Finally J can ride a bike!

At long last J has learned to ride his bike. Unfortunately he has out grown the bike before he had the inclination to give it a real attempt. Any takers for a good as new Raleigh GI. His birthday is coming up in a month and we have a new one in the shop waiting for him to turn 8.

Bennachie Treasure Hunt

We met up with M, D & K (Cortes Wanderers) this afternoon for a hike up Bennachie, targeting 3 treasure sites on the way. The route to the treasure #1 was a sculpture trail.

Off the beaten track towards treasure #2 beside Goukstane (The Cuckoo Stone) we found this little beastie.

J discovered the cache hidden under moss covered roots, where we found our first Geocoin. A Geocoin is a trackable coin that is registered and traced on it's journey from cache to cache, sometines covering distances across the globe. The note with this particular coin however stated it wanted to stay in the UK and visit as many places as possible. We will pass it on again very soon at our next treasure hunt day out.

J delighted with his Geocoin find.

Finally we made it to the top of the Mither Tap for some great views.

On the way down we found treasure #3, called 'Bennachie Booty', which was in the ruins of an old colony. Great day out and all 3 treasures located and logged.

Bikini Weather!

Mid April in Scotland is ideal paddling pool weather, or at least the kids thought 12deg was warm enough.

Haddo House

Some friends were across from Pau, France to visit family and friends so we all met up at Haddo House for the afternoon to catch up.

Easter Visitor

Cousin L stayed over a few days this easter.

The easter Bunny left them a little egg hunt in the back garden for when they woke up. Tally for their scramble in the back Garden: B found 13, L found 12 and J found 9 eggs.

Dunnydeer Hill Fort

B's friend had a sleepover last night, so on the way to taking her home we decided to go treasure hunting near her home town of Insch. The first cache was up Dunnydeer Hill Fort, which was quite popular that day with people rolling their easter eggs. Unfortunately I mistakenly typed in slightly the wrong co-ordinates in my GPS so we never found the cache.





Not to be beaten we went to Picardy Stone where we found a cache and exchanged treasures. You can see Jonathan showing off his prize of a finger monster.





Today was only our second attempt at Geocaching, which I think is a brilliant idea to get out and about to appreciate the sites of Scotland local to home. We found two treasure spots cycling distance from our house in Kintore yesterday.

Garioch 10k

Today was my first 10k challenge of the year, the Garioch 10k, which kicked off at 11:30. Training has not been very disciplined of late, but I still managed a respectable 51 minutes, finishing in 234th position out of 528 entrants. With the lighter nights now I will manage to get more miles in and break the 50min barrier at the next event, the Baker Hughes 10k in May.

Thankfully no-one came to cheer me on so no photos of me beetroot faced and gasping for air.