Too many trees and too much Ivy

By the Fallen Birch

We decided to blow away the cobwebs today and go get a couple of caches and have a walk.

After driving over to Guildford for hubby to buy some brake pads for his motorbike, we headed off to Send to pick up a few more from that area.

Our first was Fallen Birch Revived.  Having met Pairoboots and Mrs Boots at a cache event just before Christmas, it was nice to pop along to grab one of theirs to start us off.

The location was easy to find as we'd been here before (pre-revival as it were) but the container was different and there was a super travel bug for us to help along it's way.

Last time we were here was in the summer and hubby spotted an adder disappearing into the undergrowth as we were hunting around.  That's when the 'geostick' came into being ;-)

Too cold for snakes today and a nice easy spot without all the foliage being around.

On our way to the Trees of Ivy

Off we trotted back and across the road to The Three Trees of Ivy.  Now we've tried this one before, once again in summer, and thought it may be easier to spot without the nettles and brambles to negotiate.  No such luck.  GPS was jumping around between two of the possible suspects. Problem was that there was a whole row of possibilities so we took a set each and had a good look around.  Ivy is not my favourite thing at the best of times so after about 15 minutes of searching, we decided to give up.  I think we'll put this one down to experience and not try again.

Heading back from the Trees of Ivy

Back to the car, making sure that the girls jumped in lots of puddles due to N managing to find two lots of dog poo (thanks whoever you are that left it in the middle of both footpaths and didn't bother to clean up after your animal).  Use of a 'poo stick' and some more puddle jumping and it was gone.  We drove down then to the local church, another area we've never been to.

Church Micro Send

Church Micro 51 Send was next.  I parked up planning for just J and I to go get it.  This met with a chorus of "But I want to come too mummy" from S and N, so hubby had to decant and come along with us.  Thinking he and N (both on the same side of the car) weren't getting out, I parked close to the holly hedge as it was just a turning area really.  Men do make life complicated. Having grumbled about almost climbing into the hedge to get himself out, hubby then proceeds to try and open N's door which is even closer.  Getting into a mood about it, I pointed out she can get out the other side like we all did.  It's not hard really is it? ;-)  This cache was a bit of fun to find.  There were a few suspects but something caught my eye. I had a feel around behind it but nothing there.  It was only when I was opposite it, that I looked back and spotted the cache.  Nice.  Signed and back we went to the car again.

Off we went for a final one at Natural Send.  We weren't planning on being long so we parked up in the doctors surgery car park (cheeky) and off we went. We had to go across a little boardwalk which turned out to be surprisingly slippery.  GPS settled and we had a look underneath but no sign of anything. It was very, very boggy.  J got down and was about to look around the little 'cachers trail' when N decided to play up at that point.  She did not want to hold hands and tried to run on it then turned with her back to the edge (albeit only a few feet from the ground but enough) and started walking backwards!  Kids.  I grabbed her and she went full into a full paddy.  Hubby decided to take her back to the car kicking and screaming.  I said to J to call it a day as the clue was not appropriate to the area that people seemed to have been walking in.  A DNF logged for us and away we came, with N screaming her lungs out.  She fell asleep in the car in minutes as we headed home.

Another day ticked off my caching calendar. It may take me 10 years but someday I will get the year of caching challenge done :)