Home Sweet Home

What every parent loves....

 Saturday May 22nd 2010

Wow....now that is hot. I am beginning to think that the devil himself has come up from hell for the day and camped out in the National Forest as it is hotter than hot. The UK just doesn't do hot weather, we get 2/3 days a year like today...and thats a good year...but boy when we do you have to make the most of it. Bikinis come out, flesh is shown....and thats just Mr Shiltonpig. Its so hot today we think the Sahara desert must be getting jealous....anyway down to business, during the course of the last week 12 new caches appeared close to our home which

Errrggghhh...look at those legs

 means that with the cost of petrol rising to stupid levels, it was more sensible to do some locals caches. We started in Albert Village, which is as previously mentioned named after Prince Albert, you remember the guy married to Queen Vic. More important than that...its Joshs fav playground area as they have plenty of slides...Josh is always the kind of kid that prefers the grown up slide to the little toddler slide....he climbs up them and jumps down them. He has no fear. We started the caching walk which is known as the conkers trail, but perhaps today we will name it the bonkers trail, as we must have been bonkers to go walking 5 miles in this heat.

Mrs Shiltonpig is so tired...

 Starting off at Suicide lake, we then walk down to a woodland area known as Dianas memorial. It seems everything has a royal connection around here....and when team Shiltonpig take the throne (read the small print in the new coalition governments policies) we will have a wood named after us as well! This woodland then becomes another wood but this time its proper woodlands, not the tree sapling variety that the National Forest is famous for lol. When Josh has grand children the trees should just be about ready to be called a forest lol After sorting out two birds having a fight on the path in front of us (bit like closing time down

"Evil Knieval" Josh

 in Swadlincote) we carried on past a quarry. Not sure exactly what they are quarrying for, but it must be important as they haven't stopped digging yet. We then come across a railway station that we didn't know about, its Moira West...a freight railway station...which doesn't seem to want to have any trains on its railway line. Onwards we head to that local landmark...Conkers. It seems that Conkers is the heart of Geocaching, we now have more caches here than anywhere else on the planet....this is a fact...honest....would we lie to you, our 1 true dear caring reader??? Tragedy happened next, we got lost....and ended up missing one of the caches off.

Proud sponser of the Conkers Trail

We would like to apologise to all our readers for having to view a photo in this blog, you are able to see Mr Shiltonpigs naked legs, we know this isn't a pretty site and hope that you weren't eating when you were reading. All legal claims can be sent to our legal dept....Mr Cameron, 10 Downing Street. We must have walked forever on this caching trip....so much so that Mr Shiltonpig got 2 blisters on his 2 little pinky toes....ouch. The round trip took us back to the other side of suicide lake and back towards home....the only thing more sad than the end of this trip was the final episode of Ashes to Ashes shown last night. Goodbye Gene Hunt...we will miss you.

The Lazy Cow!

Josh walks the plank

 Sunday May 16th 2010

Now before I get into trouble with our readers for the title of the blog, I am not talking about anyone in particular. Rather we are talking about the name of a cache in the small area of Lincolnshire. This area of the country has seen its fair share of battles....and we are not just talking about Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig trying to get Josh to have his nappy changed. This area has been having settlement after settlement for 1000s of years. In fact some clever person discovered this. not far from where this photo was taken.

Giddy up cowboys...

These days it is much safer to walk down here....well actually I lie as its a long long cycle path with friendly cyclists tooting their horns as they ride on by. The first cache takes you to a long wooden plank known by the cache owner as the wooden snake. Josh loved it...he kept on walking up and own it as if he was on his very own cat walk. Perhaps when he is older Milan and Paris offer him a chance to truly strut his stuff for the world, in the meantime he will have to make do with the readers of this blog.....did I say readers? sorry I meant reader....

