(no subject)
I am meant to be applying for a job, so of course I'm procrastinating...
Last weekend Andrew and I took part in our Land Rover Club's annual Challenge event. This involved a quiz, spot the differences, road driving and navigating, blindfolded driving, logic puzzles, trialling (driving a course between marked canes), a walk round hunting for hidden paper punches, a timed off-road course and driving the Strange Rover, which turned out to have reverse steering on it. We were teamed up with another pair whose tastes were opposite to ours (we are Greenlaners, as you all are probably aware...) but who came with quite a pedigree. They not only regularly take part in winch challenges (it's more technical driving), but they also took part in this year's Macmillan Challenge - a '400 miles in three days and you're not getting any sleep' sort of event. Andrew in particular felt a little under pressure to perform well, so I nipped that in the bud by asking the boys outright whether they were there to play or to win. I was kindly told that today they were playing.
The first event should have been easy as it was navigating a road course using Tulip diagrams and the boys were leading - 'cept their speedometer had broken during the Macmillan Challenge and they were guessing the distances most of the time. This lead to us getting a little lost so we photographed the direction sheets and we helped to lead from behind using the pictures on the 1" by 2" camera screen! It worked, even if our mileage was off too cause we had the chunky wheels on. We also hadn't noticed that the challenge was two hours long and were getting a little worried after an hour that we hadn't even completed half of it! It helps though when your teammates are good friends with one of the organisers so once she'd set us straight we finished with about 5 minutes to spare! And the camera was getting rather warm by the end of it!
Then we had to do the blindfolded driving of a trial course and I had to do a leg of it as well. This is where Andrew got cross with me for letting the side down as we clipped three gates on each of our goes. I should explain that first I had to direct him round the course while he was blind, then we had to reverse back with me steering and him controlling the pedals. We sorted the steering thing with me sitting on his lap. I knew having a big Range Rover would come in useful! Then when I drove I had trouble remembering the difference between left, right, forwards and stop. And yes, the direction of left did elicit more acceleration once or twice! This was the point at which I removed the pressure and it was probably a good thing I did. I will point out here that I had originally said I didn't want to come on the event as I thought it was too much of an unknown. But when Pete the organiser phoned us to persuade me that I'd regret not going, he succeeded and told me that if me driving was too much then Andrew could take my turn. However they weren't going to let me give in without trying and so this is why I was driving a Range Rover blindfolded around an off-road trial course at 10.00 on Saturday morning. I am incredibly thankful that the only trial we ever attended was actually at that site so it wasn't totally unfamilliar to us - a blessing indeed!
The next challenge for me came in the attempt to drive the Strange Rover. I have no problem with reverse steering, having once taught myself to easily reverse right and left when training to be a tour bus guide (I'm quite proud of this skill). The problem here was that the last time I drove a vehicle with manual transmission was about nine years ago and I think it ended with me getting out of Dad's driving school car and refusing to go any further! But once again they said I had to try it and so rather nervously I climbed into the bright yellow vehicle with its exhaust and radiator in the back (it was noisy!). Terry (he's a nice guy, nuts and most amusing) had built it specially and helped me to get it in gear(!) and then I was off, down a slope, round the basin course (it's a trial course in a hole) and up the other side. I did ok actually, only hitting one gate. Then I was expected to reverse the thing back down the slope, round the course and back up the other side! When I was precariously balanced on the side of the slope - having decimated the pole! - Terry came over and told me I could quit if I wanted to. I did so I did! But I still managed to drive the one thing that I was really scared of doing! Andrew hated this one. He got out of the car, turned to Terry and went "You B@*$#?&d!!!" Terry being Terry just laughed. Unfortunately for them, being a bodged vehicle it broke during the day and so that round was scrapped. This was a good thing for me as it meant my 11 penalty points (one hit and ten missed gates) got scrapped. But I still did it!
Then we had some logic problems to solve, one which was incredibly convoluted. We had a box with five double sets of sockets on the top, labelled red, white, blue and green and we had to connect the right colour to the right colour, 'cept we were only given Land Rover colour names (things like Desert Dust, Grenadier, etc) for the links. When they were all right and the circuit was completed a horn would go off when we pressed the button. Therefore the mobile phones were all whipped out (we'd been told we would be using them!) and a merry phoning round proceeded. We didn't get very far, but we got the two we were certain of right. Even the big Land Rover garage couldn't help us - the veteran employee wasn't at work that day! The horn didn't go off all day. I still don't know what the answer was!
