Yes Steven and I have been away for a few days in Oxford. The aim was to walk along the Oxford Canal taking in Geocaches as we went. 
Even though Eleanor has been at University here for 6 years now - we have never done the canal walk - so thought it was about time that we did and the timing was just right as the geocacher who laid most of the canal geocaches is going to be re-located to Bristol in the New Year so these are all going to be archived!
Monday was a better day - with blue skies - it was a bit chilly though - my gorgeous husband pinched my hat and gloves because he had forgotten to pack his and I could not stand to hear him moaning about his cold hands and head - at least when he was warm he was cheerful!
The second day we started at Worcester Street Basin (well what was the Basin - its now a car park!) and walked northwards up to Wolvercote and back again. This part of the canal runs through residential areas - old traditional Oxford houses and brand new modern apartments. I kept wishing we were rich so that we could have an Oxford house backing on to the canal.
Most of the caches were traditional ones but one was a multi cache and Steven snapped me trying to work out the maths! I got my sums right and located this cache easily. The lock and the bridge here are gorgeous.
We managed to do 21 geocaches - 3 had been archived since I printed out the details so we wasted some time looking for these non existent ones. We found all the others easily though. They were all mostly micros but we did manage to come home with 4 TB and geocoins - none of whom have been to Shropshire so I will have fun moving them on.
I have long been fascinated by the Stretton Hills but only really knew Carding Mill Valley as that's where my mum & dad used to take us as children. But since I have been geocaching and learnt to map read have felt more adventurous and yesterday I walked over the Lawley.
There is a short climb from the car park which leads you to here - the start of the walk over the Lawley - it looks a long way to the summit!
Oh well I did have to fit in a little geocache on the top!
On the way down - with Caer Caradoc in front and the Long Mynd over to your right
I had 2 parcels delivered from QVC - Stamps from Prima craft hour last week - I am not a great stamper - in fact hardly ever use them - but these looked so good that I thought I would give them a try. The swirls stamps came with bling swirls - I have a layout in mind to use them on - Jessica's first ball at uni - she is going to her third soon - so I am a bit behind the times.
I managed to pick this Anna Griffin box set up in the QVC outlet shop for £12.99. It is a year album with all matching pages etc.
Not sure whether to do it for 2009 or look back over 2008 and in what context to do it - our family or me etc. I loved the album I did all about Liam last year - I like things being specific rather than general - I don't want to do another one of Liam just yet, as it is too soon and the Anna Griffin papers are not for boys at all. Mary Lou had one which she was doing at our crop which she has done beautifully.
Sorry Rachel has her eyes shut on this pic - but I have just changed my camera setting from multiple photos to single shot because I was getting fed up of 3 photos of the same thing. But now I can see why I set it like that - at least with 3 I usually got one good photo!
The second one was a puzzle cache Redwoods Grove (GC1A4N2). This entailed a downhill walk - but as it was so muddy - this was quite tricky and afterwards we had to walk back up the hill again and back through the mud - I only fell over twice! We eventually found the clue for stage one - but it did not really make much sense - but once we followed the path around - we found something that did and we found the cache easily.
Rachel has 2 dogs and with Thelma's one - that was 3 dogs I had to contend with today. In fact they are all very well behaved and they can tell I don't like dogs so just tend to ignore me - thank goodness!
Goodness - just look at the size of me - I am nearly back to my pre-diet weight and nothing fits again. I can see the diet calling again after Christmas - well its silly to start before Christmas isn't it?
This time only a small one - Lightspout waterfall on the Long Mynd
It was such a beautiful day that I ventured out to Carding Mill Valley to do some geocaching ( I have got to do something to get me out of the house - this kitchen business is driving me around the bend!) You really would not believe that it is a November day. It was quite busy in the hills - everyone else must have had the same idea as me.
After I had done 3 geocaches at Stretton, I crammed in 10 more! One was quite memorable :- Shropshire Church Gems (Upton Cressett GC19R27). I had missed reading the word 'remote' in the blurb about it - and it was - but to get there you had to venture up a very very steep and winding narrow path and once you started there was no going back - so I had to do it - but I was very scared! Once I got there though - found a little gem of a church with 2 Elizabethan houses next to it - you could even see where their moats had been - bizarre.
I had a long list of geocaches to visit - in the end we managed 8, so have got plenty left for our next visit.
All 4 were just gorgeous - this one was my favourite stretch of water (Watery Wales 1 - Llyn Rhosgoch GC10DY3) and I took quite a few photos but because it was so dull, they do not give the lakes their true justice. We are definitely returning in the summer.
This was the largest lake (Watery Wales 1 - Llyn Syfydrin GC10DXZ) and just look at the mountains behind it waiting to be explored.
It was my birthday today so I wanted to go out and do something special - so off to Phystal Rhyader waterfalls I went. They were gorgeous and because of all the rain we have had they were in full force.
I ate my lunch at the top of the falls.
I did the geocache (Pistyll Rhaeadr (Nearly) GC62FC ) up on the mountain behind the falls and then celebrated my birthday - well I am not quite 50 yet! Will have to be more restrained next year!
