At NIGHT.

On Friday night, I wasn't putting on mascara and lipstick ready for a night on the town.... not that I do that much anyway. Instead I was wrapping up in lots of layers and donning my walking boots to investigate a night time geocache that I'd discovered with Ryan last Sunday. For those of you who don't already know what geocaching is...

"Geocaching is the real-world treasure hunt that's happening right now, all around you. There are 2,300,706 active geocaches and over 6 million geocachers worldwide." 

  You can find more information such as videos and app downloads on the Geocaching website here.


So last Sunday, we went on a mini-adventure to the Harrogate Pine Woods because I'd finished my work a little earlier than expected. It was small but nice for a quick hours walk. While we were there we thought we'd geek it up a bit more and start looking for geocaches. We found a couple but were intrigued by the idea of a night time cache that hasn't been found since October! It was useless trying to follow the trail during the day so a pact was made, we would return Friday night.

The reason you can't find it during the day is because you follow a trail of 'fire tacks' and 'ice tacks'. These are nails with a reflecting bit on the end that you can see when you shine a torch on it. Pretty much hidden to the naked eye during the day time.

We spent a whole hour searching in the dark using Ryan's headtorch to try and find these tiny tacks. The app says that you can see the next one in a straight line from the one that you are at. Errrrm, no! You have to wander around and really hope for the best. We managed to find a couple more before giving up for the evening. The last one we found was on a wooden sign near the path so we have a good starting point for the next time we venture out. We are determined to get the end now! The cache has a trackable item that I REALLY, REALLY want to get. It's a word diabetes day commemorative geocoin, which would be a good find especially with Ryan :)

You can see the ice tack glowing on the side of the signpost in this picture. So tricky to find!! But I am determined to get to the end of it eventually :) For anyone in North Yorkshire who fancies trying out geocaching, there is an event at Fountains Abbey over half term offering geocaching taster sessions.

I'm now off to Yarm to spend the evening with my Northern, farmer buddy :) have a lovely week guys!

Happy December!

The countdown has begun! I dug into my first dairy free chocolate from my advent calendar this morning; well, half of it because Ryan hasn't bought himself a calendar, doh! Being a teacher, my countdown to Christmas started long before December 1st. We have been practicing our Christmas play since early November! 'Gabriel's Big Break' is a re-telling of the classic nativity story but from Gabriel's perspective. It is quite good actually once you get past the cheesy songs that need to be practiced. Feel free to listen to the snippet of the songs below. I just sang them to Ryan while he was cooking breakfast... he was less than impressed haha :P

Even though we have only dipped our big toe into December, I have pretty much bought all of my Christmas presents. Largely thanks to my Mum who is ridiculously organised... and has time to peruse the shops in Chester with my sister on a Monday afternoon! However my Mum can't help me buy presents for my Secret Santa selections, friends and Ryan's parents. Yesterday I managed to get a few little presents....

Lush Father Christmas Bath Bomb - £3.25

Yankee Candle Christmas Cookie Sampler - £1.80 in Clintons

M&S Sugar Plum Cookies Tin - £4

As hard as I tried not to I also got a few treats for myself ;) With Christmas and a Birthday coming up in December it's iffy territory going shopping for things I like. With the big 22 coming up in just two weeks I should be keeping my spending at a minimum. I really don't think a Big Knit Innocent Smoothie and a Salted Caramel Yankee Sampler will really ruin my Birthday/Christmas surprises though!

To appease my inner shopoholic, I did buy some really cute Christmas wrapping paper from Paperchase. I love making my presents look pretty, even if it just to get ripped off and thrown away. My choices this year however are made from recycled paper so that does make me feel slightly better about the amount of waste paper at Christmas time. Look how cute the trees are!! 

Some of the shop displays this year are so awesome! I love this iced sprout in the window of White Stuff, it makes me chuckle every time I pass it in Harrogate and York. You can actually win a trip to Brussels by entering a sprout competition on their website.. go on, click the link! I took the photo of the advent display a couple of weeks ago and now I can't remember the name of the shop. I thought I'd share it with you anyway because it's so darn cute. I definitely haven't captured how good it actually is with my phone camera! I hope you are all enjoying the festive season, decorating trees and eating mountains of mince pies. I know I am :D

Harrogate Christmas Lights