Unknown Ways of Spending Outdoor Days

As the weather's warming up now, I thought I'd do an outdoor activity review to fit with my indoor activity one of Junk, and it's a review of one of my favourite activities, something I've been doing for nearly six months now and it's very addictive. Hope you like my review, and if you try Geocaching, enjoy that too!

Geocaching

When they're very young, everyone wants to find a tiny bit of treasure languishing in a hidden corner of beautiful countryside (and, in some cases, cities). But, sadly, not many of us manage to achieve that dream. However, thanks to the twelve-year-old, international craze of Geocaching, just a few of us just might do. The most basic form of Geocaching involves walking around an area (usually the countryside, sometimes urban areas), using a GPS device or smartphone to find containers (ranging in size from film canisters and the occasional diamond-encrusted 3cm tub to large buckets and ammo boxes) of small trinkets (such as keyrings, plastic toys and Trackables, which are trinkets created to pass from cache to cache) known as caches hidden just out of plain sight, and subsequently registering your find on the Geocaching website. And of course all the best things in life are two-way processes, so Geocachers can also create their own caches in their local area for others to try and find, and best of all, the whole basic membership, containing opportunities to both hide and seek caches, is absolutely free (there is also a premium membership, costing $30 - approximately £19 - but there are few obvious benefits). In the time between now and when it started, Geocaching has grown to be much more complex, with current cache types including Cache Series (an often themed route of several Traditional Caches), Event Caches (a formal or informal meeting of Geocachers) and Virtual Caches (intangible caches involving going to a location and answering an online question about it).

Geocaching is an ingenious idea that makes all walks considerably more fun, and even the most un-outdoorsy person will never tire of endlessly searching around and rifling through Tupperwares. If I had to say one thing against it, it would be that geocaches are always impossible to find in cities, for ever-present tall buildings seem to make it difficult for the GPS to find the satellites, so I think geocaching is better off just done in the countryside. However, now  I've become so addicted to it, I also ponder how much I was missing never knowing about it.
- DP :)

Go to www.geocaching.com to sign up now.

Check out Dramatis Persona's (geocaching alias daftydodo) Cache Series Stour Path Sidetrack.

A geocache - this image isn't mine

The Unfortunate Incident Of The Panda And The Chopping Board

When slicing food on this chopping board (one originating in Denmark) earlier this afternoon, I couldn't help but notice the panda-face burn mark on the back. Although I only know this chopping board to have visited Denmark, I'm beginning to wonder if it's had a past in China's Sichuan forests. Just think, my imagination tells me, so this is the result of my instinctive storytelling ability. A small forest fire broke out nearby to the chopping board's location, and an unfortunate panda cub's burnt eyes, nose and face accidentally knocked against the board as the frightened animal scampered back to the safety of its clan. When the atmosphere became calmer, the curious panda cub and his clan ventured out to investigate the "effigy of our cub" that their cub had previously spoken of. The rather intelligent (for pandas) clan soon discovered the reasons for the strange mark, and had the excellent reasoning to think of it as a way to publicize pandas in the Western World. As it happened the religion of this particular panda clan was to always select things at random, in order to tell Luck that they supported her, and this principle applied to choosing which country the chopping board would be sent to. And the one selected was...don't all shout at once...Denmark! As pandas are generally not accepted on human public transport, the clan set off on an epic journey on foot, taking months on end, from Sichuan to Denmark, and then many more months to find a salesman that would accept pandas trading in a chopping board for bamboo instead of money, and then another forever to get back to Sichuan, until their short life in business was over. But back in Denmark, there was an unusual amount of demand for the chopping board, and somehow through the nature of trading the chopping board made its way into our house, therefore concluding the tale. Hope you enjoyed it!
- DP :)
P.S. The actual origin of the chopping board is not clear, but some suggest it was made by a panda clan living close to the subject of this tale, whose religion was not Luck, but Craftmanship.

