Spandau Ballet & Cache No.3000

I've been neglecting the blog of late, but Saturday encouraged me to write something!

First off, after a bit of DIY (something else that gets neglected!) I jumped in the car with the geomutt to grab caches 2999 and 3000, which were a couple of new puzzle caches not far from home. I'd solved one of them, but the other eluded me, so I decided to resort to chance, knowing that they were likely to be on the same footpath.

Found the first one easily enough, then tottered off down the path with the clue in mind, and found cache No.3000 in the second place I looked!

Onto the main event of the day....you may have read a blog of mine earlier this year about me bidding for (and winning) 2 tickets to see Spandau Ballet with backstage passes thrown in. Well, Saturday was the day.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been exchanging voicemail and texts with Alison Hadley (Tony Hadley's wife no less, which makes me sound like a bit of a name-dropper!). She assured me that the tickets and passes would be at the Box Office for collection on the night.

We arrived nice and early, at around 6.30pm, just in case there was a problem, and it was a good thing we did!

I asked the (rather grumpy) lady in the ticket office if there were some tickets left for me.....nothing....oh dear....

I called Alison Hadley.....voicemail.....oh dear....dismay!!!!

I left here a message, and settled in hoping for a response. In the meantime, I spoke to a very helpful Steward, who got on the case trying to contact someone backstage to find my tickets.

While he was doing his stuff, Alison finally called me back, and told me she was also on the case.

Progress !

My phone then rang again, this time, it was Tony Hadley's manager! My tickets were on the way! I returned to the (rather grumpy) woman in the ticket office, and explained the situation, and that she should expect my tickets to arrive shortly. She gave me a look that said "You chancer, trying to blag some tickets". The look on her face was a picture when the guy walked in with the tickets :-)

Finally, we got inside the Arena, only to realised that we didn't have backstage passes! Anyway, we found our seats, and I sloped off to talk to security at the side of the stage. As I was talking to them, Alison called me again to make sure I had got in.

A very nice chap then arrived and waved us through to meet the band!!

We met all 5 of them, had our photos taken, and got them all to sign our programme.

We went back to our seats and waited for the show to begin, and what a show it was!!!! They were absolutely brilliant, one of the best gigs I've ever been to.

A thoroughly cracking night out!

Geocaching Targets for September

I've decided to act like a large global corporation, and set myself a few targets for the month of September, and as I have 10 days off at the end of the month, I'm hoping to achieve them too!

Target No.1 - Most Finds in a Month

My previous record of 290 should get surpassed this month, I've got 43 finds already, and with maybe another 40-50 this weekend, I'll need about 200 on my holiday, and on the first day I should get around 70 on the Sussex Amble.

Target No.2 - Progress the D/T Challenge

I have identified (and solved) a couple of puzzle caches ready for my trip to Cornwall (actually I'll have to detour near Plymouth on the way from the Isle of Wight to get them, and will probably end up putting the tent up in the dark!), these should add a couple of ticks to the D/T grid, making 70 boxes completed out of 81.

Target No.3 - Most Finds in a Week

Previously 133 in March of this year, easy-peasy to beat this one once the Sussex Amble is done!

Target No.4 - Have a fabbo time!

Easy.

I've invested in a POYG Broadband dongle, and hope to Blog my way through the week, with photographic proof of my efforts!

Caches found at time of posting......2633.

Lack of Blogging

I've been busy working (for a change) and caching furiously in my spare time.

Plans for the trip at the end of this month are pretty much complete, and I'm targetting 250 caches in the week.

Caches found at time of posting......2590

Country Folk and their Country Ways.....

At last some half decent weather, so we headed for Dove Dale for some of the new caches that were placed for the recent Pirate Mania event.

Three earthcaches, plus lots of trads to do on an excellent walk, including an ascent of Thorpe Cloud for one of the earthcaches, a short but steep climb!

With just three caches left to do, we started to hear a PA system blaring out in the countryside, and as we got nearer, we found that we had stumbled upon Manifold Valley Country Fair, so we dropped on for a walk round.



