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1 August 2019
(Thursday) - Rather Dull
Finding myself wide awake far earlier than I needed to be I had a
little look at the Internet. I’d had an email last night about a new puzzle geocache.
I solved the puzzle easily enough (despite the glaring
spelling/grammatical mistake) and saw it was up a tree in Dartford. This morning no one had been out for the First
to Find. I *could* have gone chasing but it would have been quite a
long way out of my way, and climbing a tree on my own… I decided against it. Whilst I was at it I had a look at Facebook. Nothing much had changed
overnight. I had a bowl of granola, watched half of an episode of “Orange is
the New Black”, and got myself ready for work. It was a slow drive up the motorway; yet another lorry had broken
down, and with only two lanes and no hard shoulder, that slowed everyone. As
I crawled towards Maidstone the pundits on the
radio were discussing the proposed pilot’s strike. It was mentioned that the
average pilot earns ninety thousand quid a year. Then the figure of a hundred
and eighty thousand quid a year was mentioned. With such variation (one
figure being double the other) you have to wonder just how much faith you
can have in what you hear on the radio. There was then a *lot* of talk about the ongoing cricket
matches between England and Australia. It all sounded very competitive;
tickets to watch it started at ninety quid a day. And then some vicar was
wheeled on to do the “Thought for the Day” slot in which he proposed
the radical idea that sport (such as this cricket) should be fun. I got to work; I had a busy day. Busy, but not as stressful as it
might have been. I came home and took the dogs round to the co-op field. Unlike
yesterday the dogs were a delight. They can be *so* good; if only they
try. "er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of “Isla
Negra”; arguably one of the worst wines I have ever had… Today was a tad dull… |
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2 August 2019
(Friday) - A Birthday
Finding myself wide awake at three o’clock I got up and watched an
episode of “Orange is the New Black” in which it is becoming very obvious
that the leading lady’s wife is about to pork one of the lady prison guards. I then went back to bed and slept through till after eight o’clock. I got up and fed laundry into the washing machine. As I had my morning
shave I found that the hot tap in the bathroom sink is rather stiff. I
suspect that fixing that will be a saga for the next few weeks. I then
scoffed some toast and home-made jam (very tasty!). Fudge sat with me
until there were no crust scraps left to be had, then he wandered off doing
his own thing. Treacle and Pogo are both rather attentive dogs; Fudge has
always been rather more independent. As I looked at the Internet, Facebook told me that today was "er indoors TM" birthday. That
was good of it. It has always been a standing joke that men forget wife’s
birthdays and anniversaries… do they really? I never have. I did chuckle when I saw that "My Boy
TM" had used Facebook to wish his mother a happy “bithday” (!) I also saw that the geocache I considered hunting down yesterday still
hadn’t been found. Is that because the puzzle is too tricky, the tree-climb
is too hard, no one could be bothered to chase the FTF, or (most likely)
someone *has* already found it but hasn’t logged on-line in a
thinly-veiled ruse to waste other people’s time. Whilst "er indoors TM" got ready I
hung out the washing, and pootled about in the garden. Pushing gravel about,
trimming back overgrowth, pulling out weeds. We then took the dogs down to Orlestone woods for a little wander. They behaved (mostly). With walk walked we came home, got changed,
settled the dogs, and walked up the road to the Curious Brewery. I’ve walked
and driven past the place several times. But when they were in Tenterden they used to brew their beer in whiskey barrels
(and so it tasted horrible), and I’d heard they weren’t cheap, so we’d
put off visiting. We went today, and met "My Boy TM"
there. They’ve changed the way that they brew; the
beer wasn’t bad. The food was very good. It wasn’t cheap, but then that’s not
a bad thing; it keeps the likes of me (and the rest of the lower orders)
out of the place. We staggered home, and I ran out the hose pipe
to top up the pond, dug the weeds out of the front garden path, and did some
water feature maintenance. I didn’t think I’d done that much, but I certainly
ached at the end of it all. But not too much; ironing wasn’t going to iron
itself. It’s been a rather good day off. Perhaps one
of the less eventful birthdays, but not a bad day, really… |
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3 August 2019
(Saturday) - Garden Party
I think I ate too much yesterday – I had a very restless night. Mind
you having to be up at six o’clock probably didn’t help. I made some toast
and coffee, and had a look at the Internet. I had emails about a load of “Found
It” logs on the geocaches I’d hidden. I was pleased to see that people
were hunting the things out. I was very pleased to see that two which I thought
might have been missing weren’t missing at all; I haven’t got to go replace
them now. I got dressed, and set off (via one or two geocaches) to
Margate where I found "Daddy’s
Little Angel TM". After we’d squabbled a bit we went to
the cash and carry for supplies. The cash and carry at Broadstairs is an odd
place; I think that a prerequisite to being taken on there is that you must
have less than fifty per cent of your full quota of teeth. We bought loads, and after a little effort we got it all into the car.
Loading the car wasn’t unlike playing Tetris. And with the car unloaded at
the other end I said goodbye and came home. It’s a shame that she can’t get
more staff in the shop; I rarely see the most recent fruit of my loin these
days. Once home I spent a frustrating twenty minutes trying to find what I’d
done with the event shelter. Once I’d found it, I set it up, and we prepared
the garden for the afternoon. "My Boy TM"
arrived, and started cooking, and it wasn’t long before family and friends
arrived for our annual garden party. This year we seemed to have clashed with
all sorts of other events; so many people weren’t able to get along. But we
still had over thirty people in the garden. Scoffing food, drinking all sorts
of stuff… Treacle and Pogo found the fat tray on the barbecue and got filthy.
