Getting back on the Metaphorical Bike / Horse

Time to break the slump of over 6 weeks and get out and do some caching again. Umm… how do you do this again? It was a bit like that as we struggled to remember what we packed in the bag and where our boots were. To ease us back into it, I opted to go for a nice easy 7 caches in CaptainJack country – Buckinghamshire. Actually only a couple of the caches turned out to belong to CJ and those that didn’t were invariably of a better quality and in a better state of repair than the CJ ones.

We went to Ballinger in Buckinghamshire and no, I am not sure how to pronounce it either. Is Bal-inger, Ball-inger, Bale-inger, Ba-linger, Ball-linger, Ball-in-jar or bloody ba-li-ng-er? Who knows and quite frankly who cares? It was a nice mixture of farm fields and woodland footpaths and despite the frigid start to the day, it turned out to be a lovely “sort-of” circle picking up easy caches.

Nothing particularly special to write home about although there were a couple of well-made caches; a hollowed out log, a hanging pot high in a tree that required a handy stick with a hook on the end of it to retrieve and of course the obligatory hollow pigeon.

No wait… go back… Pigeon?

The aptly named Stool Pigeon (GC35N8N) was a plastic bird perched in the crook of a tree with the log secreted eponymously up its bum! Bizarrely half of his head was missing and a big hole was leaving its innards open to the elements. It looked somewhat like a pigeon might if it had been shot at point blank range by a gang of field mice armed with shotguns…. I imagine. After extracting the log and signing it there was a strange discussion between Shar and myself about how to place it back in the tree. I voted for putting it back upside down so it wouldn’t fill with water, but apparently that would just be “weird”. Like a plastic pigeon in a tree with a piece of paper up its backside isn’t weird to start with, I am not sure wedging said bird back in belly up is going to make the situation any stranger than it already is. We compromised in the end and set him at a jaunty angle that would hopeful keep him from “filling up”. And That is what relationships are all about… compromise. I was tempted to jog back and turn him upside down but knew I would get lost and Sharlene would refuse to rescue me on principle.

A few more easy hides and a water trough that was surrounded by thorns like they so often are, and we were heading back to the car and a nice cup of hot chocolate. It turns out geocaching is like falling off a bike… It doesn’t matter how long since your last time, you still remember how to do it, and its painful every time. Not sure that is exactly how the saying goes but close enough. We really are out of shape though as just this short loop had us aching in places that we had forgotten about. Hopefully though it won’t be another 6 weeks until our next GeoDate. Happy days.

This Geocaching adventure took place on Thursday 25th February and took our total cache count to 1395.

Advertisement