The Amazing Things You Find In An Old House

As you might have wrongly interpreted the title of this post as being about the range of junk items in my house, a theme rather over-mentioned in blogs in my opinion, I'll start off by saying that it's not. It's actually about a rather unusual and interesting art exhibition I went to see recently, Waste Not by the Chinese artist Song Dong, exhibited at the Barbican Centre's Curve Gallery. Actually a collaboration between Song Dong and his mother, the exhibition consists of all the things Song Dong's mother hoarded because of the social turmoil causing difficulties in purchasing anything new. Song Dong's mother, Zhao Xiangyuan, would keep everything from old-fashioned hot water bottles and thermos flasks to old tubes of toothpaste and bars of soap, just in case they would somehow come in handy in the future, and as a result there are huge collections of things that most households would only have one or two of, such as plastic bottles and rucksacks. Perhaps one of the most memorable parts of the exhibition is the impressive shoe collection, with rows and rows of different types of footwear ranging from high-heeled courts and little red baby shoes to Wellingtons. It's very enjoyable to spend an hour or so wandering around Waste Not, for not only does it open your eyes to what it must have been like living in a house with this plethora of household goods crammed into it, there are quirky surprises hidden around every corner. Aside from the fore-mentioned shoe collection, some of the more humorous parts of the exhibition include various animal-shaped hats and bags, unappealing brown soap resembling caramel, a battered Etch-a-Sketch and, the highlight for me, a range of larger-sized cuddly toys and dolls, that had definitely seen better days and are now placed upside down, residing sadly on a heap of cardboard boxes! And there may be even more surprises yet to be discovered, and who knows what you'll discover if and when you see Waste Not.

                    - DP :)
                    P.S. If you see anything else funny at Waste Not, don't hesitate to comment!

Just some of Waste Not's fizzy drink bottles

                   

Zhao Xiangyuan's old toothpaste tube hoarding

An interesting way of arranging a multitude of plastic bags - none of these images are mine

Pictures From Edinburgh Part 2

They talk about being detailed, but they didn't mean this!

I recently recovered some more hilarious pictures from my trip to Edinburgh, so here we go...

Perhaps this sphinx is guilty of beheading...

... this sphinx!

All things aboard Britannia must be fit for royalty, I guess...

Well, all sandbags have to die someday.

Animals crossing!

Pictures From Edinburgh

I know it's a bit keen to do two blog posts in one day, but I was just going through the photos from my recent trip to Edinburgh, and there are lots of funny ones you might enjoy...

Well, I s'pose even scaffolding has to look attractive...

What? Dr Who's coming to Edinburgh?

A very vain-looking mermaid!

Not the best advertised fishmonger...

I guess they didn't have enough marble of the same type.

Some signs are terrible spellers.

An poultry-themed example of teatowel art.

An unusual arrangement of haggis, turnips and potatoes...

You're a bit grim, aren't you?

Interesting combination...

The Biggest Plum In The World?

A shorter post this time, I just wanted to show you this enormous plum I received from Borough Market near London Bridge as a present after I passed an exam. I love plums, and this one was especially juicy and sweet. I later researched plums on the Internet (:D) and found out that this is probably an Angeleno plum, which is "a big, purple plum with yellow flesh" which comes from Chile. Your mouths may be watering at this post but there was only a small basket left at the market, which may have run out by the time you read this post (even if they haven't, hurry because they will!)
- DP :)

The plum with a massive bite out of it!

P.S. If any reader knows of a bigger plum than this, I'd love to hear about it!

The Story Behind This Picture: The Wombat

Apologies to my readers for not blogging for a while, I've been away on a four-night trip to Edinburgh. And, to commemorate my first blog post for a week, I've decided to post about "The Story Behind This Picture" which will explain the interesting details (not made up, unlike "Tales From My Nana's House")  of this unusual thing I took a photo of. And the picture in question is this toy wombat, displayed in the Officers' Mess aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh's port.

Any person who has yet to see it for themselves will probably imagine that the overhead fan in the above mentioned location has no significance at all. However, they are quite wrong. This adorable wombat, now perched on the fan for reasons not specified in the audio-guide, was an essential part of the Royal Family's time in the Mess, if used for less-than-lovable purposes. The wombat was principally the subject of one of the Royal Family's favourite pastimes, the game of "wombat tennis". As the name suggests, this game simply consisted of using the poor wombat as a tennis ball and knocking it around the relatively small room. I feel sorry for the wombat!

In addition, it would be a crime not to mention the wombat's fellow Royal toy animal, the wooden monkey (above). He had a quieter and less painful life than the wombat, his principle game being hide-and-seek. The wooden monkey would be hidden by the Royal Family for others to find, in the not-so-obvious locations in the very open Officers' Mess, and is finally laid to rest in the glass cabinet behind the bar. I suppose both animals have a much more boring life now, unfortunately.

- DP :)
P.S. See the wombat and monkey for yourself at the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh, if this post grabs your interest. They're mentioned on the audio-guide :D