Hedgehogs and The Happiness Patrol

I recently attended the funeral of one of my work colleagues, Graeme Curry. A very talented man, who was not only a great colleague, but a skilled choral singer, musician and a famous scriptwriter.

Graeme wrote one of the most infamous Dr Who episodes ever aired - 'The Happiness Patrol'.

It was a trilogy of episodes that were broadcast in the 80s when Sylvester McCoy was the Dr. It told the story of a bizarre planet where everyone had to be happy, and if you weren’t you were turned into sweets. Of course the Dr came to the rescue and freed the people. My favourite line was “you can’t have happiness, without sadness”, so true.

Having watched it all those years ago it was nice, but also sad to watch it again recently. 

Sad that I’d never asked Graeme how he set about creating such colourful characters and a bizarre plot and whether what was actually created on the screen, was what he had envisioned as he wrote it. But nice to see how truly talented he was and to remember those long past Saturday night’s sitting in front of the TV, with my brother and sister, watching Dr Who together whilst enjoying a glass of coke - a Saturday night treat.
 

 

One of Graeme’s other loves were hedgehogs, a passion I also share. Hedgehogs often seem to turn up at a time of great change in my life. 

The night before my wedding I saw two outside my bedroom window. And the evening of Graeme’s funeral two walked past me as I sat on the front door step...the first time I’ve seen any this year. 

Hence as a tribute to Graeme, this week I’ve placed a hedgehog themed cache...to be published soon...watch this space!

Other caching highlights recently have included the Mardle 53 event, ‘Fun & Games on St Patrick’s Day’. 

Held in a converted barn, deep in the heart of the Suffolk countryside, it was great to catch up with Lord and Lady and several other familiar cachers. 

After the event I picked up a few caches and dashes on the way home, including some church micros - Semer and Naughton - and village signs in between the almighty hail storm!

I also picked up a newly published puzzle cache by Bee of Good Cheer. It was a fun puzzle to solve actually quicker than it took me to find the cache at GZ. Round and round I went, before finally finding it. 

 

 

I finished the day in Stowmarket. Spotting a cache on the outskirts - 'Stray cache strut 7' - I pulled up and headed to GZ. 

Unfortunately I hadn’t read previous logs...lesson learnt...that the route to it was a bog of raw sewage! As I walked along the field edge, I noticed my feet starting to get wet and thought it was just from recent rain, but soon found both trainers covered in the stinking stuff! 

Absolutely disgusting and I’m utterly surprised the council allow the nearby house to empty its waste into the field like that. Needless to say I gave up the search for the cache pretty quickly! 

So as not to finish on a complete low, I stopped to pick up one of my Dnfs on the brilliant 'Stowmarket Stroll' series. A snail log container, just brilliant. 

 

The day also delivered an unexpected surprise, the arrival of my fifth niece, Daisy. What a great birthday to have...St Patrick’s Day! 

The following weekend was a non caching weekend as I headed to Center Parcs with nieces 3ft & 4ft for a splash about on the rapids. I even attempted some wall climbing in a bid to improve my caching tree climbing skills. It didn’t work...I quit after 20 minutes! 

 

And the following weekend was also almost a non-caching weekend. I’d roped myself into doing one of these 'Clued Upp' events around Bury St Edmunds. Using a GPS you have to locate various witnesses and solve the crime. After 30 minutes 3ft began the non-stop  “I’m bored” commentary and to be honest, I had to agree. 

 

The most entertaining thing was seeing a variety of participants in fancy dress costumes - including a group dressed as the Scooby-Do gang - making their way through Bury’s streets. Aside from that it was pretty lame and not a patch on geocaching! 

However, the following day was Mother’s Day and I decided to take my elderly mum, who is now pretty far gone, thanks to Alzheimers, to the forest near Thetford for a short geocaching walk. 

 

Accompanying us was Bobby her Labrador, and we enjoyed picking up three new caches in the dinosaur series. Well Bobby certainly did, I had to wrestle one of them from his jaws! Luckily, no damage was done and he was soon replaced safe and sound for the next finder. 

Right that’s it for a three week whirlwind of caching highlights. I’ll try to get scribbling more regularly again, from now on.