Catch Up 1 – Ashley Green

This is the one where I start with something like, “It’s been a busy time lately and I am behind with my entries”. Then you roll your eyes, pretend that you have never read an apology like this before and forgive me because basically I am a nice guy and you enjoy reading my blog. Stop smirking and let me get on with it

OK, so it has been a busy time lately with visits from my mum from Norfolk and more amazingly, Shar’s Dad from New Zealand who she hadn’t seen for 12 years. On top of that I became a granddad at the tender age of 44, which is a relief because I can now, finally, wear the slippers and cardy with a sense of entitlement and pride, even though I have been actually wearing them for about 15 years. Not the same ones continuously you understand…. ewwww that would be gross. So you see it HAS been a busy time and although we have managed to do a little caching here and there, I have been a tad rubbish at blogging about it. I could just ignore it and carry on as if they hadn’t happened, but that would be a disservice to you dear reader and quite frankly would have the OCD pixies keeping me up at nights. I will instead be offering an apology and a couple of short “catch-up articles” to get us back on the same page as quickly and effortlessly (on my part) as possible. I know what you are thinking… “Why is he waffling on about it so much, why doesn’t he just get on with it?” … quite right too!

But first….

My first Grandchild, Mikey

… Sorry, couldn’t resist Normal geocaching service will now be resumed.
On October 20th Shar and I set off for one of our
GeoDates to Ashley Green in Buckinghamshire. This is a small cluster of CaptainJack caches and when I strung them together and started looking at logs I got a bit worried as they didn’t seem to get visited very often. My fear was that they would be either missing or in such poor condition as to make them practically geolitter, but I needn’t have worried. Aside from the very first cache which we could not find, all the others were there and most of them were in a pretty good state. The walk itself was a pleasant and blissfully quiet stroll along tree lined paths around the edge of farm fields.

Tree Hugger

We even found one right in the middle of the walk that had eluded a number of previous cachers and hadn’t been found for over a year. To be fair we were just about to give up on it, but Shar just spotted it out of the corner of her eye and the smug grins started to appear on our faces almost immediately.

October Sunny English Countryside

The weather was amazing on that day… it was unseasonably warm for mid-October and as we walked up the side of a farm field in the bright sunshine, it could have been a warm day in May if it hadn’t been for the colours of the leaves on the trees. Even now, in Mid-November, it is remarkable how mild it is for the time of year although the cold is forecast to arrive soon. 😦

We saw just a single person on the whole of our walk and with the complete absence of road noise for most of the route, we relished in the tranquillity. Happy Days.

Peaceful Solitude

This geocaching speed date refers back to the 20th October and resulted in our total cache count rising to 1337.