A Simple Life of Luxury

The date was set, Sunday Dec 17th 2006, location: Brockley Coombe, Fountain Forestry, weapons and silly hats at the ready, the annual Christmas tree hunt was on:

Preparation is of course the key to a successful hunt so the first task was to get the whole family suited and booted.

It was then off deep into the woods.

It wasn’t long before the first successful capture of the day was made by Trudi, James, Kia and Shaun, with Kia dealing the final blow that felled the arboreal monster!

It wasn’t long before others followed. Some members of the family became a little exhausted from the effort of such hunting. Morgan needed to be carried and Jay was suffering from an ‘old war wound’, but no casualties were taken.

All in all the hunt was a success, and we soon lined up for the display of our trophies.

Well, we have completed the Wildcat Geocache. I can’t say too much about it here or even post any photos as I don’t want to give too much away, but we actually found it a little easier than we were expecting which in the end was a bit of a disappointment as we were prepared for quite a challenge.

I already had a hunch as to the location of the cache, before even visiting any of the virtual caches, but we did visit the virtuals and found the answers to the clues, all of which confirmed my hunch. So, on Saturday we set off to find the fourth cache and the coordinates for the 5th. As it happened we were actually one step ahead of ourselves so I hired the necessary ’specialist equipment’ and headed off to look for the cache. I found the final hiding place of the wildcat and the cache itself without any troubles (Even without the GPSr which I had left in the car), and soon returned clutching  two geocoins which we will move on to pastures new.

It was good fun and had the place been properly open I guess we would have made a little more of it, but the actual cache was uncovered much more easily than we expected… maybe we are just better at this than we thought! Our first 5/5 geocache.

We’re collecting my new car this weekend. Brad has already picked it up from S & R Motors, the dealer we bought it from. There were a few little issues with it such as it doesn’t have ABS despite the fact that the description of it said it did and two of the tyres are pretty close to being illegal despite the fact that it was MOT’ed by S & R Motors before they sold it to me, but Brad is sorting those out.

He is also undersealing it in an attempt to protect it (at least temporarily) against the ravages of the salty air here in Borth and changing the timing belt as that is due. If he gets chance he might fit a towbar too. I’ll then collect it and leave Brad with my rusty old transit van (which he will try to sell for me) and drive home in my nice new shiny 4×4…. It’s handy having a brother who is a mechanic, and even handier (if that is a word) having one who owns his own garage.. So here’s a plug for it:

Bedminster Road Garage in Bristol.. If you car’s broken take it there and they’ll fix it.

Amazing… I could get a job in marketing!

Photo: Last Years Successful Hunt!

We’re off visiting family this weekend. It’s that time of year again when we go to my parents to exchange Xmas gifts and partake in the annual Christmas Tree hunt. I actually quite enjoy it, but I think I’m the only one who does. We’re going on Sunday this year to the usual location of Fountain Forestry in Brockley Coombe and the weather looks as though it will be on our side. Not quite a frsoty as I would like but at least it should be dry.

It is quite a trek from my parents house these days, and no doubt we will all stand around in the car park waiting for Jay and his family 9they are always late)… Whilst milling around we will all ‘discuss’ which was the best way to get there… My way is without a doubt the best and they always agree with me in the end. We’ll then wander around in the mud trying to find the perfect tree each, before cutting one down, and then deciding that the ones already cut by the entrance are actually better and we’ll get one from there instead!

Hopefully we’ll have time to get some venison from the nearby venison farm too before heading off for a meal together… The perfect family get together.

The Wales contingent of the Cole family (Anna, Morgan and me) are also hoping to get some geocaching in on the Saturday. We are halfway through the Wildcat geocache and hope to get the next stage completed, along with a few easy ones near my parents house. It should be a busy weekend but I don’t think we’ll make it back in time for the Ynyslas Xmas gathering.

I find loads to keep me amused in Borth, but for the average holiday-maker I guess there isn’t a huge amount to do. There is the beach to play on and an amusements arcade, and of course the ‘Animalarium’. I’ve never actually been in to it, it doesn’t look great, and according to this inside story that I came across today it isn’t! I thought it was probably a fair assesssment though!

Well, I guess I should wish myself a Happy Birthday here just in case no one else does (I think Anna has lost the ability to blog!), and of course at the same time thank everyone for my cards and presents…. Thank-You!. It was a lovely day here today, the sun was shining, the wind was blowing so there was only one possible thing that I could do and that was to go windsurfing.

After all the mad winds we have been having it was actually quite nice to go for a mellow cruise, still well powered up but nice to be a able to relax a little here and there. I got to try out my new Aquapac (birthday present from my Mum) too and it worked well.

It was a sad day in our household yesterday due to the death of a pet frog…

For those who don’t know, I used to be a zookeeper at Bristol Zoo and whilst I was there I adopted several exotic pets. These pets included 4 Whites Tree Frogs which I have had ever since. They are kept in a small vivarium and are occasionally fed live crickets. One of them has been looking decidedly skinny for a while now and was found dead in the tank yesterday. A sad day, but as he was about 18 years old I guess he has done pretty well. The other three seem healthy enough and the Fire-bellied toad that I have is still doing OK as well, despite being at least 23 years old.

The view from our lounge

Well, it has sprung up on us again and all of a sudden there is no time to do anything before it arrives. This weekend we are off to a Christmas party at Morgans nursery, next weekend we are off Christmas tree hunting in the West country (and collecting my new car) and then the following weekend the big day is upon us.

It should be fun this year though as Morgan is a little older and will know a little more about what is going on. He still isn’t quite old enough to start getting excited before the event, but will certainly know something is going on and will enjoy the day.

It would of course be nice to have some snow, and the recent long-range forecasts have been getting people excited with reports of 2 months of blizzards.. I’ll believe it when it happens, but who knows, we could have a white Xmas and I may end up needing the 4 wheel drive on my new car!

My recent post about the utilities here in Wales describes a little about our sewage, electricity and gas problems here in West Wales, and sure enough we had a power cut again yesterday. But there is one thing I forgot to mention that is really weird.

Every evening at 7.36pm our digital TV reception goes weird, the whole things becomes jumpy and freezes and this lasts for about a minute before returning to normal. It also affects the terrestrial signal as well which during this time becomes ’snowy’. What’s going on, why should that happen every evening at 7.39pm… Does it happen to anyone else?