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?