Well, here we are in week 3 of ‘lockdown’ and how life has changed for us all. Obviously, there’s no orienteering to chat about but I thought I’d write anyway and keep in touch. I don’t know about you, but I’m finding I’m doing more daily exercise than I did before! Because we’re ‘rationed’ to one form of exercise a day, I’ve actually been doing it ‘religiously’ in one form or another. Mainly, it’s been walking about 5k along the cliff top and promenade

from my house, although now and again I’ve gone for an hour’s cycle and, only on one occasion I’m ashamed to say I’ve actually run. What has added to the pleasure of my daily walks is being able to notice, and take photos of, various flowers along the way and then later identifying them (isn’t Google wonderful?! – just point the camera, press a button and it (usually) identifies it for you).  I was given a tip-off by Jason yesterday that there was a splendid display of Snakeshead Fritillaries in the upper part of Bournemouth Gardens, so I cycled out there this morning. What a joy! As well as the wonderful Snakesheads, there were other beautiful flowers. Here’s a few of them:

Snakeshead Fritillary

Western Skunkcabbage

Wood Anenome

I also noticed some brilliant artwork on the pillars beneath the Wessex Way Flyover. Here’s a couple of examples:

Whilst cycling through the gardens I met a couple of fellow Tuesday-evening runners – Gavin and Rebecca – with their baby, Amira, in a pram. They were (of course!) running and didn’t have time for a long chat as they were trying to break their record for the daily circuit that they do. That competitive attitude never dies!

The Medlock family have been finding other ways of filling their days. They were meant to be travelling up north, heading for the JKs, this week but decided that, as they couldn’t do that, they’d go camping locally instead – in their back garden!

And finding a few interesting bugs….

Zebra Spider

Hoverfly

Esk with Hawthorn Shield Bug

Hawthorn Shield Bug

(Apologies for how these photos are aligned – I can’t seem to find a way to do this properly!)

So, lots of lovely nature to see out there during these difficult times. I hope you’re enjoying it too.

There is one bit of orienteering news I want to give you, and that concerns our club trophies. In normal times, we would be presenting these later this month at Poundbury, along with Wimborne, but this event has obviously been cancelled. However, I thought I’d let you know the complete list of the winners. We already knew that Lyra Medlock had won the Ladies Championship and John Cooke the Men’s. But we have three other trophies to award. The first is the Charlie Morton Trophy for the Junior that we felt had made the most progress in the past year. So for 2019, we’d like to give this to Agnes Brooke who has been achieving some great results as well as being involved in the SW Junior Squad training weekends. Secondly, there’s the Ian Horsey Trophy for the Senior who has also been showing great improvement throughout 2019. This has been awarded to Jon Brooke who, having overcome a very serious illness a few years back, has bounced back and is starting to regain his previously high standard of orienteering. Finally, we have the Chairman’s Trophy for the club member who has ‘gone the extra mile’ for the club and contributed so much to its success. Jason and I have decided to give this award to Roger Crickmore. In addition to being our Treasurer  – a role he fulfils admirably, keeping an eye on every penny we spend! – he has also been involved with organising the relay teams for the SW Summer Relay series as well as the Sunset and Beyond event (all, sadly, cancelled for this year). He has also attended a Controllers Level B course off his own bat, and can therefore control Level B events for other clubs. He’s always available to put-out or collect-in controls at our events and, among many other things, is fantastic at spotting errors in the Committee Meeting Minutes!

So congratulations to Lyra, John, Agnes, Jon and Roger. We’ll make sure that we have a suitable presentation social when this Covid nightmare is all over.

Finally, I hope you’re all keeping safe and sane – and look forward to meeting up with you all again.