Yesterday evening, on our early return from the Fab Nine, daughter #1 called to ask if we could entertain / look after her son Charlie for a few hours today. As we had nothing planned we agreed.
Charlie would probably have been quite happy to sit at our house playing on his tablet and/or my Switch but I devised a bit of a plan which I just about sold to Sue.
The Plan
- Drive to Sutton Coldfield
- Do the town centre Adventure Lab and associated bonus geocache
- Grab something to eat
- Mooch in the shops
We managed the first part, squeezing the 1.90m high car into a 1.93m high car park then taking the lift down to the main shopping level.
In case there was any doubt, there was a sticker in the lift informing you that you were, indeed, in a lift.
Upon landing, I fired up the AdLab app and explained to Charlie that we were looking for an Owl.
“Like that?” enquired the young man pointing towards an owl sculpture. The bird was one of eighty nine sculptures placed around Birmingham back in 2015. At that time, I had dragged (?) Dainton around, ticking these off.
With the first location solved, we moved on to part two at the United Reform Church. After locating the required information, and before going on to the next part, we decided that it was time to get something to eat.
On the drive in, I had spotted a Pizza Express. Sue agreed that that would be a good idea so we made our way, along the high street, nipping into a few shops en route.
Entering the restaurant, I was asked where I wanted to sit. Employing a ‘Dad Joke’ I said, “On my bottom”. Obviously, the waitress had never heard this before and burst out laughing. She was that impressed that she kept asking, throughout the meal, where I was sitting. I wish that I’d never mentioned it but I suppose it lightened up her day.
After devouring three large pizzas (that’s altogether not each) we returned to our hunt. However, on the way, Charlie announced that he’d seen something in one of the shops that he now wanted to buy.
After his purchase we continue to collect clues completing the AdLab adventure at the railway station, home of a crash in 1955 that killed seventeen people.
With the adventure complete, I looked back at the entries and collected some information to locate a bonus geocache which, it turned out, was back at Holy Trinity Church which we’d visited as part of the AdLab.
At GZ, I explained to Charlie what we were looking for and as we were searching Sue calls, “What’s this Charlie?” pointing into an ivy covered corner. She’d only gone and found the cache.
As I filled in the log, Charlie was quite excited and asked if there were any more geocaches nearby. I think that we may have another convert.
Fuelled with success, we returned to the shopping centre and made a few more purchases before returning to the car.
We dropped Charlie off at his mate’s, where he was going to have a sleep over before returning home.
I asked / suggested to Sue that I could walk to the Griffin, getting my daily mileage in, and she could, perhaps, pick me up at around seven. She agreed.
kevbaldry