This checkin to GC8X86T Crawley to Minster Loop - #5 Mirach reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
A second find this morning for the boy, the geopup and I this morning. The hound was no use; she had her nose right up against the cache at one point and gave no indication whatsoever. I’m beginning to think she doesn’t understand geocaching at all! Signed “DQ” to save space. TFTC.
This checkin to GC8X86E Crawley to Minster Loop - #4 Gacrux reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Out for a dog walk with the younger child (and the dog, of course!). We’ve come to the nearby ruins many times before but never taken the time to do some caching here, until today. Needed the hint to guide us to the right host, after which it was an easy find, although the 7 y/o‘s little fingers had to work hard to extract the cache container from its (temporary?) hiding place! Log damp, but was able to sign “DQ”. TFTC.
This checkin to GC9EXXX Church Micro 14129...Sutton reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Cache removed and temporarily disabled. The council have just started installing new signage to advise of a new 20mph speed limit around here. 🎉
When they recently did the same in a nearby village, they removed a cache of this type as a (presumably accidental) side effect. I don’t know if this cache’s host is among those that’ll be affected but I suspect it will so I’ve temporarily removed this one as a precaution and I’ll reinstate it after the works are complete.
This checkin to GC2WTGE 8~ NUDDSY MEGA RAMBLE reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
A challenging and courageous scramble by the eldest (who turned 10 yesterday!) and I (who turned 43 today!) up the slippery wet leaves to reach the GZ. I stopped to double check the proximity and meanwhile the little one found it! Thanks for the enjoyable birthday scramble, and TFTC!
This checkin to GC2WTGN 9~NUDDSY MEGA RAMBLE reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
An extended search by three adults, two children, and a dog failed to find this cache. We found what we think might have once been its camouflage near the obvious hiding place at the GZ, but nothing else.
This checkin to GC5TF25 Mystic Abbey reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Out for a walk on my 43rd birthday, left the kids playing with their other parents in the (beautiful) ruins of the abbey or I hacked my way around to the GZ. Started searching at my evaluation of the target point and spiralled outwards, eventually finding the cache about 10m away (downhill and further from the abbey) after interpreting the hint. Good sized container in a great location, TFTC and greetings from Oxfordshire!
This post is part of my attempt at Bloganuary 2024. Today’s prompt is:
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
How do I play? Let me count the ways!
I’m involved in no fewer than three different RPG campaigns (DMing the one for The Levellers) right now, plus periodic one-shots. I love a good roleplaying game, especially one that puts character-building and storytelling above rules-lawyering and munchkinery, specifically because that kind of collaborative, imaginative experience feels more like the kind of thing we call “play” when done it’s done by children!
I don’t feel like I get remotely as much videogaming time as I used to, and in theory I’ve become more-selective about exactly what I spend my time on1.
Similarly, I don’t feel like I get as much time to grind through my oversized board games collection as I used to2, but that’s improving as the kids get older and can be roped-into a wider diversity of games3.
I love a good escape room, and I can’t wait until the kids are old enough for (more of) them too so I’ve an excuse to do more of them. When we’re not playing conventional escape rooms, Ruth and I can sometimes be found playing board game-style boxed “kit” ones (which have very variable quality, in my experience) and we’ve recently tried a little Escape Academy.
I’m sure everybody knows I do a modest amount of geocaching and geohashing.4
They’re not the only satnav-based activities I do at least partially “for fun” though! I contribute to OpenStreetMap, often through the “gamified” experience of the StreetComplete app, and I’m very slowly creeping up the leader board at OpenBenches. Are these “play”? Sure, maybe.
And all of the above is merely the structured kinds of play I engage in. Playing “let’s pretend”-style games with the kids (even when they make it really, really weird) adds a whole extra aspect. Also there’s the increasingly-rare murder mystery parties we sometimes hold: does that count as roleplaying, or some other kind of play?