Mobiles banned

 The next cache took us to some cows and when I say cows I mean some cows that have been so lazy they have started to rust. What on earth was some artist doing and sculpting two large iron cows next to the waterfront....well whatever he (or she) was doing meant that we could have some fun climbing all over them and pretending that we were some kind of John Wayne type people. If you don't know who John Wayne was then you make us feel very old....and we suggest that you go and look it up on wikipedia and then come back to read the rest of this blog, but with your head firmly between your legs in shame. After a lovely walk along the waterfront it was time to head home....but whats that Ihear you cry...surely you cant head home when its only 10.30 am in the morning? you want us to do some more crazy things...well just for you we did that. I may have mentioned that Lincolnshire has the biggest bends in

Cant even go to the toilet without being bothered

the country but the drive from Fiskerton to Tattershall Castle is surely one that made even Mr Shiltonpig sick. Now if you would like to know more about the castle we suggest you go and visit!!! However we apprecaite that Lincolnshire might as well be in another country so we will post this amazing link instead. Now its fair to say that whenever we go to a National Trust property Josh plays up. Everyone elses kids are perfect and sitting in a corner asking their mom and dad when are they going to see another piece of antique furniture...and our Josh goes and cries the entire 6 floors of the castle, and no matter what

World war 2?

we try and do we just can't seem to stop. It was tempting at the top of the castle...very tempting....but in case social services are reading you will be glad to know that Josh is alive and well. Oh and next door to the castle is the battle of Britain memorial flights, and trust me when one flew over the castle, it really did feel like you were in 1942 in Berlin all over again. I have a secret to tell you to finish todays blog, I forgot to print off the cache details for Tattershall and so we didn't do any in the village....will you forgive us for such terrible crimes? perhaps its best we go to the dungeon and get punished....now wheres a castle when you want one...

Little Quest - Lincolnshire

Josh points to the ducks

 Sunday May 16th 2010

So team Shiltonpig rolled into Lincolnshire county on their 6th leg of a 48 leg little quest. Lincolnshire was not ready for us...well Josh anyway. So what do you think of when you think of Lincolnshire....for me I think of lots of flat land...and lincolnshire sausages....shudders at the remembrance of an undercooked sausage yesterday morning. (Were just glad that Lincolnshire keeps their sausages to themselves). Well this cache adventure took us to a village called Fiskerton. Fiskerton is unusual in the fact that it has a river and 2 canals running alongside

Josh points to the sheep

 it, making it for an rather unusual place. Apparently there are lots of kingfishers here....we only saw the fisher variety...you know the ones, lonely creatures that sit in green macks whatever the weather in the hope they will catch a fish. We arrived at ridiculous o'clock in the morning...yes thats right having a Josh is fatal to your sleeping habits. We were fortunate that we could drive close to the cache, any closer and we would have been in the river! Now the cache takes you to a green and white bridge. This bridge is just a normal run of the mill bridge, albeit it with a lot more green paint on it than others.

Mr Shiltonpig takes one for the team

What was strange is that you would think a bridge would not have too many places to hide a cache, but this was the hardest Little Quest so far for us. It got to the point where we thought we were not going to find it. But Mrs Shiltonpig came to the rescue and calmed down a rather stressed Mr Shiltonpig who had become like a coal miner burrowing into every little corner on the bridge. He had wished that he was the size of Josh who was the perfect height for getting into the nooks and crannies. Can someone please tell us what a cranny is please....with a cherry on????

Wave at us please....

 After the huge relief to find the cache and note down the co-ordinates...we are prepared to sell these co-ordinates for say 1 billion pounds...which at todays exchange rate is now worth 1 rupee. We then admired the view, trying capture your county in one cache is no easy task, and the cache owner bears the stress and pressure of hiding it. This cache however was worthy of a little quest in our humble opinion. You can see for miles in this flat area of the country, we have already mentioned you can see three waterworks (no we are not talking about a bladder!)

Plus it has the added benefit of having the amazing and imposing Lincoln Cathedral in the skyline that must be over 10 miles away and yet still manages to dominate the landscape. The photos may not do the place justice, but this was one of a favourite little quest caches so far and well worth a visit in its own right. If you would like to know more about Fiskerton click on my little linky poo. So far we have knocked up 384 miles on our Little Quest journeys so far. It is with a heavy heart and an empty belly that we leave Lincolnshire. We will be back.....oh yes we will be back!

