Oh my Lyveden you have no roof....

Northamptonshire Roof Appreciation Society Day Out

Saturday 28th May 2011

Please please please, team Shiltonpig are pleading, begging and asking you for your money. No don't worry you don't need to phone the police out of fear this is some geocaching fraud, team Shiltonpig believe there is a serious need here in the county of Northamptonshire! Roofs, they have no roofs! This is terrible.In fact this particular spot in Lyveden this house has never had a roof, and its been built for 406 years! So if you feel like donating to the new team Shiltonpig charity please let us know! This house really is in the middle of nowhere, you need

A House in the shape of a cross?surely not!

a sat nav and a full tank of petrol just to drive up the road to the house. It is worth noting that this house is owned by the National Trust and the woman on reception was brilliant, she clearly had seen kids before and loved Josh, even giving him his own sticker. This house has it all, a sad story, treason, religion and even a geocache nearby in which to continue our tale of caching in the Corby area. So lets take you back to the early 17th century, Thomas Tresham was a Catholic and for many many years he had been persecuted for his beliefs. Despite all this persecution he somehow managed to find the time to have a son and a wife

Pretty garden

 , but if there is one thing you can do to annoy the local protestant population is build a house which is full of expressions of your faith. For example as you might be able to tell from the photos the house is in the shape of a cross. Now Thomas sadly died in 1605 and the estate was passed to his son. However it was his son that was to go on and become more famous in English history, in fact his son and the events that he became involved in, is celebrated every year...on November 5th. Yes as the rhyme says "remember remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason, should be forgot!"

Sting sung about this field

Yes folks Francis Tresham, was so narked off that his family had been persecuted so much that he joined in with Guy Fawkes and decided to blow up the houses of Parliament. You may know that they failed, but the result was father and son both died in the same year 1605. The house was just built but still no roof. If you would like to know more please click on the linky poo here. Of course skip a few hundred years later and team Shiltonpig were here on the trail of a cache...thankfully we were not being persecuted and you will be glad to know we are not involved in any plot to overthrow David, that bloke that lives at number 10. The cache is about 0.2

Tree wanted to swallow little Josh

 miles away on a path rather imaginatively titled "Lyveden Way". The cache like the house was in the middle of nowhere, but true to normal geocaching style when we arrived at the cache site, there was some walkers kicking around the picnic table. We made strange noises until we scared them to go, which left us to find the cache. There was only one obvious place, so thats why we looked everywhere but there and then returned to the obvious place, only to find the cache there. The heavens opened up for a brief moment and then by some spooky magic quickly stopped. After all this caching and roof finding there was only one thing to do...eat!

Oh my what a lovely Lyddington roof....

Mr Shiltonpigs first love

Saturday 28th May 2011

Mr and Shiltonpig are in love! (no, no not with each other...only joking Mrs Shiltonpig) Yes thats right the cherub of cupid has aimed his arrow and struck right into the heart of team Shiltonpig! Firstly Mr Shiltonpig is in love with ironstone, and the village of Lyddington has ironstone coming out of its nose and all other bodily holes! Mrs Shiltonpig however is in love with a roof. But more on that later. It was lunchtime and the family were knawing (quite literally) through the crusty sandwiches that Mr Shiltonpig had prepared earlier.

Windy? Just look at Mrs Shiltonigs hair!

But lunch is for geocaching wimps! And after a 30 second lunch break we were off again on the trail of caches and there were 2 in the direct village to knock off (not sure thats the best expression in the world to use, but lets face it, I've said it know and can't take it back because I can't find the delete key on my keyboard!). Lyddington has a lovely Bede house in it. Some religious type person owned it in the middle ages and is now a house that you could expect to see in this current TV programme. The English Heritage woman on the desk nearly had a heart attack on the spot when she saw Josh. Josh only had to look at something old and he was told

English Heritage...not for children!

off. Clearly this house should have a sign on the door saying children not welcome. Big thumbs down from team Shiltonpig on this one. So we dedicate the photo on the left to that woman. Josh found an old chest on the first floor and it was an appropriate place to play hide and seek. Now perhaps its time to get you dear readers to prepare yourselves....thats right after teasing you at the start of this blog post, its time to reveal the roof that Mrs Shiltonpig fell in love with. But perhaps before you look at the next photo, you should sit down in case you faint! We walked up another flight of stairs and there in all its glory was the roof....

