By: Blonde Two
When I first started helping with Ten Tors training way back in 2008, I remember going for a walk up over the Trowlesworthy Tors on the south side of Dartmoor and being very surprised by the distance and terrain I was expected to cover in a day. On the way back to the minibuses the route seemed to get longer and longer as I got correspondingly wearier and wearier. Eventually the chap who was leading my group told me that the end was only 45 minutes away. As it turned out, he said this a total of 5 times, I stopped believing him after the third!
B1 has a much better phrase that she uses with me and the youngsters when we are tired, ‘Five minutes, just around the corner.’ We all know that she isn’t telling the truth but I have heard it so may times now that it has become comforting.
A few weekends ago the two of us were on a fairly uphill and boggy stretch of Dartmoor and I asked the, ‘are we nearly there yet?’ question because she had the map. Silly really because I could see that we were: a) only half way up the hill, b) in the middle of a bog, c) moving quite slowly.
B1 replied, with only 50% of her usual phrase and said, ‘… just around the corner.’ Slightly worrying but I didn’t mention it, after all, half a platitude is better than no platitude at all!
