First posted 2nd July 2019
I’ve been playing Pokemon Go again. I played for the first year, until raids were added, and started again in May. Now it makes a cheap date with the guy who got me back into playing it. Let’s call him boyfriend. Because he is.
A new little special research had been released and I wanted to get it done in a day. I expect it will take the whole weekend as I am not in the best health. I get confused when tired.
I bought some incubators and raid passes when waiting for my suncream to soak in. Bag packed with portable phone charger and bottles of water. I had a huge floppy hat. I look stupid (but do not get burnt). We are ready.
It’s noon when we head out.
Very happy with my edits of the pokemon photos. I had to work out the shadows or take a photo without the pokemon to put them behind objects.
Saturday 29 June
Part 1 – Make a new Friend | Catch 3 Pokemon with Weather Boost | Hatch an Egg
We got the new friend task done using a code posted on Facebook then headed out through the city. By the time we hit the Cathedral grounds we had both hatched eggs.
It was around 28° with no cloud cover. It stays that way.
The Perigrine family that live on the Cathedral spire were all out in the sun. As were the twitchers with their telescopic lenses. The birds are louder than you would think from so far up.
Part 2 – Earn a Candy Walking your Buddy | Take a snapshot of Dratini | Evolve a Dratini
I swap my usual buddy (Porygon) out for something I only need to walk 1km for. We take a couple of gyms and while swarms of Vicars attend what must be a Vicar conference.
It’s 1pm when I evolve a Dratini.
Part 3 – Power Up a Pokemon 10 times | Battle another Trainer in Great League | Battle in a Raid
Back into town again and we drink water in the shade while powering up a few Pokemon. He chooses weak ones that don’t cost much stardust and I pick a few I’ve been waiting to do for a while.
Stay hydrated kids! The Forum has a cold drinking water tap. It also has Christians singing and evangelising outside.
It is 2pm. We reapply suncream on our faces and necks. The amount of raids available is falling and we want to save our raid passes so decide to wait until Raikou.
We meet boyfriend’s friends for lunch off the market and hang out for an hour or so. The BBQ bun off the Dim Sum stall is always good. As is the company.
After parting ways we wander about trying to spot other players before the raid event at 4pm to 7pm.
Raikou Raid Event
We find a crowd outside Chapelfield who welcome us in. A loose group made of twos and threes with a cheerful bloke making sure everybody can be involved.
“Is everybody in? Great! We’ll be going at a nice slow pace round the city. If the group gets bigger we’ll split into two equal sized teams for those raids.”
I like raid events and community days. Seems you can be involved as you want. Making small talk is easy as you all have something in common. The battle is easy with 20 players and the catching felt stressful, when it really shouldn’t have been. The cheerful bloke is right: We have plenty of time.
I got mine.
Part 4 – Catch 5 different species of Pokemon | Catch a Legendary | Hatch 3 Eggs
I comfortably get the 5 different species on our way down the the next gym, away from the restaurant employee who chastised us for gathering outside their door.
I don’t catch Raikou on the second raid but do on the third. That just leaves the hatching of 3 eggs. It will take 6km. So I’ve got a long way to walk.
I get coconut ice cream off the market. A drunk man yells us for playing Pokemon. The children in the group keep asking each other ‘why is he angry?’ We pass groups going in different directions.
After an hour we had done 6 raids. And I was flagging. Not dehydrated, just exhausted. Some of the group complain that things are too slow for them. “This is ten minutes per gym, we can do twice that with ease!”
Boyfriend agrees. He wants a shiny. I keep not realising he is talking to me. Brain is getting foggy. May as well keep going. We leave with the fast blokes and end up going faster than them, with one other guy from the original group.
The Shiny chance was 1 in 10 for this event. I get mine on my last raid. It was 5:40 and I was not having fun. The way the group was going, each step was further away from home. I had hatched 1 of the 3 eggs and needed another 2km.
I head to the pub while boyfriend keeps going. I tell him to. I mean it.
I get chips and lemonade. Barman says the wait on food is 40 minutes but I don’t care. Boyfriend arrives after 25 minutes. I tried to text him to play on as long as he wanted but he didn’t get it and wanted to check in on me.
Turns out… I texted my Mum.
“I knew you wouldn’t make it to seven. You were never going to do all seven hours. I don’t even know why you wanted to start at twelve.” Boyfriend is right.
I also don’t know why I didn’t wait to go out. Guess I just wanted to go outside and play.
We share the chips and then get more. We get home at 8. I shower, sleep for an hour, have dinner, and go back to sleep.
Sunday 30 June
Part 4 – Hatch 2 more Eggs
Feeling refreshed from sleeping like a rock all night and fully suncreamed up we go out again. There are more people out than usual by nothing like the drifting teams yesterday. We detour to a magnetic lure but it is just rock types.
The walk home yesterday and the trip into town today gets the last 2 eggs hatched.
Part 5 – Take a Snapshot of Eevee | Send 5 Gifts to Friends | Trade 3 pokemon
Time for Lunch and we go for a Nandos. The sit down is a good opportunity to get these tasks done. We trade pidgey. The reason I stopped playing was the increasing number of things I could not do on my own. I didn’t want to play that way. Now I have someone I already like talking to who I can coordinate with. Thanks, boyfriend.
This is my first shiny Eevee. Looking up the evolutions I’m disappointed by some of the options. They don’t really stand out.
Part 6 – Make a new Friend | Win a level 3 or higher Raid | Evolve a Dragonair
I had a Friend request pending from the internet again and enough candy to evolve Dragonair. The only issue was waiting for a level 3 raid to spawn nearby, and before it was time for boyfriend to go home.
I’d turned level 34 yesterday but I still won’t be able to take a level 3 raid on my own.
We hung around is suspicious alleyways taking gyms and maybe not taking in the scenery as much as we could… but it was better than streaming another miserable tv show.
He went home his way and I went mine. It was a good weekend. I was exhausted and had forgotten I had tickets to a punk gig in the evening. It’s Monday now. I have blisters.
No ragrets