Single Iris

This is one of our J's bulbs which she left with us when they moved to Scotland.  There was no sign of it having a flower yesterday when I did my daily walk around the pots, but this morning there it was in all its beautiful purpleness.  Hopefully some of the others may surprise us in the coming weeks.

We were off early again, this time south to Sheffield to orienteer in Treeton and Hail Mary Woods.  To reach the area we drove through Orgreave, a town made famous during the Miner's Strike in 1984-85 for its clash between picketing miners and the police.  The last time we orienteered here was many years ago and, understandably, the town looked very rundown.  Today, the area we passed through was unrecognisable and held a new housing estate, retail park and huge warehouses for the likes of Amazon. I wonder what happened to the community?

It was a wood full of hawthorn so we both have battle scars from pushing through the undergrowth.  I made one significant error and my GPS trace between 9 and 10 resembles a headless chicken run!   I kept coming across clubmate Chris on the same course, and we would run a couple of controls together then have different route choices.  Towards the end I pulled away and finished before him, but comically we had exactly the same time, 16= place, on the results!

I think we are both quite shattered after our full on weekend and tomorrow may be a quieter day.