Easy find while out on a dog walk. Not been out this side of the wood before! Might have struggled to find the GZ were it not for the
remnants of a “geo trail” through the dense undergrowth, which was thick enough that the pooch’s little legs couldn’t take her the last 5 metres and I had to press on alone. Soon,
though, the cache was in hand and I was able to return to my four-legged furry friend and continue on our way. TFTC!
I find myself in Cropredy but once a year, at most, and for the obvious reason. The festival atmosphere, not to mention the hordes of revellers, does not in general bode well for a
successful geocaching expedition! But I’ve persisted, mostly by virtue of being an early riser than most of the partygoers and inclined towards a swift morning constitutional (as mentioned here), and I’ve gradually picked off each of the local caches bar this one and a multi that’s somewhat incompatible with the festival.
This time last year I came very near to this GZ while hunting for GC9GK2V “Mr
Impossible”, but it was coming close to the time I anticipated that the kids would wake up and demand breakfast, so I turned around before reaching “Leslie”. This year I’ve pressed
directly on to this cache, thankful for the cool damp air through which my brisk walk took me compared to last year’s saunalike heat.
As others have noted, the cache container has seen better days but it’s still just about holding together (insert your own joke about aging folk rockers here). Regardless, a delightful
morning walk before a day of music. SL, TFTC.
I managed to log most of the local geocaches during last year’s Fairport by getting up early each morning (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7),
while the other revellers were still nursing their hangovers, but I wasn’t able to retrieve this muddle-laden one. This year I had better luck and the kids, dog and I soon had it in
hand. SL, TNLN, TFTC!
We’d intended to actually go to the Isle of Man, even turning up at Gatwick Airport six hours before our flight and working at Pret in order to optimally fit around our
workdays.
It’s (approximately) our 0x10th anniversary1,
and, struggling to find a mutually-convenient window in our complex work schedules, we’d opted to spend a few days exploring the Isle of Man. Everything was fine, until we were aboard
the ‘plane.
As the last few passengers were boarding, putting their bags into overhead lockers, and finding their seats, Ruth observed that out on the tarmac, bags were being removed
from the aircraft.
Once everybody was seated and ready to take off, the captain stood up at the front of the ‘plane and announced that it had been cancelled2.
The Isle of Man closes, he told us (we assume he just meant the airport) and while they’d be able to get us there before it did, there wouldn’t be sufficient air traffic
control crew to allow them to get back (to, presumably, the cabin crews’ homes in London).
To add insult to injury: even though the crew clearly knew that the ‘plane would be cancelled before everybody boarded, they waited until we were all aboard to tell us then
made us wait for the airport buses to come back to take us back to the terminal.
Back at the terminal we made our way through border control (showing my passport despite having not left the airport, never mind the country) and tried to arrange a rebooking,
only to be told that they could only manage to get us onto a flight that’d be leaving 48 hours later, most of the way through our mini-break, so instead we opted for a refund and gave
up.3
After dinner at the reliably-good Ye Old Six
Bells in Horley, down the road from Gatwick Airport, we grumpily made our way back home.
We resolved to try to do the same kinds of things that we’d hoped to do on the Isle of Man, but closer to home: some sightseeing, some walks, some spending-time-together. You know the
drill.
There’s evidence on the Isle of Man of Roman occupation from about the 1st century BCE through the 5th century CE, so we found a
local Roman villa and went for a look around.
A particular highlight of our trip to the North Leigh Roman Villa – one of those “on your doorstep so you never go” places – was when the audio tour advised us to beware of the snails
when crossing what was once the villa’s central courtyard.
At first we thought this was an attempt at humour, but it turns out that the Romans brought with them to parts of Britain a variety of large edible snail – helix pomatia –
which can still be found in concentration in parts of the country where they were widely farmed.4
Once you know you’re looking for them, these absolute unit gastropods are easy to spot.
There’s a nice little geocache near the ruin, too, which we were able to find on our way back.
Before you think that I didn’t get anything out of my pointless hours at the airport, though, it turns out I’d brought home a souvenier… a stinking cold! How about that for efficiency:
I got all the airport-germs, but none of the actual air travel. By mid-afternoon on Tuesday I was feeling pretty rotten, and it only got worse from then on.
I felt so awful on Wednesday that the most I was able to achieve was to lie on the sofa feeling sorry for myself, between sessions of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the
Kingdom.
I’m confident that Ruth didn’t mind too much that I spent Wednesday mostly curled up in a sad little ball, because it let her get on with applying to a couple of jobs she’s interested
in. Because it turns out there was a third level of disaster to this week: in addition to our ‘plane being cancelled and me getting sick, this week saw Ruth made redundant as her
employer sought to dig itself out of a financial hole. A hat trick of bad luck!
Sniffle. Ugh.
As Ruth began to show symptoms (less-awful than mine, thankfully) of whatever plague had befallen me, we bundled up in bed and made not one but two abortive attempts at watching a film
together:
Spin Me Round, which looked likely to be a simple comedy that wouldn’t require much effort
by my mucus-filled brain, but turned out to be… I’ve no idea what it was supposed to be. It’s not funny. It’s not dramatic. The characters are, for the most part, profoundly
uncompelling. There’s the beginnings of what looks like it was supposed to be a romantic angle but it mostly comes across as a creepy abuse of power. We watched about half and gave
up.
