The Lazy Cow!

Josh walks the plank

 Sunday May 16th 2010

Now before I get into trouble with our readers for the title of the blog, I am not talking about anyone in particular. Rather we are talking about the name of a cache in the small area of Lincolnshire. This area of the country has seen its fair share of battles....and we are not just talking about Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig trying to get Josh to have his nappy changed. This area has been having settlement after settlement for 1000s of years. In fact some clever person discovered this. not far from where this photo was taken.

Giddy up cowboys...

These days it is much safer to walk down here....well actually I lie as its a long long cycle path with friendly cyclists tooting their horns as they ride on by. The first cache takes you to a long wooden plank known by the cache owner as the wooden snake. Josh loved it...he kept on walking up and own it as if he was on his very own cat walk. Perhaps when he is older Milan and Paris offer him a chance to truly strut his stuff for the world, in the meantime he will have to make do with the readers of this blog.....did I say readers? sorry I meant reader....

Mobiles banned

 The next cache took us to some cows and when I say cows I mean some cows that have been so lazy they have started to rust. What on earth was some artist doing and sculpting two large iron cows next to the waterfront....well whatever he (or she) was doing meant that we could have some fun climbing all over them and pretending that we were some kind of John Wayne type people. If you don't know who John Wayne was then you make us feel very old....and we suggest that you go and look it up on wikipedia and then come back to read the rest of this blog, but with your head firmly between your legs in shame. After a lovely walk along the waterfront it was time to head home....but whats that Ihear you cry...surely you cant head home when its only 10.30 am in the morning? you want us to do some more crazy things...well just for you we did that. I may have mentioned that Lincolnshire has the biggest bends in

Cant even go to the toilet without being bothered

the country but the drive from Fiskerton to Tattershall Castle is surely one that made even Mr Shiltonpig sick. Now if you would like to know more about the castle we suggest you go and visit!!! However we apprecaite that Lincolnshire might as well be in another country so we will post this amazing link instead. Now its fair to say that whenever we go to a National Trust property Josh plays up. Everyone elses kids are perfect and sitting in a corner asking their mom and dad when are they going to see another piece of antique furniture...and our Josh goes and cries the entire 6 floors of the castle, and no matter what

World war 2?

we try and do we just can't seem to stop. It was tempting at the top of the castle...very tempting....but in case social services are reading you will be glad to know that Josh is alive and well. Oh and next door to the castle is the battle of Britain memorial flights, and trust me when one flew over the castle, it really did feel like you were in 1942 in Berlin all over again. I have a secret to tell you to finish todays blog, I forgot to print off the cache details for Tattershall and so we didn't do any in the village....will you forgive us for such terrible crimes? perhaps its best we go to the dungeon and get punished....now wheres a castle when you want one...

A womans work is never done!

A cache that can clean Mr Shiltonpigs dirty pants

Thursday April 15th 2010

Washing machines in the shape of a cache...all in the same afternoon? Does life not get any better for Mrs Shiltonpig? This must be her idea of heaven......forget lying on a beach in the Dominican..the thought that she can go caching and take Mr Shiltonpigs dirty socks and pants out with her to wash surely is perfection for her. **BANG!BASH!WALLOP!** **Mrs Shiltonpig beats Mr Shiltonpig into a pulp** Don't worry ladies....normal service has resumed...Mrs Shiltonpig will not stand for such cheeky and rude comments from Mr Shiltonpig.

Josh fav word at the moment "flowers"

Moving on swiftly, todays first topic will be the subject of poo. Firstly Josh did his usual about 100 feet from a cache site...but we have just got used to that by now...however as Mr Shiltonpig got into the car and put his foot on the pedal....**sniff sniff** oh my goodness he has trodden in dog poo. Why is it dog owners cannot seem to manage to clean up after their dogs and take it home with them? It wouldn't have been so bad, but before the afternoon was out Mr Shiltonpig had trodden in his second lot of dog poo. Now either there is some kind of dog poo conspiracy going on or there are some lazy dog owners out there. Its ok, you can come out from behind the bushes...the rant is over.

Mrs Shiltonpig thinking about upgrading her phone

The first wood took us to a wood in Grangewood (I'm trying to fit in as many woods into this sentence as I can). Grangewood is a small village that doesn't have its own page on wikipedia yet. team Shiltonpig is proud to present its new campaign "Give Grangewood is own page, please". All money gratefully received will be put into the box entitled "team Shiltonpigs summer holiday fund". Grangewood had some secrets to hide including the cache in question held by Mrs Shiltonpig, a telephone box. A new novelty cache find by team Shiltonpig...poor little Josh got stung by some stingers.