My mummy hammered the Pimms, mother-in-law went
base over apex, we scoffed pork lions (!), and I even got to have the
cigar I brought back from Turkey. And (in a novel break with
long-established tradition) I stayed awake for the entire time. I
took a few photos too. I’ve programmed “Hannah” for
tomorrow’s walk. I could do with a good night’s sleep. I hope next door’s
dogs settle soon… |
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4 August 2019
(Sunday) - Loose
Despite having had a serious tidy-up last night, I got up this morning
and still found load of carnage from yesterday. I spent a little while
tidying, then had a look at the Internet as I scoffed my toast. I follow a Facebook page about the hotel in Turkey where we stayed
earlier in the year. Apparently a child has fallen over by one of the pools,
and has needed to have stitches. There was quite a discussion (rant)
about the matter. There was a *lot* of talk about how difficult it is
to claim compensation in Turkey, and a *lot* of resentment to the
suggestion that parents should insist that children *don’t* sprint
like things possessed over wet and slippery floors. Especially when there are
signs everywhere saying how dangerous slippery floors can be. I tried to encourage Fudge to eat his brekkie; he wasn’t keen.
Yesterday I’d mentioned to my brother that barbecues have two settings; “burnt”
and “diarrhea”. Unfortunately my dog seemed to have gone for the
second setting. "er indoors TM" then pointed
out that a new geocache had gone live in Biddenden,
and bearing in mind the traffic chaos planned for the motorway for today,
this new cache was actually on our way to today’s
walk. We got ready as quickly as we could, and got to the new cache at just
the same time as the resident local FTF fiend got there. But a joint FTF is
always good, and it was good to catch up and chat for a few minutes. We were only ten minutes late getting to Loose. Bearing in mind that half of our number probably were a tad under the
weather today, the plan for today was to take it easy. We started off with a
short(ish) stroll through the Loose Valley… Oh dear. As always our route was laid out for us by a series of geocaches, and
today was definitely a walk of two halves. The first half was best described
as “frustrating”. It was only when we got home that I realized that
the chap who had hidden these caches had never actually walked a series of
geocaches himself. He’d done odd caches of series, but not a complete series.
And (unfortunately) it showed. Things started badly when we read that our first target geocache was
labelled as “dogs allowed”, only to find it was in a field with signs
saying “no dogs”. The given co-ordinates for our second target were
about twenty yards out; in fact the given co-ordinates of most of the caches
in this series were seriously awry (We only found them from seeing what
friends had said about their experiences there). There was a section of
the walk along a busy road which might have been bypassed by use of
footpaths. Footpaths weren’t clearly marked. And the route involved quite a
bit of back-tracking. (The idea is that you walk a route along which
geocaches have been placed. You don’t walk back and forth from one
randomly-placed geocache to another... A subtle difference!) That all seems very negative, doesn’t it? It was such a shame. The
person who’d put them out had clearly taken a lot of time and effort to put
them out. Individually (apart from the poor co-ordinates) they worked,
but they didn’t work together as a series. But this is typical of what is going wrong in geocaching at the
moment. There are a *lot* of people wanting to rush into hiding the
things despite having very little experience of the hobby. We finally got back to where we’d parked, and sat in the meadow and
had a picnic. It was only after we’d scoffed that we realized this was the
other side of the meadow in which dogs weren’t allowed. Whoops! With sandwiches scoffed we went down the road to the Chequers were we sat in the garden for a couple of pints.
It would have been rather easy to have sat in the pub all afternoon,
but we decided to crack on. Earlier I’d mentioned that today’s geocaching was
a walk of two halves. The second half was far better than the first. We had a
few field puzzles the information for which was soon found, and after the
morning’s debacle it was so good to be operating with reliable co-ordinates.
Given the hint of “base of post” we didn’t have an entire fence to
search. I took a few photos whilst we were out. Once home I posted them on-line,
then fiddled about to get the most recent geocaching souvenir. As I fiddled about, "Daddy’s Little Angel TM"
phoned. She’d been watching the Margate carnival today. I can remember
carnivals in Hastings when I was a lad. There were loads of floats and majorettes and all sorts of fun. I used
to march with the Boys Brigade band in the carnivals. Ashford used to have
carnivals back in the day. There were a few floats, and loads of vans
carrying carnival queens (all behind metal meshes as the oiks would catapult pennies at them). Apparently
Margate carnival featured a total of three floats, and was mostly just a load
of businesses trying to hawk their wares. I wonder why Ashford doesn’t have carnivals any
more? We had a rather good bit of dinner, then watched a couple more
episodes of “Timeless”. I think I might see if I can solve a
geo-puzzle or two in readiness for mid-week… |
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5 August 2019
(Monday) - Week Off Day One
One of the dogs gave a single humungous woof at three o’clock. I
wonder what that was all about? I slept through to seven o’clock then got up. As I got up I noticed a
damp patch on the duvet. Had one of the dogs jumped up with wet paws from
their trips out to the garden? Had one of them had an “accident”? It
turned out that Treacle has started licking the duvet (for no apparent
reason). Over brekkie I had my usual trawl through the internet and saw some
new geocaches had gone live locally. Interestingly one of them was in exactly
the place where "er indoors TM" had been told
that geocaches weren’t allowed. I’ve mentioned before that there is a
definite lack of consistency in how the geo-feds apply the rules. Facebook was worth looking at this morning.
Several friends had posted up photos from the weekend. Some had been for
walks, some had been to our barby, some were on
holiday in various places across the world. Being a nosey sort of person I
love seeing what others are up to. Mind you it never fails to amaze me how
those who’ve not been in employment for months and those who constantly plead
poverty are those on the longest and most exotic holidays. I drove over to the garage where "er indoors TM" had dropped her car.
It was near where the new geocaches had gone live. I thought I might see if
might get a crafty First to Find, but I couldn’t find anywhere to park. So I
collected "er indoors TM"
and took her to work. My original plan had been to then drive out
to hide the new series of geocaches that I’ve been planning, but "Daddy’s
Little Angel TM" wanted to do a cash and carry run. I
thought I might do this run before shoving film pots under rocks, but by the
time I’d got over to Margate, did the cash and carry run, came back to the
shop, unloaded and driven back to Ashford time was against me. I wouldn’t
have had time to drive out to the back of beyond, walk five miles with film
pots and dogs and be back in time to get "er
indoors TM" back to the garage. I *might* go hide those caches on
Wednesday. And then again I might not. There are those that contribute to the
noble art of sticking a film pot under a rock, and there are those who enjoy
other people’s efforts. Over the years I’ve actually hidden over two hundred
and eighty of the things. I don’t know if I can be bothered to put more out.
