VHI’s 2009

We had 3 Reivers in this years Veteran Home Internationals – John, Fiona and Lindsey.  (Could have been four with Robin getting a late call-up but which he couldn’t manage).

The event was held in the Peak District, south west of Sheffield.  Fiona drove down on Thursday but a carload consisting of John, Lindsey, Sheila Strain and Hazel Dean left Teviothead at 3pm on Friday and drove through some wet and dark weather following the little box on John’s windscreen which got us safely to Hartington Youth Hostel where all the teams were staying (yes, it’s a big hostel !)

The Relays on Saturday were held on Longshaw on a cool and ultimately very wet day although it was pleasant enough in the forest once we got going.  John and Lindsey were in the same team and managed a respectable 2nd place overall, only 1 minute behind a crack Welsh team.  Pity that the last control was a “bingo” one and both lost a bit of time here.  Another Scottish team which could have won overall was given the wrong map on leg 1 and although their team did the correct 4 legs in total, 3 of the team didn’t run the leg they were expecting to and were worse off than they should have been.  The final scores for the 4 counting teams were England 1st, Scots 2nd.  By the end of the competition we were having to hold onto the tent in the wind so we packed up promptly and went to a local coffee shop.

In the evening we had a nice 3 course meal (too much !) and socialised.

The individual event was held on Sunday at Eyam Moor, half moorland and half valley with lots of contour detail caused by landslips.  John had another stormer to win M50, Lindsey ran out of steam in the heather and mud, and Fiona was disqualified for one of the controls not registering on her dibber. With all 24 team members to count, it was unfortunate that the Scots lost 2 to injury and 2 to disqualification.  Even so, on this occasion, the English were just too strong and we finished 2nd overall.  We had a bit of good luck in 2008 and a bit of bad luck in 2009 so we can’t complain, but it would have been nice to win on English soil.