A Gothic Tale - Ashby Style....

A spooky place...."oooooooo"

18th July 2010

Be warned readers...we have a tale to tell you that will shake you up indeed. In fact if you were a jelly you would wobble off the plate...the story is indeed creepy. Ashby de la Zouch may be more commonly associated with having housing that is ridiculously overpriced compared to its neighbour Swadlincote (no offence to Ashby people). However there lurks a gothic side to this small town that many do take for granted. What follows is a first hand account into the unknown....think of this tale as X-Files Ashby style.

The terrifying tower

There have been many ghostly sightings in Ashby over the years, many being linked into the White Hart Pub on the high street, many talk about seeing weird characters lurking around. Team Shiltonpig was investigating a new cache in the area called "Ashby Ghost" this took us to a local cemetry which had a dark and imposing tower....it was so scary that Mrs Shiltonpig and Josh stayed in the car while Mr Shiltonpig braved the elements and crossed the road. Once inside the cemetry he saw a very strange sight one that he had never seen before and fortunately he had his camera to take a photo of it.

A member of the black cone cult

 Yes thats right it was a black highway traffic cone...yes I repeat a black traffic cone. Perhaps it belongs to some kind of weird cult...team Shiltonpig are unclear but this clear unnatural cone was giving Mr Shiltonpig the heeby jeebies...and then in the corner of his eye, he saw something that startes running off down the lane. Mr Shiltonpig rushed to the car and chased after the beast....he floored the accelarator pedal as quickly as he could, and was doing nearly 20mph in pursuit. The beast was in sight, as team Shiltonpig pulled into a wood known as Sarahs wood. Now team Shiltonpig don't know who Sarah is but we would like here to come and

Please clean me Sarah

 clean the entrance sign that bears her name, as it is very dirty. Anyway back to the dark tale, team Shiltonpig rushed out the car....with the beast in sight. Sadly Josh needed his nappy changed which slowed us down, but we had a good idea where the beast was headed...yes thats right an appropriately named cache called "Sarah's Wood Cache". The nearby woodlands were overgrown with grass that was taller than dear little Josh, but that didn't stop him or any of us as we chased the beast down. As we approached the cache site in the prickly tree we slowed the pace right down and did our best to keep the noise down....but it was hard we had Josh!

The gothic beast in all his glory

Yes thats right the chase was nearly over and finally team Shiltonpig could find the beast, it was very timid and a little bit scary. Now some of you clever readers (did I say readers, sorry I meant reader) may think that this photo is actually Mr Shiltonpig, but it is in fact the beast that we chased through Ashby to near Conkers. Perhaps you will be so fortunate that when you have a go at this cache you will see this monster....changing subject for a minute, we have some adventures and a half coming up in the next few weeks....be prepared to be blown away (and not just by Joshs trumps)!

"Cache"by de la Zouch

Saturday 13th March 2010

Yes, yes, yes its the dreaded town of Ashby de la Zouch again...why dreaded? Because we always come here and can't find the caches that are hidden.

First up was a cache that we couldn't find a couple of weeks ago, up a place called poo lane...well that wasn't its official title...but considering that there were around 30 piles of poo in just a short 100 metre stretch what else are we to imagine...why do dog owners not pick it up and take it home? Rant over! We found the cache, we didn't find it the other week because of the snow...thats our excuse anyway and were sticking to that!

Next up was a cache that is part of the Ashby Round series....as previously explained, you find the caches and collect clues to a final bonus cache. We found our first clue the other week and have just picked up our second....of course poor old Mrs Shiltonpig picked up a knock to the head while she was getting the cache. Plastic flowers hid this particular cache, but didn't really fit in at this time of year as everything is dead!!

Next up was yet another do not find, we were looking for a cache in Ashby centre but there was an annoying "hoody" that just wouldn't move as he was sitting where we expect the cache to be...so another must come back later. This will then

mean we have found all the caches in Ashby itself....but there are always new ones appearing left right and centre!

We carried on to one on the outskirts of Ashby that was different to ones that we had found before...the cache was covered in velcro and stuck to the top of a post. It was around this point that our very own beautiful son who I might add isn't even 18 months old turned around and said "baa baa black sheep" all by himself....starting to worry his vocabulary will soon outgrow Mr and Mrs Shiltonpigs and he will be teaching us!!

We then started driving the back roads out of Ashby and parked up by a newly hidden set of 3 caches in a woodland called chestnut woodland. Very very pleasant it was indeed, there is nothing nicer than walking out in fields by yourself enjoying the peace and quiet which was beautiful. The National Forest may only be 10-15 years in the making but they have made a good start and some of the places like this one are well worth a visit to enjoy a nice afternoon stroll.

First up of the 3 was a cache near a nice pond with Mr Shiltonpigs favourite feature...a bullrush.

Mrs Shiltonpig is posing next to the pond although it doesn't really look ike a pond from

this photo. Anyway the wind was really picking by now and as we entered the field and although the gps was saying that the cache was 0.2 miles away, we guessed where it was even from that distance...why because there was only one thing to hide a cache in the whole of the field...a tree! Surprise, surprise we turned out to be right and much to Mr Shiltonpigs delight picked up some trackable items as well....one from the good U S of A that wants to see sports (so why was it in the middle of a wood?) and another was a gingerbread man...shame it wasn't a real gingerbread man as Josh would have liked one of those very much.
The last of the 3 caches in this section took us to back nearer the road, and poor little Josh was hiding behind Mr Shiltonpig to protect himself from the wind...although he still found time to warm his small fingers in daddys mouth!!

6 caches this afternoon making 21 so far this month....we are on course for a record at this rate...and we all have been ill this week! Lovely quiet peaceful walk this afternoon....going home to some bacon, eggs and sausage...does life get any better than this???