Maybe others might care to contribute? Or maybe they wouldn’t? So I came home, and walked the dogs round the
park. We had a very good walk with no incidents whatsoever (can you
believe it). With walk done I then fell asleep in front of the telly. I
woke just in time to go fetch "er indoors TM"
from work and take her back to the garage. With garage run done we came home; "er indoors TM" boiled up a rather
good bit of dinner and went bowling. I slobbed in
front of the telly for the evening, managing to stay awake this time. Rather a waste of a day’s holiday really… |
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6 August 2019
(Tuesday) - A Day in London
I didn’t sleep well for some reason. I got up
about an hour earlier than I had planned, and over brekkie watched the last
episode of “Catch 22”. The series has been watchable, but odd. In six
episodes nothing much really happened, and the last episode followed in much
the same vein. After an hour they just ran the closing credits with no real
ending to the show. Looking on-line it would seem that the book ended equally
vaguely. I can remember having the book (years ago) but can’t really
remember much about it. If it was anything like the TV adaptation, now I know
why. With telly finished I had a look at the
Internet. This week is the week-long national geo-meet up in Aberdeen. I
hadn’t realised that the thing was a week-long extravaganza; I thought it was
only over the weekend. Had I known I might have made the effort to have gone;
after all I’ve got the week off work. Such a shame that I didn’t realise
this. Mind you, many of these events seem to be a closely-guarded secret.
I’ve lost count of the number of mega-events that I’ve found out about *after*
they’ve happened. There was one such last weekend that I only found out about
this morning. I got myself organised and wandered up to the
train station. I tried to buy a ticket for the eight-oh-three train to
Charing Cross. The nice man behind the counter wouldn’t sell me one. That
wasn’t a cheap rate train (he said). I told him that the Internet said
it was. He rolled his eyes and explained to me what kind of half-wit believes
what they read on the Internet. So I bought an off-peak ticket for the
eight-twenty-nine to Charing Cross. I then went to the ticket barrier where
the nice man said that I *could* use the off-peak ticket on the
eight-oh-three train to Charing Cross, and implied that only a half-wit would
listen to the nice man at the ticket office said. Customer service has never been a strong
point for railway staff, has it? I found a free newspaper, and did the
crossword as the train took me to London. Once at Charing Cross I soon found
Karl, and we took to the underground. Hot, noisy, smelly… so many people
packed in like sardines. We got to Hyde Park Corner and went for a
little walk. I don’t really know London, so (as usual) our route was
laid out by geocaches. Many of them were Earthcaches
which took us to the rather obscure parts of the capital; the sorts of places
that the tourists don’t usually find. One of the other caches had a field puzzle
which had me playing a strange version of hopscotch outside the head office
of the BBC. We met up with some Czech cachers in an
obscure alleyway used in the Harry Potter films. And we found one of the
cheekiest hides ever. It was a shame that we drew blanks in Goodge
Street and at St Anne’s in Westminster, but you can’t have everything. As we walked we found ourselves in Leicester
Square. I thought we might divert to the Lego shop for five minutes. Have you
ever been to the Lego shop in Leicester Square? The queue to get into the
place was probably over a hundred yards long. Stuff that! We had a rather good stilton ploughman’s for
lunch, and with walk walked we had a pint of porter in Covent garden’s iconic Harp. I
took a few photos whilst we were out. Despite the noisy toddlers watching Peppa Pig
videos on the train home I slept for much of the way. Strangely the Peppa Pig
videos being turned off at Paddock Wood woke me, and I picked up the
newspaper that the toddlers’ mother had left and did that paper’s crossword
until the train got us back to Ashford. I got home at almost exactly the same time as
"er indoors TM", and we
took the dogs round the park. Pogo was a tad wilful, but there was no
squabbling with other dogs, and as walks went this was a good one. With walk walked we had a very good bit of
dinner, then I set about doing the homework from the London trip. Earthcaches are akin to geology homework… I’ve sent in
eight sets of answers to questions. I hope I’ve got the answers right… |
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7 August 2019
(Wednesday) - A Walk in the Woods
Amongst my morning’s haul of emails was one
from someone who couldn’t find one of the geocaches I’d hidden some time ago.
Having failed to find it, she wrote a rather petty little tirade about what a
crappy area I’d chosen to put the thing in. I did chuckle when I realised
that someone else had found it the same day, and it wasn’t supposed to be an
easy find anyway. This woman has found over twenty thousand
caches but hasn’t really hidden that many (relatively speaking). You
would think that someone who clearly gets so much out of the hobby would be a
tad less discouraging. I got the dogs onto their leads, and we made
our way to the car. We did “boot dogs”; but once in the boot, Treacle
has taken to jumping out of the boot onto the car’s back seat. When we are on
the way to a walk that’s not a problem. On the way home when she is filthy is
a different matter. I need to get some sort of a dog barrier thingy to put up
in the back of the car. As I drove, the pundits on the radio were
talking about Brexit. Since Mr Johnson became Prime Minister there seems to
have been something of a change in the nation’s attitude to Brexit. Under Mrs
May there was a “yeah, whatever” frame of mind. But now it seems that
people are taking it seriously. As well they should. This morning there was
talk on the radio about possible shortages following Brexit. No one knew what
we would be having shortages of, but everyone was convinced that some things
will be in short supply. We got out to Hemsted
Woods and had a little walk. Last month I started making plans for a series
of geocaches round these woods; today I put the pots out. We had a good walk;
it would have been better had the normal people left us alone. As we walked some fat little woman came
jogging past with an odd-looking Spaniel. Pogo totally ignored the dog, but
Fudge tried to hump it, to which the fat little woman told him to f… off. She
then looked at me and sprinted off as fast as she could (leaving her dog
behind). Silly cow. We had another dog-related episode a little
later on when some scrawny looking woman was walking about seven or eight
assorted dogs. I say “walking” – the dogs were all mostly going in the
