By: Blonde Two
This morning, the Two Blondes are waking up in the real world. I should maybe explain this; we are back home after spending Friday night and Saturday in a happy bubble of Dartmoor, tents, youngsters and over-stuffed rucksacks.
I pleased to announce that Blonde planning turned out to be perfect (of course);
The campsite was new to us, the spot that we had chosen for Chez Blonde was surrounded by a perfectly planned moat (for boot cleaning purposes obviously!)
We had planned to arrive without one vital tent pole so that the youngsters would be very warm rammed into the remaining erectable tents.
We had planned for one team to walk off in the wrong direction twice before they had even been walking an hour. This part of the plan was for the purposes of character development (our’s, not their’s!)
We had planned to carry suncream but also carefully planned to forget to put it on because we love having red faces.
We had planned to change the route cards a total of four times because I love scribbling on things with my emergency red Sharpie pen.
As we have said to you many times before, Dartmoor expeditioning is all in the planning. What we maybe haven’t pointed out is that the most important planning happens once the expedition has started, out on the moors or (in my case) whilst seeking a quiet “thinking” moment in the loos at FoxTor Cafe. If you were the lady in the other cubicle, I apologise for my mutterings about pick-up-points and arrival times, hope it wasn’t too disturbing!
Glad I’m a bloke so wasn’t privi to your rumblings. I’m sure any lady in cubicle next to you ‘hurried along’ to avoid meeting !!!
Muttering about pick up points is perhaps not the best thing to do in a public toilet 😀
Maybe not !!!! Perhaps she went off to fetch some ‘friends’ !!!
Not that sort of pick up points! But you are right, mutterings clearly also need to be planned!
i have long suspected you of being the living exemplars of the von Moltke’s dictum
Oooh I have just read all about von Moltke and he appears to have been a very wise man. How exciting to have come to the same conclusion as someone so important. “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” I feel that there is a blog post in this.
two errors in grammar: the von Moltke or von Moltke’s – sorry about that.
maybe his other less well-known saying
‘strategy is a system of expedients’
might be just as appropriate in your operations!
Can you resist the temptation to return to Dartmoor today without the need for said mutterings though? Another beautiful day! X
No – planning lunch out 🙂
In the film “Patton” George C. Scott portrays the famous US general brilliantly. Whilst addressing the troops there is a blackboard on the stage behind Patton with his motto chalked upon: The six Ps:
” Perfect Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance”.
Strange that there should be a lavatorial reference here – you are obviously in great company.
With a little adjustment, those words would fit my “toilet planning” situation perfectly but I am far too much of a lady to rearrange them myself.