Dan Q

Tag: dogs

Dan Q found GC3PP3Q LOL #2 – Swimming

This checkin to GC3PP3Q LOL #2 – Swimming reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

Second time lucky! As the pup and I approached the GZ we found a strange handwritten note on the ground, and, having not seen it on the way up, figured that it must belong to a woman we’d passed a little while ago. So we doubled back and returned it to her – turns out it was her shopping list – and chatted about the beautiful bluebells (which is what she’d come out to see) before parting ways and returning to this cache.

At long last, finally uninterrupted, it was a pretty easy find in just the second place I looked. TFTC!

(And with that, we should get back home so this pupper can have a nap! Hopefully we can return and do the rest of the series sometime soon!)

Dan Q wrote note for GCB4774 LOL #5 – Shooting (revived)

This checkin to GCB4774 LOL #5 – Shooting (revived) reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

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!)

Dan Q found GC3PP1Z LOL #1 – Athletics

This checkin to GC3PP1Z LOL #1 - Athletics reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

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.

A champagne-coloured French Bulldog wearing a harness at the end of a read lead trots happily along a dirt path.

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Istanbul decompression

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!

Dan, a red leash hung across his shoulders, gives a half-shrug as he smiles for a selfie on a grassy trail between a hedgerow and a field. Behind him, near a weathered old-fashioned footpath sign, his French Bulldog looks at him expectantly.

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Dog Tired

Woke up. Had a walk. Now it must be time for a well-earned nap. 💤

A sleepy-looking French Bulldog, wearing a harness, lying on her side in a dog basket with her eyes mostly-closed and her tongue mostly-in-her-mouth.

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Dan Q found GCAP4MF Church Micro 15127…Curbridge

This checkin to GCAP4MF Church Micro 15127...Curbridge reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

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.

Dan and his dog sit on a bench outside a churchyard.

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!

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Work Slippers

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Last month my pest of a dog destroyed my slippers, and it was more-disruptive to my life than I would have anticipated.

A French Bulldog looks-on guiltily at a hand holding the remains of a pair of slippers that have been thoroughly shredded.
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.

A mixture of flatscreen and CRT monitors, plus a laptop and a webcam, on a desk. The laptop screen shots a view of an office at the "other end" of a webcam connection.
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.

A pair of brown slippers, being worn, in front of a French bulldog asleep in her basket, her tongue sticking out.
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!

4 Back when I did the Blog Questions Challenge I looked at my trajectory and estimated I wouldn’t hit a hundred this year until a week later than now, so maybe I’m… accelerating?

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Dan Q found GC3KQK8 RRR11 Pillow talk!

This checkin to GC3KQK8 RRR11 Pillow talk! reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

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!

Dan Q wrote note for GC9EXX4 Friar’s Farm – Bisected Byway

This checkin to GC9EXX4 Friar's Farm - Bisected Byway reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

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 French Bulldog at the end of a red lead, near a kissing gate in a hedgrerow.
The dog helped check up on the cache.
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Goodbye, Slippers

Yesterday, owing to some plot, the dog didn’t get as much outside/walk/play time as she’d like.

Today, she let me know how she felt about that by shredding my slippers. 🙄

A partially-shredded slipper is held in a hand, in front of a French Bulldog, on the wooden floors of the hallway of a house.

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Spring is coming

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!

A French Bulldog in a harness but no lead stands in front of a empty field, under bright blue skies with sparse clouds. Bare wintery trees can be seen in the background, bathed in warm yellow light.

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Dan Q found GC2F23P A Road Anarchy – A40 Eastbound to Oxford

This checkin to GC2F23P A Road Anarchy - A40 Eastbound to Oxford reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

No logs here since… 2023!? Mindboggling.

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.

Dan with his dog on a muddy footpath.

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