Put the Ketton on

Saturday April 3rd 2010

Trigonometry was never Mr or Mrs Shiltonpigs favourite subject at school and we doubt it will be Joshs either. But there was one trig that we were glad to see this morning, the one in the photo. You see this particular trig point is used by the Ordnance Survey to help map out the land. Locating trig points and then "bagging" them is also a "sport" in the UK and other parts of the world. Acoording to the geek bible this is deemed geekier than geocaching, however seeing as team Shiltonpig have now bagged their 1st trig point we are now as geeky as they come...except for Josh...hes just too cute to be a geek like his daddy! For more info click on Shiltonpigs triggy link.

The set of caches that we were focusing on today took us all around the Rutland and Stamford. To the town of Ketton. Now I am all for thinking of creative ways to make your house stand our from the rest...but surely you could think of some other way to have a garden wall than grave stones? hum team Shiltonpig is a little unsure on what to say on this one. Ketton is quaint though as is the whole region. The 1st cache here took us through the most narrow footpath we have ever been to, so narrow that Mr Shiltonpig regretted having that extra packet of crisps the night before, it didn't help that just above his head was barbed wire which proved a little tricky when trying to ensure Josh didn't become a kebab.

After a church graveyard yesterday, it was with even more stranger to find a green burial site as the place of the next cache. The photo to the left is actually taken in a graveyard. Mr Shiltonpig has decided he wants to be buried here, no seriously he does, its such a quiet beautiful place (plus its dead cheap, if you will excuse the awful pun). For more info click on Ketton Green Burial Site. We then drove a short way to the only place in England where 4 counties meet at the same place (Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and diddy Rutland)...but this turned out to be yet another example of Mr Shiltonpig showing himself as a white knight!

When we got there, geocacher visitor cards were all over the floor and Mrs Shiltonpig noticed the ammo can on the other side of the small river. Mr Shiltonpig was fuming with the vandals, so he went to retrieve it...he found a tree to walk across the river (what Mr Shiltonpig had to cross) and then realised that the 1st stick he used to try and get the cache broke in half, after nearly falling into the river, he bravely failed to give up. He found a better stick and something to hold onto, finally the heavy ammo can came out of the water. He then had to walk back across the tree with cache and balanced himself carefully so as not to fall in. The cache was empty...stupid vandals. We re-hid the cache somewhere else. But valiant Mr Shiltonpig saved the cache!

It was nearing home time which meant that we would soon be leaving this great part of the world...if you want to watch more, take a look at the official video for Rutland (no really this is the official video). But we still had time for 2 more caches...one took us to a housing estate near Oakham (no more graveyards for us...not for a while anyway!!) and after the earlier escapades jumping over streams, poor old Mr Shiltonpig had to do it again. This time however Mrs Shitonpig captures him in action....Vin Diesel, Bruce Willis you had better watch out there is a new action man in town!

The last cache of our weekend away will always be one Mrs Shiltonpig regrets. It was a cache by a bridge, she looked for over 4 hours by herself (may be a slight exaggeration, but only slight) but then she gave up. Mr Shiltonpig went and had a look and within 3 seconds he had found it, it took longer to write this sentence than to find the cache. The look on Mrs Shiltonpigs face says it all...she hates Mr Shiltonpig by this point. Where was that beautiful son of ours at this point.....asleep in the car...oh to be a 1 year old again! Sleeping, eating and someone wiping your bum clean for you....and on that note good night!