Guanajuato

Eldest needs a pair of solid outdoor shoes, so when I read about them here, I had a look. She was born with clubfeet, so has rather wide and odly-shaped feet. But they do half-sizes, so we went half a size higher and they fit fine. for £8 its great for shoes that won't get worn out. So thanks for the heads up!

Same here. I got an email newsletter from the Ordnance Survey Yesterday, saying their website has been relaunched. Could this have broken the script? Sent Edge a message.

How weird - that's the second picture of that knocker (or is there a pair? ) I've seen in as many days from completely separate sources. Unless you know someone in Penrith who happens to be doing the Practical Photography DSLR course... ?

Cycle Mayhem or more appropriately, Mayhem Cyclists! The obvious one, from the old joke, is: Cycle Path

Sorry. I assumed anyone would take it as the tongue-in-cheek reference it was obviously intended to be.

Sat Navs can't be blamed for someone being a complete idiot. Low bridges are signed. If they are unable to read the signs approaching and the one on the bridge, then maybe, just possibly they SHOULDN'T BE DRIVING AT ALL! The usual failure of the Nut Holding the Wheel. 2 or 3 artics get stuck on Red Bank between Grasmere & Loughrigg every year, despite there being lots of signs that its unsuitable, and its pretty obvious at the junction in Grasmere and at the Elterwater end that its unsuitable - in fact to GET to the start of the road must take some significant effort. But that doesn't stop the ***Edited offensive remark*** trying anyway. THEY ARE PAID TO DRIVE AND SHOULD BE CAPABLE OF MAKING DECISIONS. That's like an engineer not being able to do sums, or a linesman not knowing the offside law. Personally, I reckon any driver who blocks a road due to such idiocy should be liable for the cost of recovery. Grrrrr. To make it relevant, I can recommend the caches around Loughrigg!

That'll be those nasty in sewer ants that will. Here's my entry from today. Surprising what a good piccy a phone will take in the right light. Spring Has Sprung, rather suddenly! Oops - forgot to include the Cache - Anyone for Golf?

Another 'Win' for Android then. Flight mode turns off the wireless stuff, but GPS can be enabled. Or at least it does on my Sony X10. I used it on some recent flights, completely unaware of the need to ask, in much the same way as no-one was asking to use their laptops or MP3 players. On Air France/FlyBE/BritAir (I would assume KLM), their safety guide asks you to turn off all electronic devices for take-off & landing and specifically mentions GPSs. I'd assumed it was so you couldn't record the flight path for security reasons. But the full attention argument seems reasonable to me. Though if something happens, the likelihood is you're not going to walk away. A bit like the brace position being purely so you've got something to concentrate on whilst you interface with the ground at high speed. I can understand phones - you just have to listen to a PA system for a while and you'll hear dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit Buzz a couple of seconds before someone's (usually the sound guy's ) phone goes off. Yes, planes electronics are better designed and shielded than the average PA system, but why take the risk when 200+ lives could be at stake?

We bumped into some cachers on the Common at malvern link looking for a cache. It was their second time looking. Our 7 Year old finds it in seconds. Cue cries of 'I'm SURE we looked there last time' Mind you, I had looked in the same spot some 10 seconds earlier. Just to add, this one was VMG's first genuine find at just under a year old. We had to be pretty quick to stop it disappearing.

Caches in Ivy I don't mind. A long search and I can come up a bit itchy - i think its all the tiny dead bits that stick to your skin rather than a reaction as such. But trying to find film canisters (or smaller) in a wall covered in ivy just isn't fun. There's a micro in an ivy-coverd tree near us, but its not dense Ivy and its an interesting location, so its fine. Micros in Hawthorn bushes are a whole other thing. I'd NEVER do that.

Our littlest (VMG) 'found' her first cache at the tender age of 3 weeks, on the way home from hospital. She's 3 now, and done more in her first 3 years than her big Sis(sy) (MiniG) has done in 5.

Not much caching this month, particularly not with animals (unless the sprogs count?)! But we got out today, and it was a BIGGIE we spotted! The seldom spotted TarnHowsasaurus...

