April Social 2025Penicuik, Tuesday 29 April
It was a hot and sunny April evening when we met at The Craigie Hotel in Penicuik for Roger's orienteering social, reports Emma A. It was a combination of a Hagaby relay and a Harris relay which started next to the stream in the playing fields over the road.
The Harris relay involved collecting 4 controls in any order and combination either on the way to control 5 or on the return. Control 5 was then the start/finish point for 3 short urban loops in the Ladywood estate, the Hagaby relay. No-one was quite sure why this is called a relay as it's usually completed by just one person!
Kevin was first back out of the men and Emma narrowly beat Alison for the ladies. Peter proved that the course could be just completed in the alloted hour by walking. Much needed refreshments and a prizegiving were then had in the beer garden of The Craigie to round off a lovely evening.
The Turfers were also twitching in Costa del Penicuik with a balmy bird-themed event, reports EdMedic23. 115 event zones were named after feathered friends that planner Hodge had spotted, in 2024, within 10km of his house…and, man, were we made to work to guess that theme!
11 participants with a 6/5 split of bikers vs footers flew around the Deanburn, Cornbank, Eskhill and Broomhill areas of Penicuik with JammyDognut swooping to (and maintaining!) a healthy lead from the start. He was crowned the victorious bike turfer with EdMedic23 as first foot and ESOCKisaKat as highest scoring junior. ESOCWalter brought up the rear with Hodge’s special prize for “the longest time between taking zones in a turf event” after a not-to-be-recommended foray into the woods!! EdMedic23 won an extra bag of chocolate eggs for eventually guessing the theme almost correctly – perhaps all those years in the Young Ornithologists Club have finally paid off. Full results can be seen here. The "feels like 17 degrees" evening felt significantly warmer and The Craigie's beer garden was a perfect nest for cool down drinks.
Keen Turfer and Mr Bike Fixer extraordinaire MuttsCycles has also produced a Youtube video of the event from his very own handlebars, is there no end to his talents?!...click here. Listen out for 'zone taken' and 'zone lost'!
PlanetGary has also written up a blog on the event, see here.
Many thanks to our event reporters - Emma A and EdMedic23, and super organisers and planners, Roger S and Hodge.