Finally managed to drag the kids out into the rain to find another geocache. We managed it but the iPhone ran out of juice before we could take a picture, & it turns out that Windows 7 doesn’t like the GPS. Such is life.

So a sneaky trip back to ‘On the Nutbrook Trail’ & guess what? Martha finds the cache.

She’s very pleased, takes the golf ball (apparently she collects them) and we leave a wobbly pencil in return.

See title.

I’ve had daughter no. 2 with me on the last couple of failures to find a ‘treasure’, so if I’m not careful she’ll be very reluctant to come with me next time I suggest we go looking  for one. Today I sneaked out for a couple of hours with the new GPS & found ‘On The Nutbrook Trail‘, which we singularly failed to do last week. It was pretty much where we were before, but with the new confidence afforded by superior technology (!) I took a step back & looked for something ‘not quite right’. And there it was, at the base of a tree – a pile of sticks that weren’t just thrown there but parallel. Concealing what looked like a small ammo box obviously put there by someone who took this seriously. It was very satisfying. Inside was an A4 sheet explaining what it was there for, a log book to sign and assorted odds & sods left by others – marbles, games, calling cards – a bit like a soggy Christmas cracker. I signed the log book & put it back exactly where I found it. No photos this time, but in a couple of weeks I can take the girls and let them experience a success.

Oh, the joys of parenting.

I don’t want to stereotype people, but the hoodies did look a bit suspicious. I could live with them setting fire to the bushes, maybe they were cold, but flicking up their hoods and skulking off when they saw us was a bit much. It didn’t seem reasonable to pass on by without doing something, so I watched the fire for a bit hoping it would go away until it got a bit scary. The decision came down to balancing two risks – go home and hope all’s well but feel very guilty when the blazing woods make the six o’clock news, or call out the fire brigade (‘Trumpton’ in Casualty parlance, always makes me smile) and feel a bit of a dick when there’s nothing for them to do. Common sense prevailed so I made the call and was a bit stumped when the man said ‘Where are you?’  My feeble response was ‘In the woods’, but ultimately I got the ‘appliance’ (his word, not mine) to where it needed to be and I trekked three of them to the scene of the crime, or more accurately a pathetic pile of burnt out embers.

They were very nice to me, explaining how they’d had to put the woods out a couple of times and that in the Summer it would be a different story. They even avoided cliches like ‘better safe than sorry’, but sadly I did indeed feel a bit of a dick. One of them got his size twelves to work and that was that, but I did get the evidence that something had been amiss …

I can’t tell you where, but I came across a link to ‘geocaching‘ and followed it. I’ve heard of it but have never been sure what it was, but now I know. And you will too if you follow the link – basically it involves getting yourself to particular GPS coordinates  and finding something left there by other people that do this sort of thing.

Initially I thought it would necessitate buying more toys, I’d be needing a portable GPS device after all, but it turns out that my trusty iPhone will be quite sufficient. For the moment. I’ve lashed out £5.99 on the requisite app, which is about £5.20 more that I’ve spent on any others so it had better be good.

Surprisingly there are four caches within two miles of me, and it seems like a neat way to get the kids out & away from their various electronic temptations. Maybe on future boat excursions we can check for nearby caches and hunt them down.

And I can’t be alone in this, someone’s already produced a WordPress widget that hooks into the ‘official’ geocaching site and displays your stats (how many hidden, how many found) in the sidebar. See left.

I hope it lasts longer than running.