I let the man with the kids and the dog ahead of me so I’d be able to mount searches without having to stop and separate dogs, but I caught up with him literally at this cache! His
buggy (which carried two of the kids – the third was strapped to his chest) had gotten stuck in a rut and he was busy extracting it.
So I skipped this one, for now, and tried to get some distance ahead of him to the next one: I can always try on the way back.
(I’ll kick myself if it turns out he’s geocaching, too!)
An excellent container in a picturesque spot. FP awarded. The geopup didn’t want to come exploring off the path so I had to find this one by myself.
SL, TFTC.
Being between jobs, I decided to offer the geohound a longer then usual walk this morning and clear my head before an application form I need to fill out. We opted for the first leg of
this series: let’s see how far the little pooch’s legs will carry her! Cache found easily, SL, TFTC.
It wasn’t until I made time for myself to get out into the countryside near my home and take the dog for a walk that I realised how much stress I’d been putting myself under during my
team meetup, this week.
Istanbul was enjoyable and fascinating, and I love my team, but I always forget until after the fact how much a few days worth of city crowds can make me feel anxious and trapped.
It’s good to get a mile or two from the nearest other human and decompress!
I had an errand to run in the Windrush Place estate on the other side of the A40, and the geopup needed a walk, so I opted to park the car over in Witney so my four-legged friend and I
could walk the remaining way over to Curbridge and find this cache.
The first challenge was, of course, getting over the pedestrian-unfriendly roundabout and across be bridge to Curbridge, but the second challenge wasn’t much easier. Which bit of the
church was the extension? It wasn’t immediately clear and we had to make a few guesses before our numbers lined up to anything believable.
Finally, we set off. The geohound went crazy, and I soon realised why: our route was taking us almost exactly past the doggy daycare she
attends twice a week. It was strange enough for me to find myself at a GZ I pass several times a week, but it must have been even stranger for the doggo, whose keen nose could
probably tell that we’d unexpectedly come by somewhere so familiar to her!
The coordinates were bang on and I soon had the cache in hand. Thanks for a lovely walk and the opportunity to explore on foot a place previously only familiar to me by car.
SL, TFTC!
Last month my pest of a dog destroyed my slippers, and it was more-disruptive to my life than I would have anticipated.
Look what you did, you troublemaker.
Sure, they were just a pair of slippers1, but they’d
become part of my routine, and their absence had an impact.
Routines are important, and that’s especially true when you work from home. After I first moved to Oxford and started doing entirely remote work for the first time, I found the transition challenging2.
To feel more “normal”, I introduced an artificial “commute” into my day: going out of my front door and walking around the block in the morning, and then doing the same thing in reverse
in the evening.
My original remote working office, circa 2010.
It turns out that in the 2020s my slippers had come to serve a similar purpose – “bookending” my day – as my artificial commute had over a decade earlier. I’d slip them on when I was at
my desk and working, and slide them off when my workday was done. With my “work” desk being literally the same space as my “not work” desk, the slippers were a psychological reminder of
which “mode” I was in. People talk about putting on “hats” as a metaphor for different roles and personas they hold, but for me… the distinction was literal footwear.
And so after a furry little monster (who for various reasons hadn’t had her customary walk yet that day and was probably feeling a little frustrated) destroyed my slippers… it actually
tripped me up3. I’d be doing
something work-related and my feet would go wandering, of their own accord, to try to find their comfortable slip-ons, and when they failed, my brain would be briefly tricked
into glancing down to look for them, momentarily breaking my flow. Or I’d be distracted by something non-work-related and fail to get back into the zone without the warm, toe-hugging
reminder of what I should be doing.
It wasn’t a huge impact. But it wasn’t nothing either.
The bleppy little beast hasn’t expressed an interest in my replacement slippers, yet. Probably because they’re still acquiring the smell of my feet, which I’m guessing is
what interested her in the first place.
So I got myself a new pair of slippers. They’re a different design, and I’m not so keen on the lack of an enclosed heel, but they solved the productivity and focus problem I was facing.
It’s strange how such a little thing can have such a big impact.
Oh! And d’ya know what? This is my hundredth blog post of the year so far! Coming on only the 73rd day of the year, this is my fastest run at
#100DaysToOffload yet (my previous best was last year, when I managed the same on 22 April). 73 is exactly a fifth of 365, so… I guess I’m on
track for a mammoth 500 posts this year? Which would be my second-busiest blogging year ever, after 2018. Let’s see how I get on…4
Footnotes
1 They were actually quite a nice pair of slippers. JTA got them for me as a gift a few years back, and they lived either on my feet or under my desk ever since.
2 I was working remotely for a company where everybody else was working
in-person. That kind of hybrid setup is a lot harder to do “right”, as many companies in this post-Covid-lockdowns age have discovered, and it’s understandable that I found it
somewhat isolating. I’m glad to say that the experience of working for my current employer – who are entirely distributed –
is much more-supportive.
3 Figuratively, not literally. Although I would probably have literally tripped
over had I tried to wear the tattered remains of my shredded slippers!
My partner Ruth is, by installments, attempting to walk the entire Thames Path. Today, I’m on transport support so I’ve driven ahead of her to
Culham Lock and the dog and I are walking back to meet her Abingdon Lock before we both come back down this way.
I mostly expect to target geocaches on my return journey, when I’ll also have a geokid with me, but this one basically leapt out at me as soon as I spotted the titular hiding place in
an otherwise empty GZ! So I swiped, signed, and returned it while the geopup checked out the local smells. TFTC!
Checked up on this cache while the dog and I were nearby. It’s in fine condition and ready to find. The latch for the container is beginning to rust, but the whole thing is perfectly
serviceable. Go find it!
A lunchtime dog walk was made especially delightful by the growing warmth of the approaching British springtime. It’s really bright and pretty out, this afternoon!
The geopup and I were out running some errands this damp afternoon and figured we’d take a walk near here. Spotting the cache on our radar we took a short diversion to find this cache,
which despite not having a visitor yet this year nor for the entirety of last year is in perfect condition. A quick and easy find as cars whooshed past us, then a muddy meander back
past the drainage works and on our way.
SL. TFTC, and a pity-FP awarded simply for being a well-maintained but
under-appreciated cache.
After claiming the FTF on the new cache to the North East, the geohound and I continued our walk with a wander through thy
woods, eventually finding ourselves near this gate. I’d nearly attempted this cache during a previous visit to these woods but IIRC was dragged right past it by impatient dogs,
children, or both. 😂
Today, though, it was a QEF for the doggo and I. Fun container and a good size too, FP awarded. TFTC!
Woke this morning slightly hungover and figured a nice walk with the geopup might help me feel better. And what an opportunity: a brand new cache only a short way from home!
Jumped in the car and zipped up to Church Hanborough, parking near the cemetery/allotments because the church bells were ringing and all the parking spots nearer to the centre of thy
village were occupied by churchgoers. Walked up the paths to the GZ and had sight of the cache’s shiny container before we were even there. Retrieval was quick and easy, but we had to
wait a while before we could return it to it’s hiding place because a large group of dog walkers (one of whom was holding court on how he was confident that Donald Trump would soon
“dismantle the Deep State” 🙄) were passing.
The geohound and I braved an explore of this litter-filled GZ but couldn’t spot a cache among the copious detritus before the whiny little thing started fighting to get back to the warm
of the car and to the rest of her “pack”. Maybe next time we pass by this way.
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