In between all these tasks we still had to do the very difficult quiz and the spot the differences, of which there were eight, each with ten differences. By the end of the day one of the boys was incredibly annoyed with everyone telling him that the last difference was obvious, but he couldn't see it. He found it eventually - a missing door handle - which was obvious really! The quiz was helped by some very knowledgeable friends of the boys (or people who had time to do a lot of Googling - how else did they decode a whole vehicle VIN plate?!) and some sneaky answers given to us by the boys' mate - who'd written the quiz!
Lunch was eaten while we each drove round the (pretty easy) off road course in a time as close to each other as possible. It turned out we were meant to have all watches taken off us but as that wasn't in the instructions we all took Andrew's watch (with stopwatch) with us and were within a couple of seconds of each other! Although two thirds of the way round I'd started dawdling cause I thought I had time. When I got to the crest of the hill, my eye was caught by Andrew and one of the boys jumping up and down and waving frantically at me! I had to put my foot down on the last bit! Thankfully this vehicle was an auto, but it was still my first ever solo off-road drive. I have no fear now! Unfortuately the vehicle was up for sale and now we all want it. It's going for £15,000. Um.
The last challenging challengey bit was the traditional trial course but once again we all had to do it so I walked the course with Andrew and he told me where to position the Range Rover to get up a slope and round a sharp corner and then I set off, hitting the slope perfectly and feeling rather pleased with myself! I did have to shunt (reverse back a bit and try again) on the next to last gate, but a -1 was great, and even better, I did better than Andrew on that bend, who misjudged it and had to shunt! He's a bit miffed at that.
The last last part we did was back on the roads again doing good old fashioned Ordnance Survey map reading and we lead. Andrew says my navigating is still improving which is good - I am getting more confident every time I do it. Plus I quite enjoy it! The task on this course was to drive to four locations given in co-ordinates at the beginning, match them to four photographs enclosed and then to re-create the scenes with the two vehicles and the four of us - getting points for matching certain things. The first one was at an Asda store and invloved someone sitting on the roof of one of the vehicles with his leg over his head. We had to use Andrew's one for that as the other one was just a two-seater and was soft-topped! Apparently he dented our roof. Oops. It turned out that the most important thing to include in that photo was the store sign. I was the only one who did. Yay!
The next point required someone to sit on the bonnet of one of the vehicles. I was told to be in this photo and I got the short straw. It turns out a bonnet gets very hot when you've been driving round for a while. Oweee! Then we stopped for the next one in a thunder storm - and I discovered that the camera was set on close-up which would explain why the first two pictures were fuzzy! The last picture required us to back the vehicles together and then pose with two people between them and one lying across the top of both. Um, see previous about the one without a roof! Andrew got to be balanced between his roof and the spare wheel of the boys' vehicle and I think he was propped up on one of the lads' shoulders! It's a hilarious photo and I'll post it when I get a copy of it.
Then we had an interminable wait while nine quizzes were marked, 72 spot the differences, and I don't know how many final scores were compiled. Eventually, about two hours later we were gathered round waiting for the results. We'd seen some scores during the day and thought we could hit about fifth. Ninth place was announced - we weren't last - yay! I kept expecting to hear our team name (we were all named after cartoon characters - we were Lady and the Tramp and Andrew and I were Lady - probably cause I was the only girl on our team!) - and we weren't eighth, or seventh, or sixth. Oh good, I thought, we'll get what we hoped for. So we were surprised when fifth was announced and pleased that we'd got fourth. We were exstatic therefore when we realised we were in for medals and shocked when we thought we'd got second. We hadn't. Uh???????? Then there was an unbearable pause while something happened - the second place team were being congratulated I think! - and people were trying to shush to find out who'd won. I mean, it was should have been obvious as there was only one team left, but I wouldn't believe it until they announced our name. And then they did and a most undignified squeak came out of my mouth. So we pushed forward, dragging our jaws behind us and collected gold(!) medals and a lovely big trophy, which was promptly passed to me cause I was the girl (some men are so old-fashioned sometimes!). And then the other trophy on the table was identified as the Spirit of the Event award, which was also for our team cause I'd spent the day being brave and willing to try strange vehicles and courses (it was all about me!) and so a third trophy was passed to me. I only have two hands! But wow, winning and the special person award! I still can't believe it!