Balloon flashmob.

Josh looks thrilled

 Saturday May 15th 2010

Flashmob. Initially it sounds something rather rude....perhaps it gives you the idea of a group of people who pull down their pants and knickers? Or perhaps thats just my weird imagination lol. A flashmob is a group of people who arrange to attend somewhere all the same time doing something silly and the disappear as quickly as you arrived. We had come to Lincoln to be in such a flashmob. It was a balloon bashing event, near the castle and the cathedral. We arrived about 30 minutes early, and started blowing up balloons and putting them on

Balloon bashing commence

 Joshs pushchair. About 15 minutes later a couple carrying a massive balloon came and sat at the bench next to us. A few minutes later another family appeared on the other bench next to us. Slowly all aorund the square people starting appearing with concealed balloons....lets face it, its pretty hard to conceal a balloon. All of a sudden the cathedral bells starting its normal chime telling us it was 6pm. A whistle blew, and between 30-40 people converged on Lincolns main square bashing each other with balloons. Not since they hanged people in this square has there been so much violence lol.

Tigger and Piglet arrive in Lincoln

 Now you would have thought that the kids would have been enjoying it...and they were, but the real people who were enjoying it were the grown men. I have to admit even this Mr Shiltonpig couldn't help grinning at the site of so many people doing something so silly and random. Josh wasn't having any of it at all, he wasn't even paying attention to it all. That is until he saw the Piglet and Tigger balloons and then he went crazy. We were served some "dinner" which was some chocs and smarties....Josh seemed a little more interested in this. The people who were not involved were looking on in pure bewilderment and who could

Group photo in main square

 blame them. Its not often that you get to see this kind of thing. We all placed a calling card in a tin and one was pulled out of the hat, to which someone won a geocoin. Sadly it wasn't us...never mind. The whole event only lasts 15 minutes and so there was just enough time to get a group photo in and sure enough just as the last one was taken it turned 6.15pm, a whistle was blown and the 30-40 or so people disappeared in different directions bursting balloons as they went. It was team Shiltonpigs 1st falshmob and based on this one, it won't be our last. There are so many things in life which are so serious and was just nice to do

Are you looking at me?

something just absolutely stupid. Couldn't stop laughing all the way back to the car park. Who said geocaching was boring? It was also our 1st event cache which means a new icon for us as well. So this ends our day in Lincoln and one the way back to the car we spotted a face on a wall....pretty cool if we say so ourselves. This was one of many flashmobs occuring all over the world this weekend...we hope they had as much fun as we did. Oh and there is a video of the event done by the Panteras which can be found here.

The Imp!

"The Imps??"

 Saturday May 15th 2010

The Imp is the symbol of Lincoln. Imps are supposed to be little creatures who come down to do the work of satan himself. The story goes that two imps went to Lincoln, one started smashing tables and chairs up and even tripped a bishop up. An angel showed up and turned one of them into stone and you can see the Imp in the cathedral. Well we can't say we saw our creatures of Satan today...but I did look rough when I saw myself in the mirror. Mr Shiltonpig last came to Lincoln in 1991 when he was kne high to a grasshopper...well actually he was pretty tall even back then. However for some reason he cannot remember the cathedral. This is pretty shocking as the cathedral is surely one of the best in Europe....and trust us, we have seen a fair few of them. The cache is near the cathedral in a wall...but boy could we not find this thing...how many holes can one wall have?? Eventually after kneeling down (many must have thought we were

Simple things....please simple minds...

 praying) we found it and that was it. Lincoln is a pretty old city....even the Romans were here, they were looking for the nearest Pizza Hut. We couldn't find one either. One of the better caches of the day took us around a places and plaques where famous Lincolnshire people had been born. I'm sure one day there will be a plaque to celebrate where team Shiltonpig were born. It appears that a famous poet was born here such as the great man "Tennyson. However team Shiltonpig much prefer the poems that start "There was a young man from Peru"...much more at our level. Lol The cache however took us up and

Dr Shiltonpig I presume?