The roof to end all roofs

This was a roof like no other (or so Mrs Shiltonpig will tell you). This is a roof that has original wooden medieval beams, it still has wooden pegs keeping the tiles in place, and it has some kind of medieval cement still in place...wardle? Yes folks, you could spend hours looking at the workmanship, so you could. Mrs Shiltonpig was tempted to stand here for the day, but the lure of the 2 caches in the village were enough. After further annoying the woman at the desk by asking her whether there was a toilet to change Josh. Toilets? in Lyddington? oh how common! Anyway after that interchange, it was time to look at the nearby bishops fishpond. Josh of course got sidetracked twice by the village swings. Mr Shiltonpig looked on and admired the medieval village cross that had been there for quite a while...at least since this morning anyway. Now the fishponds were about 0.2 miles away and to stop anybody getting too excited, there were no fish. In fact there were no ponds. However I am pleased to report that you can see the outline of a fishpond. Erm? forgive me for being a

Mobile coverage is great around here!

tad sarcastic...but isn't that just a field. The cache however made up for the fact there was no pond. Of course I can't tell you what the container is made of, you will just have to come and find out for yourselves. We had never discovered these caches before, and we have found 2 in a month! Back up the path and back into the centre of the village for the final cache of the series, yes you have guessed it a red telephone box. The cache was found in probably the quickest time ever, and it is worth noting the phone box is in full working order. Perhaps they still have to use these boxes as the mobile signal around here is worse than being on the planet Pluto. (Mr Shiltonpig refuses to accept that Pluto was downgraded from being a planet several years ago)

Mrs Peacock

Mrs Shiltonpig strutting her stuff

Saturday 28th May 2011

Wow! You can't get better than that, you setp one foot outside the ticket office and you see the view on the photo to the left. A load of peacock strutting their stuff...and let me tell you "their stuff" is pretty well impressive. But perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves. Today on this bank holiday weekend we decided to set off for the Northamptonshire countryside and in particular this place....Kirby Hall. Belive it or not, by the time this photo had been taken, 2 caches had been completed. One of them at the top of the hill with fine views of the Hall.

Money ran out to finish the roof

Kirby hall is one of those very atmospheric places, for a start its in the middle of nowhere, altjough it is on the outskirts of Corby. Kirby has half a roof and a whole bucket load of peacock poo. Its the first place where we have been where Josh has come second in the poo stakes! Kirby Hall dates back to the 16th century, which by all accounts was a long long time ago when men wore frilly clothes and managed to get away with it. But by the 18th century some blokes debts got the better of him and the place started to fall into disrepair. Now you are provided with an audio guide as you go around the place, but having a Josh around does tend to

The worlds largest dominoes

hamper all attempts at finding about the history of the place. Now team Shiltonpig are not quite sure about the next bit, in the background we could hear motorcycles galore, were these around in 1570 or not? perhaps you can help us. Yes the Rockingham motorcycle race track is not far away, also home to the other cache we did this morning. Looks like the council decided to dump all their waste on the entrance to that cache. Returning for a moment to the Hall, Josh and Mr Shiltonpig were able to find some dominoes to play with in a room, that the whole team wants to have in their own home. The views and the windows are just awesome and we

This is MY house!

can only hope that one day some kind wealthy person gives us £100 million pounds so we can afford this type of place. As we left the room and went outside the peacocks were there, stalking us, we wondered whether they were some kind of aliens from a strange Dr Who episode, but thought better of it! The gardens are supposed to show you what gardens looked like back in the 16th century, well judging on this one, they can keep them, we prefer 21st century gardens. In the distance alongside the motorbike noise, we saw 100 cows charging towards a jeep with its food. I kid you not, seeing 100 cows charge is a sight you will not forget.

