Another
good night’s sleep, only marred by one or other of the dogs shoving a wet nose
up my bum at 7am. I got up and over brekkie I looked at the Internet. It was
working today, and looking at the geo-map I had an idea. Could I get a First to
Find on a virtual geocache? There hasn’t been the chance for one of those
locally for over ten years.
Last
night a new virtual geocaches had gone live in Hastings Old Town. Geocaching HQ
have given the (supposedly) top four
thousand geocache hiders the ability to create a virtual geocache. I wasn’t one
of the top four thousand; I actually wrote to Geo-HQ and formally complained.
Having spent over a thousand hours on my Wherigos I was a tad miffed to be
trumped by a film pot under a rock. I wasn’t expecting any reply, but I got an
apology from them which basically said that the process they used to judge
people turned out to be somewhat flawed. I sulked a bit (a lot) but I had this idea that even if I wasn’t good enough to be
given one of these special caches, I might claim First to Find on one.
This
one in Hastings Old Town was smack-bang in my old stomping ground. I know Hastings
Old Town like the back of my hand, so this would be easy (I mistakenly thought). So I messaged my old colleague in Tupperware
Gordon, and soon enough we were on the case.
- The first stop was Hastings Castle; all old Hastonians know the castle.
- Then to St Clements Church. I’ve been there so many time - I didn’t know about the cannon ball.
- Swan Gardens? I’ve walked past a thousand times and never seen it.
- Smugglers Cottage? I was at a funeral at that church recently and didn’t see it.
- Lifeboat? – that wasn’t there when I last looked.
- Colonel who? – I knew this one or so I thought.
- Oldest pub. I knew the oldest pub in the area or so I thought.
- Winkle Island – that statue is new.
- I know the fisherman’s museum… but not visited in years
- The cliffs – there’s been landslides since I was last there.
It
was a rather good tour for visitors… so much has changed in recent years and there
is so much there that even the locals don’t realise. A shame about the hills,
but as an ex-local you can’t visit Hastings without experiencing the hills. We
got round in about half an hour – and got to be joint first one to find it as
well… Can you claim FTF on a virtual? I wondered about the etiquette, and in
the end just claimed it.
There
are a few photos of our adventure
here –
what with having a lot less days off mid-week I’ve missed my walks with Gordon
and Norton.
We
climbed back up the hill where we said our goodbyes. Five minutes before we got
back to our cars the forecast rain hit. By the time I got to my car I was
soaked.
As
I was in the area I popped in to see my mum and dad, and whilst I was there I
had a phone call. "Daddy’s Little Angel TM" was
distraught. The company for which she’d been working had “let her go” as she didn’t fit in with their working environment.
Bearing in mind the company were encouraging her to drink shots and take lines
of cocaine as she worked, I am glad that she didn’t fit in with their working
environment.
I
got home. I had planned to get my new lawnmower out, but the rain was
torrential. I watched an old episode of “Dad’s
Army” that the SkyPlus box had recorded for me and then went off to bed for
the afternoon.
I’m
off to the night shift now…
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