Today I should have been on or near the Essex coast but not everything goes to plan. I packed up Vern yesterday morning and left for a couple of days caching. After last weeks easy find of the cracking Sizewell Cliff House Camps Site I thought I really didn’t need to plan campsites in advance, after all my amazing TomTom Go and it’s 3G connection could find me the sites. Well it can but it doesn’t tell you if they’re open or not. It seems Essex camp sites don’t open until 18th March anywhere near or around Mersea Island and I’m a week to early.

So yesterday, Monday 14th, I set off later than anticipated for Essex. I was going to tackle a series of caches over a 9 mile circuit but having left late I took on caches I had as a plan B. I arrived at Tollesbury, put on my boots and set off at about 11:50am. The first couple of caches seemed quite far apart, the third even further. I plodded on. As I left the third cache I started reading the notes. I turned out I had ditched the 9 mile loop as it was too long for a 11.5 mile loop, now there is logic! The image above is my track around the Old Hall Marshes. It was a lovely walk that netted me 26 caches and a walk of 12.7 miles after I made a mistake or two. In then end though I posted the 3rd fastest time for this series, a fantastic achievement, 5 hours 49 minutes of non stop caching and walking.

So buzzing at my success but with the sun setting I turned my mind to finding a camp site. The TomTom listed a dozen or so. I started ringing round. No one’s answering the phone. After about 20 miles of searching and a lot of calls, I gave up and decided I would head home.

So today’s been a day of rest and research back home. I’ve been reading an excellent book called ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’. I decided it was time to look at seeing if I could turn my new life into a career. Anyway I’m just starting out so bear with me but if you want to know what it’s all about then click on the book and get your copy, the first 50 pages are brilliant and something you should all read.

A lot of other stuff has happened. I visited Theford Forest for a touch more caching, I see a theme here. I ended up doing a loop that took me through Santon Donwham, a place my Mum used to take us to swim in the river. It seemed very relevant to be back there. Yesterday’s caching was much the same as I walked within half a mile of West Mersea, crabbing capital for the Williams family as kids. And last week’s caching was in and around Dunwich Forest, another of our family haunts. About time I took off for the New Forest or the Peak District then.

I’ve managed to slot in a Thirsty Thursday. It’s what we call it when a group of us plan a Thursday night down the pub. We had an excellent night and finished it with a curry. The only downside was my bike handlebars worked loose, I’ve no idea how, on the way into town. It made cycling in and back a little dodgy, even worse as I forgot my helmet. I made it in one piece.

Saturday we celebrated Porg’s birthday at The Phoenix, the really good, but way too expensive Chinese in the village. Porg is Helena’s little sister Andrea. We call her Porg as she’s so little, Person Of Restricted Growth. Everyone calls her Porg just like everyone calls me Fatbloke.

And finally I’m writing this on my new MacBook Pro, it’s lovely. I’ve yet to test the TV tuner card in the van as there’s no signal round here and I managed to leave it at home yesterday.

Who knows what this week is going to bring. More caching no doubt. Maybe I’ll continue with the nuclear power station theme to my career break. Last week I was at Sizewell, yesterday within sight of Bradwell and we had the horrific earthquake, tsunami and resulting nuclear power station issues at Fukushima in Japan.