16 December 2012 (Sunday) - Yalding

I was woken by my alarm this morning. That hardly ever happens. Up, brekkied, dressed and out of the house by 8am. We collected Hursky and made our way to Yalding. On the way we drove past Teston Bridge picnic site; somewhere which is very special to me. The river was very full, the weir was under water. And there seemed to be a lot of building work going on. I wonder what's happening there?

Pausing only briefly a couple of times for caches we were passing, we soon met up with friends old and new in Yalding, and nine of us took Fudge for a walk. Along the Yalding Hill Walk, a series of twenty (or so) geocaches. Up hills, down dales, through swamps. Finding supposedly leaning trees that had actually fallen, shouting at small dogs for rolling in fox poo; it was a really good walk. And at the end of the walk as a bonus we were given co-ordinates for a further five geocaches which were slightly more tricky.
One of these boiled my piss. The official rules of hiding geocaches state that caches should not be put near playparks. The actual rules say that only caches hidden by me should not be near playparks. We found yet another cache on top of a kiddies play area. I've actually started compiling a list of such caches. It's getting longer. When I'm next feeling in a black mood I might just squeal them all up. But not today.

Finding all the Yalding Hill caches took just over three and a half hours. We made our way into the village and sat at the seats by the war memorial to eat our picnic. Disaster! Someone (me) had left our sarnies at home. Fortunately we were with excellent company who ensured we didn't go hungry.

We then said our goodbyes to some of our number, and three of us (and a small dog) then slowly made our way home via whatever geocaches we could find on the way. We stopped off for quite a serious stroll around Collier Street where we found four caches. One named in honour of a pig which once lived nearby, One in the fields where hops are grown.
And then on to Staplehurst where we gave up on two: one being a muilti-cache which seemed to lead us on to a point over a mile away, and another which required a serious hike up and down through the village; as it was getting dark we decided against that. Instead we found "Dog's Cache" in the dark (the light had completely failed by this time). And with only one more pit stop we made our way home. A successful day's geocaching having found over thirty caches. And, as always, there are photos of the day on-line.

Once home Fudge had a bath. He'd gone out wearing his coat,but it had got soaked whilst we were walking, And he'd also done his signature move in fox poo (what is the attraction?) so a scrub was necessary.
And we found the sandwiches I'd prepared for lunch sitting in the kitchen where I'd left them. Waste not, want not. They made for a passable bit of tea.

And with "er indoors TM" off bowling and an exhausted little Fudge fast asleep on my lap I wasted the rest of the evening watching rubbish on UK Gold. My face is glowing; I seem to have caught the sun today.
Five days until mid winter and I've caught the sun....


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