Josh tries to run off

Josh on the other hand is going through a stage of going completely the opposite direction to what we would like to go? Do all toddlers go through this stage we wonder? Trudging through the peacock poo (and trust me it when I say that it wasn't easy) we headed back to the car. On the way to the next place, we stopped off at a delightful village full of thatched cottages and light stoned houses. We cleared another cache, which was by a red telephone box in Gretton. They seem to have a bit of a thing for red phone box caches around here! For more info on the above hall please click on the amazing team Shiltonpig linky poo

The cave monsters appear wherever we go!

Just one Cornetto....

Kryptonite

Sunday May 1st 2011

Today’s caching adventure took us to the outskirts of Market Bosworth. However on the way to do some caching we got a little distracted along the way….every super hero has its weakness, superman has kryptonite, Achilles has his heel and team Shiltonpig has ice cream. We are afraid to admit it, but the lure of the creamy Mr Whippy is too much for us, and no matter how much we want to go caching the fact of the matter is we cannot resist.

Josh can't take his eyes off it...

Today was no exception, we had driven to the country park here (and very nice it was too)…thanks to Mr Shiltonpig we had also driven to another country park because he had entered the wrong postcode into the sat nav. As soon as we arrived, Josh had spotted the large queue emanating from the Mr Whippy van. We had hardly parked when Josh was jumping out and running as fast he could to get some ice cream, the photos in this blog go some way to showing how much he  like ice cream. Josh is not entirely sure how best to tackle a Mr Whippy ice cream, which is part of the fun in watching him.

Can I put it all in my mouth in one go?

It’s the same with Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig…you could dangle a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream on a stick and we would just forget about the cares of the world. All good things must come to an end, and while Josh would have happily have eaten another ice cream (and so would Mrs Shiltonpig!!!) it was time to head for some caches. Using the geocaching app we did some random caches in the park. There is a whole string of caches in the wider area, but we only managed a rather pathetic 2 caches….what’s worse is there was a do not find there as well.

Wait till you see the size of the caterpillar!

First up on the other side of the park we had to find a cache near a wooden butterfly….we are not entirely sure why the butterfly is there but was a nice spot for a cache. A little awkward to find a cache here actually, partly due to the long grass…but the energy from the ice cream helped spur us on. We then walked along the duck pond, counting them as we went to the next cache site. Unknown to us it was one of these clever caches, and sad to say we couldn’t find it, though judging by the amount of damage in the area, we were not the only ones!

What! No ice cream!

Finally we walked past a field with a big stone monument in it, its looked like a trig point, but it wasn’t one. We looked everywhere trying to find a footpath or a sneaky shortcut to go and have a look, but no matter what we did we couldn’t find one. Instead we finished the day off with a nice cache but a big old massive humungous tree….and as you are all aware Mr Shiltonpig loves trees like this! Apologies to all our dearest readers for not singing the song, we will correct this now for you..."Just one cornetto, give it to me, you must be joking it cost me £1.70".

Margaret Thatcher



Iron Lady

Monday 30th August 2010

It appears in the gap from last year to this year google have now introduced a stats bar which can tell you which country people are looking at your blog from. It appears that we now have a small following in Slovenia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. It is appropriate then that we give these lovely visitors to our blog an introduction to a woman that shaped the UK. Yes team Shiltonpig were caching in the home town of the first female Primeminister in the UK. Margaret Thatcher.

Wheres Wetherspoons?

Now before we tell you where we actually are. Do you know where Margaret Thatcher was born? Well ok then seeing as you are being so nice, we will tell you...Grantham in Lincolnshire. Of course when she was born in 1925 it still would have been another 75 years before geocaching would have been invented. Grantham is one of those strange towns that seems to have a lot of weird and wonderful facts about it, for example the first place in the UK to have female police was here, Isaac Newton went to school here (more on that later) and it was even the first place in the UK to have its own tractor, (Josh would love that, as you all know he is a big fan of tractors). But team Shiltonpig started the day in the only way we could have and thats with a Wetherspoons breakfast. I really think we should get some shares in that pub as we have enough breakfasts there!!! I challenge anyone reading this to tell us where you can get a better breakfast....

