Burton on Flower

"Tra-la-la...pretty pretty flowers"

 Wednesday April 21st 2010

Burton on Trent. A town normally associated with beer...but today beer was not on the menu...but spring was out in force...we will try and add in as many cliches as we can in todays blog about spring....it was almost as if someone had known we were coming and tipped out the countries spring related flowers, young animals and butterflies and dumped them in Burton..not that we are complaining, it was great. It felt at times as if Walt Disney himself had painted the picture and we were just caching in his own personal animation studio. So we needed 8 caches today to break our monthly record....just 8....

"look out, its a Triffid behind you"

But the cache owner in question had other fiendish ideas...this was to be a caching experience like no other. Stapenhill (on the right side of the river Trent) was the start of our journey and we struggled even with the 1st cache in the area. It was Mrs Shiltonpigs keen eyes that spotted it....hidden with cunning camoflauge. The blossom on the trees and flowers is amazing...and brings a tear to our eyes (pauses...to blow his nose and eyes). Now you know how normally when spring comes around, you clear out your garage full of stuff..well we think the cache owner took some of this stuff and used it as caches....without any spoilers the only thing we

"Wheres Batman?"

didn't find was a kitchen sink....(rats we have just given uk89camaro an idea for his next cache!!!). We have been extremely fortunate this week, 2 caches that go straight into the top 10 caches of 2010....for us "Stapenhill Serpent" is a cache to be seen. The amount of effort that went into the cache being designed was to be seen...and a scary surprise which even had Mr Shiltonpig cowering behind a rock and using his son as a shield. In addition to the huge variety of caches we came across this cheeky little robin who even ate some of Joshs rice cakes..(rice cakes you may ask....yup Josh loves them). On our travels we saw a swans nest, some butterfiles fighting each other,

"Wallace and Gromit smile"

a white (yes white) mallard duck and the cutest little calf we have ever seen near the Burton Mail Centenary Woodland. Of course we didn't taunt the cow by shotuing "burger king" but we were tempted. Our GPSr was playing up today...the co-ords should have been pointing to a tree and instead they wanted us to go to Australia....most annoying...must be something to do with the fact Burton is in an area known for its confusion as to where it belongs in either the East or West Midlands...bit like the Bermuda Triangle, compass starts playing up everywhere.

We keep telling you swans should only eat bread not steroids

Burton is unusual in that it has washlands which flood every time it rains or even that the cloud look like it wants to rain. The area has produced islands that are connected by bridges, walkways and pathways....and this area is by far the best that Burton has to offer...and on its day could rival any major Tourist town in the country. For more info on Burton in days go by please click on Burton super website...please its needs some visitors lol. We make Burton sound so good, we should work for the tourist board! However while we hit our target of 8 caches today and broke a new monthly record, we did have 3 DNFs....and this was most frustrating

Team Shiltonpigs back garden

 , so frustrating that we want to scream "AAAARRRGGGHHHH!!". Thats better, we feel sane again now. A religious Irish woman founded Burton in the 7th Century (she used a GPSr to find it) , the washlands some say have healing properties that remain from her days of making miracles happen. Well were not saying they don't exist, but the only healing properties we found today were sitting on a step by the Ferry Bridge eating ice cream (Mrs Shiltonpig had a nobbly bobbly...weird name or what?). So having found caches (and not found in some cases) of all shapes and sizes today, we want to say thank you to all the flowers and animals that made today possible...and to thank our darling son for being as grumpy as he possible could all afternoon lol