"In your hands, the birth of a new day... " (Limahl)

25 September 2006

Tortoiseshell


A new icon for a new website. Tortoiseshell spotted at the Caboose restaurant, Solfa.

24 September 2006

Pilgrim's Rest & Pilgrim's Progress

After a 'Did not Find' on St. David's Head, Pilgrim's Rest was a welcome cache find. I deposited the 'Anglophile' Travelbug (attached to the US flag thing), and the geocoin, previously featured.

Pilgrim's Rest Cache occurs in one of the most beautiful places I know - near St Non's chapel, on the coast near St David's.


The cache was found on a visit to St. David's. During the visit, I visited the Cathederal and happened to sit in on a morning service. The Church service reminded me of my CofE days as a boy.
Some aspects of Anglican church are completely contary to my own faith. The Necine creed for starters. Also the church-state link in the UK - including the ritual prayer for the Queen.
Nevertheless, there are some particular aspects which really have stuck with me from childhood. Not least, four traditional English hymns:
Abide with me - an evensong hymn which I remember well as a child. I have always been fascinated with its singing at the F.A. Cup final every year. I vividly remember the singing of the hymn in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and for that reason the hymn awakes a lot of emotion.
The day thou gavest Lord, is ended - again, an evensong hymn which I would have heard as a very small child. In my musical career, the hymn developed a place on my regular repertoire.
He who would valiant be - a school hymn which I learned in Welsh. Linked to John Bunyan's epic 'Pilgrim's Progress'. The Welsh first line of the hymn - 'A fynno dewrder gwir' - is featured on my geocaching profile logo. I also developed an arrangement of Vaughan Williams' 'Monk's Gate' tune as a musician. The idea of the pilgrim (faith / travel / something else?) is something which fascinates me a lot.
We plough the fields and scatter - a barnstorming harvest hymn which I loved as a child and still do now. As I attend Welsh chapel, I never get to sing the hymn anymore! So it was great to har it on Radio 2, played by the Rev. Roger Royle on a special harvest thanksgiving programme.
Strange that I should enjoy the harvest hymn so much - as it seems to be a no-holds-barred anthem for a narrow, Adam-and-Eve take on creationism which I reject. For me, 'We Plough the Fields and Scatter) suggests the idea of God - in whatever form - being reflected in the diversity and miracle of the natural world around us now.
It has crossed my mind at several points since I was a teenager to become some form of religious minister (probably in the limited role of lay preacher). If I were to take that decision, it would be as an 'untamed' Unitarian. If so, I would make the English 'blockbuster' hymns a central part of my services alongside my (hopefully not too long) Welsh sermons!

18 September 2006

Cointown Geocoin

Cointown geocoin


A midday start saw me and K head over the beacons for a wonderful day out in Herefordshire.

First stop, though, was Tack Woods just up the hill from Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh side of the border.

We stopped and had our baguettes as I fiddled with the GPSr and wondered about how to get into the heavily guarded woodlands.

K suggested we just follw the path round the woods and we very quickly got to the cache site which was in a field just by the woods. Quicker than expected. Cleared away the stones and found the 'Tack Wood' cache - including the Cointown geocoin (pictured, at the cache site) which was the main objective of this hunt.

Drove on then to the main part of the day - Court Farm Tillington for some pick your own berries (and tea and cake!). Spent a good couple of hours in there and messed around on the trampoline afterwards.

I noticed on the GPSr that we were only 0.7m from the 'Bankside Box' so on our way home we stopped there and picked up the Krusty the Clown travelbug, who needs to get to a 'Springfield' of any description. 10 caches in 2 weeks - that's as many as TCA2006 has done in 3 years...

16 September 2006

Team Badger geocoin


Made use of the car to find a new cache, near Newport on the M4, Found my first geocoin, a badger no less.

15 September 2006

Four caches in a day

Set off early from home to reach the 'Paradise Garden' cache at Llansaint on the Towy estuary at first light. Found it after an initial, fruitless walk through a dewey field. Took Shape O' Ball Travelbug.