Mr Shiltonpig and his beautiful son

We did about 6 caches in the area, the first two were easily found near the centre of town. We also attempted another one called Wyndham Wandererer...and to be honest the cache proved true to its name. For some reason we ended going around the whole of the town finding all the places we wouldn't have normally seen, including as you will see in the picture Isaac Newtons school. Finally as we approached the cache co-ordinates we realised it was in a field. Sounds easy enough right? well a gate had to be climbed, and so Mr Shiltonpig volunteered to jump over, cache now showing as 500 feet away. Mr Shiltonpig starts to run, faster

Isaac Newton wos 'ere

and faster, 450 feet, 400 feet, 350 feet, you can now start to smell the cache....300 feet, 250 feet and then horror. The cache was a mere 220 feet away and yet Mr Shiltonpig now could see that there was a fence in the way and despite all his attempts he could not make his way through. He thought about becoming a badger or rabbit and burrowing his way through but was unsure how the local residents would have taken to that....so sadly we had to give up on this one. Mrs Shiltonpig and Josh gave Mr Shiltonpig the beating of his life when he got back and admitted he didn't get the cache. Team Shiltonpig does not accept failure!

Don't jump Josh...don't jump!

After getting over the stench of failure and the beating, we drove up the road and attempted 4 caches near the canal. A lovely walk if ever I could say so, it was peaceful and tranquil....just the way we like it. Nice and straightforward 3 caches which a bonus cache for collecting some extra co-ordinates. After these it was time to head home, while Grantham has lots of history, it does have a terrible road system which we hope not to encounter anytime soon! And to think Isaac Newton went to school here, perhaps without him we would not have geocaching today....now theres something to think about!

Lets go for a "Wash"



Thank goodness for a gun shelter



Sunday August 29th 2010

This glorious country can be so infuriating at times….for example, we drive 2 hours to the coast, it’s been sunny all the way here and then just as we arrive at the cache site, it absolutely tips it down with rain and the wind picks up like never before. I am convinced that we are not the only ones to experience the problems that you I have just described. Anyway enough moaning and whinging it’s time to tell you about today’s caching adventures.

Pilgrim Fathers memorial

Today team Shiltonpig descended on a strange place in the UK known as the Wash. Name the name “The Wash” seems to imply that the place is dirty, but in fact it’s nothing but dirty. It is flat however and has a series of salt marshes across the area which makes it a rather bleak wilderness in our humble opinion. The couple of caches that we attempted first took us to two historic places. Firstly a second world war gun shelter which actually came in very handy. As we walked to the cache site, the heavens opened up again and Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig took it in turns sheltering there with Josh while the other looked for it.

erm Josh...thats not a horse

It’s strange to think that a world war 2 relic actually came in handy for us. Next up was a monument that was set up to commemorate the failed attempt at the Pilgrim Fathers trying to set sail to “the new world” back in 1607. If you click on the photo you can make out the memorial, if you get distracted by looking at Mr Shiltonpig and Josh you wouldn’t be the first and you won’t be the last!!! So these pilgrim father type people wanted to flee England and make for Holland, they chartered a boat and then the captain betrayed them, making them suffer a month in jail.

Stinky stinky cauliflower

But the story did not end there in 1608 they made a second attempt and succeeded, but after 12 years of eating edam cheese and wearing clogs they decided enough was enough. They wanted McDonalds and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, so they set sail for America and founded what would be become the city of Boston. With two caches in hand it was time to set sail for another couple of caches. One of the surprising things about the wash is the amount of flat farmland there is, and growing in all that farmland are all kind of manner of vegetables. Another cache in the area took us to the site of a walnut tree, perhaps we have been sheltered before but again team Shiltonpig had never seen a walnut tree before. The photo will show Mrs Shiltonpig demonstrate what a walnut fruit looks like! To be honest though Mr Shiltonpig has always thought she was nutty (oh come on, you must have seen that joke coming a while away, my only defence for using this kind of joke is that the old ones are the best). For some reason this cache took some finding and caused no manner of stings from the rather enormous stingers in the area, I believe they were the size of giants, that would eat you alive if you looked at them in the eye. So all in all the Wash gave us a chance to look at very unusual part of the world and of course continue our push for geocaching world domination!