same direction as she was, but purely by chance. Some were fighting, some
were humping, some were bumbling. It was plain that this woman had no control
over any of her dogs. She gave me the most evil glare for no reason that I
could fathom. After a couple of hours we were back at the
car. We came home, and once the dogs were settled I reorganised the shed, put
the garden furniture away, popped to the fishing tackle shop, did a tip run,
and got a bit of lunch for today and for tomorrow as well. I then did all the geo-admin for the new
geocaches I’d hidden earlier. So far the geo-feds haven’t given the series
the thumbs-down. I scoffed today’s lunch whilst watching the
telly. Having had torrential rain whilst I was at the fishing tackle shop,
the afternoon was really hot, so I hid from the heat in front of the telly. I
watched the last two episodes of “Orange is the New Black” which were
both rather good. It’s a shame that I’ve seen all of that show now. I wonder
what I can watch next? I’ve loaded the fishing gear into the car for
tomorrow. I really should have an early night. "My Boy TM"
wants me to pick him up at six o’clock tomorrow morning… |
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8 August 2019
(Thursday) - A Day's Fishing
With the alarm set for five o’clock I woke
every twenty minutes until four o’clock and then was out like a light when
the alarm went off. I loaded up the dishwasher and had a look at
the Internet. There wasn’t a lot to see so early in the morning so I got
dressed, got the last of the fishing gear into the car, and drove round for
"My Boy TM". We had a quick McBreakfast,
then set off to Bethersden. I knew a shortcut along
Magpie Hall Road. However I didn’t know that Magpie Hall Road was closed. But
despite a little diversion we were still at the gate to the lake ten minutes
before it opened. We exchanged pleasantries with the bailiff, and made our
way to the lake. Lovelace fishery is somewhere I’d not fished
before. I’ve driven past it several times but I’ve been put off by what I’d
heard (I follow the lake’s Facebook page). I’d read that the lake was
incredibly narrow. (It wasn’t). I’d heard it was difficult to fish. (It
wasn’t… really). "My Boy TM" had
warned me that the place wasn’t a runs water... You’d think that runs water is
a bad thing, wouldn’t you? I’m sure that many of my loyal readers are having
quite unmentionable visions… In piscatorial terms a “runs water” is a
lake, canal, pond, river or any other watercourse from which it is very easy
to catch loads of fish. "My Boy TM" had
given me the choice of where we would fish today Did we want to try Lovelace
fishery? On the one hand we had a chance of catching some very big fish
there. And on the other hand we had a far better chance of catching nothing
all day long. I gave the matter some thought. Common sense told me that there
were no end of other lakes where we had a far better chance of catching stuff
(albeit not as big). But in my world common sense is no match for
idiot enthusiasm so Lovelace fishery it was. We set up our rods and (despite a minor
hiccup when my reel broke) we were soon fishing. The first fruit of my
loin set up three rods; each with a huge bait. He was loaded for shark(!)
I set up one rod with a huge bait, and one rod with a very light float which
I baited with maggots. I had one rod the bait of which could only be taken by
a big fish. And I had another rod with which I was targeting tiddlers because
when you are targeting tiddlers, anything might happen. I’ve had carp over
ten pounds in weight when tiddler-bashing before. The tiddler rod was a success. It really was
fish after fish. I lost count of how many I had on that rod but it was well
over a hundred. Admittedly none were over six inches in length, but tiddler
bashing is a dying art. If I don’t keep the old traditions alive, who will?
And it kept me occupied whilst I waited for the bite on my other rod. That bite came at mid day.
"My Boy TM" had caught a carp of over twenty
pounds within minutes of our arrival, but after that things went very quiet
on the big fish front. It was over five hours before I had the second carp of
the day. Not quite as big; it was a shade under twenty pounds. But it beat
what had been my previously heaviest fish by six pounds. I was rather
chuffed. "My Boy TM"
caught two more carp during the afternoon; both about sixteen pounds in
weight. We came home having caught four fish between us (I’m told the
hundred-plus tiddlers don’t count!), and we were rather pleased with
ourselves. "My Boy TM" didn’t catch anything on
his first three visits to that lake. Would I go back there again? Yes. Admittedly
we didn’t catch as many big carp as I would have done at other lakes, but the
fish we caught were far bigger than those where we usually go, and I can
amuse myself by tiddler-bashing. I
took quite a few photos whilst we were at the lake. I would have stayed
longer, but "My Boy TM" was getting hungry. I had
offered him one or more of my six-pack of crisps but Cheryl has said that he
is on a diet, and (apparently) if he’d had any crisps, I can’t be
trusted not to tell tales and squeal him up. So we came home so he could have
his permitted dinner. I’d struggled to get my gear to the lakeside,
and I struggled getting it back to the car. Regular readers of this drivel
may recall my spending quite a bit of time last year finding a trolley big
enough for all my fishing gear. The trolley I got worked for a while, but it
isn’t big enough to accommodate the fishing seat I got for Christmas. I need
another new fishing trolley Once home I hung out my wet tackle (ooo-eer!) and took the dogs for a walk
round the co-op field. We had a rather good walk; we didn’t shout ant anyone,
or try to hump anyone. A passing normal person did give me a pointed glare
when Treacle and Pogo were play-fighting; I suppose that (to the
uninitiated) their play-fighting does look rather nasty "er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner. We had a bottle of fizzy plonk with it as a
celebration for my big fish. A spinning head, too much sun earlier… I
think I should have an early night… |
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9 August 2019
(Friday) - Tubular Dog Guard
When I went to the loo at one o’clock (pausing only briefly to trip
over Fudge) the rain outside was torrential. When I woke seven hours
later it was still just as awful. I couldn’t help but think about the two
blokes we’d met at the lake yesterday. They’d arrived as we were leaving.
They were planning a night fishing session; even though they knew what the
weather forecast was. I made myself some toast and shared the crusts with Fudge. Back in the
day he wasn’t allowed crusts as he was such a little barrel. Now he’s getting
so thin he needs feeding up. Sometimes I worry about how thin he is getting.