They were having some bizarre sort of dog racing, using their own pets. An arena of sorts had been set up, around which some 500 people were gathered. The course itself was about 50 yards long, and consisted of a rather rickety box in which the runners were placed, and a fluffy penguin (yes, a penguin) attached to a piece of string. The "hare", or "penguin" was propelled from the start line to the non-existent finishing line by way of a loop of string tied around a bike wheel (with the tyre missing), this was further enhanced by the use of the pedals on the bike to make the fluffy toy fly along at a rapid rate of knots!



Utterly bizarre, but they loved it! They were getting themselves into a right frenzy, it was only a matter of time before a fight broke out!

We had a quick look at the owls, the market and one more glance at the "dog racing" before beating a hasty retreat.



One of the strangest things I've seen while out caching!

Caches found at time of posting......2460.

Pen Y Fan 3 Peaks!

Saturday seemed to be the only day of the short weekend that would provide some half decent weather, so we headed off for the Brecon Beacons for a bracing stroll up the hills.

The main target was Pen-Y-Fan, the highest peak in the Brecon Beacons, and the highest point in southern England....and of course a few caches, including a nice Earthcache, which are sadly under-represented on my caching profile.



We parked up to the north, and started to make our way up Cefn Cwm Llwch, with the summit nowhere in sight. After half an hour of plodding ever upwards, the summit came into view.

After a good 90 minute slog up the slope, we arrived at our goal, and grabbed the first cache of the day, a virtual at the summit.



We then headed off to the nearby Corn Du, just a tad lower at 873m (13m lower than Pen-Y-Fan) and grabbed Tommy Jones, a sad cache commemorating a 5 year old boy who got lost on the hills and died in 1900.

We then made our way back up to Pen-Y-Fan, and down Craig Cwm Sere and up to Cribyn, after doing SWMCC 4 and bumping into some fellow geocachers (Capt Rico & Crew) on a trip up from Cornwall.



After doing the Earthcache at Cribyn, we enjoyed the views for a few minutes, then started to make our way back down to the car, and completed a 9 mile circular walk in just under 5 hours.

Great fun.

Caches found at time of posting......2408.

An Odd Statistic?

Like many geocachers, I use GSAK to manage my database of caches, and also use the excellent FindStatsGen macro to put all manner if useful (and indeed useless) statistics on my profile page at GC.com.

I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to things like this, and I find myself reviewing the stats almost every day, in fact, every time I find a cache, I update my stats page almost immediately!

Anyway, I was looking at it earlier today and spotted something a bit strange....but true.

It appears that I don't do much caching between 40 and 50 miles from home. Although I have found 445 caches in the 50-100 mile range, and 169 in the 30-40 mile range, I seem to have managed only 25 caches (1.04% of my total finds) between 40 and 50 miles from home.

It certainly not because of a lack of caches to find, there are hundreds of them!

Caches found at time of posting......2387.

Wet in Wales

Despite the appalling weather forecast, Julie and I jumped in the cachemobile early on Sunday morning and headed for Mid-Wales...Newtown to be precise.

At the last minute, Julie's son Jon, and his girlfriend, Anna, decided to tag along. Anna was quite excited about the prospect of find "treasure"; I told her not to get her hopes up!

After an uneventful one and a half hour car drive, we arrived in Newtown just about 10.00am, and it wasn't raining.

I had a string of 6 caches pretty much in a line heading north-east from Newtown along part of the the Severn Way (which, incidentally, does not appear to be on the Garmin Topo map of the UK....).

First up, Hendidley 2 (The "Organite" Cache), which is a fairly new cache, with a few recent finds. Four of us failed miserably, but there was a rope swing for us to play on!



We managed to find the rest of the caches without diffculty, and even managed to dodge the odd short shower.

Jon and Anna were surveying the route back to Newtown as it started to rain.



Near to the end, the heavens opened, and we were all soaked through by the time we got back to the car, so we abandoned the idea of grabbing the 3 caches near the town centre, and started to make our way home.

An enjoyable few hours nonetheless, with some good views along the way.



Caches found at time of posting......2387