more geocaching

I just love geocaching. I get to go out into the country side, often with Millie and have a great walk enjoying nature. I am making the most of the good weather and getting out and about as much as possible. On Sunday 27th Sept I drove for an hour to Castle Hedingham and met up with a whole bunch, about 40, of other geocachers. Some of them have found 1000's of caches. There were two series already in the area so I went round those two in the morning as we were meeting up in a quaint pub at 2pm. I found these really easily and Millie was brilliant. So it was a great morning's caching. I stopped and had lunch at about 12 in the pub garden. Millie was still being very good, thank goodness. I could see there were small groups of people in the pub who were probably fellow geocachers but as we were not openly saying who we were at the time I just kept quiet!! Just as it was approaching 2pm everyone started to head for a room/bar that had been put aside for us to meet. One woman and organised the meet and one chap had laid a trail of caches. A mum, son and his fiance had set another trail as a group. Mum, Hilary was "keeper of the caches" and she laid them all. Her son put the information on the internet. So it was a real group effort. It was nice to chat to people. The fiance, Natalie, was really nice. They are geting married in the castle next year which sounds really wonderful. The pub was really nice, very quaint and obviously quite old. There were three pubs within sight of each other. I certainly miss having a "local". There are no pubs near where I live and the pubs that are around are really spread out so a pub crawl is pretty difficult. Anyways we were given the information of the two trails and went out into the pub garden for a group photo. Then whilst I was chatting to people loading some of the co-ordinates into my gps and working out how to best utilise my time doing the caches, most people went rushing off to do some caching. I think some were keen to get a first to find (FTF). So Millie and I wandered off once I knew where I was heading. It was a lovely afternoon and I nabbed quite a few more caches. I managed to get all the caches from Andy_UK's trail but the Bartlett clan's caches were much harder to find and I only found half of them. It was a long walk, I didn't finish until 6pm. I actually managed to wear Millie out today. I can't believe. She does have a limit to that seemingly boundless energy. LOL. She jumped into the boot and collapsed and was asleep in minutes. It was a quiet journey home.

Photos below:
I picked up a trackable doggy toy from one of the caches and took a photo of Millie with it.
Millie helping me to look for another one of the caches. It turns out it was not anywhere near here!


Here is a map from the geocache website showing the caches that I did and did not find on this day. It is not very clear but you can see this a bit clearer and even have a look at some geocaches in your own area on this website.
http://www.geocaching.com/map/default.aspx?lat=51.98978&lng=0.59927

badger

I was popping into the library and there is a park nearby with a geocache so thought I would pop in to quickly nab it before going on to the library. Well!! I never got to the library after all. As I was walking into the park there was a lad in his 20's with a dog standing looking at a young badger. I was amazed that a badger would be out and about during the day in a busy area. It turns out that the badger was really poorly. It couldn't walk far and had difficulty breathing. The lad and his girlfriend had called the RSPCA and had waited for nearly an hour. They needed to get into town so I said I would hang around until the RSPCA, the man to lock up the park or the couple turned up. So off they went. I waited 45 minutes before the RSPCA man turned up. By then the badger had crawled along the path and found a hole to crawl into. The RSPCA man said there was little he could do. I explained the symptoms of the badger and he said he might have concussion. Anyway when I got home Andy mentioned TB. It might be that that is what was wrong with it. So there wasnt much that could be done. I will give the council a call and let the parks section know that there is a poorly badger there so they can perhaps keep an eye out. It will either die or recover! So I didn't get to the library nor did I get the geocache.

hobbies

Having fun with two of my fav hobbies - geocaching and swapping on swapbot. Just sent off two CDs that I burnt myself with songs that reflect my life's journey. It was enjoyable going through old memories. Had a spot of bother trying to make the CD covers though. I couldn't get them to the right size. Have had to send them out with the back sleeve being too small but they needed to get out in the post today. Never mind.

With the geocaching I have two events planned over the next couple of months, one next weekend and one in November. Tomorrow I plan to mope up a few geocaches that are in the area.

photos

Alice has started college and has homework already. She is going to make a small music magazine for her media studies. The first thing to do is to take a photo of a musician. Alice adn I went to the woods and did an impromptu photo shoot. This is the result. Luckily Sev was a willing party!!

geocaching

I took Sarah and her friend Hannah geocaching over Great Wakering one lovely hot evening. We were gone for three hours. A bit longer than planned but it was all good. We went round a church, found a micro and then searched for clues for the cache. We managed to find eight of the nine that we were looking for. It was on the 8th Sept that we went - so that was pretty cool. The one that we couldnt find was really tricky. Apparently quite a few others have found it difficult too. It was a lovely walk and I think the girls enjoyed it.

Millie enjoyed the walk too!

geocaching

Had a great day out yesterday. First I went to Hanningfield Reservoir and met up with some other geocachers, some of the names I recognised from the caches. Kev had planned 14 caches altogether, 8 of them with lego pieces which made a little man next to a tree. Very clever idea. Here is a picture of all of us.

About eight teams did a race round the reservoir collecting the lego pieces. I didn't do it though, although I did get one cache near the meet. It was nice to meet people with the same hobby. I think some of them are going to Castle Hedingham at the end of the month so it will be cool to see them again.

I then went home and picked up Millie and took her to the Orsett Show. It was packed, there were loads and loads of people there. There were sheep and cows in pens and a little practice agility course set up that Millie and I bumbled our way around. She didn't understand the concept of going through the tunnels! Then we went on to watch some horses doing jumps - it was the novice round and they were very good. It was very enjoyable to watch. I wandered all around the outside of the display rings in the middle and had a good afternoon there. I bought some cheeses with strange additions like chocolate! One was cheese with chilli - which is very hot.

Then I took Millie home and went round to parents in law to pick up Andy. He had been there to help his brother spready out some topsoil and lay out some turf. We had fish and chips there before coming home late at night. So all in all a pretty full day.

It is now Sunday evening and Sarah is here for a few days. Always nice to have her home, I think she has a busy few days planned meeting up with friends.

I am having an MRI scan of my lumbar spine tomorrow to check out my back, in case I have hurt it really bad. Just to check if there is any cord compression. I think it will be alright, but just want to make sure really. I will get my boss to check it out as the is the expert. Then we are going to parents in law again as Sarah has not been to their new home yet. Hopefully Sarah and I will get a chance to do a little spot of geocaching. I am supposed to be giving blood tomorrow, but not sure if I will have time.

geocaching

Had a lovely day yesterday going out geocaching. Found four caches in a country park nearby. The views from the hill were amazing - right across the estuary. We went through some woods as well. Millie had a great time running around, even on sucha lovely dry day she managed to find a mud hole! So she needed a shower when we got home. She was covered in mud and grass seeds. Then we spent the evening watching films.

Today we went to see Richard for a birthday drink before he went back home to Australia. i didnt get up until 12.30 so we didnt have lunch at the pub as planned, just some nibbles. Just watching "The day the earth stood still" before going to bed. Got tomorrow off work as it is Bank Holiday. I plan to sort the fish tank out. I need to get a new light and some more fish and clean the tank out. Then I really MUST finish my assignment. It is the last one and is due in Friday next week.