Nutty Mrs Shiltonpig

 

Tut"berry"



Finally Mrs Shiltonpig where I want her...



 Saturday August 28th 2010

On a recent topic in the official geocaching forums team Shiltonpig raised the questions of when do you consider yourselves not to be newbies. A whole range of replies came in, some sensible, some not so sensible. But it was clear that one way you could be considered not to be a newbie was to introduce somebody to the sport. Up until today we have never been able to show anybody, which is a bit of a poor showing after 3 years or so. But hey Mr Shiltonpigs father was dragged along to experience what geocaching was all about.


11th Century Church doorway

  There are 2 caches in Tutbury itself, one a nano in the local car park and another multi cache which provided us with some local history to take in. But first perhaps we should tell you about the history of this little village. Firstly team Shiltonpig nearly moved here a few years ago, we walked into the small housing development and walked straight back out again when we saw the price. Like nearby Ashby de la Zouch having a castle in your town seems to effect the price of property! If we had of moved here we would have been in good company, none other than 


Mary Queen of Scots was jailed here

  Mary Queen of Scots spent lots of time imprisoned in the castle here. The poor woman hated it here by all accounts, she said it was damp and cold. Now not that team Shiltonpig want to be seen to be disagreeing with Royalty (even royalty that has been dead 423 years) but let’s face it, there isn’t a place in the UK where you couldn’t describe as damp and cold. But there again team Shiltonpig didn’t live in the 16^th century. It also seems recently that no matter which stately home, castle, palace or other place of


Tut"berry"

  abode that we go to at the moment, Mary Queen of Scots seems to have been there! I mean was this woman always on the move? Did she own a car? Or perhaps a helicopter?Because let’s face it had did that woman get around everywhere. Now Queen Mary may have been interested to know that the castle she despised so much is now really a ruin. But makes a great place to do a geocache. The multi cache took us several places around the village, including a museum which we sadly didn’t get chance to enter as Josh was with us….and trust me when I say Josh and museums don’t mix.

Mr Shiltonpigs father

 The cache hunt then took us to a nearby church where we saw remnants that dated back to before the castle. No, no I’m not talking about the local vicar, but the church dates back to the 11^th century. You may be interested to know that as we approached the castle on top of a hill (aren’t they always on top of a hill), that we were walking a path that people that been walking 3000 years. You may be pleased to know that Mr Shiltonpigs father was still with us and still very much appeared to be enjoying himself. But this is the point in the story where Tutbury became Tutberry, after our recent adventures picking fruit in the wild, we had been on the lookout for more fruit. We came across a big old tree full of lovely berries coloured blue. We at first mistook them for blueberries, and started to get very excited as they were everywhere, sadly once we opened one of them up we saw they were green inside. A big old berry disappointment, oh well we were left to blow raspberries, rather than eat any! But the best bit of the day was yet to come, team Shiltonpig had to split up, the pushchair wouldn’t go down the hill in the direction we had to go to get the cache. That left Mr Shiltonpig and his Dad alone seeking for the cache, obviously I can’t tell you exactly where the cache is, but in order to finish off the story I will have to admit that the cache is somewhere in the vicinity where water is. When we reached the cache location, we obviously started looking for it, but instead we looked up to see some young women stripped down to the bare essentials going for a swim. I tried to point out to my father that this doesn’t happen every time and was not the reason why I enjoy caching so much….I am not sure he believed me. It took far longer to find the cache than it normally did due to the distractions around us (only joking, before Mrs Shiltonpig hits me). We may have forgotten to tell Mrs Shiltonpig what we had seen, although she was too busy trying to stop Josh eat the poisonous berries! So our attempts to teach somebody new about geocaching didn’t go quite to plan, but it was a nice day out none the less.

