Geocaching as a hobby for a Cubs badge

Bob has been in the Cubs for a wee while now and he is wanting to work towards some of his badges. He decided for the hobby badge he would use geocaching for his hobby. Well seems a logical choice, he enjoys it, we do it regularly and it is a great way for us to learn things together,

Geocaching is about a bit more than just "hunting for little plastic boxes in the woods using million of £ worth of satellites"  as the saying goes. There are other aspects to it. Not only is it a good way of keeping fit, it takes us to places we may never have seen, it also allows us to enjoy the history or the nature of the area. Sadly sometimes it takes you to some undesirable areas too, its a shame to see these areas but last weekend was what they call a CITO weekend. CITO stands for Cache in Trash out. This involves a group of geocaching going into an area, usually organised with the local council, and picking it all the rubbish lying around and bagging it. Last weekend saw  them moving old bikes and shopping trolleys from rivers, washing machines and other large items from woods and the road side. Usually the council will put skips on site for the event for people to put the rubbish in. The event usually rounds off with a picnic or a barbecue and some picking up of caches for those that have not been in the area before.

So we have had a few geocache trips out lately.

On April 8th we went to Auchinleck to do a series round an area "they ( the council)  made the walk as they planted the trees  in a bid to beautify the area but it gives the local people a decent walk where it used to be waste ground from some of the old pits that littered the area "

I have to say this is probably the first area we have been into that has not been beautiful and worth writing home about. The place was strewn with litter, empty cans, broken bottles, and goodness knows all what else. If this was suppose to be beautifying they have failed miserably, but anyway that is by the by. 

So anyway we set off, all the caches were marked as a micro so may well not be too easy to find in woodland. 

The first one was round the standing stones of Auchinleck

But despite how much we hunted we could not find this one.

We did find some of them

and some of them were very soggy

Some of the others were also missing despite a good hunt round the cache sites.

But as usual it was not all about caching, we also looked for trolls under the bridge

and left Granddad up the top just in case the troll got us

They were seeing who could throw stones into a wee stream

Bob had to throw a bit harder to hit the stream

While Bob was busy throwing stones Granddad went an hid ( behind a telegraph pole) an here is Bob approaching said pole 

 and yes he managed to find him.

So fun and exercise was had, along with mixed success with the caches. 

 

Project 365 25th April week 17

Sunday

Meet Dudley. Dudley is a My Pet Monster. He belongs to daughter No2. He was part of her ( if I remember rightly) ninth Christmas. She had her heart set on him and so Santa did not disappoint her. He did get some funny looks and strange comments when he went into hospital with her for one of her many stays. We found him in the loft last week and so returned him to his rightful owner. He has long ago lost his handcuffs.

as an extra picture here is said daughter with Dudley. 

Monday

Went for a walk somewhere different, up the Cambusdoon Estate. This is the remains of a large posh house that has had many uses over the years before it fell into disrepair. Also added another cache to my list today.

Tuesday

The weather here has been beautiful again all week, far to nice to be staying in in an evening as so we went for a walk round the fishery. Was playing with the zoom on my camera and got some good pictures of some historic buildings on the horizon but loved the way this cloud looked like a bird. Maybe I would not pass a blot test......lol

Wednesday

Bye bye bathroom door. Never been keen on having a bathroom door with glass at the top especially when my bathroom is  directly opposite the front door. So finally this week we  replaced it. DH cut this one in half so it would fit in the car to go to the dump.

Thursday

Fifi had too much homework to do to come over to stay, she has been putting it off for nearly a month now and is realising deadlines are easier met if you do the project ongoing, a valuable lesson in better time management. So it was just Bob, which he actually loves, and we took Granddad with us and went walking up a local country estate. We introduced Granddad to Bob's world of tigers, wolves, crocodiles and Percy Jackson monsters.

Friday

A random white daffodil, though I am sure they have another name. 

Saturday

Fifi loves making things and one of the things she got for Christmas was a plate making set, and so myself and her other Gran got plates made. It is lovely when they are old enough to do these things at random for you.

I organised a Geocaching event

Earlier in the year DH and I had gone to Stirling to The Great Tapestry of Scotland as there were not a lot of places it was suppose to be visiting. But then we found out it was coming to Ayr and so we decided to make a celebration of it. As a my regular readers will know I have been into the hobby of geocaching for a year now. In that year I have attended various geocaching events that I have thoroughly enjoyed, from The May Meander that was meant to be 3-4 hrs and 8 miles that actually turned out to be 7 hours and 13.5 miles.   The Mega Event, where geocachers from all over came to Ayrshire that involved many fab events where we celebrated our 200th,  to our 300th cache that we celebrated on Burns Day, not to mention the one that went hilariously wrong and we ended up covered in mud.

