No Direction

What I’ve been thinking about this week:
1. My sense of direction.
2. Only joking! I haven’t got one.

The good thing about having no sense of direction is that I never worry about getting lost. 

I’m sure my poor Dad wouldn’t have been impressed to read that last sentence. He was in the Tweed Valley Mountain Rescue Team so could read a map in the pissing rain while looking for some daft sod who’d gone hillwalking in flip flops. 

Me n me Dad, 1989

I got many of his genes but not that one.

Luckily, I have friends who seem to understand where in the world they are, even if I haven’t the foggiest. 

Yesterday Rudi and I went for a walk at Kirroughtree with one such friend. She has an OS app on her phone so I immediately relinquished all responsibility for figuring out where we were at any given moment. 

Kirroughtree is just along the road from us and is part of Galloway Forest Park. It has fantastic walking and mountain bike trails and is used for lots of outdoorsy competitions and events. 

A past visit. I may have been on this path yesterday. Or maybe not....

A few years ago I volunteered to marshal at the Hillbilly Duathlon at Kirroughtree. (Ivie’s brother is one of the organisers and I was trying to get his family to like me. I’ll let you know how that goes.) I was dropped off somewhere in the forest with a hi-vis vest and an excellent packed lunch and instructed to direct the runners to turn left at the bottom of the slope. 

After the last runner had passed, I realised I had no idea where I was (you saw that one coming, didn’t you) and no phone battery. Unphased, I set off in the direction that I’d sent the runners. Who knows whether I took the most direct route (probably not) but I figured if I kept going downhill I’d get back eventually (I did). 

Kirroughtree, in particular, messes with my brain. I’ve never done the same walk twice (although, who knows) and I can never quite figure out which direction I’m facing. I did have a glimmer of recognition yesterday when I spotted the cemetery at Minnigaff in the distance and my friend’s map app informed us we were on Larg Hill. 

Happy dogs 
Photo by Catriona

We went back to the Spittal to have a cuppa in the sunshine. Ivie returned from being very busy and important and asked us how our walk had gone. I said we’d been on Larg Hill and we’d seen a farm in the dip below. 

“Yep, that’s Larg Farm,” Ivie said.

“But that’s different from The Larg (a farm in the opposite direction that Ivie often does work at),” I said. 

“Yep.”

Sigh. 

There’s really no hope for me and my sense of direction but at least it doesn’t bother me not to know where I am. Mind you, if I said ‘Larg’ I’d have a decent chance of being right.