Like father, like son

We were back in the car (with the poo removed) and off to another woodland called Raddle Farm near Coton on the Elms (we were last here on Tuesday). These 2 caches mark the spot in the UK that is the furthest away from the sea/ocean....how depressing is that....so in honour of the fact here is a great link. The two caches in this small farm were made harder to get to by the fact that horses had pretty much chewed up the entire footpath..is was like trying to walk on concrete egg boxes. However it was worth it to get the lovely photo of father and son sitting on a log....signing a "log" book...groan!

Captains Log

Now we have seen plenty of caches before, but the one in the picture was literally carved with love and fits perfectly with its natural surroundings. Very cunning indeed. Josh by this point was having one of his afternoons where no matter how much we fed him, gave him something to drink, sang nursery and rock songs to him he wasn't happy. So we headed home...with some clean pants and socks courtesy of the washing machin cache and several nappy bags full of unsavoury contents. 4 caches today in a couple of hours...that will do very nicely thank you, very nicely indeed.

A"moo"sing Canal Capers

Saturday March 27th 2010

Of course, some times the jokes come that easily...this was the case with this photo...the cow is the one on the right! Boom boom! Yes another novelty cache on our afternoon outing today. So with lunch in our bellies...another Mr Shiltonpig special sandwich, we felt we had the energy to tackle some caches on another section of the canal we were on the other day. This was this canal linky poo . It was a much quieter part of the canal that housed a stack of caches...so sit back, relax and let us guide you through the pick of the caches in this area.

We parked the car near some donkeys and Josh literally ran to see though....though they were blinfolded, not sure why? (so if you know why drop us a note). Of course Josh pipes up and says "These pair of donkeys are just like my parents". Tut tut Josh you really shouldn't say things like that...sniff sniff. The first cache of the afternoon, was a do not find...and what was worse was when we got home someone had found the cache that very afternoon...in the words of the immortal Homer Simpson..D'oh! One of the good things about canal caching is that it limits the amount of caches that you can find because obviously they can't be in the canal.

One of the highlights of the afternoon came in the form of Josh needing a nappy changed, we took a photo for you to see! Fooled you, this is in fact another poo cache, our second this month. Do people in the East Midlands have a thing for poo or something? Anyway we like these caches, they always make you smile when you see them. Plus you know that they will never be stolen, as who is going to pick up a poo or steal a fake one? The following cache was the one we told you about at the start the cache covered in a plastic cow. We are losing count of the novelty caches we have found this year. We then came up to the village of Stenson, and its locally famous lock....amazingly called the Stenson lock. It is claimed that this is the deepest lock on the canal, we will take their word for it rather than walking all 93.5 miles and checking ourselves. Also of note is the Stenson Bubble...no no we are not talking about the local pub we are mentioning about a small stream that runs to the side of the lock. Its not surprising how popular this place is, it has a marina, 2 pubs and the lock of course.

We were fortunate to see a barge navigate the lock, and to be honest it is hard not to admire the engineering achievement from people in the 18th century. We weren't the only ones to witness it either I counted 40 people (they came out the woodwork, hedges...but mostly the pub) who just stood and watched a barge appear from the lock below them. Impressive. We carried on as we hadn't finished caching, and we were justly rewarded with the best cache of the day...a huge stonking massive cache pretty much the size of Josh...always good to see caches this big...its up there with the largest we have found so far.

But after 4 and a half hours caching, several nettle stings, and tons of thorn scratches (and avoiding the troll..see earlier blog entry for today) we got to the last cache of the day. And a new daily record for team Shiltonpig...yay to us. For all kinds of reasons today has been one of the best days caching this month and the joy that Mr Shiltonpig is showing is one that was going around the around the whole team. So back we trotted to the Stenford Bubble for a well deserved treat...2 cans of Pepsi Max. We thought we would push the boat out a bit....If you are ever in the neighbourhood you could far worse than the caches from Arleston to Stenson on the canal. Righto off home for a roast dinner now...and we will leave you in the immortal words of Josh "num num".

St Patricks Day: Our story about drunks, trams and of course poo!

