enitharmon

Hello - anybody remember me? I've been a dormant Geocacher since last summer (got heavily into running instead) and now I've moved Oop North away from my old haunts in Reading. But having sought and found the Black Combe cache yesterday I guess I've reactivated myself. The thing I want to ask is, back in Reading I had a cache of my own - 'The Bell and the Stars' - which I think is a pretty good one and it would be a shame to lose it. It's a toughie but I believe those who have sought it have enjoyed the challenge. Obviously, though, I can't maintain it any more. Would somebody like to be my proxy? Rosie

I am a bear of very little brain, evidently, and I can't for the life of me see why there should be a problem about fundraising for a cause which would be impossible to take exception to. Please explain. Rosie

I am a bear of very little brain, evidently, and I can't for the life of me see why there should be a problem about fundraising for a cause which would be impossible to take exception to. Please explain. Rosie

At the end of May I went to the Binfield Bank Holiday Cache Bash. Although I walked all the way from Bracknell station, I felt like the original tub of lard. This was confirrmed a few days later when I went to the doc for my MOT. "Now Rosalind, would you like to step on the scales?' "Oh no doctor. Please, not the scales. Anything but the scales..." It was horrible. It was repulsive. Something had to be done. So I put on my old tennis shoes and sweat pants and a big baggy old sweatshirt. I'll just jog to my shiny new geocache at Lousehill Copse to check it out, I thought. Ha bloody ha! After wobbling a hundred yards I thought I was going to die. But I'm no quitter. I walked for a while. Then when I'd got my breath back I wobbled to the next lamp post. Walked for a bit. Woobbled to the next lamp post. And so on. Someone gave me a graduated programme to follow. A week later I bought a pair of running shoes. After another week I joined a club. On 1 August,, the day before my 51st birthday, I ran for a broken 30 minutes for the first time. A week after that I ran three miles without stopping. And now it's nearly the end of September... Here comes the punchline. I'm kinda addicted now. My long-term aim is the Reading Half-Marathon next March, but as a staging post I've entered myself for the Brighton Reebok 10K race on 20 November. But I'm not just doing it for me, I'm doing it for a good cause. I wanted a suitable charity to raise funds for. And I settled on Bag Books. They produce books in a bag for children and adults with severe learning difficuties who do not have access to ordinary books. Their lives are enriched through the power and joy of storytellling using all the senses. You can find out more here Rosie

Ooh, I see one of mine is in there in 291st place... Rosie

Old enough to know better... I have a birthday in (counts on fingers) three and a half weeks when I shall be 51. Top of the Pops on the day I was born was David Whitfield's Cara Mia. Tosca here will be one year old on 12 July. She doesn't come caching but she does provide hospitality for travel bugs that pass this way (usually behind the sofa or under my bed), and generally helps me with my typing. Rosie

Try it again - the URL seems to have got garbled.

Yesterday I wild-released a Bookcrossing-registered book in a geocache and took from it another book which was not registered with Bookcrossing. I thought that was a great shame as the person who placed the book will not get any feedback on the book's progresss - after all a book has a life in the way that a plastic toy or a Polish coin doesn't. So I registered it, and when I've read it I will release it into the wild again - possibly into a geocache, probably not as one of the aims of bookcrossing is to encourage the uninitiated to find the books, journal them, enjoy reading them, pass them on, and hopefully become addicted and join the community. After that they can follow the progress of their books and find out how much the subsequent readers enjoyed them. As a writer myyself I'm all in favour of the practice! So I then wondered how many geocachers are also bookcrossers, and how many geocachers would like to be bookcrossers if only they were aware of it. The aim may be slightly different, but the two activities are surely complementary. Rosie

I wonder if anybody heard the Afternoon Play on Radio 4 last Friday - Stamp Collecting with Legs by Alan Francis? Or were you all out caching? You can still hear it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/ram/afternoonplay_fri.ram but you've only got two days left to do so. It's actually about letterboxing but you get the general idea. It also features the real voices of Dartmoor letterboxers. Sad, innit! Rosie