Modern art - Leicestershire style



Ravenstone - A Bird in the Hand

  Saturday August 21st 2010

Up until the age of 11 Mr Shiltonpig loved all things art and then the cruel teacher that he met at senior school smashed all hopes that he had of becoming the next Picasso. It wasn't until several years later when he visited the Uffizi art gallery in Florence that it changed. The tour guide was able to capture art in a way team Shiltonpig had never seen before....and so on this fine August day it was a chance to experience the modern art of the local area. Now many of you doubting Thomas's out there, might be wondering what kind of modern art might actually


Ellistown compass

 be out there in Leicestershire, but as the series of caches I will introduce you to today, shows you that art is alive and well. Sadly I haven't put a photo of the first piece of art we visited on the blog, but this was a time capsule in Ibstock. A time capsule is where you put a few items in a container, fasten it and bury it for a number of years. For some strange reason the local residents of Ibstock decided to bury it for 23 years, which is a bit weird as the world won't have changed that much in that short period of time. But the cache was easily found, but sadly we will have to wait until 2020 before we can

Give the tree a hand!

see the outcome of the time capsule! Next up if the nearby village of Ravenstone, we were early and the local villagers were getting ready for some kind of village fete....there was even a fortune teller. Thankfully we didn't need their help in locating the cache, it was easily found. Next up was the village of Ellistown where we found the compass nearby, whet we liked about this one was all the bricks had input from the local school children, I'm not sure whether you can see it in the photo, but it makes for a very clever little piece of art. The cache was a little nano, but that too was easily found. Off next was to the village of Hugglescote. For a bit more of the artist that made this big old bear click on this linky poo. Now to be fair we didn't see any bears today, but we did see some kind of grizzly...this was more of the traffic warden variety. Typically Mr Shiltonpig had stayed in the car with Josh while Mrs Shiltonpig went to find the cache, he was also parked on double yellow lines, just as the warden approached he decided it was a wise idea to drive around the block until he had

Hugglescote - Traffic Warden

gone! But he just stood there watching....perhaps we should have shown him our geocaching permit badge!!!!Next up was Mr Shiltonpigs favourite modern art cache, the phoenix bridge cache right in the centre of Coalville. Next to the shopping centre of the Co-op and Iceland is the brightest coloured bridge I have ever seen. Granted it isn't up to the standard of this one or even this one, but it felt like a little bit of brightly coloured Mexico right next to Coalville.  Further up the road near the Snibston museum lies another modern art sculpture. At the other end of a huge car park we drove to a secluded part and started the climb up the small hill to the metal deers. It was secluded or

Mexico or Coalville? You decide!

so we thought as no sooner had we got out the car but a whole kind of fitness fanatics came running out the hedge (no really, they did). They were all wearing the same t-shirts and the leader was making the rest of the group run up and down the hill. One of the older men in the group looked as if he was going to collapse, we were tempted to point out there are more fun ways of exercise....(geocaching for example) but thought better of it. We haven't been able to cover all the sculptures but hoepfully we have given you a taste, thankfully for you dear reader we haven't taken up art ourselves, instead we will continue to provide you with the hard hitting serious journalism that is Team Shiltonpigs blog!


Buckin Bronco Shiltonpigs!



Bowl us over Castle.....

We know how Gulliver feels now!

 Saturday April 30th 2011

Scaffolding is the bain of our lives, a real pain in the neck. It seems that no matter what castle, stately home, cathedral, church or other major attraction we go and see it is there! So here we are then team Shiltonpig turning the clocks back a couple of weeks to tell you about a nice day out we had at Bowl us over castle (for all you pedantic types out there, you may in fact want to type into Google Bolsover Castle). Bowl us over castle started its life several hundred years ago in the 12th century, around about the time Mr Shiltonpigs mother in law

Ride 'em cowboy

 was born. Its seen some wars over the years and looks a bit worse for wear, for example it doesn't have a roof for the most part. Now forgive me for saying this but, roofs do tend to be handy little things especially in these parts as they keep that annoying thing called rain from your head. Its owned by the English Heritage which looks after the place now, which is jolly nice of them if you don't mind me saying! It is home to the oldest surviving stable in the UK, however I am sorry to report that we saw no horses. Josh on the other hand found a hobby horse which he was able to pretend that he was the Lone Ranger.