The bloke who I think was in charge of photos was trying to take our pictures but we kept being congratulated and called to and I think the picture is terrible cause we weren't all looking forward or smiling and I was about to drop at least one of the trophies! And that's the one that's probably going in the club magazine. Oh well, I guess I'd better get our ones to the club quickly.
Andrew and I with our winners' medals and the trophy and the Spirit of the Event award. Cause I'm brave...
After they'd taken our picture I turned to Andrew and said "Will you hold one of these, I'm going to drop them!" and everyone laughed. Heh. The most amusing thing is that there's a club section in the national Land Rover magazines and this is just the sort of thing that will be sent to them. I may get into the national press after all! Eeeeee!
We spent the rest of the evening being congratulated and my head being metaphorically patted lots - which was nice really. And eventually we got tea. It turns out it takes about 3 1/2 hours to cook fifty baking potatoes on an old military catering trailer! But it was most tasty - beef, pork, lamb and potatoes. And then alcohol (I didn't, as usual, but Andrew did and was rather wobbly!). The organisers had brought a keg of Stella and a proper beer pump so it was cool lager(?) all night - or until 1am when the keg ran dry.
And then all good things come to an end. It was raining on Sunday morning, so our purchasing a gazebo turned out to be a very good idea and we only got damp bacon sandwiches instead of soggy ones. And hey, I camped again, despite claiming I never would again after spending the last bank holiday freezing to death in the Peak District. At least this time we didn't need to sleep in woolly hats. However while packing up we did spill the cooking oil into the puddle of rainwater on the groundsheet, which made for some precision movements while packing up the tent - but even that was successful - we're getting good at this camping lark!
And now we have two medals and a trophy on our mantelpiece, and one to come later in the year. We've been told we must come back next year to defend our title, but can we really beat that?!
Last weekend Andrew and I took part in our Land Rover Club's annual Challenge event. This involved a quiz, spot the differences, road driving and navigating, blindfolded driving, logic puzzles, trialling (driving a course between marked canes), a walk round hunting for hidden paper punches, a timed off-road course and driving the Strange Rover, which turned out to have reverse steering on it. We were teamed up with another pair whose tastes were opposite to ours (we are Greenlaners, as you all are probably aware...) but who came with quite a pedigree. They not only regularly take part in winch challenges (it's more technical driving), but they also took part in this year's Macmillan Challenge - a '400 miles in three days and you're not getting any sleep' sort of event. Andrew in particular felt a little under pressure to perform well, so I nipped that in the bud by asking the boys outright whether they were there to play or to win. I was kindly told that today they were playing.
The first event should have been easy as it was navigating a road course using Tulip diagrams and the boys were leading - 'cept their speedometer had broken during the Macmillan Challenge and they were guessing the distances most of the time. This lead to us getting a little lost so we photographed the direction sheets and we helped to lead from behind using the pictures on the 1" by 2" camera screen! It worked, even if our mileage was off too cause we had the chunky wheels on. We also hadn't noticed that the challenge was two hours long and were getting a little worried after an hour that we hadn't even completed half of it! It helps though when your teammates are good friends with one of the organisers so once she'd set us straight we finished with about 5 minutes to spare! And the camera was getting rather warm by the end of it!
Then we had to do the blindfolded driving of a trial course and I had to do a leg of it as well. This is where Andrew got cross with me for letting the side down as we clipped three gates on each of our goes. I should explain that first I had to direct him round the course while he was blind, then we had to reverse back with me steering and him controlling the pedals. We sorted the steering thing with me sitting on his lap. I knew having a big Range Rover would come in useful! Then when I drove I had trouble remembering the difference between left, right, forwards and stop. And yes, the direction of left did elicit more acceleration once or twice! This was the point at which I removed the pressure and it was probably a good thing I did. I will point out here that I had originally said I didn't want to come on the event as I thought it was too much of an unknown. But when Pete the organiser phoned us to persuade me that I'd regret not going, he succeeded and told me that if me driving was too much then Andrew could take my turn. However they weren't going to let me give in without trying and so this is why I was driving a Range Rover blindfolded around an off-road trial course at 10.00 on Saturday morning. I am incredibly thankful that the only trial we ever attended was actually at that site so it wasn't totally unfamilliar to us - a blessing indeed!