Ant-Man and the Wasp:
Quantumania, because we figured “how bad can a trashy MCU sequel be anyway; we know what to expect!” But we
couldn’t connect to it at all. Characters behave in completely unrealistic ways and the whole thing feels like it was produced by somebody who wanted to be making one of the
new Star Wars films, but with more CGI. We watched about half and gave up.
As Thursday drew on and the pain in my head and throat was replaced with an unrelenting cough, I decided I needed some fresh air.
The dog needed a walk, too, which is always a viable excuse to get out and about.
I find myself wondering if (despite three jabs and a previous infection) I’ve managed to contract covid again, but I haven’t found the inclination to take a test. What would I do differently if I do have it, now, anyway? I feel like we
might be past that point in our lives.
All in all, probably the worst anniversary celebration we’ve ever had, and hopefully the worst we’ll ever have. But a fringe benefit of a willingness to change bases is that we can
celebrate our 10th5 anniversary next year, too.
Here’s to that.
Footnotes
1 Because we’re that kind of nerds, we count our anniversaries in base 16
(0x10 is 16), or – sometimes – in whatever base is mathematically-pleasing and gives us a nice round number. It could be our 20th anniversary, if you prefer octal.
2 I’ve been on some disastrous aeroplane journeys before, including one just earlier this
year which was supposed to take me from Athens to Heathrow, got re-arranged to go to Gatwick, got
delayed, ran low on fuel, then instead had to fly to Stansted, wait on the tarmac for a couple of hours, then return to Gatwick (from which I travelled – via Heathrow –
home). But this attempt to get to the Isle of Man was somehow, perhaps, even worse.
3 Those who’ve noticed that we were flying EasyJet might rightly give a knowing nod at
this point.
4 The warning to take care not to tread on them is sound legal advice: this particular
variety of snail is protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981!
5 Next year will be our 10th anniversary… in base 17. Eww, what the hell is base 17 for
and why does it both offend and intrigue me so?
Found with Ruth after coming out to explore the spectacular Roman villa. We’d supposed to have been out of the Isle of Man celebrating our
anniversary, but our ‘plane got cancelled, so we’ve opted for staying at home and doing local cycling expeditions instead. SL, TFTC.
Well this was a challenge! The woods threw off my GPS, but I’d brought a backup device so I averaged between them and found a likely GZ.
The dog and I did an increasingly large spiral, checking all the obvious hiding spots, to no avail. Returning to our start point we began another pass, and something caught my eye! It
was the cache!
A few things had made it challenging:
I put the coordinates 13m from where the CO does. Could be the woods, but I’m not the first to say about this distance.
This cache is by no means a “regular”. It’s not even a “small”. It would fit inside a 35mm film canister, which in my mind makes it clearly a “micro”!
It wasn’t in the hiding place indicated by the hint! I found in on the ground, beneath leaf litter, with thanks to my energetic leaf-kicking geohound!
Signed log and returned cache to the nearest hiding spot that fits the hint, hopefully others will find it more easily than we did! TFTC from
Demmy the Dog and I!
Maintenance check while walking the dog. Cleared some overgrown plants, but watch out because the nearby nettles ate still a little fierce (cache can be retrieved without a sting
though!). Cache itself intact and healthy.
Found! Took a bit of a search, because I had looked at the hint image which shows several trees at the GZ that are no longer there, so I was left thinking I must be in the wrong place
for a while! TFTC, and greetings from Oxfordshire, UK!
What a great statue! Cache was very easy to find; despite its camo it was very visible as I walked along the adjacent path. Thanks for bringing me out of my way on my walk from my hotel
to the conference I’m attending, and TFTC. Greetings from Oxfordshire, UK!
Walking from my hotel to the site of a conference I’m attending, this morning, I stopped to find this cache. It took an embarrassingly
long time for me to spot this sneaky little container! Greetings from Oxford, UK, and TFTC!
Saw the notification when this cache appeared near my house, which would normally be the point at which a race was kicked off between me and Go Catch for the FTF, before he inevitably got there first!
But this time around I was overseas when the listing went live and only found time to cycle out here from Stanton Harcourt this evening, after work. I’d visited the church here once
before in service of the nearby multi, but it was nice to see a different side of it as well as an excellent hiding place.
The first wayoint is right across the road from where some work colleagues and I are staying for an “away week”. I decided to dash out during a break in the weather to try and solve
this multi between meetings. But I was quickly confused because… this isn’t the way I was taught to do Roman numerals. I’d always been told that you should never have four of the same
letter in a row, e.g. you should say XIV, not XIIII. Once I’d worked out what I was doing wrong, though, I was okay!
The second and third waypoints had me braving some frankly scary roads. The drivers here just don’t seem to stop unless you’re super assertive when you step out!
Once I had the final numbers and ran it through geochecker I realised that the cache must be very close to where I’d had lunch earlier today! Once I got there it took me a while to get
to the right floor, after which the hint made things pretty obvious.
Great trail, really loved it. And just barely made it back before the rain really started hammering down. TFTC, FP awarded, and greetings from Oxford, UK!
Easy find while out for a ride, breaking in my new bike. Great ride, aside from the mayflies, which I must’ve ingested about a million of! As others have observed, the logbook has
soaked to the point of disintegration and could do with replacement. Thanks though for a cache I’ve probably driven, walked out cycled past a hundred times before actually stopping to
find it.