So we decided to organise an event based on something that we had seen on one of the tapestries, tunnocks tea cakes and barrs irn bru.

We organised our event for the first week of the tapestry being in Ayr to bring people to enjoy this amazing piece of work. We contacted both companies and Tunnocks agreed to provide us with some goodies to give away. A fellow cacher was kind enough to pick them up from the factory for me.

So the event was organised for Saturday 11th April. I advertised my event on the geocaching page as well as a few other places and waited on people saying they would come. The day started off with snowy showers which cleared to give sleety rain, which then cleared to give some lovely bright sunny weather.

So 3pm came and people started to arrive.

It was nice to welcome known faces from previous events as well as new faces who came along to meet fellow cachers.

Not to forget to mention of course some of the geohounds, even Chalky who was his normal white colour instead of a dark shade of mud covered.

From here people started to mingle and chat.

People signed the log to say they had been here,

and one of the cachers even made my event his 600th cache, I felt very honoured.

We shared out the teacakes, more than enough to go round with a few spare ones left.

I then got Bob to pick out raffle tickets for the Tunnocks prizes that had been donated.

everybody had a number to check

and the prizes were given to the lucky winners, I really wanted the hat.

The area I had chosen was right next to the main street but with a great walled safe off road area and all the children ( well apart from Minky and Dinky) roamed freely.

After the event some of the group went back to geocaching, others came across to the town hall to look at the tapestry. I had hoped to get Fifi in a picture here but she had disappeared off with her friend to wander the shops. So I borrowed a fellow cachers two daughters instead. 

Of course Granny and Granddad had to come as well.

Thank you to every one that came and made my event a success, was nice to meet new friends as well as catch up with old friends, the sun shone and everybody had a good time.

Next event I think will be a picnic or a barbecue in a park somewhere local over the Summer at some point.

Project 365 week 16

Sunday

The cladding is still going on, will be glad when it is finished, but this is currently the view from the top landing window.

Monday

Daughter had the older two away to M&D's a localish theme park today and as SIL works in an afternoon so I went over to watch the twins between the time he went out and daughter returned. Here they are having their snack.

Tuesday

Was another lovely afternoon so I went for a walk with DH. We walked along the River Ayr at Failford to a place called Peden's Cove 
Have been along here many times before but have never spotted this bible tucked inside the rock ledge near the top. No date on the inscription.

Wednesday

Fifi was away at a friends for a sleep over and so daughter decided to wander up with the other three. They went out to see the chickens. Dinky had a stroke at one but Minky was not so sure, The wind was cold out so we came back in to play. Here they are playing games with granddad

Thursday

A friend of ours has been wanting to try geocaching for a while. So today we all went out to do some, he had a ball and is now hooked. We had a strike rate of ten out of the eleven we looked for. Had to double back for one as two men were sat on the wall three feet away from one and despite wandering down to the river and doing various other time wasting activities they were still there.

Friday

Happy 9th Birthday to Bob. As usual he asks for a cake from me. This year he wanted a Harry Potter cake, did googling of various images but with his cake lacking in both egg and gluten it does not have much structure to mold or cut into shapes too easily. I popped an ask on Facebook and Clare put a picture of of hers up for me. This I could manage and I added a scarf for effect.

Saturday

I had some items to clear out of the loft and so have popped them on various freebie sites to see if anybody wanted them, One I gave away during the week and the lovely lady that came to pick it up brought me these lovely flowers.

John Logie Baird (Smart or not so Smart?)

Way back in time, the 26^th January 1926 to be precise, a genius Scotsman by the name of John Logie Baird (1888-1946) demonstrated to the public for the first time what we now refer to as television. Little could he, or anyone else watching on that day. have the remotest idea as to how the demonstration of this amazing new technology would go on to change the world as they knew it or indeed to help shape the future beyond anything they could possibly imagine.Would the world go on to thank him for this ?

However lets not skip too far ahead at the moment, the world back them was a very different place technologically, after all they were still getting used to the idea of radio, a magical way of sending voice invisibly over the air and suddenly someone could now do the same with pictures and images, magic indeed. A century before that you would have probably been burned at the stake for imagining or suggesting such a thing!

 Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jump forward a decade or three to when I was born television had become far more advanced since the days of Mr Baird, I mean three channels and in colour too were available, amazing. I grew up with this technology never giving it a second thought. Even when they added a fourth channel, then came along satellite television suddenly hundreds of channels were available and  it was just the way things were, we accepted it, it was normal, entertainment and news at the press of a button all being displayed on a square and generally ugly box sitting in the corner of your living room.

