My mate Henry is running the Great North Run next Sunday – 13 miles. He’s looking for sponsorship – he’s got one of those easy to donate ‘justgiving’ sites (secure etc.) and he’s running in aid of Leonard Cheshire Disability – a very worthwhile and focussed charity.
Even if it’s just a tad – stick your hand in your virtual wallet and bung some wedge his way.
My birthday was last Thursday. What a fabulous time I’ve had since then. The actual morning of my birthday involved a lovely breakfast in bed courtesy of Felix, Jaygo & Eirene followed by prezzies in bed! A tea pot (I’ve got into green tea recently you see), a bottle of VERY nice vintage malt whisky called coopers choice and a horse riding session!
Actual birthday day involved work (with a spot of geocache action – I’d released Spike at a new Geocache I made called “Here be Earby” on the 23rd). The evening came and Eirene treat me to a slap up curry from my fave curry house (Raj Put Harrogate at the moment, who knocked Ali Raj of the “Harrogate’s best curry house acording to DragonDrop” pedistal.) PaintMonkey joined us, we settled down to watch a bunch of Montey Python then a suprise visit from Bongo, Les and Rich proffering a big clink of beer.
I got up early the next morning – lovely sunrise walk near Thruscross resovoir (hunting ‘Harrogate HQ’ geocache). That evening we went camping to one of the best campsites I’ve ever been to – Cow Close near Leyburn. It ticks all the boxes for us. It’s basic (I like that) – no shower, just a toilet and taps but the place, the owners, the area – all fantastic. Friday night came and went around the fire (yep it allows fire!). By Saturday the party had grown to about 13 adults plus an unfathomable volume of kidlings. More fire, fun and chatting deep into the night (or was it morning?). Much fun – loads of old friends, top top vibe. Thanks to everyone who came.
Sunday – played cricket on site, said hello to the pigs on site and the ram. Slept a bit then drove home for an epic bath.
Felt a bit quiet the past couple of days! Head down cracking on with big chunks of work.
I’ve hid a new geocache today. Near the small town of Earby, where I work. I’ve called it Here be Earby. It’s only just been published / not found yet. There’s alsorts in it including a Moleskine notebook and a bit of historical referential significance to this legendary notebook, and a disposable camera with the instruction “take a shot and put back”. Once I’ve had a few shots I’m hoping to retrieve said camera and notebook and display the creative outputs on the DragonDrop web-o-spere.
We went en masse to our friends cottage for a Birthday bash. This turned into a lovely rosy glow of an evening with great home grown food, sloshes of wine and beer and a furtle of guitar strummage.
Saturday morning allowed us the luxury of a mildly hung-over extended horizontal chill followed by a bimble into town with two old friends – one being the sun, the other being the not quite as old, Dave C. On the evening we went for a foray into what is Harrogate Town on a Saturday night. Went to Monteys for happy hour (packed as usual) followed by a mixture of the Blues bar and Katana bar (which was superb – not been there before – cracking venue)
Sunday involved a bit of sleeping followed by a pub lunch and a chill in the sun for a dear friends pork pie (what we call birthdays in our house now-a-days) for the afternoon over at the Red Lion at South Stainley. I used to frequent this establishment nearly every night when I was 18 for a while – playing pool. Since then it’s expanded to include a superb area for kids – one of those indoor adventure playgrounds with soft play and soft drinks bar – it’s also got a great outdoor area for the kids – much fun, really safe. Often this type of pub sacrifices it’s food quality a little when it goes down that route (I’ll not name names!) but not here – the Sunday Carvery Fayre was very nice indeed. Found a geo cache in the village (makes a trip out even more worthwhile!) before coming home and ploughing through half of a fantastic book I’m on with at the moment (The Death of Vishnu).
Today I’m back at work, having a quick brain dump break (the result of which is this blog) Went geocaching at lunch with a friend / colleague. Said friend happened to randomly pick up my geocoin which has now hitch hiked over to a geocache we visited called “OTT Lothersdale View”) Didn’t think I’d see that again so quick!
Someone just emailed me this:
“If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennant’s Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214.
So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.”
Hooked my Wii up to the internet last night. It’s quite good – weather channel, news channel and some strange global voting thing. This, however, stole the show; (the middle one…)
Truncated content has never been so accurate.
Work’s been interesting this week. Things are starting to change. The winds of change are filling my sail and seem to be pushing my ship in the right direction. Seems quite like that in a few areas at the moment. A general positive feeling.
It rained for about 20 hours non stop yesterday. Went to a wedding at The Crown Hotel last night. Twas nice – was knackered so didn’t do much in the way of fun and frolicks but had a lovely time none the less.
Since I started geocache hunting a few weeks ago, the amount of interest people show towards the sport is brilliant. The most unlikely people are fascinated by it and want to give it a go. People often comment on things I’m up to – due to this blog – but geocache hunting seems has got you, dear readers, quite interested.
Did indeed go camping – lovely site, glorious weather in Saturday over near Scarborough. Went to the Sea Life centre yesterday – top place. Sharks, sea horses, turtles etc. Did the gig last night – sort of.. It was good if not a bit confusing from an organisational perspective! At work now, it’s sunny outside. Wish I could be out there with my clan.
