By: Blonde Two
As you regular Blondees and Blondettes will know, yesterday I took a group of youngsters out for a walk Dartmoor. “Nothing new there,” I hear you say, but it was a bit different to the usual Two Blondes outing because I had organised the trip myself, the kids were not used to the moors and I had significant worries about thundery weather and severe rain warnings.
I had given myself three options; Plan A – Follow my pre-prepared route and activities around the Roos Tor area. Plan C – Go for the “hot weather” over a tor and down to the river route. Plan D – Orienteering around the grounds at Parke (good fun if you haven’t tried it) http://www.orienteeringindevon.org.uk/html/parke___bovey_tracey.html
(The more observant among you may have noticed that I missed Plan B out here. This is because Plan B is, in fact, Plan Blonde which can be enormous fun, but should never be used when there are children around.)
Throughout the night, I woke up a few times and each time decided upon a different plan. This meant that in the morning, I was in a bit of a flap and still undecided about our walking venue. I left the house looking disorganised, flushed and already sweating buckets. By the time I arrived at work, however, an odd calm had come over me and I felt decisive and sure of myself. After checking the weather forecast(s) – one weather forecast is never enough for a Blonde – I decided to go with my gut feeling and selected Plan A.
I am pleased to announce that it all went swimmingly (without any actual swimming this time). The youngsters got to explore a part of the moor that they had never been to before, but hopefully will be able to explore again with their families. I was able to use the treasure hunt and route card that I had prepared and the other adults had some lovely “sitting in the sun” moments. The Dartmoor Weather Gods (they exist, believe me) were smiling on me and not only were thunder and lightening conspicuous by their absence but there was enough gentle cloud cover and warm breeze to prevent us all from overheating.
I hope that all of the kids took away some great memories. They were a lovely bunch and some of them did excellent first time navigation. I learnt a couple of valuable lessons myself. The most important of these would be, “Always trust your instincts.” – it hadn’t even occurred to my before that I had any instincts to trust!
Glad it all went so well. Thought about you when we had thunder at 10 to 2 a.m., just as I was heading upstairs for bed; but it didn’t amount to much and the BBC website forecast for Honiton was extremely accurate about the timing of cloud and sun for the rest of the day – I was out bird surveying with K9 in that area. We were glad of the shady moments, too.
P.S. Love that cool, splashy waterfall piccie.
Thanks – lovely waterfall disguised horrid horse flies but it was a great place.
There is research, so I’m told, that shows that our instincts are a really valuable safety tool. Quite how we perceive it is not known, but at a subliminal level we pick up warnings about danger – which just goes to show that you should always trust your instincts. Even the ones you didn’t know you had.
Have been looking at some of the research – it is fascinating, it would appear that we often do “over-think” things and that our subliminal brains are often correct.