openbenches – Dan Q

Geohashing expedition 2026-09-13 51 -1

This checkin to geohash 2026-09-13 51 -1 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

Nature reserve near Woodstock, Oxfordshire. It’s unclear from the maps whether the hashpoint will be accessible.

Participants

Dan Q

Plans

I woke early after a series of nightmares about having to move house yet again (I’ve done that a lot, this year, on account of the flood that rendered my house uninhabitable in February), except this time the house we moved into was occupied by some kind of bear-like monster that chased me around the place.

Anyway: having woken up I decided to take the dog out for a walk, and I noticed that the hashpoint up here in Woodstock might be accessible. The maps show it as being not in the nature reserve but in what could be the gardens of the nearby houses, so this might all come to naught.

Expedition

The dog and I parked at Union Street Car Park and set out on our walk. I’d originally anticipated entering the nature reserve via a footpath marked from Brook Hill, but when we got there I discovered a “danger – no entry” sign. I decided to ignore it – it was probably there back from when this valley flooded, and wasn’t relevant any more. Tempting fate, I moved to walk past it, snapping a photo of the sign on the way.

Blurry photograph of a French Bulldog running away from the foot of a signpost, on a grassy trail. — This is all I managed to capture of the sign, though, because something distracted me…

That’s when I noticed the wasps. Lots of them, buzzing around a nearby tree. Probably their nest was nearby and they were coming over to investigate me and decide whether or not I was a threat (I don’t think they were the reason for the danger sign!). In any case, this is where the next problem began: I have a hole in the crotch of the trousers I’m wearing.

It turns out that a wasp had managed to fly up inside the groin area of my trousers and I didn’t notice until… it got partially-squished between the sensitive parts on the inside of my inner thigh… and the even-more-sensitive parts next to them! I became aware of a sharp stinging sensation, and then another, and it quickly became a burning sensation as I swatted at my legs to try to liberate, or else kill, the monster. Meanwhile, all of the wasp’s friends were now heading my way, providing reinforcements for their companion.

So I ran.

A fawn-coloured French Bulldog trots along a damp forest path. — The doggo had a great time and couldn’t tell what I was complaining about.

The dog and I had to sprint deep into the woods before we were sure that none of the little bastards were still following us. I’d been working on adrenaline (and the dog had been working on her general desire to run around and be crazy), and hadn’t noticed until I was able to slow down quite how unpleasant my sore and swollen parts were as they rubbed against one another. Ugh.

Dan, a white man with a goatee beard, grimaces as he holds his crotch, alongside a French Bulldog on a woodland footpath. — Do not recommend.

We regrouped by a stream and found our bearings. We’d come some way from our intended course, but I plotted a series of paths that would take us close, and the pupper and I bravely pressed on.

A fawn-coloured French Bulldog drinks from a stream. — Refilling the tanks.

Soon we were close to the hashpoint and I observed to my delight that it lay in what seemed to be a no-mans-land; a deeply-overgrown patch between the nature reserve and the nearby housing estate. The undergrowth would be too much for the doggo’s little legs, so I left her behind and pushed on alone for the final hundred metres, stomping through swampy conditions and brambles as I approached the coordinates.

Thick undergrowth in dense woodland. — The hashpoint is somewhere near the centre of this image, next to a tree.

After some stomping around, Geohashdroid was able to draw a small circle of uncertainty within which the hashpoint clearly lay.

Dan stomps through thick undergrowth, a dog's lead hanging around his shoulders. — I can’t manage a silly grin. Will a silly grimace do?

I hacked my way back to the dog (who was happily living her best life, pretending to be a wild wolf, living in the forest) and we made our way home via an attempt at a nearby geocache and checking and updating some OpenBenches data.

A success, but not one without a significant amount of pain. I can’t believe I’m saying this but: from personal experience, I do not recommend using your genitals to crush wasps.

Tracklog

My primary GPSr’s been missing since… my house flood, I think. But I was able to use the fitness tracker in my watch for a decent GPS tracklog.

Four OpenBenches

Despite Google making it harder for me to do so 🤬, I managed to add not one, not two, not three but four new memorial benches to the OpenBenches database during a dog walk this morning.

A particular excitement was adding my first bench with two plaques.

It’s the little things.

Dan Q found GCAWR04 Take an Allotment Break

This checkin to GCAWR04 Take an Allotment Break reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

The family and I are staying in Lyneham for a couple of weeks following the flooding of our house (on the other side of Witney). This morning the younger geokid, the geopup, and I came out for a walk to find this geocache as well as to explore Milton-under-Wychwood and tag some of the memorial benches for OpenBenches (1, 2, 3, 4).

We sat near the cache and the geokid immediately found it. Looks like we’re the second signatories of the New Year: somebody beat us to it on 5 Feb! TFTC.

