Zooming up the A1, hoping that I'd be able to score some petrol somewhere, otherwise I'd be sleeping in the car tonight and ladysolly would be livid.
I parked, got the bike out, loaded it up with batteries and water, and set off. In the wrong direction. After a few yards, I realised, and turned round.
At cache number 11, I was just signing the log when I realised ... I keep my wallet in a zipped-up compartment in my shoulder bag. The zip was open, and there was no wallet there.
Don't panic!
So I thought about it. Maybe it dropped out at one of the caches I've done so far - not too bad, there's only ten places I'd have to look. Then I remembered - when I bought my sandwich (note the singular, drsolly is on diet) I emptied all the change from my wallet into the tub I keep change in, and took the tub into the shop. I know I didn't take my wallet in. And I don't remember putting the wallet back into the zipped-up compartment. So, it's probably sitting in the car, on the front seat. And I did lock the car. I'm almost sure I locked the car. I hardly ever forget to lock the car. Gulp.
I decided not to go back, but to press on.
A bit further on, I noticed that my back rack had almost come off. Fortunately, I keep a screwdriver in my portable toolkit, so I was able to tighten it up again, but in doing so, I noticed that my lovely new panniers are coming apart at the seams. Needs repair! Needle, thread and duct tape. I'll do that tomorrow.
So I went round the route I'd planned, 34 caches, all on the bike, and when I got back to the car, I eagerly checked ... and there was my wallet. Whew!
So then I continued on the second circuit I'd planned, and enroute, I picked up a puzzle cache.
At the cache site, a quick find, but just as I was signing the log and replacing the container, up came a carload of dogs. A human got out with two small yappy doglets on leads, and then another human got out, followed by a flood of big dogs without leads over which he very obviously had no control whatsoever.
By that time, I was on my bike and pedalling hard.
It turns out that a man on a bike can go faster than a pack of dogs, especially if he has electric assist. I heard the human behind me yelling with increased desperation for his dogs to stop chasing me and come back. But, of course, they didn't. But I didn't care, I was well in front, on a tarmac surface, and no way was I going to stop. I left them behind eventually. I hope that their owner managed to round them up eventually, but it looked to me like he was likely to lose a few.
A couple of miles further on, I came to the Sutton Cross, but first:
I was so tempted to cross out the "is" and insert "are", but that would have been vandalising the vandalism.
If you look carefully, you can see me reflected in this.
I wasn't expecting this:
And here's the cross.
I completed the circuit, and by that time, I'd done about 60 caches. So I had my coffee, and then did a bunch of drive-by caches.
And as I was finishing off, I noticed that my brakes weren't working properly. Eeekkk! After a bit of testing, I decided that they were good enough to get home on if I was a bit careful, which I was, and I got home without any problems. And I did managed to score some petrol, but the price seems to have jumped up a bit. I'll have to have those brakes seen to. I don't think it's just a matter of topping up the fluid.
An excellent day out, with lots of adventures!
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