 around the whole of medieval Lincoln. Wow talk about hills in the centre...we have yet to find a hillier (is that even a word) city centre...plus you try pushing up a pushchair up a hill with a well fed Josh in it. An experience that we had to repeat many times today in search of some elusive caches. One took us to Joseph Banks conservatory the guy that made some voyages to Australia. Our journey just took us to a pretty little place called "The Lawn". The worst cache of the day was found on the outskirts of the city. It was well hidden and when Mr Shiltonpig opened it to sign the logbook, he found that someone had

House on a canal

 filled it with wee. And Mr Shiltonpig got it all over him...what a great feeling! And what a loser the man that had ever did that...Our journey took us to the Brayford Pool which is a natural lake used by the Romans and has the oldest working canal in the country dating back to before McDonalds arrived on these shores. (Foss Dyke). There is now a series of caches by this area alongside the restaurants and shopping centres. Lincoln is a great city and we really have enjoyed the few days here...but there is so much potential for caches in the area. The two remaining photos do not have a cache here and deserve one, in our humble opinion.

Do you know the way to Holland?

After completing an earth cache, which meant walking the length of the Brayford Pool, we made our to the west side of the city and did a couple of caches. We saw a large hedge in the shape of a pig and a cat. Pretty cool. And then on the way to the final cache of the day we came across Ellis windmill which is still in working order. Its only open 6 hours a week, and we amazingly found it open. And near closing time it was full...when I say full 5 other people were there, who were hogging the tour guides attention. Shame we needed some flour to make Joshs tea....oh well he would have to go hungry. There were so many little places in Lincoln that we took photos of...but this blog is only showing 5 of them. What a great place to spend some time...so small jungles, cathedrals with demons in, working mills and wee caches, all in the space of a few hours. Just another normal day in team Shiltonpigs life!

Lincolnshire Villages - Cache and Dash

Two rascals peeping through

Friday May 14th 2010

Thank goodness for Travelodge...in a world where the price of everything is going up, they seem to be the only thing where the price is going down. This is good news for team Shiltonpig as they embark on another crazy weekend away...this time to the city of Lincoln. Today after a very quick drive to Lincoln, we arrive ready for some serious caching. There were 2 main series that we attempted today...the first was a very small section of the UKs largest cache series....200 caches across 193 miles from Skegness to Ness. Wow that would be some

Can you spot team Shiltonpig?

serious eat into some petrol, but not to worrry for us, we were only to do 5. We however were going to tackle a series called "Lincolnshire Villages", these are best done as a drive series, taking you around some of the most bendy roads you will ever come across when not on a F1 circuit. Try doing 60 mph on one of these roads and you will soon find yourself calling the AA. Its very flat around here, and lots and lots of rural countryside and farms for miles around. Some of the caches we spotted without even leaving the car (don't worry we did sign the logbook). Some however were clever little hides meaning we had to look and look all around.

Scrambled,poached or fried?

One of the great things we found near the first couple of caches was a birds nest full of 12 eggs, whats strange is that we have been unable to identify what they are....we will keep looking. In addition we saw 2 Hares leaping around a nearby field. Something which is pretty rare, these days for us people that live in what is known as urban developments. We have never really done this type of caching before, as we usually are getting our arms and hands scratched in thorns out walking the fields, and was nice to try something different. Josh was having a mixed day today, he has a few little snuffles but by the end of the day was getting a little bit of

Don't drink and drive!

cabin fever. The usual happened halfway through the caches, Josh needed the toilet and so did a few others in the team. But hey you don't read this blog to here about our toilet habits? (or do you????) We won't tell you what happened...we will leave it up to our readers very vivid imagination. 20 caches later and we finsihed off the series....we had collected 10 numbers along the way and we were soon on our way to the bonus cache. A very cleverly hidden bonus cache which had taken us to almost every village in Lincolnshire....all we needed was a farmer chewing hay in a field and it would have finished

Team Shilton"pig"

off the day. However we had one final surprise as we came across a field with pigs in....and they had rings in their noses...what next pigs in space? Josh loves pigs and will happily snort till the cows come home....and when they come home he will moo as well. We enjoyed the day...very unusual not to have to walk for a change. However we finished the day finding the most amount of caches in a day we have ever done.....plus we crossed over the 400 mark as well. So there was only one way we could celebrate...off to the pub for some gammon...sorry pigs!!

