Geocaching

D'you know hanging out with youngsters does have some advantages? By youngsters I mean 18 to 40 year olds- young enough to be techno knowledgeable and old enough to have patience with their technodinosaur elders(well- sometimes) - and they often have the financial back up to buy the equipment necessary to be technowizards. These Tweenies (ie between unsalaried scholars and pensioned silver surfers) have been educated in the computer world so are relaxed and informed there but are old enough to realise they are going to be elderly one day and beyond the optimism of Youth that says it will never happen to them..... They know about i-pods and i-pads and androids and laugh but kindly at my Nokia 33-10 mobile phone. I bought a new mob last week and I received more sweet smiles from the next generation down when I said I had to upgrade as my mob (which was safe as it would never be worth pinching at school- though I hear it has a cult following!?) was no longer holding its charge- so I had bought the next model up and it can take photos (not that I know how to download them on to my PC yet - but I am working on it!)

Anyway D3 asked if we wanted to go geocaching yesterday- is the Pope a catholic?- Yes! We are known for loving games and treasure hunts so (rain) coats, hats and gloves on (its blinking cold for September) and we were off; oops sorry- we downloaded the app (yes! as in application- you can tell me nothing now I have been geocaching- well! have you been geocaching?) on her phone. So off we go.....there are so many places where other geocachers had hidden 'treasures' for us to find and sign in on.
We found maps showing the location of several caches near us and headed off- in this case ie yesterday- to the woods. Today we got soaked in a rainstorm but there we were again, keen as mustard, clambering through wildlife reserves, locating wildcats in neighbouring estates, twisting and turning according to compass degrees, or striding out paces in certain directions- in order to find standard, small or even nano caches hidden in such inventive containers tucked away in exciting hiding places- if you can find them! We found 3 but had to search so hard for the last cache- the app recorded a family finding it 6 days ago but it eluded us. We signed in the logs inside the caches and later logged on to record comments online. The caches are hidden all over Britain so get cracking.

Yahoo! Northumbria University devised the geocaching app (c.geo) so one feels duty bound to show support....... actually no! Just do it because it is such good fun- your kids and grand kids would love it too- and their eyes might be sharper than yours for spotting secret treasures!!

Got to go- Downton Abbey calls- I love Sunday nights!