Wednesday 17th March 2010

There are some days we go caching and there are one or two things I can write about. Days like today I could write about 4 or 5 posts, and so I have to choose what to write. So lets start with Ticknall, like pretty much every village near here they all were part of the Domesday book from in 1086, it seems in some ways as if nothing has changed very much! The first cache of note today takes us to something known as a "jug" or lock up. Apparently in the 17th and 18th centuries, local drunks and people who had committed naughty crimes were locked up in these boxes until they could be sent to court or had become cured of their hangover! Mrs Shiltonpig shows what a criminal would have looked like, although to be fair we were tempted to lock Josh up....sadly though a passerby told us there are laws against child cruelty these days!!! Sadly we didn't actually find the cache and what makes it worse was that 85 (no I'm being serious) people had been before us and found it, including people that were 105 years old and blind (ok, ok I'm not telling the truth there). We were the first to do not find on this cache....an award we would prefer not to have. A new low for team Shiltonpig....thankfully the day did get better!

Next up was a short walk up the road to the a place called Tramway Bridge, near the National Trust property Calke Abbey...and just like the Abbey which has never been an Abbey, the bridge is actually a tunnel.....confused? Well join the club! Believe it or not the arch that Josh and Mr Shiltonpig are standing next to is one of the worlds oldest railway arches.....(a loud oooohhhh, comes out of your mouth in real awe!) The cache was one of those evil nano caches the size of a mustard grain or something equally frustrating. In all seriousness we have drove through this village like 1000 times and yet we have missed all this, until we stopped the car, got out and actually walked around the village.

It also gave us an opportunity to admire Mr Shiltonpigs dream home....a lovely house that is currently empty, but it will be a while (sometime in 2110 more like) before we can afford to live there!!

Moving away from history for a minute, one of the next caches we attempted was another Mr Shiltonpig favourite...a large big oak tree! 2 in 24 hours! And this one was climbed all over as well...the cache being in a massive hole in the tree...it was great. Would like a tree like this in our back garden. Now for those of you non-geocachers that read this and think that caching is all about walking, walking and more walking....let me share a team Shiltonpig secret with you, the only way Mr Shiltonpig is able to get Josh and Mrs Shiltonpig out the door to go caching is on top of the log on the photo to the right!!

The next cache was typical of certain members of team Shiltonpig, mentioning no names (well ok Josh), the cache was a fake dog poo, and Josh is holding it in his hand. Moments later Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig were holding a different kind of poo in their hands courtesy of Josh...thanks son! It is worth noting that 30 minutes later we were holding another, the second of the day....I think he was trying to compete with the number of cache we were finding in the day! Its always good to find caches that are a little bit different...however it is worth also noting that Mr Shiltonpig almost picked up some real poo thinking it was the cache, before Mrs Shiltonpig found the real one moments later...disaster averted!

Recently Mrs Shiltonpig has pointed out that Mr Shiltonpig is teasing her far too much on this blog....but he can't resist when he has to do all the hard work when caching....for example there is a cache by Stantons Wood link and poor Mr Shiltonpig had to climb the fence and walk all the way to the cache, get on the floor, stick his long arm in a hole and retrieve the cache, and then bring it back all the way to the rest of the team for them to open it...and the photo to the right shows what he saw walking back to them, resting on a fence like some slackers that they were! So I will leave it up to you avid readers to make your own minds up!

Well, were running out of time...but we can still squeeze in mentioning a water pump in Ticknall that reminded her of using a real one in Southern Ireland when she was little, she claims it was camping, but growing up in Ireland was tougher than you realise! Also Mr Shiltonpig found yet another massive oak tree...3 in 24 hours...yipee! Its here we picked up a fairy geocoin and its mission is to spread fairy dust everywhere....(umm, no comment) so in honour of that geocoin we will leave you with a picture that shows spring really is here...the frogs favourite flower...the "croak"us...boom boom!

"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???

You must have your 5 a day!

Thursday March 4th 2010

Another spring day....another day of caching....yes we really are on a roll at the moment. In 2 days we have found half of what we found in total last month....and last month was our all time record!

So how come Mr Shiltonpig is hanging around a telephone box? Well read on and you will find out....

So today was another area we haven't really visited yet...Bretby park. First up took us to a cache full of a field of the cutest lambs you have ever seen...cuter than cute itself! So finding the cache was easy but cache 101 will always be remembered for one reason and one reason only....wee. An animal had knawed open the top and done its business inside and poor Mrs Shiltonpig had to pour all the contents out on the ground....think its fair to say that this cache needs maintenance!

The footpath that ended abruptly took us over the field and onto the next cache.....the cache again was easily found, and not very memorable with the exception of something in it. It was the first trackable marble we had come across, it was in the form of a globe and was pretty cool to say the least...our favourite trackable item so far.

Next up took us to a pretty woodland and why do we call it pretty simply because there were snowdrops everywhere...at first we had thought we had come across another trackable item but no a local cacher uses halfpennys as there trademark item when leaving things behind.