The next challenge for me came in the attempt to drive the Strange Rover. I have no problem with reverse steering, having once taught myself to easily reverse right and left when training to be a tour bus guide (I'm quite proud of this skill). The problem here was that the last time I drove a vehicle with manual transmission was about nine years ago and I think it ended with me getting out of Dad's driving school car and refusing to go any further! But once again they said I had to try it and so rather nervously I climbed into the bright yellow vehicle with its exhaust and radiator in the back (it was noisy!). Terry (he's a nice guy, nuts and most amusing) had built it specially and helped me to get it in gear(!) and then I was off, down a slope, round the basin course (it's a trial course in a hole) and up the other side. I did ok actually, only hitting one gate. Then I was expected to reverse the thing back down the slope, round the course and back up the other side! When I was precariously balanced on the side of the slope - having decimated the pole! - Terry came over and told me I could quit if I wanted to. I did so I did! But I still managed to drive the one thing that I was really scared of doing! Andrew hated this one. He got out of the car, turned to Terry and went "You B@*$#?&d!!!" Terry being Terry just laughed. Unfortunately for them, being a bodged vehicle it broke during the day and so that round was scrapped. This was a good thing for me as it meant my 11 penalty points (one hit and ten missed gates) got scrapped. But I still did it!
Then we had some logic problems to solve, one which was incredibly convoluted. We had a box with five double sets of sockets on the top, labelled red, white, blue and green and we had to connect the right colour to the right colour, 'cept we were only given Land Rover colour names (things like Desert Dust, Grenadier, etc) for the links. When they were all right and the circuit was completed a horn would go off when we pressed the button. Therefore the mobile phones were all whipped out (we'd been told we would be using them!) and a merry phoning round proceeded. We didn't get very far, but we got the two we were certain of right. Even the big Land Rover garage couldn't help us - the veteran employee wasn't at work that day! The horn didn't go off all day. I still don't know what the answer was!
In between all these tasks we still had to do the very difficult quiz and the spot the differences, of which there were eight, each with ten differences. By the end of the day one of the boys was incredibly annoyed with everyone telling him that the last difference was obvious, but he couldn't see it. He found it eventually - a missing door handle - which was obvious really! The quiz was helped by some very knowledgeable friends of the boys (or people who had time to do a lot of Googling - how else did they decode a whole vehicle VIN plate?!) and some sneaky answers given to us by the boys' mate - who'd written the quiz!
Lunch was eaten while we each drove round the (pretty easy) off road course in a time as close to each other as possible. It turned out we were meant to have all watches taken off us but as that wasn't in the instructions we all took Andrew's watch (with stopwatch) with us and were within a couple of seconds of each other! Although two thirds of the way round I'd started dawdling cause I thought I had time. When I got to the crest of the hill, my eye was caught by Andrew and one of the boys jumping up and down and waving frantically at me! I had to put my foot down on the last bit! Thankfully this vehicle was an auto, but it was still my first ever solo off-road drive. I have no fear now! Unfortuately the vehicle was up for sale and now we all want it. It's going for £15,000. Um.
The last challenging challengey bit was the traditional trial course but once again we all had to do it so I walked the course with Andrew and he told me where to position the Range Rover to get up a slope and round a sharp corner and then I set off, hitting the slope perfectly and feeling rather pleased with myself! I did have to shunt (reverse back a bit and try again) on the next to last gate, but a -1 was great, and even better, I did better than Andrew on that bend, who misjudged it and had to shunt! He's a bit miffed at that.
