London on a rainy day

Andy and I went in to London today with some of my work colleagues. 

The plan was to visit Borough Market near Southwalk.  We all met up at about 10.30am and then wandered around the market buying lots of goodies. It was great fun and we really enjoyed it.

My latest trackable Polly Parrot enjoyed the trip to London on the underground and the Borough Market too.

Then we all split up and went our separate ways.  Andy, Suzanne and I walked over London Bridge in the pouring rain and stopped for a coffee.  I did try for a cache that is on London Bridge, but had no luck finding it.  It wasn't much fun searching in the rain with my fellow muggle companions so I didn't waste too much time looking, though I am sure it is there.

Suzanne went on to London Eye to meet her niece and Andy and I walked up to Covent Garden. 

We managed to claim just the one cache today. It is down as a multi, but in essence is a virtual really.  It is one of the earliest caches to be set, so I'm pretty pleased that out of all three we passed I did actually get to claim this one.

The cache is GC2825 Sherlock 4 - I cannot live without brainwork!
To claim the cache you need to look around and answer a question and take a photo of yourself in the vicinity.  All this was done in the pouring rain again, so we were glad it was a quick "find".

Then we went on to the next Sherlock Holmes cache in this small series - GC2826 Sherlock 5 - If you eliminate the impossible...
I couldn't find the answer to the second question about the date that new drains were installed, but have a feeling that it might have been underwater today!! There were puddles everywhere. We looked closely at drainpipes and drain covers but could see no date anywhere.  I'd forgotten to take a photo too.  DOH.  Ah well, one for another time.

Then we finally arrived at Covent Garden.  I couldn't find that traditional cache either, so not a good caching day really with only one smiley face claimed out of four attempted caches. Never mind.  I think the Covent Garden one might be temporarily hidden by Christmas decorations.

 Andy wants a big tree, but I think this one is a bit too big to go in the house!

I was starting to draw the attention of a security guard in a shop so decided to quit looking before I got into trouble.

Whilst looking around Covent Garden we stopped to watch two street entertainers - most enjoyable.

Tripoints

A Tripoint is where the boundaries of three counties or three countries meet.  I've yet to visit a tripoint for three countries but during our trip to Ireland in the summer we did visit a cache which was located at the tripoint of three Irish counties.  The cache - Bridge over three counties - GC2D1YK

The bridge that crosses the River Funshion marks the spot where the Counties of Tipperary, Cork and Limerick.    Our SatNav reckoned we were in Tipperary, but it must have been Cork as my stats indicate I have found 2 caches in Cork and only one in Tipperary and one in Limerick.  

The aim of the trip to Ireland was to find a geocache in every county, so in most I did literally just find one.

Tripoints of some countries has been mentioned on one of my favourite websites - TwistedSifter.  (http://twistedsifter.com)  Recommended viewing, but only if you have a lot of time to spare.  The photos on the Twisted Sifter website are awesome.

Famous tripoints around the world

At the bottom of that page is a link to ten incredible confluences around the world. - Incredible confluences around the world

A number of cachers use stickers for signing logs.  It can be quicker if you are in a large group, but if you need to write the date in it is hardly worth the extra effort/time.  So rather than order some personalised stickers I decided to design and print my own, with some success.  I've used them for TeamSOS caching and when caching with my daughter Sarah.  Adding the date to the sticker makes it much quicker and easier to sign a log especially when out with members from TeamSOS.  Some examples that I've used over the past year. 
These stickers are quite small - approx 3cm x 2cm.  You can buy even smaller ones!  I find even this size a bit fiddly to get the image lined up all the way down an A4 sheet of stickers (55 stickers to one A4 sheet).

The seafront cartoon of TeamSOS has been quite popular.  We've even adopted a logo and had it printed on team polo shirts. Here are five of us showing off our lovely new polo shirts.



This is all of us on a trip to Worthing for the weekend.

At the back from left to right. John, Carol, Alan, Bob, Ralph, Andrew

In the front row are the ladies - Jill, Fiona, Me, Barbara