Having lived in Basingstoke for 4 years (I got let out for good behaviour) and a sister on the hants/wilts border, I can but agree!

Ah yes! I remember that log. For some reason we often quote the sharp pointy teeth caption! I can't really claim originality on that - it was inspired by a bit from Monty Python & the Holy Grail.

Personally, I don't find stiles too bad with a buggy. I then to lift it over the wall/fence next to the stile and lower it down. It helps that we have a good sturdy 3-wheeler. The worst are 8 foot high kissing gates with a similar sized wall. We have a few around the lakes. For those, its easier to just get the baby out and find somewhere safe for them to play for the few seconds it takes to get through/over. We had one the other day (School Knott near Windermere) where it seemed as though the person putting it up had thought really carefully how they could best make it really difficult! 8 foot high fence with the gate the same height, narrow with a 'roof' on it. So, even collapsed it was an extremely tight squeeze. I guess its to stop deer/sheep/big black cats getting off the fell into the town. But they are a right pain! My pet hates: Micros where a regular or even LARGE container could be effectively hidden (There are a few in the Ringwood area). Caches in well-known drinking/smoking/other activities areas. If the cache description says something along the lines of 'Watch out for loads of teenage muggles. They tend to hang around here', is it really an appropriate place for a cache? Nowt against teenagers (I was one once!), just when anyone congregates in slightly out of the way spots, they're usually up to no good. One cache in Shipley had the warning not to try looking at night (Its moved slightly, so its less of an issue now), but didn't go into detail. But the logs all mentioned hypodermics in the area the GPS was pointing. Caches (or clues) 30 feet up in trees.

Looks like High Audlands to me!!!

At the risk of being considered some kind of heretic, will the sell-off really make that much difference? On the news last night, they were talking about 'Selling Off Sherwood Forest' - Utter balls. most of it, that's not under the concrete of Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield & Rotherham is already in private hands. The forestry commission, as we know, are not exactly public-access friendly. £50 to place a cache anyone? The Forestry commission are no better than private landowners in terms of access. They're better than they used to be though - there used to be an awful lot of the country closed of to the public because of the unnatural forests. As long as retention of public access is maintained by law, I don't see a big problem. But that requirement is probably going to mean very few want to buy the forests. Hey, we might even be able to have a cache or two in Grizedale!

The NW site is a bit sparse at 1st view, but all the action happens on the forum.

:-) even the most basic (mobile) phones should be able to run trekbuddy and connect via Bluetooth. It's not so easy to explain how to set it up though! You'll get plenty of help from local caches though. Some will make you feel like a spring chicken. :-P I'll run & hide now!

Well, you'll find the north WEST cachers pretty helpful! Get over to WWW.nwcaching.Co.Uk-there's a few round Bolton way. Some odder than others:-) if you've got a phone with GPS (?) There's probably an app for it. If not, get trekbuddy for your phone and get a Bluetooth GPS. They're available for about £20. I have a bluenext bn909 as a backup, and have used it with Sony k800, C902, MOTO pebl and a Samsung 7220 teamed with trekbuddy. some can be found using streetmap.Co.UK and a bit of common sense. Grr. Hate the way this phone thinks it knows what I mean...

We've just an absolutely FANTASTIC afternoon at Elterwater/Skelwith Force. Stunning doesn't do it justice! I'm struggling to decide which two photos to put here, but here goes... Thats ice crytals formed on marsh grass. I've got quite into using an old lens reversed to get REALLY close in. The only problem is that I have to set everything manually and use the flash, so its complete guesswork really! I think its worked well. I just love the peace and calm this picture dipicts. I think it'd make an excellent Christmas card. I really want to include the robin from that set of pictures as well, but I won't. But the picture I've uploaded to the log isn't the closest it got. Unfortunately, the camera can't focus closer than about 6" and the flash just washes everything out at that distance.

With a name like that, you'll have to stay just down the road at Flookburgh.

Accommodation booked here 10 years ago. How's THAT for forward planning! Get any non-camping stuff booked early though - Cartmel is small.

Not at all! I was commenting on the general standard of driving of those in the UK with German-made cars.

Climbing trees - does that affect the difficult or terrain rating?