OpenBenches reaches Tenerife

Since 2018 I’ve been a fan of OpenBenches, a community-driven effort to catalogue memorial benches. Co-creator Terence Eden just wrote a blog post about the cost of running the service, which was pretty-much in the region of what I expected but (as an on-again, off-again financial backer, depending on my own financial health!) I appreciated the transparency anyway!

The news came at about the same time as I logged the first bench of the Canary Islands while I was waiting (in vain) to log an obstructed geocache during my recent trip to Tenerife.

On a tiled patio, a wooden bench stands, bearing a plaque that reads: THIS MEMORIAL GARDEN IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE AIR DISASTER IN TENERIFE ON 25TH APRIL 1980. — This bench – and the garden it stands in – is a memorial to the victims of the Dan-Air Flight 1008 disaster.

OpenBenches’ dataset is still very UK-centric. I like that I’ve helped broaden its borders! (I’m currently the 83rd-from-top photo contributor, apparently.)

If you’re not already helping collect benches, you should give it a look. You can install the site to your mobile device as a progressive web app and start snapping benches.

Note #26287

While adding an entry to OpenBenches (openbenches.org/bench/36677), I was struck by how much of an impact this woman – Jane Gregg – must have made on her local community.

In this community garden in Bampton, in the Lake District, a bench dedicated to her includes not only a plaque summarising her achievements but it’s also been hand-carved with the words “Jane an amazing human.”

Geohashing expedition 2024-05-09 51 -1

This checkin to geohash 2024-05-09 51 -1 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

Between Standlake Allotments and the Horns Way footpath.

Participants

Dan Q and his dog

Plans

I originally though I’d cycle out here in the evening and see if I could reach the hashpoint, but with the weather so delightful (and the dog clamouring for a walk) I opted to adapt my lunchtime plans to go to Standlake Post Office (rather than the only-slightly-closer Eynsham Post Office) to post a parcel and take the dog for a walk… and check out the hashpoint at the same time!

Expedition

Success! The dog and I parked near the Post Office, and tired firstd walking through the allotments, but they don’t go as far back as I thought they might and we couldn’t really get close to the hashpoint. So we doubled back, with the anticipation of going via the churchyard, when I spotted a convenient footpath sign (for a footpath not marked on my map), so we followed that. Conveniently it turned out to be a shortcut to Horns Way, the alternative route I’d considered to try to get close to the hashpoint. Travelling along it, we found an (also not on the map) back gate into the allotments: we could’ve just come this way, after all! We’d later use this route to get back home.

Approaching the hashpoint, we needed to push through a thicket of trees and jump a ditch, but this delivered us into a delightful meadow. We reached the hashpoint at 13:44, took the requisite silly photo, and set off back. On returning to the footpath (by a decidedly inferior route) we discovered a bench (with a dedication on it) that also wasn’t listed on OpenStreetMap nor on OpenBenches. I took a photo and pushed it to OpenBenches. There should be an achievement for that.

I added the missing footpaths, gate, and bench to OpenStreetMap and we set off back to the Post Office, delivered the parcel, then returned home.

Tracklog

My GPSr kept a tracklog.

Photos

Sunny allotments. — Hard to find a way out of the allotments.

Verdant meadow. — Made it into the meadow!

GPS receiver showing 0 metres. — Success!

Dan squints into the sunlight in a grassy field, alongside a dog. — Pretty silly pup.

Memorial bench with inscription "In loving memory of Bill Mitchell 1934-2021" — A new addition to OpenBenches!

[Bloganuary] Playtime

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!

RPGs

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!

Videogames

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.

Dan with his thumbs-up in front of the high-score table (with the top-ranking spot about to be filled) of Wonder Boy, on a generic "80s Arcade Classics" arcade cabinet. — I managed to beat *Wonder Boy* last week, and it “only” took me three and a half decades!

Board Games

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.

A girl, sat in front of an Agricola farmyard board, holds up a "sheeple" (small wooden sheep game piece) for the camera. — Our youngest wakes early on weekend mornings and asks to kick off his day with board games. Our eldest, pictured, has grown to the point where she’s working her way through all of the animal-themed games at our local board games cafe.

Escape Rooms

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.

GNSS Activities

I’m sure everybody knows I do a modest amount of geocaching and geohashing.⁴

Dan, outdoors in a field on a grey day and with the wind whipping his hair across his face, wearing a high-vis jacket over a warm fleece, holds up a GPS receiver which shows he's zero metres from his destination. — I’m out standing in my field.

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?

Guests dressed as a chef, a priest, and a librarian sit around a dining table at a murder mystery party. — A chef, a priest, and a librarian walk into a party… stop me if you’ve heard this one.

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!

Footnotes

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.

Note #10536

Just discovered @openbenches (openbenches.org), which tags the locations of benches with memorial plaques. If I could #indieweb webmention my checkins to them, I’d totally promote a new GPS game based upon them. #indieweb #indiewebcamp