Last Thursday was the 8th May which is a bank holiday in France, to commemorate VE Day, the end of World War II. It was a bit drizzly but we decided to make the most of the day (when I say "we", that's me and the kids - Madhouse Daddy decided to stay at home in the dry and warm !) and headed off for a mini adventure. As you can probably imagine, if you've been following my blog lately, a quick spot of geocaching was on the cards so we decided to investigate a mini cache just next to Dunkirk cemetery, which seemed very apt.
Alongside the rows of crosses that you can see above, each one marking a French soldier who fell for his country, there is a large slab (two in fact - one in English and one in French) engraved with a poignant message : "Here beside the graves of their comrades are commemorated the soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force who fell in the campaign of 1939-1940 and have no known grave".
We took a moment to reflect on the sea of unadorned white gravestones marking out so many tragic young lives cut short, then decided to lighten the mood by looking for the cache.
We found it, on the metal railing outside of the cemetery - this is our smallest find yet, and as it's a nanocache, we almost couldn't manage to get the mini logbook out because our fingers were too big !
Heading back into town, we uncovered another cache. This one was described as hiding behind a brick - it was behind the white stone that you can see in the background. Just next to this was a proper house brick so Sophie went rushing in to find the cache first ... then came rushing straight back screaming because she'd uncovered a big hairy spider instead ! We opened the cache and filled in the log - there was no treasure in this one but we left a little dog toy for the next person to find.
Somehow, just after this photo was taken, we ended up in the town centre shops, buying jeans and One Direction T-shirts in H&M, followed by a Nutella-filled panini (to keep out the chill), before heading home. Oh well, I guess that's what bank holidays are for !
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I so love reading your geocaching adventures. I'm thinking of downloading the app myself as it sounds so interesting, my Facebook feed keeps showing my friends geocaching. I feel like I'm mission out!
ReplyDeleteAngela
Ooh you definitely should, it's great fun :)
Deleteyou are missing out Angela, its brilliant fun. Yeeuuucccchhhh to the spider, i would have run as well, poor Sophie, not the sort of treasure you need.
ReplyDeleteImagine daddy letting the rain bother him....wimp....lol
thanks for linking up
LOL I'll tell him you said that !! ;-)
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