The last last part we did was back on the roads again doing good old fashioned Ordnance Survey map reading and we lead. Andrew says my navigating is still improving which is good - I am getting more confident every time I do it. Plus I quite enjoy it! The task on this course was to drive to four locations given in co-ordinates at the beginning, match them to four photographs enclosed and then to re-create the scenes with the two vehicles and the four of us - getting points for matching certain things. The first one was at an Asda store and invloved someone sitting on the roof of one of the vehicles with his leg over his head. We had to use Andrew's one for that as the other one was just a two-seater and was soft-topped! Apparently he dented our roof. Oops. It turned out that the most important thing to include in that photo was the store sign. I was the only one who did. Yay!
The next point required someone to sit on the bonnet of one of the vehicles. I was told to be in this photo and I got the short straw. It turns out a bonnet gets very hot when you've been driving round for a while. Oweee! Then we stopped for the next one in a thunder storm - and I discovered that the camera was set on close-up which would explain why the first two pictures were fuzzy! The last picture required us to back the vehicles together and then pose with two people between them and one lying across the top of both. Um, see previous about the one without a roof! Andrew got to be balanced between his roof and the spare wheel of the boys' vehicle and I think he was propped up on one of the lads' shoulders! It's a hilarious photo and I'll post it when I get a copy of it.
Then we had an interminable wait while nine quizzes were marked, 72 spot the differences, and I don't know how many final scores were compiled. Eventually, about two hours later we were gathered round waiting for the results. We'd seen some scores during the day and thought we could hit about fifth. Ninth place was announced - we weren't last - yay! I kept expecting to hear our team name (we were all named after cartoon characters - we were Lady and the Tramp and Andrew and I were Lady - probably cause I was the only girl on our team!) - and we weren't eighth, or seventh, or sixth. Oh good, I thought, we'll get what we hoped for. So we were surprised when fifth was announced and pleased that we'd got fourth. We were exstatic therefore when we realised we were in for medals and shocked when we thought we'd got second. We hadn't. Uh???????? Then there was an unbearable pause while something happened - the second place team were being congratulated I think! - and people were trying to shush to find out who'd won. I mean, it was should have been obvious as there was only one team left, but I wouldn't believe it until they announced our name. And then they did and a most undignified squeak came out of my mouth. So we pushed forward, dragging our jaws behind us and collected gold(!) medals and a lovely big trophy, which was promptly passed to me cause I was the girl (some men are so old-fashioned sometimes!). And then the other trophy on the table was identified as the Spirit of the Event award, which was also for our team cause I'd spent the day being brave and willing to try strange vehicles and courses (it was all about me!) and so a third trophy was passed to me. I only have two hands! But wow, winning and the special person award! I still can't believe it!
The bloke who I think was in charge of photos was trying to take our pictures but we kept being congratulated and called to and I think the picture is terrible cause we weren't all looking forward or smiling and I was about to drop at least one of the trophies! And that's the one that's probably going in the club magazine. Oh well, I guess I'd better get our ones to the club quickly.
Andrew and I with our winners' medals and the trophy and the Spirit of the Event award. Cause I'm brave...
After they'd taken our picture I turned to Andrew and said "Will you hold one of these, I'm going to drop them!" and everyone laughed. Heh. The most amusing thing is that there's a club section in the national Land Rover magazines and this is just the sort of thing that will be sent to them. I may get into the national press after all! Eeeeee!
We spent the rest of the evening being congratulated and my head being metaphorically patted lots - which was nice really. And eventually we got tea. It turns out it takes about 3 1/2 hours to cook fifty baking potatoes on an old military catering trailer! But it was most tasty - beef, pork, lamb and potatoes. And then alcohol (I didn't, as usual, but Andrew did and was rather wobbly!). The organisers had brought a keg of Stella and a proper beer pump so it was cool lager(?) all night - or until 1am when the keg ran dry.
And then all good things come to an end. It was raining on Sunday morning, so our purchasing a gazebo turned out to be a very good idea and we only got damp bacon sandwiches instead of soggy ones. And hey, I camped again, despite claiming I never would again after spending the last bank holiday freezing to death in the Peak District. At least this time we didn't need to sleep in woolly hats. However while packing up we did spill the cooking oil into the puddle of rainwater on the groundsheet, which made for some precision movements while packing up the tent - but even that was successful - we're getting good at this camping lark!
And now we have two medals and a trophy on our mantelpiece, and one to come later in the year. We've been told we must come back next year to defend our title, but can we really beat that?!