I
was up a little earlier than I might have been today. I was expecting
a visit from the most recent fruit of my loin, but she had other fish
to fry. Which was a shame. Seeing I was up and raring to go I got a
lift to town from my beloved. I needed some fruit for lunch in the
week and have decided to stick with Tesco. In theory the farm shop
sounds a better idea, but over the last few months I’m afraid that
the quality of stuff in the farm shop leaves a lot to be desired.
I
also got some cheap sandwich boxes (from the pound shop) to
use as geocaches on a series I plan to plant out over the next few
weeks. They’ve gone up in price – once three for a quid, now I
only get two for a quid.
Home
– where I did more homework. And checked my emails. I saw that
Friday’s blog received a comment. Was I unfair to whinge about the
amount of dog turds that I found whilst out geocaching the other day?
I think I was fair in what I wrote. I didn’t actually say where the
cache was, or which one it was, so I’m not putting anyone off. And
geocaching amongst the dog turds in the mud was quite a memorable
experience. What’s a diary for if not to record such memories?
Mind
you I welcome comment. It shows (if nothing else) that I’m
not just shouting into the ether. And it makes me revisit how and
what I write. I may (just occasionally) be rather opinionated
in my rantings, but I do try to be reasonable and fair in my
rantings.
Henry
from UK cyber club phoned. He wanted to speak to the cable or
satellite TV subscriber. He had to settle for speaking with me. Did I
know that after an initial subscription period had passed I would be
responsible for any repairs that might be required on my Sky-Plus
box? I did know, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I have this
theory that if I’m not too busy myself then by wasting his time I’m
actually doing a public service. All the time I am stringing these
people along they are not bothering anyone else.
So
I told him that insuring the box is a waste of money. I told him that
if and when it breaks I shall tell Sky TV to fix it for free or I
will take my money to Virgin media. This clearly went beyond the
limitations of his script, and rather flummoxed him. Which was
probably for the best.
Furry
Face needed a walk, and I knew where I wanted to take him. On Friday
I’d looked at the map of local geocaches and seen that I’d found
all but three of the two hundred and twelve that were within three
miles of my house. On Friday afternoon I tried for two of them and
got one. So today I thought I’d try for the one I didn’t go for
last Friday.
I
got the pestilential pup collared and leaded and we went off on our
walk. I went the scenic way through the warren, and soon we were
within striking distance of the cache we sought: “Around the
Tees #1”.
With
a bit of scrubbling about in the undergrowth I eventually found that
cache, and we carried on with our walk. The plan was a circuit of the
golf course and then home. We hadn’t got more than a hundred yards
when my phone shouted that I had email. I couldn’t believe the
messages – five new caches had gone live – three within a few
hundred yards of where we were at that time. Amazingly from the map
it looked like we’d walked straight past two of them on our way to
where we were when we got this message, and a third new cache was
directly ahead of us. So we carried on the route we were walking
anyway and soon found the first of the new caches. “Around the
Tees #4” was found for the first time by me and my Patagonian
Tripe Hound at 1.50pm – an amazing nine minutes after it had been
published.
We
pushed on - “Around the Tees #3” was a cache we had walked
past less than an hour previously, and after a very brief search me
and Furry Face had another FTF at 1.55pm – fourteen minutes after
publication this time.
Feeling
particularly smug we followed our geocompass along a path we’d
already walked once in the last hour as we made our way to “Around
the Tees #2”. Was it too much to hope for three FTFs? Yes –
it was. As we approached the cache we saw a familiar face was already
there. “The Hurks” had also been caching in the general
vicinity and, like us, had made the most of the opportunity.
I
left home intending to give my dog a bit of a run, and possibly find
a cache. I found four, had two FTFs, and got the dog exercised too. I
was rather pleased about that.
I
then came home and looked at disguising my sandwich boxes to turn
them into geocaches. I don’t like the current fad of covering them
in camouflage tape. I can’t explain why; I just don’t. I know a
tame painter and decorator who told me that a dark gloss paint would
do the trick. So having confirmed my theory about painting the
insides of the boxes to make them more hidden in the shadows, I tried
to find some dark paint. If any of my loyal readers have any dark
gloss they don’t want…
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