When Spindoc Bob announced in the forum that his family would be coming for a visit to Tassie, of course an event had to be organised. This time it was at Tranmere Hall, and despite a key mix-up earlier in the day, everything went well! The turn out wasn’t huge, but obviously all the quality people were there!
Orac7000 won the FTF prize: getting to show off his muscles helping me get the BBQ out of the cacheMobile. Unfortunately my husband, Scott, was in Adelaide where his father is in hospital, and there was no way I could get it out myself. A bit of trivia: orac’s the only other attendee who also attended Tassie’s first geocaching event, The Devil’s Day Out back in November 2004. Although he had a bit of a geocaching hiatus, he’s back out and ready to hunt!
Soon other eager and helpful cachers arrived – SamCarter scrubbed the BBQ plates while I stood by and described how filthy they were to SG-3 while the pjamesk crew started hauling out chairs and tables. I don’t know why some people think I go to lots of work when organising an event. I put a lot of thought into the venue as it can really make or break the event and usually seem to bring half my kitchen (although always forgetting essentials). However when the event actually starts, geocachers always are willing to get in and help. Which was essential; a case in point: our BBQ is the only food prep device that my husband understands and I have no clue about. And I’d like to keep it that way as when we have BBQs at our place, I usually have more than enough on my hands without supervising the actual BBQ as well. So I openly admitted my stupidity, and a herd of helpful males set to work getting the BBQ going, risking life and limb and burnt fingers. I’m glad 5commer3 smokes or it could have quite a short BBQ indeed!
More arrived: rehikemike (his first Tassie event!), SHoTSPoT (a newbie still in the single digits!), red tag, gspblu/March Brown, Mrs Cheesy Pig and Piglet, Sog n Paulus with Mr Oscar, gorbak (who I somehow never got a chance to talk to). And then, fashionably late to create a grand entrance (or suffering from ‘just one more cache’ syndrome? 😉 ) Spindoc Bob, Nay, and Zac arrived. It must have been odd for him: to us his face and voice are so familiar most of us felt we already knew him, however we must have seemed a pond of strangers. (There weren’t enough of us to be a sea of strangers.)
So with the meet and great phases of the event over, we got down to eat. There was a lot of food, a LOT of food, and a lot of talking. The young ones played on the playground, the oldies stood around and talked, and a young schnauzer scored an enormous amount of food.
As most of you know what happens at this stage of an event (eating and chatting about caching adventures past and future, red tag letting out puzzle secrets, etc), let us turn our attention to what this event would have been like for Lottie, Snuva’s canine successor. Lottie’s been our sweet little dog for 11 months now, and although she’s gotten over most of her show dog aloofness (she’ll now roll in wallaby droppings like a real dog) she still finds events overwhelming. At this event she spent the first while keeping an eye out for my legs. This was quite important: there were many strange legs, but the only legs she trusted were Snuva’s. After a time the torsos attached to some of the strange legs started breaking through Lottie’s defenses with pats and scratches. And then she was completely disarmed: SAUSAGE. For a time Lottie started stalking strange legs. She knew that Snuva was aware of when she was last fed, so eyebrows needed to be fluffed, paws needed to be raised, and a hungry look needed to appear in those brown canine eyes. SUCKERS!!! There was more than enough meat to go around, and as the only canine working the crowd there was also time for breaks to hunt down the most choice pieces of ground in the area and have a good roll. Sweet, sweet, rotten smells!
As the evening progressed, sweets came out. Lots of them! rehikemike brought one of his mother-in-law’s chocolate CWA cakes, Mrs pyjama guy made cream horns, there was a slice, lamingtons, red tag did sticky date pudding, and I’m not sure what else. Wowsers!
The one drawback to the venue was lighting. There were not external lights, the room overlooking the outside area was the one room I couldn’t get into to turn on lights, and the streetlamp next to us was out. So by 9-something people where again proving themselves to be helpful and assisting with taking chairs inside, some strong men manhandled the BBQ into the cacheMobile (thanks gspblu/March Brown and 5commer3!), and stuff was generally cleaned and cleared. But I’d had a great time! Despite being someone who considers herself a bit introverted, somehow a little horsey had galloped down my throat by the end of the evening. And when we got home, before I’d even loaded the dishwasher, Lottie was upstairs on her beanbag asleep. So much for the boundless energy of the young!
Thank you all who attended! Thank you for helping out, thank you for the conversation and laughs, and Lottie thanks you for the feeding my poor, food deprived schnauzer!
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