or moorland? Won't somebody mug you or kill you?

Errrmmm... Nope. Anyone daft enough to hang around Watergrove (or Hurstwood next week) moor on a dark, windy Saturday night waiting to mug someone with a headtorch and no money would be really stupid as well as mad. Better to hang around a dark street in the middle of Manchester as there is a much better chance of finding a victim - I suspect that's what the nutters actually do.

Night-o is refreshing and gives a real sense of freedom. It's your problem to get round the course and not to worry about the dark night. It certainly gives me more satisfaction to complete a night event than a day event.

It also sorts the wheat from the chaff in navigation terms. In adventure races with night stages, there is always a wide margin between the top and bottom teams. The top people normally have someone who is pretty handy at night-o. You can't get by with a 'run and hope' strategy to finding control sites - discipline with bearings, use of line features and map reading is needed.

I like it, so as long as I don't get disqualified for running past controls... (which is a habit of late)

And the creatures of the night are happy to let you get on with it.