Yes, me. I haven't had any problems so far. Mind you, I haven't been out at night. And my ex-SBS ex-boyfriend was very keen to ensure that I could look aftter myself! As with all these things, it's a matter of confidence and local knowledge. I learned this in New York actually - that if you look vulnerable you attract predators, just as in the wider world of animals. Look purposeful and you will be less likely to attract them. Of the three caches I have set, one is close to a slightly disreputable outlying area of Reading, one is in a spot that attracts winos (which actually makes it rather safer since the winos are harmless and their watching presence deters predators) and one is deep in remote woodland that I don't suppose would be very productive at night anyway. Rosie

It's my manga persona, loosely based on my sense of identification with Dr Mary Malone in Philip Pulllman's His Dark Materials cycle. You can make your own customised manga icon if you visit this site

Well, that's today's world for you! I placed one anyway. I'm not going to plug it or say where it is, but I think it's nicely hidden, takes you to a lovely, unexpected and comparatively unfrequented spot, and it has no puzzles. The next one, however...

Thanks Tigger! I have to confess that I'm already a bit bored with the ammo-box-under-a-pile-of-twigs kind of cache, though I suppose these are great for young families. I want something a bit meatier. Do others feel the same way? Rosie

Now that I have ten caches behind me I feel entitled to place one. The first will be fairly straightforward, I think, but I'm already planning a subsequent multi cache and I'm hoping it will be challenging. Are there guidelines for multis? Is it, for example, necessary that one can reasonably expect to progress from waypoint to waypoint? Or is it reasonable, as I intend, to require that the clue at one waypoint will require the searcher to go away and do some research? Provided of course that this is reflected in the cache difficulty and a warning is provided? Rosie

Nah! He's got another one with teeth! Rosie

Now I have the use of a GPSr (thanks to my foster-cacher, beds_clanger!) and isn't it fun! Still learning how to use it properly but I put it through its paces this afternoon on a nearby multicache and had a wonderful walk on a lovely afternoon. I also exchanged one Bookcrossing book for another, and best of all I am now in possession of a squeaky frog called Prince, who has travelled all the way from Australia with an aluminium tag tangling from his back leg! I kissed him but he's still a frog He was last seen making friends with my cat, Tosca, and he'll be staying with us until he decides where to hop to next. Rosie

Ah yes, so it is! Many thanks. Rosie

Yes, it would, but the problem ls not with the point A (I can follow those coordinates) but point C - the 'Earley Bird' cache GCH1AR. 'Earley Bird' does not appear on my list of nearby caches.

A cache I have been researching requires me to locate three other caches and find the target by distance from the three. Unfortunately, only two of the caches appear in the list so I have no idea where to locate it. This does make it somewhat problematical. In theory I can establish two possible target locations from two of the other locations, but that seems to be an unnecessary hassle. Is there something I should know? Advice please, Agony Aunts and Uncles! Rosie

Yebbut - fell boots were a bit excessive and as they are thirty-year-old Hawkins Helvellyns and I haven't worn them for quite a while and the Hemdean Valley ain't exactly Rossett Gill, they may have been a tad excessive! The mud I was promised didn't materialise and I seem to hace skinned the back of my left ankle. Never mind. I suspect that 10 caches may also be over cautious. Having grovelled on hands and knees in a public place, poking around with a wooden chopstick for only my third cache, I think my resistance to the infection may be pretty low. Rosie

Oh, I'm dead chuffed today as I found not one but two caches today. One of them rated 4 1/2 stars for difficulty (I was almost scared to even try but I had guessed in advance that intuition and local knowledge would get me further than a GPS device in this case, and I was right! The other was easy but required a longish, but pleasant, walk in my fell boots. So I guess I'm here to stay, folks. Gonna have to get me one of they gizmos Rosie

I shall try my darnest. And I'll be extra careful not to go to Binfield Heath instead!

Just wondering if anybody in the Reading area would like to adopt me! Rosie

Ah well, I cheered myself up this morning by finding one - not one of the ones I looked for yesterday. Rosie (also a Firefox and a Linux user)

Oh dear - I've a nasty feeling I said something I shouldn't have I went looking yesterday. One search I abandoned as soon as I saw that the terrain wasn't suitable for sandals. Two more I failed miserably to find. Oh well, better luck next time. Rosie