It was a late night last
night - I didn't get to bed until 2.30am. Despite a tiring day and a
surfeit of brown ale, persistent neck ache made for a restless night.
I got up to sad news; "My
Boy TM"'s beard is no more. Apparently
routine beard maintenance went horribly wrong and to cut a long story
short the thing was put down as an act of kindness. I'm told there
will be a period of official mourning.
I also saw there was
ranting on the "Geocaching in Kent" Facebook page.
My piss didn't actually boil, but it did simmer...
When you find a sandwich
box in the wilderness and you've done the secret ritual known only to
the initiated you then have to log this on-line. There are those who
maintain that you come home and *on your PC* (ideally
running Windows 3.1) you write a twenty-page essay singing the
praises about said sandwich box in the wilderness. Should you find a
second sandwich box in the wilderness then an entirely different
essay must be written. (I personally maintain that the hobby is a
treasure hunt, not an excercise in creative writing, and those who
differ with me can do so when they too are a published author (!) but
(as usual) I'm in the minority.)
The essay *must*
be a glowing tribute to the wonder of the sandwich box no matter how
much in disrepair the thing might be. Heaven forbid you should only
leave a one-line comment, and if you do so from your SmartPhone then
you will surely burn in hell fire.
It amazes me that
geocaching has been going for fifteen years and (effectively)
we still have to use the same technology as was used to find that
first geocache. For all that it's a good walk in the countryside,
it's one using gear which is ten years out of date *and* sees
doing so as something to be proud about.
And talking of the g-word
we collected the troops, narrowly missed a First to Find, and set
off to Otford where we met Rosie. After a quick chat with a fellow
hunter of tupperware six of us (and three dogs) set off for
something rather unusual in the geo-world; a virtual multi-cache.
There's a to-scale model of the solar system in Otford. And for all
that you might know (in theory) that planets are a long way
apart, it's not until you actually experience the amount of hiking
about that even a scale model involves that you realise just how big
space is.
We started off at... I
won't say which model planet (not giving spoilers!), and
solved the puzzle, moved on to the next one, and so on until we found
ourselves being directed into a private allotment. We re-checked out
calculations again and again to no avail. It was with something of a
sulk that we admitted defeat.
Rosie suggested we went
and did a series of caches which was just three miles up the road. I
didn't have them on my tablet, but two minutes of piggybacking off of
my mobile wi-fi hotspot saved the day. (You can't do that with a
GPS unit!) and soon we were in Mildridge woods. A beautiful wood
where the dogs could run and we could hunt tupperware.
I was so impresed with
Jess the geo-pup. I'd seen her before many times but not really paid
attention to her. I hadn't realilsed she is the ideal geo-hound. When
we are near a cache and searching we have to keep an eye on "Furry
Face TM" because he gets bored and
wanders off. When Jess hears the beep of the GPs unit she
immiediately sits and waits for us to do our geo-thing.
In these woods we
searched for twenty-five caches, and found the lot with minimal
difficulty. If anyone wants a scenic walk, or is considering taking
up hunting tupperware as a pastiime I can't recommend the series in
Mildridge Woods highly enough.
We were just about to get
into the cars when another caching friend pulledd up. He was taking
his dogs for a walk. he asked how we got on with the virtual
multi-cache. We told him we were suulking, and he said.... I won't
say whaat he said, He didn't tell us the answers we were after but he
did point out our error. We went back, and in five minutes we had the
solution to the puzzle we wanted. Success !! In over four thousand
three hundred geo-finds this was only my thirteenth virtual find.
As I sometimes do, I
took a few photos whilst we were out.
Home, and after aa rather
good bit of tea we watched the latest period drama - "Indian
Summers". Billed as the next "Downton Abbey"
I thought it would be right up my street. The first episode started
well enough, and I then fell asleep for the rest.
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