Where to go? What to do?

Leonora was mooching around the place.

Much as she liked planning trips and the idea of a trip to Portugal was so enticing, she hadn't the energy to put her plans into action.

Leonard, she thought gloomily. It's all his fault, putting me in a bad mood and being so horrid to me. She couldn't think of anything she wanted to do. He had totally destroyed her motivation.

The little crutches sensed her sadness and were very quiet. They chattered in low voices and made sure they didn't fall over.

One day as she passed them in the hallway, little crutch number one piped up.

"Leonora," it said.

"Yes?" she said, with a sad look on her face.

"Should we all go out somewhere?" it suggested.

"We could go for a nice walk, or maybe a weekend camping," suggested little crutch number two.

Then the third little crutch, who had come from Leonard's, added its voice.

"What about geocaching? We used to do that with Leonard," it said helpfully.

There was a deathly silence.

"Idiot!" said little crutch number one.

"Don't mention Leonard!" snapped little crutch number two.

And they both kicked the third little crutch and it crashed to the floor, dragging down numbers four and five with it.

Leonora helped them all back up and leaned them against the wall.

She stood there thoughtfully.

"Actually it's not a bad idea."

Little crutches one and two promptly fell over in shock.

Leonora picked them up, laughing slightly.

"Well, it will get us all out and about, and we won't just be wandering around aimlessly, we will have a purpose."

Little crutch number three smirked. Numbers one and two glared at it.

Leonora sensed there was going to be an argument. "Let's go and look at the computer, and see what caches are near," and quickly picked them all up before the spat started.

She took them into the sitting room and carefully leaned them against the computer table. She logged into the geocaching site and they all started to look at the nearby caches.

The little crutches started getting excited and jostling each other to see the screen better. Numbers four and five got pushed out of the way and fell down.

"Now listen," said Leonora sternly. "That is quite enough. Stop pushing each other around and being so disrespectful to each other." She picked up numbers four and five again, and put them in the best positions.

The other three started sulking but didn't dare say anything.

"Leonora," said number four hesitantly because it wasn't used to speaking up.

"Yes?" she said, turning and smiling at number four.

"Do you have a GPS unit?" It hoped it wasn't asking a silly question, but wasn't sure how they could go caching without one.

Number five spoke up in an even smaller voice. "Leonard had one."

"He had more than one, he needed more than one," snapped number three, annoyed that it had come up with a good idea and didn't seem to be getting sufficient glory.

"Of course Leonora knows we need a GPS," said number two, not wanting the other three to take over the running of the show.

"She's not stupid," said number one, determined to add its voice to the discussion.

"Stop bickering," said Leonora. "Or you will all go back into the hall, and I won't take you caching." They fell silent.

"Now, here is the plan," she continued. "We will identify the nearby caches that we want to visit. If there are any that we think we can find without a GPS we will have a go at them.

"And, we will do some research on the internet to decide which GPS will be good value for money and a good specification." She paused. Of course, the easy way to find out what would be a good buy would have been to ask Leonard.

The little crutches thought so too, but decided to keep that one to themselves. They sensed that under her new-found enthusiasm for going geocaching, that she was still miserable. As indeed she was.