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

"The Lion"

May 12th 2010

Now those of you hoping for a re-imagining of CS Lewis's classic tale will be sorely disappointed, but there again I can't imagine you come and read this blog for its literary content can I? lol. But our journey will give you a lion, a witch and a wardrobe. So today it was the turn of Dunstall to look after us for the day. It is a standing joke in the village that when you are invited to the "White Lion" you think you are going to a pub, but it turns out to be (rather disappointingly if you wanted a beer) a water fountain for the Queens jubilee. Now we know that

"The witch" Boy I'm going to get into trouble for this one!

Queen Elizabeth 2 is old, but we didn't know she had been around since 1887? Bit of an odd menmorial, as its just broken bits of rock and bricks put together...couldn't the queen afford a little bit better? Perhaps its this recession everyone is talking about these days? The colour of the water is green...and believe it or not this was the only water source for the village until 1954...which explains a few things about the locals!!! Our journey today started by Dunstall Hall, in the grounds of the estate. We arrived and there were 2 people standing by a post, they got into their car as we got out....but then as we walked to the post they got out again and

A wardrobe...happy now?

identified themselves as geocachers! Hooray...after a near miss on Monday we finally meet some geocachers on our travels. The couple were "Norfolk Dumplings 70". So after a very pleasant chat with them we parted company as they were heading in the opposite direction. But this was a good start to the day....actually we started off doing a couple of cache and dashes on the way...but hey why let the facts get in the way of a good story. As we walked down the road and up the path...we saw lots of lots of lambs...made team Shiltonpig hungry, all they could think of was mint sauce....evil laugh! However in a field full of hundreds, thousands, millions of sheep (or felt like it with the amount of poo on the ground) we saw one black sheep out of all the white. We immediately identified with it...after all nobody

wants team Shiltonpig (sniff sniff...blows his nose in a hanky). Anyway today was full of showers...and just at the wrong time Josh decided he wanted to fall asleep, so we had to wrap him up in all our coats and put him under a tree....he looks so cute...however Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig shivered and shivered so much that they went blue. Is this May or is this December...at night....snowing? The weather is miserable at the moment. (You can tell I'm British can't you?, moaning about the weather). Then to top it all off, we got big time lost in the fields, now this may seem impossible with a gpsr. However team

Ribbet...croak...ribbet

Shiltonpig always seem to rewrite the rule book, we ended up wandering around 1000 fields before we finally found the right place to go....a bigger miracle is that we found all the caches today....rather than our usual, failing to find one. Countryside like it should be...(tears start welling up inside at the pride of calling this country home...). Oh and for you non-believers out there, we have proof that our tadpoles are alive and well...plus 3 or 4 of them are starting to form legs...

Q:What do you call a woman who climbs up trees?

team Shiltonpig beaten up figuratively

Monday May 10th 2010

A:Ivy. Have you ever been hit in the face? Well today team Shiltonpig were hit in the face twice...and boy did it hurt. Now some people may say that we take geocaching far too seriously, but our team motto is "geocaching is not a matter of life and death....its more important than that". Two new caches were released in our area fairly close by to where we live...and so we thought we would have a go at claiming the first to find....we packed everything up and then by the time we got to the caches, we found we were second to find. Second? I repeat second? nobody remembers who the 2nd man on the moon was....they only remember the 1st

So cute, so cheeky....and so noisy!

