Evening caches

When Leonard got in from work, he made a cup of tea and took some directions from the caching site.

"Grrr ruff ruff ruff," barked Tata dancing around in excitement.

"Yes, yes, we're going now, and I will take lots of photos of you," replied Leonard.

"Ruff," barked Tata and charged out of the door, waiting for her Land Rover to be opened.

Leonard's mood had improved over the afternoon. Work had not been too much of a pain, and Tata's idea had been a good one. He had spent most of the afternoon anticipating the excitement of the early evening caching.

The first one was a circular walk. They parked in the car park, walked into the village and took the public footpath opposite the 'phone box.

Tata was torn between bounding in and out of the stream and running up and down the path through the woods.



Then she sat down nicely, and put on her best "Please come back Leonora" expression.



The next cache involved a bit of an uphill walk. Leonard was a bit worried about this with his broken leg, but decided to exchange his walking pole for a little crutch which he had thoughfully put in Tata's Land Rover.

The three remaining little crutches were not getting out much at all these days as Leonard's leg slowly improved, so there had been a bit of a fight in the cupboard about who should go with Leonard. They were all very jealous of the two little crutches who had disappeared off to have adventures with nice Leonora.

So the little crutch had been very pleased to be chosen to go out, even though Leonard was a rather large person for one little crutch to manage on its own.

It jumped perkily out of the Land Rover and naughtily kicked the snooty walking pole when Leonard exchanged the pole for the little crutch.

The three of them set off and slowly climbed the hill. Tata tried very hard to do more winning expressions for Leonora.

First she did a serious pose, looking right at the camera.



And then she put her head to one side. How could Leonora's hard heart not melt at her photos?

She was very pleased with herself so off they went. They took nothing from the cache, and left nothing.



When they arrived home Mrs Leonard was already in the kitchen preparing the evening meal.

Tata rushed in to greet her and tell her about the two caches and her beautiful photos.

"Ruff ruff ruff," she barked happily to Mrs Leonard, who reached down and patted her and gave her a small titbit.

Tata charged back into the sitting room to see if Leonard had uploaded her photos.

"Grrrr ruff ruff," she ordered, when she realised he hadn't even opened up the computer. What a slowcoach he was.

Leonard uploaded the photos and Tata sighed in admiration of herself on the computer screen. How lucky she was to be so beautiful. She was so cute with her head on one side.



"What a beautiful dog you are Tata," said Leonard, echoing her vain thoughts.

"Rrrrrrrrrrr," she agreed.

"Leonora will not be able to resist that last photo of you with your head on one side. It is an absolute winner," and he scratched the top of her head down past the little wrinkles of fur.

He was just about to go and tell Mrs Leonard about Leonora's snotty email when he thought again. If - although he didn't think it possible - Leonora was still determined to be horrid even after yet more gorgeous photos of Tata, he needed to keep Mrs Leonard in reserve.

No, he would just send the photos with a short message from Tata. And he would do it before he went to bed, so that he didn't end up checking gmail for Leonora's non-existent response all night.

He decided to have an email game of Scrabble with the snotty woman who liked to ask him Nosy Personal Questions. She had been a bit quiet of late, but it was always a good laugh when he managed to beat her at Scrabble. She got so annoyed about it, just like Leonora.

He set the game up, calling himself Mr Cock-a-hoop (at last match) and called his opponent Ms Gutted (at last match). Leonard had won the last match, obviously. He shuffled his tiles around trying to find the best word for his opening move.

"What's for tea?" he called out while he pondered the letters in front of him. He should be able to get something decent as he had a blank.

"Smoked mackerel, salad and baked potato," answered Mrs Leonard from the kitchen.

Good, thought Leonard. No silly vegetarian food. And I can have lots of garlic mayo and garlic butter without horrid Leonora telling me they are fattening.

At the thought of food, inspiration came. He looked at the tiles again and realised he could use the blank tile as an O. IDIoTIC. That was a great word. With his bonus points of 50 for using all his tiles, that gave him an opening score of 74.

'Ave that, Ms Gutted, he thought. In fact, he was so pleased, he decided to write it up in the little chat box that came with the game.

Life was looking up.