Mind you he seems OK in himself; he’s just getting on a bit. And it doesn’t
help that he’s such a fussy eater. I had a little look at the Internet as I scoffed toast. Quite a few
people had said nice things about the fish I caught yesterday. I’ve only just
worked out that (bearing in mind my previous best fish was thirteen pounds)
I’d beat my personal best by nearly fifty per cent. Several people were having a birthday today. I sent out birthday
videos. I’ve got out of the habit of doing that recently; I really must start
again. Looking at the birthday video I send out I saw that it hasn’t got any
fishing pictures in it. Lots of pictures of walking and dogs and beer and
Lego, but no fishing ones. I shall have to bear that in mind when I make a
new one. Seeing that the weather forecast said the rain wouldn’t ease until
mid-day I went on a little shopping mission. First of all to Halfords where I
asked the nice lady for “You know – one of those things…” and I then
proceeded to gesticulate and thrash my arms about in a pathetic attempt to
reenact what “one of those things“ was. Amazingly the nice lady
immediately realized that I was after a tubular dog guard to keep the dogs in
the back of my car. She showed me the range, offered up the one which I probably wanted,
and suggested I took it to my car to see if it fitted before I paid for it (apparently
there is a lot less paperwork doing it that way). After a few minutes
fighting I had the thing in place, and went back and paid. I complemented the
nice lady on knowing what I wanted. She said they get a lot of customers
coming in wanting “You know – one of those things…” and she’s used to
it. I then went to the fishing tackle shop with the fragments of my reel
that broke yesterday. As I said to the nice man behind the counter, I’d only
used it three times. He had a look; he said he could see it was barely used,
and he said he’d never seen one fall apart in quite the way mine had (I
think he was secretly impressed). He gave me a new one and said if this
one breaks I should fetch the bits back again. With the rain still coming down I thought I might visit the Lego shop
at Bluewater. As I drove, “Desert Island Discs” was on the radio.
Today it was the turn of Sir Tim Waterstone; founder of the “Waterstones”
book chain. The bits of the show when they were interviewing him were
fascinating. But his choice of the eight records he’d take to a desert
island… Oh dear… They do this all the time on “Desert Island Discs”. They have
such interesting people who then claim to be classical music buffs. Does
anyone *really* have Schopenhauer’s concerto for stilton and armpit as
their favourite piece of music of all time? Of
course they don’t! I got to Bluewater and (as usual) managed to park about as far
away from the Lego shop as it is possible to get. As I walked through the
centre there was a “delightful” family scene. A rather snotty (literally)
four-year-old was having some sort of melt-down. After a lot of trying to
reason with the brat, the young mother just shouted “Button it, shitface” and dragged the child away. I got to the Lego shop where I was the oldest customer (by about
twenty years). I got a pint of Lego (you really can buy bricks by the
pint!) and came home again. Once home I thought I might try out my new tubular dog guard. I got
the dogs on to their leads, we went to the car and the dogs hopped into the
boot (as they do). Treacle immediately spotted the tubular dog guard
preventing her jumping onto the back seat and gave me the most evil glare. We drove down to Orlestone Woods and had a
very good walk. We met some other dogs, and it all went amazingly well. Pogo
was friendly to the four little bundles of fluff, and he played with the big
black dogs that ran up to him barking (like he does to other dogs). And when he came back to the car, I had all three dogs sit. I opened
the back end of the car. All dogs sat nicely until I said “Boot Dogs!”
and all three jumped in. As I closed the door a little old lady came up to
me. “How wonderful” she exclaimed. I didn’t have the heart to tell her
that I was more amazed than she was. She introduced me to her little dog; a lovely little pup that was
seventeen years old. We came home, and I fed laundry to the washing machine. It seems to
like that. As it chewed the laundry I caught up with the episodes of Poldark
that I’d not got round to watching. And with dogs fed I looked to feeding
myself. Being left “home alone” for a couple of days I went up to the
KFC to get dinner. Just as I was being given my scran
a minor fracas was kicking off. Some rather weird-looking chap was demanding
he be served a “beans meal”. Apparently in his world a “beans meal”
was just like a bargain bucket, but with the chicken and chips and fizzy
drinks replaced by beans. This caters for vegans who don’t like chips or
fizzy drinks. No one else seems to meet these nutters; why
do I attract them? I’ve programmed “Hannah” for tomorrow’s adventure, I’ve got my
pack-up organized. I see that the last season of “Gotham” is now
available on Netflix. I shall watch an episode or two of that and have an
early night. The dogs are all waiting for "er indoors TM" to come home.
I’ve told them all that she is away for the weekend. They aren’t taking any
notice… |
|
10 August 2019
(Saturday) - Knatts Valley
The dogs missed "er indoors TM" last night. They
all lay by the front door until I went to bed, and for all that they came
upstairs, they wandered downstairs every half-hour or so to see if she’d come
home. I eventually gave up trying to sleep and got
up. I set the washing machine going on some towels, and watched an episode of
“Gotham” whilst we all had out brekkies. Just as “Gotham”
finished, my phone went absolutely mental. The new geo-series that I’d been
working on had gone live. Twenty-three geocaches each of which I received
four emails about. “Your geocache has
been published”, “Geo-Fed #99 posted a reviewer note”, “Geocache
#10000 has been published” and “There is a new geocache”. It was a
lot of stuff to have to delete. I eventually got all my gear and the dogs together, and I got it into
the car in two loads. Luggage first, then the dogs. And then I drove up to Knatts Valley. Five months ago (on 3 March) I
spend much of a rather dull day solving geo-puzzles. Today we went to find
the things. We arrived at a lay-by somewhere near Sevenoaks,
and waited for our buddies to arrive. I took the dogs off for a tiddle, but
it started raining, so I opened the boot of the car and the dogs sat inside.
I sat on the edge and we all sheltered under the tailgate. After a couple of
minutes some normal people appeared (seemingly from nowhere) and
announced loudly to the world at large that they were going to shelter under
my tailgate. Their dogs started barking at my dogs and it was implied that
their dogs are delightful creatures and I should take my dogs elsewhere
whilst they sheltered in my car. I didn’t actually tell them to p*ss off in
so many words… Karl, Tracey and Charlotte soon arrived, and we set off for our walk.
We didn’t get far before we had to stop to shelter from the rain. And once we
got going again we soon had to stop to shelter from the rain again. The BBC’s
forecast was that the rain would all be done by nine o’clock. I was
devastated to see that that BBC had got it wrong (yet again). But the
worst of the rain was over by mid-day. Mind you the wind was strong. Two of our target geocaches were found
on the floor. They were still attached to the branches to which they’d been
tied, but the branches had been blown off the trees.And
as we walked though woods we could hear branches coming down. We walked for just under twelve miles. Across fields and along lanes.