Great views

 The other reason this castle bowls us over is the views. It is on a hill, a big hill and you can see for miles, photos never seem to be able to do it justice. They had a medieval day today where you can see a couple of men pretending to be knights practice jousting. For their sakes its a good job that they were born in the 20th century as their jousting skills would have got them killed centuries ago, both of them seemed to really struggle to kill off the cabbages that were on top of the spikes, but Josh loved it and thats all that counts. We only did the one cache today and after a lovely walk around the castle, we then made a dash for the cache!

Josh wishes they would hit the cabbage just once

 Using the new iphone app, we navigated a cache that was just a few metres away, a few metres turned into a few hundred metres and it was all downhill from there....literally. Mrs Shiltonpig was giving Mr Shiltonpig the evils as they both knew that for every step downhill we took, it meant one step uphill on the way back up. The cache was in a great location, in the middle of an open field with wide stretching views and of course one of the best views of the castle...granted even with the scaffolding surrounding some of it. Clever little cache it was too as for some reason it had a wooden swan attached to the nearby branch.

Scaffolding the pain of our lives!

After Mrs Shiltonpig finally accepted that the only way to get back to the car was to walk uphill we made our way back. Of course things were made easier once Mr Shiltonpig promised the family an ice cream, in fact to be honest Mr Shiltonpig has never seen the family move so quick! So another day and another cache!For more info on Bowl us over Castle click on the linky poo.

The Morning after the night before...

8am in the morning...

 Sunday May 22nd 2011

For the majority of the 62 million people that inhabit this wonderful island known as Britain, 6am on a Sunday morning is a great time. 6am represents a time for the majority to sleep, to get over the night before or even to sleep in after a hard week at work. Of course for 61, 999, 997 people that is the norm...but oh no not team Shiltonpig. Our dear, dear son is going through a lovely period, called "lets wake up at 6am and refuse to go back to sleep". So by the time 8am came around and still most people were asleep, the 3 of us were on our

So Windy, Mrs Shiltonpig can't stand still!

 way to the first cache. Now I'm not one to say that we are tight fisted or anything but somehow we have survived 4 years without being premium members, but yet here we are somehow deciding that for the next 3 months we will try it out. So some of the caches that we did today are our first attempts at premium member caches. Premium membership offers you according to the website a whole new experience, sadly it doesn't make you any better whatsoever at geocaching. In fact we are just as bad at it today as we were yesterday. Anyway I am waffling now, so let me carry on and tell you where we headed.

Josh invading the rich and famous's garden

 Yes we went to the nearby village of Hartshorne, its one of those villages that you normally drive through and think nice village and I really must try that pub out one day, but you never seem to do so. One of the more unusual caches of the day was Limehouse Dam. We parked up by the old church, apparently has been there since before time began (well the 15th century anyway), after walking through a public footpath that was neatly disguised as someones driveway, we found ourselves in the field full of horses (when I say full, I mean 2). And then at the end of the footpath there was a large lake (a puddle by American standards), which was

The bridge troll returns to eat Josh

 a total surprise for never knew it was here. We then headed on to 2 caches known as Frazzas and cazzas caches. This gave us a great excuse to explore the hidden gardens of the rich and famous (well perhaps not rich, and perhaps not famous, but nice gardens none the less). You can see the photo of Josh looking into the garden, would be lovely to have a stream running through your garden. The other cache took us to a bridge that surely was built for hobbits and dwarves, Mr Shiltonpig could barely put his feet on the wood it was that small. Josh then decided to burn off some energy chasing Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig. (Mrs Shiltonpig just gave up in the

"Chase Daddy"

end though and let Josh overtake...****THUMP***Mrs Shiltonpig hits Mr Shiltonpig for that). Sadly the last cache we can hardly talk about, its a puzzle cache with the title in morse code, its the first real puzzle cache we have really cracked, and we were really chuffed. That is until it took us longer to find the cache than it did to decipher the puzzle. Trying to find a cache in amongst a whole pile of trees is never straightforward, but Mrs Shiltonpig saved the day and found the cache! So about 1.5 miles and 5 caches...and the time? only 9.37am, the world still was only stirring at that point. Only one thing for it...a Wetherspoons breakfast...yum yum yum!