28. Plant a tree

On Wednesday 1st October my family lost the most wonderful man in our lives - my Grandpa Monty.  I had so much respect for him and his opinions, his stories and just anything he had to say and I, for one, loved him very much.  From the age of 4 he was the only Grandpa I had.  He was funny, he was a "magician" and his "Grandpaisms" still stay strong to this day.

November 15th would have been his 92nd birthday and the family were going to get together to remember him over dinner.  I decided that I would like to commemorate Grandpa somehow and then I thought about planting a tree in his memory.  I didn't want to do this just to complete something else on my list but to have something lasting for years to come.  I decided on a fruit tree because I wanted the tree to have a purpose.  I took my Grandma to Aylett Nurseries in St. Albans to have a look at some trees.  I decided on a Czar plum tree as my Grandma makes the best plum jam and Grandpa always liked her jam (especially on bread/toast on top of cream cheese - don't knock it until you've tried it!).

My folks got a gardener to dig the hole in their garden ready to put the tree in.  On the afternoon of the 15th I took the tree, separated the roots, put it in the hole, filled the hole in, put the topsoil on and gave it a little watering.

I hope the plum tree will bear fruit for many years keeping Grandpa's legacy living on for the next generation of our family.

As recommended by Aylett Nurseries in St. Albans

The tree; my handiwork

2. Find 40 Geocaches (Part 3)

Nashville Cache (see what I did there?...like the song by Lovin' Spoonful "Nashville Cats"!)

As they say, "when in Rome...".  OK, so I wasn't in Rome, I was in Nashville but I wanted to find some geocaches outside of the UK and what better place to try than while I was there.

My geocaching exploration started on the Saturday I was in Nashville.  I went for breakfast quite early at The Edgehill Cafe.  It was a lovely sunny and fresh morning.  I then left to find my 10th geocache (without the aid of data or wi-fi).  I'd looked it up before I left the cafe so had a rough idea where I was going.

I headed down 21st Avenue South to the Pizza Perfect.  The geocache was behind the building and it was a clever magnetic one.

Behind Pizza Perfect

Yes, it's hidden here.

Once I'd found this and entered it on my app, I got a "souvenir" from Geocaching.com which gets recorded on my account.

My "souvenir"

I then decided to go and do some sight-seeing around Music Row and find my next geocache.  I wandered down 17th Avenue South and passed loads of studios; finally made it to RCA Studio B.  I managed to connect to some cheeky wi-fi and found my second geocache.

RCA Studio B

The hiding place

I then realised that back at Exit/In there was another geocache.  Annoyingly I had been there the previous day but decided to head back anyway.  It was getting warmer as well.  I spent so long trying to figure out the hint.  I eventually figured it out though.

The hiding place

The culprit (so tiny)

 So, 12 geocaches found in total and only 28 to go in 5 years.  I reckon I can do that!

My geocaches in Nashville