Footpaths and woods. Fudge rolled in various disgusting things. Treacle found
several sticks to carry. Pogo was well behaved. It was as well that "er indoors TM" wasn’t along;
there were some serious hills to be climbed. As we walked we found a deserted
golf course. It was eerie. Have you ever seen a deserted golf course? Usually
golf courses are pristine; an example of gardening taken to the extreme. This
one had just been left to go to rack and ruin. The greens and fairways were
two feet deep in grass. Usually we have a pint on our walks. Today we’d sussed
out that there was a pub two-thirds of the way along our walk. But it wasn’t
until we got there that I realized that it was the Rising Sun in Kemsing. We went there on the twenty-third of April 2017
when I wrote: “As we walked we found a pub. A pint would have slipped down
nicely. I asked the people in the garden of The Rising Sun
if the place was still open. A grizzled old harridan who I can only describe
as looking like
Zelda from “Terrahawks” said she might be, and
asked me what the time was. I told her it was twenty to four; she replied (in
a “piss off” tone) that she’d closed at three o’clock.” We got there at half past two today to find a very welcoming sign
outside, but the place was closed and locked. Just as we were giving up some
bloke drove up and said that he wasn’t opening today. Others who’d walked this series had reported they’d taken five hours
to get round; we took eight. A combination of sheltering from the rain, time
spent searching for some rather tricky hides and diverting to closed pubs all
slowed us down. Mind you I
took a few photos today. That probably added a minute or two. Geocache-wise today was a mixed bag. Some were straightforward finds.
Some were rather more difficult. Despite having secured permission to replace
any missing ones, we logged two “did not find”s. One had clue “base of
concrete post”; we couldn’t find any posts in the thick stinging nettles. And the other one – after fifteen minutes searching some chap came out
of his house (in his pyjamas and smoking a fag)
and wanted to know what we were doing. Once home I fed the dogs who were incredibly
hungry after their walk. I then went up the kebab shop for my tea. Chicken doner meat, chips and a can of drink for four pounds
fifty pence. Can’t be bad... Except that they’ve put it up to six pounds
seventy (there’s inflation for you). And it didn’t help that I had to
keep handing it back to them. Chicken meat and chips – how difficult can it
be? No – I didn’t want all those sauces. No I didn’t want some pitta bread
thing. No I didn’t want lamb. No I didn’t want salad… in the end the manager
came over and was amazed that anyone could mess up chicken meat and chips so
much. I scoffed tea whilst watching more “Gotham”
as the dogs snored. I had to turn the telly up to hear it over their snores… I’m hoping for a better night tonight… |
|
11 August 2019
(Sunday) - Here and There
We all slept rather well last night. I woke
before the dogs, and watched an episode of “Gotham” before they hauled
their carcasses downstairs. Fudge and Pogo wolfed their breakfasts; I had to
hand-feed Treacle hers, scrap by scrap. The dogs all went back to sleep; I left them
and set off in the general direction of Margate. I thought it better to go
whilst they were asleep rather than have them wondering where I was going. On
the way I took a little diversion into Dargate
where I stopped four times to hunt out geocaches. One was on a road sign. One
in a bus shelter. One in a churchyard (nearly) and one was in a crash
barrier. As I drove the radio was having its usual
Sunday morning religious stuff. Some vicar was banging on about the
importance of prayer in that if we want to change the world, then prayer is
the way to do it. He then said that whatever happens is God’s will anyway.
What will be, will be. He seemed to gloss over the failing in his logic that
if God is going to do whatever God wants to do regardless, then what is the
point of prayer. I *really* don’t understand religion at all. Clearly
nonsensical claptrap is presented as supposed fact and we are supposed to just
accept it? I got to Margate on the stroke of nine
o’clock. Whilst "Daddy’s Little Angel TM" fiddled
about I played with "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM".
He’s got a new Game Boy thingy. The plan was that we would go straight to the
cash and carry; we finally set off for there at about quarter past ten.
Shopping there can be a bit of a nightmare. You’d think they’d make the
aisles big enough for the trollies, wouldn’t you? Mind you I did laugh out
loud when the most recent fruit of my loin loudly announced “I can't hack
this shit any more. I'm getting bored". Once we’d got a car full of assorted stuff
back to the shop I collected my old step ladder and headed back to Ashford (about
an hour and a half later than I’d planned). I delivered the ladder to
"My Boy TM" who was decorating. He’d made what I
considered to be the schoolboy error of trying to paint grey walls white.
After four coats of emulsion the walls still looked grey. I came home, collected the dogs and drove up
to Mote Park. There was a works picnic taking place. Back in the day when I
worked “somewhere else” I wouldn’t have dreamed about going to a works
picnic. Looking back I wish I’d left “that place” about twenty-five
years earlier than I actually did. Despite pausing for all three dogs to have
a spate of diarrhoea, I soon found everyone. I chatted for a bit, and then
took the dogs for a walk round Mote Park. I’ve not been there for years. It
is a rather good place for a dog walk. We met loads of other dogs and we all
played very nicely with them. We even met another cocker-pug, the owners of
which said they’d never seen another cocker-pug before, and I’d wandered up
with two of them. In fact the walk was only marred by some idiot
who insisted that Treacle and Pogo were “Lancashire Heelers” and was
adamant that they were not a pug – cocker spaniel cross. Ironically if you
look them up on the internet, Lancashire Heelers look rather like Fudge. With walk walked we made our way back to the
picnic. When about quarter of a mile away we got caught in a rain shower. The
dogs didn’t care as they’d been in the lake anyway, but I got a tad damp.
Mind you I got given some home-make cake at the picnic. That chirped me up. We came home, and the dogs went to sleep. I
got out the ironing board and ironed through some episodes of “Gotham”.
