Imagine a personal heating system that works indoors as well as outdoors, can be taken anywhere, requires little energy, and is independent of any infrastructure. It exists – and is
hundreds of years old.
A hot water bottle is a sealable container filled with hot water, often enclosed in a textile cover, which is directly placed against a part of the body for thermal comfort. The hot
water bottle is still a common household item in some places – such as the UK and Japan – but it is largely forgotten or disregarded in most of the
industrialised world. If people know of it, they usually associate it with pain relief rather than thermal comfort, or they consider its use an outdated practice for the poor and
the elderly.
…
Imagine my surprise to discover that not only are hot water bottles confined almost-entirely to the UK and Japan (more-strictly, I suppose the article should say “the British Isles”;
friends in Ireland tell me that they’re popular there too), but that they’re so distinctly confined to these isles that English speakers elsewhere in the world need this
article to explain to them what a hot water bottle is and why they’d want one!
I’m a fan of hot water bottles; I’ll sometimes take one – or even two, during a cold snap – to bed. But reading this article feels like reading a
guide for aliens living on Earth: explaining everyday things as if you’d never come across them before.
I’m hoping to find the 2022-02-19 52 -2 hashpoint one day earlier and one graticule over, and
I think I can stretch the range on the electric car enough to be able to return home via this hashpoint too.
Update: managed to change the car after finding the 2022-02-19 52 -2 point, so I can make
this. Probably be there about midday, weather-permitting.
I didn’t expect much of this hashpoint, but I wanted the excuse to recharge the car before going for another leg of my journey – either a trip up to visit a friend in Lichfield or else
a hashing expedition one graticule further East where today’s hashpoint seemed to be in a graveyard! But more on that later.
I parked at the Morrisons car park at (52.757778, -1.752222) at 14:48 and hooked up to the charger there (once I eventually found it). I had some difficulty making it work, but it
seemed to get started eventually. Then I began my walk to the hashpoint. This was far from the picturesque walk of yesterday, taking me through a series of housing estates that were
nondescript at best, unpleasantly scuzzy at worst. Shooting video as I walked, I was at one point loudly mocked by a group of young men passing in an artificially-loud car, but it was
an activity that soon had to end anyway as the rain began to pour down. At around 15:11 my GPSr ran out of battery power (I’d failed to
find its charging cable the night before) and there’s a clear gap in my tracklog: fortunately I was also equipped with not one but two backup devices (my phone, of course, and my
watch), so I was able to continue heading in the right direction, and when I found a convenience store near (52.739167, -1.998333) I bought some AA batteries (my GPSr can have its rechargeable battery removed and 3 × AA batteries put in its place to allow it to continue) and pressed on to the hashpoint.
As anticipated, the hashpoint was on a road dividing a light industrial park from a housing estate, right outside a plant specialising in bending plate aluminium; I reached it at
15:23:48. I walked back the same route as the rain began to fall more and more heavily: by the time I reached the car it had become torrential. The dubious charging point I’d used had
taken £16 from my bank card but provided only enough charge to take the car from 66% to 67% battery, which – combined with the rapidly-worsening weather – made me rethink my plans to
visit Lichfield or explore further East and I instead used my remaining distance to take a long (slow, wet, diversion-filled) drive home. Ugh.
Tracklog
My GPSr kept a tracklog of my entire two-day expedition:
A hard walk to an easy find, but this cache has definitely caught the worst of the stormy conditions. Its hiding place has flooded and the container is drenched. Dried as best I could,
but it needs CO attention. TFTC.
Getting down the muddy bank (picture attached) to this one was a bit spicy! Like those before me, I found the cache wedged tight into its hiding space. But unlike them, I was able to
construct a crude lever with which to set it free! SL, TFTC.
Hard to believe any cache could survive the gale force winds ripping over those hilltop. Hunted for some time, including getting a view as per the hint, without luck.
Found after an extended hunt, not where the hint would suggest. Looks like it blew quite a way away! Returned to pave specified by coordinates and hint. Log extremely wet, hard to sign.
You were right about the views from up here, though!
Don’t want to be a grass, but I don’t think that’s legal tinder. End of this road for me, need to loop a different direction now to stay on schedule for my planned
arrival at the 2022-02-20 52 -1 geohashpoint!
Found, but only thanks to the hint! My GPSr had me on the wrong side of the road. In case anybody else is similarly affected, I found the
cache about 11m away from where I expected to, at N 52 23.698, W 002 10.330. TFTC!
The recent winds had blown this little lady clear of her hiding place and into the tree next door. Thankfully I was able to retrieve her by her tether and return her to where (it looks
like) she belonged. Log starting to take on water but not in need of maintenance yet, but possibly worth replacing the seal on the container later in the year. TFTC!
I had to give up on the trail to Deansford Lane: too muddy for my boots! Instead heading East, I found this delightfully noisy cache! Bit of a stretch to reach but managed in the end,
and honestly spent longer retrieving the log than hunting for the cache. Genius, FP awarded.
First place I looked, but I still squeaked with delight to see the cache container! There were many options for my stop-and-cache plan on today’s journey, but I’m already glad I chose
here: these caches are awesome, and that’s coming from somebody who normally hates nanos. FP awarded.