We thought at first the Ashby Bells had beaten us to it (again) but it was their evil twin friends...the Fielding five, that had taken the honour off us. Governments have gone to war for less than this, but we smile through gritted teeth and say well done. Next time...we mean business lol Having said that as we were getting into the car from the cache at Gorse lane (is it me or does that name sound painful?) we saw a car pull in and then turn around. We must have had "geocaching sense" as we had a felling they were geocachers. It turns out that it was "hoppityhop" and its the closest we have come to bumping into geocachers in the East Midlands....so pleased to kind of meet you.

where Mr Shiltonpig goes after an argument

The irony was that the next cache we were doing today was actually one of "Hoppityhops", a cache near a badger set. Josh was sound asleep in the car, so we had to take it turns to do the cache...Mrs Shiltonpig went first and scared all the badgers away by the time Mr Shiltonpig arrived there were none left...but they were cleary lived in. It seems the perfect time to introduce this crazy website and it seems like I will never be able to provide a link like that again. We were actually on a bit of a spring clean today, cleaning up and mopping up some of the caches in the area that we had not got around to today. Two of which took us to the village of Overseal

Follow the yellow brick road

It is said that in 1971 that Overseal was the population centre of the UK as the same amount of people lived north and south and east and west of it.Since then Josh was born and this has thrown all the figures into mayhem. One of the caches took us to a wood called Gunby Lea....no really thats its genuine name...next to it was a beautiful field of rapeseed where Mr Shiltonpig took this beautiful photo? there is actually a small dog at the top of the path, it reminded him of the Wizard of Oz and Toto for some unknown reason, but hey ho.....we can all dream can't we. The final cache took us back to Bretby where we have been a couple of time before

Wave back at Team Shiltonpig

We might have know the last cache would cause us trouble....its one of Geohunter Xs caches and we always seem to struggle with his. We were stung several times, scratched and we were sitting in a heap sobbing when we realised we had actually already seen the cache and not realised. D'oh....so after a nice few caches this afternoon we calmed down about the failure to first to find the caches....we popped into our local hand grenade and rocket bazooka launcher shop on the way home...and picked up a few items in case we bump into a few individuals (Please note violence in all its forms is not acceptable, and team Shiltonpig do not condone it...except in the case of failure to get First to finds) Sweet dreams..

Lady Jane Grey...

Not to be confused with Earl Grey tea

 May 9th 2010

Gordon Brown, may not be a happy man at the moment as he waits to find out the outcome of the general election...but it could be worse, he could live in the 16th century and be Lady Jane Grey, who found herself Queen of England....for a mere 9 days, but it seems her father went and got caught being a traitor against Queen Mary...and this sent Lady Jane to her death and was beheaded....ironically the same would happen to Queen Mary herself. Clearly then this points out two things...being a Queen in the 16th century was not a pleasant occupation...and secondly Mr Shiltonpig regrets sleeping in his history lessons otherwise all this wouldn't have been new to him. But what on earth has this to do with geocaching? well you have guessed it we went to her estate...and what an estate it is. Bradgate Park in Leicestershire is an amazing place and is now our favourite place in the National Forest (I know we keep saying that about every place we keep visiting, but its true...the National Forest rocks!!!)

Shiltonpigs retirement home...

 Newtown Linford is an incredibly quaint village the kind that you can only find in England.....we parked the car and did a quick cache, opposite this amazing thatched cottage. It was such a cute cottage, we wanted to go up to it and pinch its cheeks, but we didn't simply because the cottage was asleep and we didn't want to wake it up. Considering Leicester is just a stones throw away, you wouldn't expect this to be so close. Bradgate Park is just a skip and a jump away from this village and while its not as expensive as Stratford last week, £5 for a whole day parking is still a little steep (yes I know I sound like a grumpy old man, but Im nearly 21 soon lol)

Nobody has ever taken a better photo than this!!

 We are proud of this photo to the left and should easily win the BBCs photo competition of the year....it has deer (we didn't run any over this time), beautiful views, amazing trees and did I mention deer? Some places just seem to have all the luck....oak trees the width of a car (we kid you not), follies, old houses, history, beauty and of course deer (2 varieties we will have you know). It seems strange that such a vast park only has 5 caches in it and yet other less worthy places have caches galore. Either way these are all caches worthy of being there...first up one took us to a hill full of deer, and they are incredibly tame here, so tame you can

A beer Jug

 be literally a couple of feet away from them. The next cache took us up the hill (yup Mrs Shiltonpig didn't mind this one, and thats saying something) to St Johns Tower. Some people say that it looks like a beer jug....(mmmm a cold refreshing beer)....and we can see what they mean...probably why Mr Shiltonpig was hoping that he would get one at the top. Sadly there isn't a pub there....nor even an ice cream shop. It seems in 1784 the folly was built to allow the ladies of the day to watch horse racing in track around the area...why on earth there was a race track on a hill with lots of rocks is beyond me....today you can see views 21 miles away and is without question the best view in the National Forest (apart from you look at that cutey pie Josh). The cache is found by a wall that has seen much much better days....next up we walked to the perimeter of the park and had to climb over the wall to collect the cache...only to find that there was a stile just a few metres the other side...d'oh! Why do we always seem to do that?

