Greetings from Oxfordshire! I’m staying in the holiday park just East of here as part of the first of a three week
holiday (taken in an attempt to “make up” for holidays cancelled over the last year and a half owing to The Situation). I figured it’d be an easy and relatively direct hike from there
to here, but I’d not counted on the work underway at the moment by the Forestry Commission! Several diverted footpaths later I finally found this “giant step”! Took Paul the Seahorse TB, SL,
TFTC.
Stopped at the nearby Co-Op while driving back to our holiday accommodation after a bit of a walk over the hills
around Upper Padley. While my partner fleeblewidget went into the shop (I’d forgotten my mask) I checked for any nearby geocaches and found
this interesting curiosity! GPS coordinates spot on and the cache was quickly found. TFTC!
Camo was a little lacking – cache was completely visible within a couple of metres – so I’ve tried to conceal it a little better. Thanks to the container’s camo this is probably plenty
sufficient to keep it concealed. TFTC!
Passing through town I stopped to charge my car near Waitrose (pictured!), and as it filled up the battery tank I wandered over to find this cache. Coordinates might be off – my
GPSr had me at the wrong side of the road! – but the hint was solid and after a little feeling-about free cache was in hand. TFTC.
Cycling back to Stanton Harcourt from Witney I thought I’d try for just one more cache, while the light’s still in the sky. But try as I might, I couldn’t find this troublesome little
blighter. Given the recent logs, I worry it might have been muggled.
My last cache before I pedal on to Witney for my pizza supper! I soon found the hiding place but it still took me a long while to find exactly where the cache was hidden… and even
longer to extract it from the depths of its narrow hiding place. In the end I needed to manufacture a tool – a loop of metal made from a paperclip, taped to the tip of a pin – to snag
it. Managed in the end, and felt like I’d earned my pizza. (Attached pic is of me about a quarter hour later enjoying my picnic!)
Spotting the geotrail here was easy. Avoiding the spiky plants was harder, and for the first time today I regretted having dressed so lightly. Found the cache without difficulty, but
returned from its hiding place with my shins covered in sticky-grass. Yet more picking away flora was needed before I could press on on my bike.
This trail’s been fantastic so far; I wish I’d brought the kids – they’d have loved it! Well, actually I’m glad I didn’t because it’s their bedtime, but under different circumstances
I’d totally come back again and bring them!
The combine harvesters have been out in force today – a small flotilla of them passed my house earlier this afternoon – and I soon found evidence that they’d been here before me. Fresh
cut rows of corn, the straw piled up and ready for baling, dominated the golden fields. There are two major landmarks in sight here that made my ‘cacher brain tingle, but one of them
isn’t on the path. I zipped over to the other and soon found the cache: nice to see a more-regular-sized one after so many smaller ones today.
Stopped for a drink break here because the heat was starting to get to me and – as the picture shows! – I was turning into a sweaty mess. But I was glad of the view, while I did so.
Like all the other caches on this trail, the coordinates for this were spot on and I was delighted and surprised to find a most-excellent themed cache. The container was a little hard
to open: perhaps there’s an emergency lever somewhere on the inside that I just couldn’t see? ;-) FP awarded. TFTC.
At this point the path reached its worst point, and the long summer grass was beginning to tangle around the spokes of my bike wheel. I used stopping to find this easy-to-spot cache as
my excuse to stop and tidy up my transport before pressing on to – fortunately – easier cycling conditions ahead.
Honed right in on the hiding place and discovered that the cache was being attacked by a slug! Peeled off the little critter and retrieved the cache. TFTC.
I spent a long time looking in all the wrong places before I finally… swung around… to the right way of thinking. Brilliant hiding place, FP awarded.
I’d figured that this path, being listed as a bridleway, would be suitable for my bike: i.e. relatively broad and flat, no stiles, etc. I was partially right, and the path soon became a
little bumpy for my mostly road-going bike, but it worked out.
I decided this evening to get out into the (cooling, but still quite hot!) air and cycle to Witney for a pizza picnic. And if I was going to do that, I figured, then it’s not
much of a diversion of my route from Stanton Harcourt to go via the first half of the Tar Lakes/South Leigh Loop while I’m out.
I started by cycling up the old West Oxfordshire Cycleway/Tar Lane to this car park. I’ve walked around the lakes previously and noticed the position of the object referenced in the
hint, and so as soon as I was in the vicinity I knew where I’d be looking. Soon the cache was in hand!
We took a family trip up to Lichfield this weekend. I don’t know if I can give a “review” of a city-break as a whole, but if I can: I give you five stars, Lichfield.
It’s got a cathedral, which is quite pretty.
Maybe it’s just because we’ve none of us had a night away from The Green… pretty-much since we moved
in, last year. But there was something magical about doing things reminiscent of the “old normal”.
“I’m so excited! We get to stay… at a Premier Inn!” At first I rolled my eyes at this joyous line from our 4-year-old (I mean… it’s just a Premier Inn…), but it did feel good
to go somewhere and do something.
It’s not that like wasn’t plenty of mask-wearing and social distancing and hand sanitiser and everything that we’ve gotten used to now: there certainly was. The magic, though, came from
getting to do an expedition further away from home than we’re used to. And, perhaps, with that happening to coincide with glorious weather and fun times.
Socially-distanced balloon modelling turns out to work, not least because you can hand one of those long balloons to somebody without getting anywhere near them.
We spent an unimaginably hot summer’s day watching an outdoor interpretation of Peter and the Wolf, which
each of the little ones has learned about in reasonable depth, at some point or another, as part of the (fantastic) “Monkey Music” classes
of which they’re now both graduates.
So long as you weren’t staring at the painted circles on the grass – for corralling families apart from one another – you’d easily forget how unusual things are, right now.
And maybe it’s that they’ve been out-of-action for so long and are only just beginning to once again ramp up… or maybe I’ve just forgotten what the hospitality industry is like?… but
man, we felt well-looked after.
From the staff at the hotel who despite the clear challenges of running
their establishment under the necessary restrictions still went the extra mile to make the kids feel special to the restaurant we went to
that pulled out all the stops to give us all a great evening, I basically came out of the thing with the impression of Lichfield as a really nice place.
Take social distancing to the next level: do your urban geocaching at the crack of dawn.
I’m not saying that it was perfect. A combination of the intolerable heat (or else the desiccating effect of the air conditioner) and a mattress that sagged with two adults on it meant
that I didn’t sleep much on Saturday night (although that did mean I could get up at 5am forageocachingexpeditionaroundthecity before it got too hot later on). And an
hour and a half of driving to get to a place where you’re going to see a one-hour show feels long, especially in this age where I don’t really travel anywhere, ever.
But that’s not the point.
The buffet was closed, of course, but these kids were made for an “all you can eat” breakfast.
The point is that Lichfield made me happy, this weekend. And I don’t know how much of that is that it’s just a nice place and how much is that I’ve missed going anywhere or doing
anything, but either way, it lead to a delightful weekend.
