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16 October 2012 (Tuesday) - A Day's Caching

I lay awake for a while last night listening to the rain. It wasn't supposed to be raining. I sulked about what the rain might do for my plans for the day.

A spot of brekkie, and Steve soon arrived. In a novel break with tradition I was driving today. Having got rather damp in Robertsbridge last week, today I'd planned a geocache trail that should keep us out of teh mud. Out to Bethersden, on to Tenterden, then Newenden and Northiam; then coming home via Oxney and Woodchurch. I thought this might fill the morning.

We started off at a phone box in Bethersden, Then into the church yard and along the start of one of my favourite walks. We found a cache in a place I've walked past twice this year. We moved on to what was once a favourite pub of ours: the Royal Standard. This became an Indian restaurant some time ago, and featured favourably in a blog entry six years ago. Today it is still a restaurant, and marks the starting point of a multi-cache that we couldn't find.
We moved on to High Halden. Steve went on to the Play Store and downloaded a geocompass which he put to good use at two premium multicaches. We were again lucky in St Michaels, but we couldn't find the cache at Tenterden church. Having parked the car in Tenterden we were reluctant to move it so we thought we'd stroll down the road to the next cache. We should have driven; it was miles away.

Rolvenden was our next port of call. And I was hungry. We popped into the local shop who made us a sandwich while we waited. We ate our lunch in the sunshine and then did a couple of caches nearby; one of which was in the most beautiful of surroundings.
On to the cat sanctuary by the pond shop to find a cache covered in rat poo. Yuk! And on to a phone box in Newenden where we were again lucky. Northiam saw out luck begin to change. We found two out of three. Beckley was disaster - total failure; but we did find some very friendly horses who gave us an idea for a geocaching challenge.
It was with a sense of relief that we again started finding caches on the Isle of Oxney. One of which was at the church - a church I've walked past a few times over the years. This one was my five hundredth geocache. Five hundred in two and a half months. That's not bad going.

Up into Woodchurch where we sort of failed. I say "sort of" - this was a cache that I'd done before but Steve hadn't. We could see it, but not get to it. I flagged it as needing maintenance and we came home. What I thought might be a morning's outing covered fifty miles and over six hours. Must do it again.

And so home to find our period of dog-share has started again. Fudge was pleased to see me, but after an initial bout of excitement he soon settled down. I also found a washing machine full of wet stuff I'd set going this morning and forgotten about. Woops! Whilst Fudge charged round the garden woofing at next door's dogs I sorted out my smalls. I then checked Facebook whilst playing "tug o war" with the pestilential pup. I'd forgotten how rancid his bottom can be.

Being Tuesday the clans gathered. This time at the Admiralty. It was a shame that the Rear Admiral didn't realise we were all coming, but a good time was had by all. Even is Fudge did disgrace himself by destroying Sidney's toy...

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