A Night in Blackpool
I was having lots of those at the time. So I got back to my swanky hotel fairly early. Dark, but fairly early. Some caching beckoned, and I toyed with driving back down to Lytham to have a hack at the 20 new caches down there, but I eventually plumped for Carleton and Norcross. It was not the best night ever, and on reflection, I’d probably have done better in Lytham. But you just don’t know what the form will be when you go somewhere new. And the thing about caching is that you’re always going somewhere new. And if it’s rubbish, you don’t have to go back.
Trials and Tribulations
My stats for the evening were a truly abysmal 10 finds and 10 DNFs. There were several points when I swore, and a couple of moments where I nearly jacked it in. Like when I’d been out for an hour and had found precisely nothing. And when I got back from wading through ankle deep mud for 100 yards looking for what turned out to be find #4. And when I reached 10 finds. Actually, for that last one, I really did jack it in, but it was nearly a nearly, because I nearly kept going.
I toiled my way through muggles, ivy covered trees, dodgy dark alleyways and a total absence of convenient parking. The result was wet boots and wet trousers, and a few suspicious locals, I think.
But I was rewarded at the end with a couple of easy finds on puzzles I solved 3 weeks ago (on their release day, when I wasn’t here) – two of Chuffbert’s Board Game series. And then I decided to “settle for one point” as they say in the footballing game, and I retired to the hotel for beer, calamari, burger, chips and football.
Relaxing with a Beer
All of which goes to show that night caching in an urban setting in winter is not the best combination. Or it proves I’m rubbish at caching in the dark. Or maybe it proves precisely nothing other than “stuff happens”
It is frankly too painful to list the caches I tried, so I’ll spare you the agony. Anyway, the barman is now hoovering, so it’s probably time I was in bed.