1977 - A good year for all things born!

Friday April 2nd 2010

If you were to have taken that photo to the right n 1976, basically everything in it would not have existed in its current form. Yes 1977 may not have been a good year for Bing Crosby or Elvis Presley but for Rutland water and Mr Shiltonpig it was a good year....Rutland water became one of Europes largest man made lakes. Now the weather on April 2nd was very confusing....it had been overcast and broody in the morning, downright stinky with grey clouds and rain in the afternoon. So we headed home to the hotel, but something worse than Joshs stinky nappys occured...yes thats right folks, The Sound of Music came on TV.

It was enough to drive Mr Shiltonpig crazy, the tones of Julie Andrews can still be heard in his ears as he writes this (he shudders). At that moment we looked out the window and sure enough a blue sky appeared and that was it, with Josh still guzzling down his dinner we were out the door. Rutland water had in centuries past been the estate of Normanton Hall. It was a massive house if the photos are telling the truth Normanton Hall was demolished in the early part of the 20th century and the village of Nether Hambleton were demolished in the 1960s to make way for the reservoir.

The road that we took for our 1st cache was the road to this village...the road of course now just heads for the reservoir, and for the last part you have to walk to it. With our hats on (when is the warm weather ever going to get here?) we made the way to the edge of the lake. Its pretty impressive and as Mrs Shiltonpig always says...what is it about water that makes people want to come and spend their time by it...its a very valid point. After Josh had finished playing with some nearby Xmas decorations at the edge of the lake (we didn't understand why they were there either) we headed back to yet another gorgeous village of Upper Hambleton (thankfully this one hadn't been demolished).

Now we will easily admit that one of the reasons we like geocaching is because it takes us to strange places, beautiful places and even the bizarre....but a church cemetery? How strange is that...granted a lovely place but Im sure the dead from the 17th throught to 20th century might have a few things to say about that. Im not sure quite what to make of it but Josh absolutely loved it there...biggest smile on him all day! So the final cache of the day took us about half a mile away to the other side of the shore....forgive this Shiltonpig for pouring out his heart. But the colours that the sky and water and surrounding showed that evening will stay with him for some time to come.

It was almost as if a Painter had been there before and just tipped his pallet all over the place as every colour you could think of was there (well everything except luminous yellow). The cache in question was ingenious as it was on a pulley system in the tree, goodness knows how they managed to get it into there in the first place, but hats off to them, very creative and well thought out. Now this is the interesting bit...Josh and Mrs Shiltonpig were caked in mud and were flagging, so kind and generous Mr Shiltonpig offered to run back to the car over half a mile away to come and get them. He ran over thick mud, through saturated with water fields (with trainers with holes in both shoes), he ran and ran and ran until he had no more breath to give, he drove the car as fast as he could to get them both...and what did Mrs Shiltonpig stay when he got there..."thanks, but will have forgotten this in 5 minutes". Well this blog is a testament to the stamina, bravery and hardship Mr Shiltonpig went through that night. A true hero......