The next big thing that came along to amuse us all was computers, I shall not dwell too long on them as we all know how they progressed from simple devices that you could spend hours programming just to have a coloured ball or wavy lines bounce across your television screens to the amazingly powerful devices we have now come to accept as being part of our every day lives.

Then came the Internet and goodness how that has changed the world of entertainment and communication beyond anything anyone could have imagined. Suddenly across a multitude of devices, computers, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones we had access to the world and almost everything in it.

Then came along the Smart TV like this one made by Panasonic  truly amazing now everything is available on a very attractive box sitting in the corner of your living room or more commonly nowadays mounted on your wall. 

 Image courtesy of Naypong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 Besides the traditional functions of television sets this amazing technology can provide us with internet television and an almost inexhaustible supply of online interactive media. We can communicate with our friends and family, send emails, pictures, call up videos, watch satellite TV, and access unbelievable amounts of information all at the press of a few buttons on a small device in the palm of your hand. Truly amazing if not magical, and yes in amongst all that we still have the original three channels, so yes  Mr Baird the world does indeed have an awful lot to thank you for, you were indeed a very Smart fellow. 

This is a sponsored post but all thoughts are wording are my own. 

Project 365 week 15

What a glorious week it has been dont think we have seen any rain, dont think I have worn a jacket all week, apart from Monday morning where we had a heavy fog that did not lift until lunchtime then it has been glorious.


Sunday

I finished work at two today, a rare Sunday afternoon off, (would rather have had the overtime but there was none today) and what a lovely Sunday it was, a beautiful sunny wind free afternoon and so we decided to make the most of it and went for a walk along the river. I am grateful for living in such a beautiful part of the country. So many country estates, rivers, parks and the beach to walk along. What is not to like?

a lovely walk along the river. 

Monday

Today was a strange sort of day, very warm but foggy. Some places were patchier than others. It took a long while to lift, this picture was taken at 11.45 am. It always amazes me how many people seem to think they can scream along the bypass at 70+ mph with no lights on in practically zero visibility. We did set off for a walk along the river at Failford this afternoon, but everybody else must have had the same idea and as the place only has approx ten parking spaces then there was nowhere to stop. 

still foggy at lunch time.

Tuesday.

Another beautiful afternoon, Daughter No3 was down for the afternoon and so we decided to take the gruesome twosome to the park to get them out and to give daughter a break. Have to say they are hard work with two adults, no wonder they are impossible with one. Bob came with us as well. 

They played on the swings and slide and ran around and expended lots of energy. We got Bob to shout them through the tunnel, Dinky was a bi reserved about going through to start with but Minky went through and back. 

Dinky on her way through

Minky on his way back

Wednesday

Bob goes to cubs and he is trying to work towards some of his badges. So he is going to do his hobby and photography badge with me and his DIY badge with granddad. He wants to do his hobby badge on geocaching, and so no excuses needed for me to go out caching. The house is rather noisy this week as we are getting external cladding done and every bit of house work I have done this morning has been undone by the workman, so I am giving up and going out.

We went and looked for a series of caches, sadly some had been muggled, and I have to say what a horrible area it was. It is reclaimed pit land that has been planted with trees and series of footpaths to encourage people onto the land. Sadly it seems to be attracting all the wrong people with the are strewn with litter, empty cans, broken bottles and lots of dog sh*t*. But it got us all out for some fresh air and exercise. 

Granddad was pretending to hide behind a telegraph pole, but Bob could see him ( obviously) and was laughing at Granddad as he walked round the pole to stay behind it. 

Bob laughing at Granddad

Thursday 

Today was a visit day and we left early and went to look around Doune Castle before hand and do some geocaching afterwards. The weather is too nice to waste. The last time we went to Doune Castle, for a geocaching event, it rained and rained and rained and was just about dark, so we decided to go back on a nicer day, and nicer it was.

Doune Castle

Friday

Was nice to catch up with my nephew his girlfriend and their three girls. It is three years since we last saw them. Did get some pictures but I am not a lover of sharing other people children on my blog. So any way I was in the town today picking up some bits and pieces for my geocaching event tomorrow. There are posters advertising the Tapestry up on most street corners. It is well worth a look if you have not already seen it. 

advertising the Tapestry 

Saturday

A whole week of outdoor pictures, no food, no baking ( not done any) no trying to think of ideas for pictures, this week they have all come easy. Today was the first ever geocaching event I have held, and more than twenty people turned up. Despite the snow this morning and the hailstones for a minute or two at two pm by three o'clock it was gorgeous. We sat on the bench seats eating tea cakes and drinking irn bru, having a good old chin wag. It was quite a little sun trap thank fully. 

geocaching fun