Suffice to say, there’s plenty of play in my life, it’s quite varied and diverse, and there is, if anything, not enough of it!
1 I say that, and yet somehow Steam tells me that one of my most-played games this year was Starfield, which was… meh? Apparently compelling enough that I’ve “ascended” twice, but in hindsight I wish I hadn’t bothered.
2 Someday my group and I will finish Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 so we can get started on Season 0 which has sat unplayed on my shelves since I got it… oooh… two or three years ago‽
3 This Christmas, I got each of them their first “legacy” game: Zombie Kids for the younger one, My City for the elder. They both seem pretty good.
4 Geocaching is where you use military satellite networks to find lost tupperware. Geohashing uses the same technology but what you find is a whole lot of nothing. I don’t think I can explain why I find the latter more-compelling.
This checkin to GC2HDCZ Tom Burts Cache 4 reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Found while walking into High Wycombe to work after dropping my canine caching-companion (pictured) off at the nearby veterinary hospital for an operation. Didn’t need her help with this easy find, luckily! Shame about all the fly tipping littering this otherwise pleasant path. Greetings from Oxfordshire!
This checkin to GC54E29 WAG 16 - Elvendon Valley reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
The poor little geopup’s only got tiny legs, and the 8km we’ve walked so-far has got her pretty tired-out, so this’ll be the last cache of the series before we go and find ourselves some lunch and go home. It’s been a very enjoyable series so far, and I fully intend to return to complete it (and perhaps find some of those earlier caches that I failed to spot).
For this final cache of the morning (well, afternoon: barely!), I found the likely spot straightaway and picked up something that looked out of place. Nope, no sign of the cache though; that’s strange. It took a few seconds to realise that yes, the cache was hidden behind the thing I’d picked up… it was just also covered with leaf little and detritus. Soon had it retrieved in the end, though.
A huge number of butterflies flocked in the field to our right: it was quite impressive. I’ve snapped a picture showing just one, so that I can later look up what kind of butterfly it is!
This checkin to GC54E1W WAG 15 - Action! reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Sometimes the geo-sense “just works”. This was one of those moments. I was approaching the area and checking the distance. Then I walked straight to a likely location. Then I picked up the cache. Done and done.
This checkin to GC72TZ5 WAG 14 - Wander through Wroxhills reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Turning South and crossing our own path, the sun came out at last and we were bathed in glorious warm light. Between that, and the familiarity of the trail we passed, the geopup and I completely forgot for a moment that we were out to look for this next cache and overshot it: we had to turn back to get to the coordinates and find the cache. TFTC!
This checkin to GC54DR7 WAG 9 - Sausages & Bacon! reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Worra lorra porkers! The geopup is a huge fan of sausages but I don’t think she understood that the cornucopia she was looking at across the field was the same thing, just a few years off being ripe. Great cache container too. TFTC, and let’s chuck an FP in because this series as a whole has definitely earned another one in my mind by now…
This checkin to GC54DTF WAG 10 - Track-able reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
The geopup and I tried a couple of likely hiding places before we found this one. A nice-sized container and well-suited to its hiding place, here, TFTC!
This checkin to OK00F7 Pig City Vista reflects an opencache.uk log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Came by this location while doing the nearby WAG series. Was delighted to see that an OpenCache was on the route too so the geopup and I dedicated the time to a decent search. We think we found what was once the hiding place, but the cache itself was sadly nowhere to be seen.
This checkin to GC54DW0 WAG 11 - Panorama reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Between nearby GC7QC7R, which acts as a spur to this series, and OK00F7, which sits on (and predates) this series, I was feeling confident of a find here… but after an extended search the geopup and I had to admit defeat. To be honest, she was willing to give up and press on immediately, having seen a muddy puddle up ahead that she wanted to play about it, and her persistent lead-pulling in that direction might have reduced both my patience and the efficacy of my search! But we found a few things that might match the hint and didn’t see success, soo… 🤷♂️