The Reunion

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Believe it or not I have been retired for 22 years having taken early voluntary redundancy from BT. I was only 51 then and the terms were so good that it would have been silly to have stayed. The one regret that I have though is that I never cottoned to geocaching way back then. Now it has taken all this time for someone to suggest a reunion and that was only after we learned that an old colleague had died during the Covid shutdown.

The do was in our old drinker, the Hand & Shears in Cloth Fair tucked away in Smithfield Market. With the event starting at noon, I decided to hit town early and do a bit of caching. I got off at Fenchurch and walked across Tower Bridge and did a left past the old Courage Brewery and down to Butlers Wharf. I took my photographic evidence for the Tower Bridge View virtual and headed back to the bridge.

I was after a letterbox, a rarity in London, at Victoria's Post Box - Tower Bridge. This was really clever, one of the best that I have done. I won't say anymore so as not to spoil your fun. On the way back across the bridge I took more photographic evidence to qualify for the Tower Bridge - mind the gap virtual.

I dropped down into St Katharine's Dock to pick up the a FP ~ Wapping multi and then passed the building crowds around the Tower towards the start of the RST London AdLab series. I found the answer for the first base and then the actual cache for the RST ~ Mark Lane (Tower Hill) trad.

I had hoped to finally nab the virtual in St Olave's around the corner but again the church was locked but the church was one of the bases for the City Prayers AdLab series. I found this one and headed north through the city towards Liverpool Street gathering others. I found that signal was poor around here or the zones were too tight.

I almost completed this series and headed towards the station and noticed that there was a base for one of the Hunt for Harry Potter series nearby. I snaffled that and headed back to the station complex for the Kindertransport multi. I had found this before but it had been inadvertently archived but now it was back in play. I worked out the coords and headed towards the final. I recognised the host but just could not find the cache. I suggest that it is missing but someone since has said that it is there but not retrievable. Gawd knows where it is.

I wasn't that far from the venue and it was approaching noon so I headed north up the City Road to pick up the Wesley's Chapel trad and turned back past the Royal Artillery HQ towards the Barbican.

On route was the a concrete squiggle by the Barbican trad and then headed north a short way to pick up The Charterhouse mystery that I had solved a few nights previous. So then it was off to meet some old faces. There were people who I'd worked for and people who had worked for me. It was difficult trying to work out what had happened to whom and when.😀

I left at four, not even having had a beer and headed back to Fenchurch Street. I did detour down Poultry for another City Prayers base at Bow Church and then dropped down toward Monument for another base of the RST London series. I remembered to note the bonus info.😀 So that was it, another successful day all round. Will I be around for another reunion in 22 years.🤔

1 Letterbox 1 Multi 1 Mystery 2 Virtual 3 Traditional 8 AdLab

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