Left Llansaint at 7.30 to drive to company HQ (aka 'the shed' in my previous, now defunct, blog about work). Long and sometimes tense day of meetings. Suffice to say that this blog is a form of counter-culture against current unease with work.

Glad to leave the shed and head off for the 'Only cache in the Village', at Llanddewi Brefi. Then up to Borth, Ceredigion. Careful as I passed within a few hundered feet of the border with 'Pyongyang'. I wonder how she's doing?
Main mission of the day was to upgrade the 'Cors Cache' of my brother, who's geocaching ID is 'Senseless Thing'. The cache is pictured in its new-found container, above. The cache had been threatened with archiving but it should be OK now. Placed Shape O'Ball travelbug in it.
Risked several limbs to get to 'Nant yr Arian Cache' in the uplands above the Rheidol Valley. Found an impressive ammo-box full of goodies. Took Bay Tripper Travelbug back to south Wales. 
Went round to my tortoiseshells-in-law and stayed up with them to watch the news. Most remarkable report on the deterioration of permafrost in Siberia, leading to the release of (greenhouse) gasses that have been contained within for millions of years.

12 September 2006

Tortie the cat 1


Tortie the Cat Travelbug


This is Tortie the cat, my own travelbug. Statred its journey by placing it in my own Cathays Park cache.

2 Travelbugs


Shape o' ball, Bay tripper

9 September 2006

EPOP, Leicester, The Brunswick Inn and 2 caches

TramRider #2 - What Nottingham is Famous For


World Cup 2006 England



Captain Baldy


The road to this blog started during a train of thought on an, erm, train, on the way to Nottingham University for the 2006 EPOP conference.

That I had been invited to EPOP was a surprise at all, as EPOP is a psephologists' haunt and I am very much a (lapsed) qualitative social scientist.

My Nottingham itinerary also included 2 geocaches. A microcache in the middle of town, and the 'World Cup 2006' cache nearer the university.

My journey was galvanised by at least one rendition of 'Never be lonely' by 'The Feeling', a melodious love song and a fav. of me and Ms. Tortoiseshell. And so the journey proceeded past the Malvern Hills, Birmingham and Staffordshire - one of my favourite routes.

Got to Nottingham and boarded one of the posh new trams. I got off at the Lace Market and had found geocache ('Tramrider #2) within a matter of 15 mins. After a couple of hours shopping, and an all-day breakfast, I hopped on the bus and went to discover Cache no. 2 of the day - 'England World Cup 2006' in Woolaton Park. This arduous find can be read on the Tortoiseshell geocaching profile by clicking the button below.

EPOP was short and sweet. I turned up, had tea and buscuits. I saw my erstwhile psephological hero, John Curtice, from afar, with his suitcase, obviously just off the train from Scotland. I hoped he would come to my paper but he soon trundled his trolley suitcase away from the milling area and out towards his conference accommodation :-(

Nevertheless, the opportunity to meet David Denver - a legendary psephologist from days of yore - was worth the entrance fee alone. Having presented my paper, I left the conference barely 2 hours after turning up. Then eventually found the 2nd cache, and caught the bus back to Nottingham.

On arrival at Nottingham Station, I was told of a problem on the lines near Birmingham. This gave me the chance to try an alternative route, through Leicester - my old home city. It didn't get me anywhere near home but it still felt nice to be back - for 20 mins.
Was then told to get on a train to Derby, where I had 90 mins to wait. Went for a stroll outside. Didn't look too promising until I found the Brunswick Inn. A fine range of local ales, some of them railway-themed! Had a pint of 'Station Approach' and did some admin work.
On my way home, and suitably fuelled, the idea of a blog for Tortoiseshell took hold. The founding aims of the blog are set out below. The main rationale of the blog, I suppose, is to give an airing to my travel thoughts that I cannot otherwise do on my RL blog because of work restrictions. Not sure how it will work out, but here's to the Brunswick Inn! and the Tortoiseshell!