Holy Land behind you....

 The final cache of the day took us to what can only be described as Dartmoor, it looks very similar except the rocks here are more jagged. So with the caches done, there was only one place to go and that was Lady Janes estate, which is now in ruins. While we are there we came across "Deadly Nightshade", which I didn't realise is one of the most deadliest plants in the Western Hemisphere....so we collected up some leaves and berries. Do you fancy coming around for tea? We have berry pie? evil laugh. Actually no, we wouldn't be so cruel, we have collected them for when Josh is older and he is naughty....again this is just humour, you do not have

Mr "the rock" Shiltonpig

to stop reading this and ring Social Services, we love our son....(he was quiet today, except for the pooey nappy). Mrs Shiltonpig found the time to chat to the local guide and somehow managed to talk about cemetaries with him (Mrs Shiltonpig you really must find some happier subjects to talk about...lol). A great day...a great time and lots to see and do...and we only saw half the park so at some point we will be back to see the other half...and if you would like to know more about Lady Jane...her official website (from beyond the grave, pretty impressive I thought) is this cool fascinating and interesting website, is that enough build up for you?

A sad story....

"My Bunny"

Monday May 3rd 2010

Now you may be thinking that how can this be a sad story when the 1st photo in this blog is Mrs Shiltonpig pointing to a road sign of a village called Bunny. But seriously how can any self respecting person live in a place called Bunny? It just deserves to be made fun of...especially as it is a very pretty village....just imagine what goes on here at Easter? Anyway we were on our way back from Nottingham chasing a new icon for our geocaching page (sad I know, but I bet were not the only ones out there that do it) and heading to the village of Rempstone.

Big black evil cloud

We were going for our 1st virtual caches, this is one where there is no cache to find, but an interesting site instead and you have to answer a question to prove that you were there. We parked the car and the rain gods were out in force...and if you don't believe us, we took a photo the most evil black cloud anyone has ever seen on the face of the planet. We walked through a field, that looked like no one had walked through for like 250 years...as we carried on for about 0.27 miles (don't you just love GPSr's) we turned the corner and in the middle of a field (and an overgrown field it was too) there were 20 headstones lying abandoned in a field.

Graves abandoned in a field

The story goes that the original village Rempstone was actually based at this location. It was quite a place in its day...it had a moated manor house, and of course St Peters church where 950 people had been buried in the last 200 years of its existence. One of the graves was from a prominent reverend who dies at age 82 in 1748. Shortly after this time, we are unclear about what happened, but the original church was used for pieces in the new church built in 1773. The moated manor house is now gone and lies underneath a fishing pond of all places. The poor old reverend has had his grave opened, and I'm sure if you really wanted to you,

Poor old Reverend

you could look inside. It just seems sad that this is a country where we are proud of our history, and yet for some reason this small village has been left behind and all these people, aren't even on a proper burial site anymore. If you haven't been to this cache yet, you should make a trip and see for yourself what we mean. Of course we would have liked to have stayed a bit longer but that massive cloud we mentioned earlier, had us reaching for cover and we hid while it rained the big fat blobby kind of rain. Josh decided he wanted to play with the camera and so Mr Shiltonpig took a photo of him, to try and teach him....

"Osh"

This was the result...and all he could say was "Osh" and he likes to call himself. Makes you think that our town or village might not be here in 250 years and some person might come across our gravestone and wonder what life was like. A deep thought to leave you with while you eat your chinese takeway or whatever it is you are eating right now....cache of the day for us!