"Great" we thought, "A brand new child-themed cache near our home. We will visit on the way to Tescos with our toddler."
So off we set with Andrew (age 3) and our teenage daughter. She took an hour to get ready (after all, in Tescos someone might see her)
Picture the ensemble: Jane Norman handbag, Jane Norman jeans, Warehouse Coat (no, I do not mean a donkey jacket) and high heel boots. Made up to the nines, as we say in the UK.
All went well for the first clue, and we headed off down the catwalk (sorry, I meant down the path) heading for the second clue. That was when disaster struck. "There's muuuuuuuuuuuud." she wailed. "You never said there would be muuuuuud."
The stream had broken it's banks, and the path was waterlogged. Undeterred, we forged on, with our son happily splashing and our daughter bringing up the rear.
It was then that she discovered that high heels are not the best thing for geocaching.
"I'm siiiiiiiiinking" she cried. "Don't let the mud get on my jeans." Slowly, ever so slowly, her heels were sinking in the mug, coming dangerously close to the hem of her designer jeans.
We could take the wailing no longer. We turned back, and found an alternative route. At the playground Andrew decided that swings and slides were better than a treasure hunt, and announced "No more geo-catching with melon" (Skippy will understand what that means, if ever she reads this log). Our daughter also did not want to go on because "I might get mud on my jacket", so we forged on without children, and eventually found the cache.
I do not know what the moral of this tale is. Perhaps "Don't let your toddler see a swing on a treasure hunt", perhaps "High Heels and mud are not a good combination." But I think it is: "When Geocaching worry about the terrain, not whether boys might see you."