With ironing done I went down the road to Marino’s; I had this idea that I
might get cod and chops for dinner. It ain’t cheap. A portion of chips cost over two quid. Back
in the day chips came in two pence or five pence portions. But the dogs liked
the fish. In fact they liked the fish today, the kebab yesterday and the KFC
on Friday. Is it any wonder they all have diarrhoea? "er indoors TM" will be home
soon. Things will soon be back to usual. |
|
12 August 2019
(Monday) - Back to Work
After a rather busy weekend I slept like a
log. And with "er indoors TM"
returned, so did the dogs. Over brekkie I watched an episode of “Gotham”
then had a look at the Internet to see if I’d missed much overnight. I hadn’t
missed much on Facebook but I had missed the Perseid meteor shower last
night. Back in the day I would have been all over that. I was surprised that
no one had mentioned it. I checked my emails. What with my new geo-series
going live on Saturday morning and people walking round my other caches, I
had two hundred “found it” logs. So over this last weekend for every
film pot that I found under a rock, over three people found one that I’d
hidden. I see that as something of a result. Mind you, sometimes I wonder how
the noble art of shoving film pots under a rock is going to continue. It
wasn’t that long ago that I got at least one notification about a new one
five times a week. Now sometimes weeks pass before anyone puts out a new one. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were discussing President Trump’s seemingly incessant tweeting. There is a
growing feeling that Donald Trump has done untold damage to the office of
President of the United States. For years whatever the American President had
to say was respected. Now with his stream of drivel there are those who feel
he’s made the position something of a laughing-stock. Whoever takes over from
him will have the job of restoring respect for the position before they can
realistically do anything else. The pundits also interviewed the numero uno honcho at Phones 4
U. Because the chap has had Lyme’s disease he was seen to be something of an
expert on the matter. And (listening to what he had to say) he
probably seems to be something of an expert on the matter to anyone who knows
nothing about it. It struck me that with endless experts that could have been
wheeled on, why wheel on someone who clearly didn’t know much at all? I got to work. There was cake. There was also
a lot of torrential downpours too. And we had weather warnings too. Did you
know that there are distinct “yellow” and “amber” weather
warnings? One means “be aware” and one means “be prepared”.
What’s the difference? With work done I came home. "er indoors TM" boiled up a rather
good bit of scran and went bowling. I watched the
final episode of “Gotham”. Something of an “end of an era” now
that I’ve seen them all. I rater liked that show, but
it did have the problem that (being a prequel) you knew all the
characters were going to survive. That was where “Game of Thrones”
worked so well; anyone could drop dead there. I then fell asleep in front of the telly. I
do that far too much… Going back to work was a tad dull… |
|
13 August 2019
(Tuesday) - Before the Night Shift
I slept like a log
last night. It was rather cold (for August) but I had two dogs
snuggled up to me radiating quite a bit of heat to keep me warm. As I scoffed my toast
I had a little look at the geo-map. I’ve got a little plan for a small series
of Wherigoes but finding somewhere to put the
things was something of an issue. There’s not many places left locally that
don’t already have caches on them. I *really*don’t want to use an area
that has an odd cache already there; most of these caches have been put out
by people who got overly excited at the prospect of putting a film pot under
a rock, and then lost interest. I tend to avoid those areas when hiding my
own film pots under rocks. You end up putting in loads of effort only to have
your location remembered most because of that cache that the local scouts
don’t maintain any more. But I eventually
found somewhere that looked promising I got the dogs into
the car and after a ten-minute drive we were walking along the new little
route I had in mind for my Wherigoes. As we walked
I was rather amazed to see a sign from a local farmer asking dog walkers to
clear up the dog poo. Bearing in mind the field was awash with sheep dung,
what difference does one dog turd make? Especially a turd from my dogs who
are regularly wormed. We had a good little
walk. Across fields, through woods… there was a little episode when we lost
Fudge. I finally spotted him in the next field about fifty yards away going
at right angles to the way the rest of us were walking. But he came back when
called… I say “called”; “bellowed at” might be a better
description. This is a little walk
we’ve done before. It’s a good one; it was especially good to walk with the
dogs and not meet up with any of the normal people. I got home, and spent
an hour and a half doing the bare minimum geo-admin so that the geo-feds can
let me know whether or nor the Wherigo series is
possible or not. If they give it the thumbs down, then we had a good walk
anyway. If the locations are acceptable, the next stage is for me to create a
Wherigo cartridge. That will probably take about thirty to forty hours work
over a month or so. I spent the afternoon
in bed; I got a couple of hours’ sleep, then watched a couple of episodes of
“Black Mirror” on Netflix. Netflix has been playing up recently in
that it doesn’t seem to remember what I’ve been watching, and where I’ve got
with it. I blame the constant upgrading of the app; if those who made the
thing would just leave it alone Once "er indoors TM" boils up some dinner
I’m off to the night shift. On the one hand I don’t want to do the night
shift. On the other hand I like the time off work either side of the night
shift and I’m not scheduled to do another for over six weeks. I should really stop
whinging… |
|
14 August 2019
(Wednesday) - Bit Tired
As I drove home after a particularly busy night
shift, the pundits on the radio were interviewing Philip Hammond who was
Chancellor of the Exchequer under Mrs May’s premiership. The bloke has given
Mr Johnson a couple of weeks’ grace before he decided to stick the knife in.
He was banging on this morning about how him and his cronies are going to
block Mr Johnson’s attempts to force a no-deal Brexit onto the nation. It never fails to amaze me just how thick
these politicians can be. Mr Hammond was a senior figure in the
previous administration. He had a *huge* opportunity to help to secure
a Brexit deal. His government worked for two years to come up with a deal.
That deal was then soundly rejected by the UK Parliament three times.
Parliament itself then took some time out to come up with alternate deals and
couldn’t agree on anything. The European Union has made it crystal clear that
there will be no renegotiation of the deal. So it is plain that the UK is
faced with either a no-deal Brexit or no Brexit. I must admit I’m rather relieved that Mr Hammond
isn’t in government any more. it is plain he’s got no idea what is going on. I came home, said hello to "er indoors TM", collected the dogs,
and drove them down to Orlestone woods for a little
walk. We found another little path today that we hadn’t found before, and
spent an hour or so exploring. As we walked we met a couple of other dogs (and
their associated humans). The encounters passed off reasonably well; Pogo
didn’t bark at them, and Treacle didn’t run in terror. I’ll take that. We also found a hippie encampment. I’m not
sure if the hippies are allowed to be camping there on Forestry Commission
land, but they didn’t seem to be hurting anyone. Mind you it does niggle me
that I can’t put a film pot under a rock there as it is a site of special scientific
interest but the hippies are allowed to set up a campsite. We left the woods just as the rain started. Once home I took myself off to bed for the
morning. Over a late brekkie I watched another episode of “Black Mirror”.