Josh by now was doing his usual trademark....he decided to fill his nappy. We are starting to wonder if he goes caching just to help his stomach movements! This meant a detour to the car and a quick pit stop. We drove to the next cache....and again found this one quickly. However this was a lot more memorable due to the nature of the cache....the cache was some flowers....and took Mrs Shiltonpigs mere seconds to spot it. Mr Shiltonpig had seen them, but just thought they were just large snowdrops....d'oh! However to make amends he got down on one knee to say sorry...he knows that every girl just needs some flowers!

It was then that we drove past the remarkable quiet village of Bretby and came across the red telephone box...still operational I have to say. Must mean people still use it? Do people in Bretby not have mobile phones? Anyway it was a great tourist photo type thing and perfect for this blog.

The next cache took us down a country lane that had more holes than a teenager recovering from acne. The gps bounced around like Josh on a bouncy castle and Mrs Shiltopig found her 4th cache of the day....she was on a roll (Mr Shiltonpig would like to remind Mrs Shiltonpig that it was he who found the marble....quality not quantity my dear!!)

Last and in this case least we drove around to attempt a 6th cache....we bumped into a lady who said "You won't get far with that footwear, its muddy down there" Mr Shiltonpig would like to point out he paid almost £10 for those trainers...top quality merchandise!!!! The aforementioned footwear did make it to where we needed to go, however the cache pointed in directions that didn't make sense, so we had to call it quits...for another day. But we will be back!

Cache and Poo!

Feb 14th 2010

Apparently the world record for caches found in 24 hours is 324. Which means 1 cache is found every 5 minutes...clearly however these amazing record was not completed with a 17 month old toddler....in particular one called Josh.

Some geocaches are called "cache and dash" because they are close to the road and can be quickly found. We wanted to get some paint from the newly opened Wickes and thought along the way we could do a few sneaky caches.

First up was a cache near a wood....this wood had clearly got into the spirit of geocaching as it has hidden a millenium stone in the woods for the public to find....the rather smug looking Mrs Shiltonpig however spotted the cache within 30 seconds....(the fact that it had a 100 foot high neon light above it saying "Find me" was not the point).

The cache in question was indeed "lucky" as it had a horseshoe around it to identify where it was....strangely we didn't notice that until after we found the cache.....

Josh however was starting to smell and as soon as Mr Shiltonpig put him on the shoulders...it was clear that this was not going to a be a cache and dash it was going to be a cache and poo!

One nappy change later and we were ready to tackle the next one....this was to take us down the very busy main A road in this part of the world...as we walked down it, we realised just how crazy we were...and the lengths that geocaching had taken us to.

But yet again geocaching came up trumps...we were walking in what would be considered an unattractive part of the world, the clouds turned a dark grey and looked like rain...Mr Shiltonpig turned to the left and saw this corn? field and took his favourite "moody" picture to date..something about the colurs just make it a nice shot...of course you might be looking at the photo and thinking whats special about it...but lets face it "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

Now caches come in all shapes and sizes and we knew from the records that this was going to be a unique container, didn't realise just how unique. In fact even though the gps took us right slap bang to the correct location, and Mr Shiltonpig spotted the correct cache, because of the nature of what it was, we almost discarded it instantly...but a double take meant that we looked again and sure enough it was a cache.

Josh is holding and looking curiously at the cache...to be honest we could not believe that it was a cache.

Now some caches are collated together in what is known as a series. Some series then go on to have clues in them, which in turn once you solve the clues will lead you on to one last final cache. This cache was the first of one such series and as we have never successfully done this type of cache, we look forward to more as the weeks go by.

So back in the car and we drove to the nearby Tescos for one last cache of the afternoon. Josh started grumbling, but Mrs Shiltonpig was in form today as she walked on ahead and within 10 seconds was shouting what Team Shiltonpig always wants to hear "I've found it". Again a very very strange container and one that we couldn't get into fully, plus the log was soaking wet so we couldn't write on it...instead we used our brains and stuck a very appropriate "piglet" sticker on it. Josh was still grumbling so we started heading back to the car....as we got into the car Mr and Mrs Shiltonpig couldn't help wondering if we had trod in dog poo...we took all our shoes off and checked and thankfully we hadn't. But the smell continued to linger....

As we got home it became evident that the smell was in fact our dear son Josh...the biggest poo we have seen...so big that the only way was to get rid of the smell was a long bath!

There are many reasons why this blogger enjoys the hobby of geocaching.....today like most days, its just nice to get out and be with family.

Oh and by the time we got to Wickes it had closed...oh well...who needs DIY anyway?