Dreaming Spires

Just time for a quick blog about our fabby weekend in Oxford. We met a great bunch of thingers in Oxford - lovely to see you all, especially the people we hadn't met before: el10t, elo15e, Sam, Maddy, Henry, Trouty, Carol, Jenny, Sparkle, Jess, Bean, Hutters and Mel. I hope I haven't left anyone out - sincere apologies if I did!

After 6 hours in the bar, we decided to get some fresh air and grabbed a few caches - then the next morning we grabbed a few more caches. And to round a great weekend off, we got home to find I had got my first essay of this term back - I got 65%!

Is anyone clever reading this?

If so, I need help with solving the puzzle in this geocache UC17 (Words). I have had the following extra help from the cache owner:

You are looking for 16 references that appear in chronological order in the text.
The first is in the first line, the last is in the last line.
A majority are single figures but not all.
No further mathematics are required.
There are also two phrases and a phrase transformation (the difficult 7th slot) to find.
You need to put it together in this format.

X XX XXXXXX (Northings)
X XXX XXXXXX (Westings)

You will notice that there are 19 X's there so you need a minor bit of conjuring there.

So with the help of google I found plenty of numbers 'hidden' in the text - trouble is, I have no idea what to do next!

Last chance to see?

Today is a momentous day in the life of my slimgraph (it's over there, on the right -->).

Not only is today the first time my scales have told me I weigh under 13 stone (although I am sure they are lying to me - I weighed more on Sarah's scales), but I have also reached the half-way-there line on the graph! I have lost 13 pounds in 7 months and my goal was to lose 2 stone in a year, so I'm not doing too badly. Family and friends are even starting to comment that I look slimmer.

So everyone better be there at the thingers meet next weekend - it might be your last chance to see me before I get so thin that I disappear for ever! *grins*

Hot water

You know what it's like in a canteen. The woman at the front of the queue pays for her food then, whilst she puts her purse away, the cashier rings up your food on the till. So you reach towards the cashier with your coins, across the other woman's tray, and then...

... if you are me, you drop a pound coin in her cup of hot chocolate.

Oops.