I did two easy ones to start with. One of them was at the point which is evidently the highest in the Forest of Dean.

I rarely take a map with me when Geocaching so am never really sure where I am. In theory I try to remember to take the bearing with my GPS of where the car is so I can find it again after I've found the cache, but I frequently forget. I have a good visual memory so can usually find my way back if I go the same way but today I resorted to the old fashioned method...

Having done the two easy caches, I headed for the difficult one. Only, I went to the wrong starting place!! I went to the opposite side of the Wye to the one I was meant to be on. However, I kept walking in the hope that it was right.

When my GPS was pointing this way, I was having my doubts...

Mind you, the view was nice...

Having walked all the way down from the car park at the top (the most direct route through the undergrowth / trees / brambles) and back up to the car again, I got back in the car and drove over to the right side of the river. After much faffing trying to find the right road (my GPS just tells me the co-ordinates rather than how to get to them) I eventually found the parking spot and headed off to the difficult one.

As ever, I went the most difficult route and round in circles a bit before I made it to the entrance to a cave! The cache was hidden in the cave, and I'd come armed with torch, boots etc.

Entrance to the cave...

Looking in from the middle...

And looking back out...

The lowest bit...

Love it! :D

For the record, I love my job and think kids are great. (Yes, there are shitty bits to it, and difficult kids, and difficult staff and stuff, but that doesn't change that I love my job!)

Let me set the scene first. It was an 'evening worship' service tonight, without choir, which basically means that it was very basic, plain service. Some hymns, NT and OT readings, a said psalm, a sermon and some prayers. The congregation for this type of service tends to be small to very small - tonight there were about 15 people, which is fairly normal for this type of service.

The preacher was a retired ordained man who attends the church, who is very 'happy clappy' (which I was assured tonight was not the correct terminology!!). The church as a whole isn't generally very like that.

He wittered on throughout the sermon about gifts of the spirit and how everyone should be open to receive them, and spent a lot of time going on about healing and 'dramatic' stuff (tongues, prophesy etc). The way he presented what he had to say it seemed to me very patronising, very 'I've got the gifts and you haven't' and very much that having the gift of healing (or a similar 'dramatic' type gift) was THE most important thing ever. And if you don't have one of these dramatic life changing gifts, or you can't be healed, there's something wrong with you - you have a sin you've not confessed, or you've not forgiven someone or something similar which makes you a bad person. It seemed to me that he was implying that you should live for one of these gifts - it is the be-all and end-all. Christianity is about the miraculous. You cannot be an 'ordinary' christian, there is no such thing - you have to be full on dramatic. IMVHO people end up living with 'unresolved expectations', they don't actually live life in the real current world, but always looking to the amazing thing that this wonderful god is going to do for them / to them. They end up as very 'unordinary' people, and not in a good way (certainly in terms of showing that church / christianity etc can be for 'normal' every day people) but in a 'religious freak' type way.

I know I don't have a positive attitude to these sorts of things because of previous experience, but I was getting so angry by it all!!

The particular congregation too, are so not the sort of people who I would imagine would be 'interested' in what he was saying - it's the sensible, grounded older people, who have more a 'quiet' faith. I'm sure he'd be great with one of the 'other' congregations in the church, but it just seemed rather pointless there.

One of the things about all of this, which I so don't understand, is why I get so annoyed by this sort of thing. I don't get why I care and can be so passionate about it all. I don't believe a lot (most?) of it, yet want the world to know that christians aren't neccesarily religious 'freaks' (which I've obviously come across far too many of).

There are two particular ordained people who I've met in the last 5 years who have so so shown me how 'normal' christians can be. One particularly I see fairly often is so utterly down to earth and normal and nice and lovely, yet so 'holy' and ernest and everything else that it does make me wonder if there really is something in it all.

Yet again, I feel I've degenerated into waffle, so I'll stop.

But I wanted to share some of my thoughts from last night at church, cos I always think it's interesting to hear what 'you lot' think about things!!

I frequently wonder why I go to church, and particularly why I go to the church I do. I still go to the one I 'grew up' in, despite the fact that so so much has changed with me, with the church, with the people, with my attitude towards religion, with everything pretty much. The reason for continuing to go had always been to do with singing - because it was somewhere where the music was quite good and enjoyable, and where I got to do lots of different things musically, with not a huge amount of effort on my part.

I then took the Youth and Children's work job there, so when my voice 'went' a year and a half ago, that kept me there. I finished doing that job at Christmas and I still can't sing, but yet I still appear to be there and I don't really understand why.

I made two lists last night - one of reasons why to stay, and one of reasons why not to stay.

I started on the 'why to stay' and couldn't think of anything!! Having thought for a while, I did manage to come up with two reasons: going to church is the only time I sit quietly without 'doing' anything and I enjoy the peace, and because I want to belong somewhere / be part of a community. Neither of these reasons seemed very strong reasons as I could, in theory, do the peace / sitting anywhere, or at any church (although I guess it is somewhere 'safe' that I feel comfortable to do that), and the belonging thing also could, in theory, happen anywhere.

The reasons not to stay came much easier: the distance (I now live 25 mins drive from the church), I don't actually think I believe most of it all (I believe there is a God and that's about as far as it goes), I don't feel that I have many (any?) good 'friends' there any more even though I get on with / know most people, I can't sing so I get frustrated seeing the singing, and I (and one of the youth!) sometimes get frustrated by the poor use of the ICT type facilities which they have availible.

So why am I still there? I'm very reluctant / hesitant / scared of leaving, even though there seems to be no particular reason to stay.

There seems little point in going to a church closer to home as there'd be no reason at all to be there - part of the justification for going to my church is habit. But surely there comes a point when that reason doesn't work either.

Hmm... I can feel myself waffling now... I'll stop!