Tap, Tap, Tap. Is this thing on?

*drops 50p into the meter and the lights flicker on*
I have come… BACK TO LIFE!
Yes, it has been a while. Yes, I am fine, thanks for asking. No, I haven’t gone off caching, blogging or life in general. Yes, I hope to be back with some regularity again. No, I haven’t been lost to the dark side of mumzies or Pokémon (5 second wonder that was), snatch or even Seek although the latter is a pretty awesome location based app that can earn you prizes etc.

So what have I been up to? Well this is normally where the blogger inserts one of the following stock answers.

“Life just kind of got in the way”
“We got a new baby/dog/cat/car/parrot”
“I have had back/legs/foot/vague intimate area problems and haven’t been caching much.”
“I got a new job.”
“I have been focusing on writing a book/learning Spanish/invading Poland.”
“My mum/dad/uncle/dog died and I have just not felt like doing anything.”
“I have found all the local caches and have to travel 10 miles just to find a film pot on the back of a telecoms box and who can be arsed with that.”
“My other half gave up smoking after 25 years and spending any amount of time in the great outdoors was a bit tricky for a few weeks. (I am massively proud of her by the way :D”
“I got really into eating cake and watching telly and tried to make it my “go to hobby” but found after a couple weeks I was stuck in the chair and the carpet under my feet was starting to smell a bit funky.”
“I just lost my caching mojo!”

The actual answer is probably a mixture of a number of those things, but to be honest I truly didn’t realise how long it had been since I last blogged. I was enjoying a bit of a break in the run up to Christmas and the next thing you know it is almost May. How did that happen?

Anyway, enough of all that. I am here now, that is the important thing. *smiles sweetly*

I am not going to attempt to fill in the gap in my posts or to undertake anything other than the vaguest of catch-up summaries but rather will just draw a line and crack on.

To be honest, caching in 2017 did get off to a bit of a slow start but we have been out more and more often over the last couple of months including a great team PugWash trip with Smokeypugs back to Hatfield forest to do a series which had some nice creative caches.

Team PugWash back caching in Essex

Since I last blogged in …*gulp* september, our cache count has risen from 1538 to 1676 so you can see we haven’t been complete and utter lazy slobs. We also recently did some maintenance on our Wall Hall series and were delighted to find that the caches were actually in pretty good nick and my tape measure only needed a small amount of oiling (and no, that is not a euphemism).

We also had to deal with the loss of the geocaching classic app, Sam and I have now both moved to Cachly and I am constantly surprised at all the extra features that it has over the old classic and the new geocaching official app. Shar is doggedly sticking to her old Galaxy ace although she did try to use her J3 to do caching only to discover that it doesn’t have a built in magnetic sensor so no compass functionality. This is certainly something we will be sure to check the next time she upgrades.
I am looking for a long term challenge for us as a family along the lines of the Chiltern hundred that we did two years ago, to give us something to chip away at and will let you know what it is, as and when I figure it out. Got any ideas of something big that requires more than one visit and is less than 45 mins drive from Watford?

I can honestly say that I missed my blog, and of course you my dear reader, but also I feel that it was good to spend a little time apart to get some perspective on things. I am still as keen on promoting all those other dedicated geobloggers out there and did take the time recently to update my list of geocaching blogs, removing some of the old ones and adding a couple of new ones. I expect even more have popped up in the months that I have taken my eye of the ball and I would be interested to hear from anyone who knows of any that aren’t on my list.

Well, it’s all starting to get a bit rambly now….

Oh really?
… Rambly from the start?

You’re probably right. But then some things don’t change. One constant is that you get a big dollop of waffle when you read my blog.

Thanks for hanging around and checking on the place whilst I was gone. Happy days are here again. 🙂

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