For all that the show is following a format first devised by “The Twilight
Zone” and “The Outer Limits” some seventy years ago, it’s not a
bad thing to watch. My phone then beeped. An email. The geo-feds
have given me the thumbs-up for the locations I selected yesterday for my
latest geo-project. I made a start on creating the Wherigo cartridge. Just
putting in the start and the six geocache locations took over an hour (by
the time I’d fiddled about correcting co-ordinates to the correct format).
As I fiddled about the doorbell rang. The
nice man from the carpet company had come to measure us up for a new carpet
to go up the stairs. The old one was there when we moved in (in 1991)
and probably needs replacing. The dogs went mad (as dogs do), but h
was only here for ten minutes. He’s going to send us a quote. My laptop then asked if I would like it to
update its operating system. Apparently the old version of Windows won’t be
supported for much longer. After two hours the laptop now has the new version
of Windows which seems to be exactly the same as the old one. Progress, eh? "er indoors TM" is boiling up
some scran, I’ve opened a bottle of plonk so’s it
can breathe… I wonder how long it will be before I’m snoring? |
|
15 August 2019 (Thursday)
- At The Circus
I slept like a log last night; probably
something to do with having done a night shift, half a bottle of red wine and
the last of the amaretto. Over brekkie I peered into the Internet. I
sent out a couple of birthday messages via Facebook, then checked my emails.
There wasn’t much of note apart from connection requests via LinkedIn. Does
anyone other than people working for recruitment agencies actually use
LinkedIn? Seeing that it was rather bright outside I
got the dogs on to their leads and we drove down to Orlestone
woods where we had a little walk. We met a little old lady with her dogs; we
explored the new shortcut we found yesterday. We also saw that the hippie
encampment was still in place. Their tent didn’t look cheap. Neither did the
camping gear that I could see. It was as we were walking past the hippies
that I realised Fudge had disappeared again. I called him; I immediately
heard a dog yelping in pain. Now it might not have been Fudge, but the yelps
did sound like him. I sprinted back down the path toward the hippies (but
nowhere near as fast as Pogo or Treacle were running). I couldn’t see
Fudge anywhere. I called him a few times, then suddenly realised he was
standing at my ankles looking at me (as though wondering what all the fuss
was about). He seemed fine. Had that been him yelping? From Orlestone we
drove up to Kennington where a new geocache had gone live. It was on a rather
busy footpath, marked as incredibly difficult and with no clues whatsoever. I
gave it five minutes before putting it on my “ignore” list. Some
people want their caches found; some don’t. We came home, and I squealed the hippie
encampment up to the forestry commission’s head office. Having a little camp
in the woods is one thing; this morning they were cutting down whole trees
and having a bonfire. That’s just taking the piss. I then spent a little more time working on my
Wherigo project. The plan is that people will start off at a car park, chat
with a cyber-narrator character and then go to six locations in turn where
they will interact with various fictional characters. Just getting the
pictures for those fictional characters took nearly two hours. I had a sandwich, and watched two more
episodes of “Black Mirror”; both were exploring ideas in sci-fi that
were already old before I was born, but both were very well done. I then turned my attention back to my wheri-project. Having spent ages this morning creating
pictures I then fiddled about so the Wherigo creator could use those
pictures. That took half an hour. I then programmed in about thirty seconds
of dialogue… another half an hour. After an hour’s attempting to create the
player’s name as an input variable (!) I gave up. I had other things
to do. Having loaded up my car with family I drove
down to Folkestone where we had a little birthday meal (today was Cheryl’s
birthday). Have you ever been to the
Brickfields? I have before, and I had high hopes. I was disappointed.
"My Boy TM"’s pie looked as though it had been
sat on by the chef, and my chicken had probably already been cooked three or
four times too many. From dinner we went on to Radnor Park where the circus was in town. I’d not
been to the circus for years. The last time I went, the girl on the flying
trapeze’s tit popped out, and one of the llamas humped another. I wasn’t sure
what to expect today. We arrived to find the place was crowded.
Pretty much every seat in the house had been taken. And even with the Groupon
deal it wasn’t cheap. But it was rather good… *if* you like acrobats.
Back in the day the circus was something of a variety act. Today’s show was
ninety per cent acrobats, with a single clown filling in the remaining ten
per cent. But it was still rather good. I particularly liked the bum of the
girl who was assisting the chap balancing on a beach ball on a see-saw on a
skateboard. Mind you, seeing how I don’t like heights I couldn’t watch the
girl who was doing the trapeze thingy, and had to turn away from the grand
finale. I video-ed
some of it; after I finished videoing they climbed out of the wheel bits
and ran round the outside. I felt ill just watching. But I’d certainly go again… |
|
16 August 2019 (Friday)
- House Guest
Another rather good night. Over a bowl of
granola I watched more “Black Mirror”, then sparked up my lap-top to
see what I’d missed overnight. I hadn’t missed much really. No one else could
find that geocache that I couldn’t find yesterday. Other than that, nothing
would seem to have changed. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about how many dogs have been rehomed because people don’t realise
just how much hard work it is having a dog (!) You can now download
a virtual dog and find out for yourself how much time and effort they
take. There was also talk about the British fishing
fleet. It would seem that it is no secret that the French fishing fleets
intend to carry on fishing in British waters after Brexit. And it is no
secret that the British fishermen see this as a good opportunity for a fight.
However everyone seems to have overlooked that the largest part of the UK
fishing fleet fishes in Norwegian water, and for all that the Norwegians are
happy to talk about an access deal, the Prime Minister isn’t. Pausing only briefly to get petrol I was soon
at work where I had a fairly good day; there was cake. The dogs didn’t get a walk this evening; the
rain was too heavy. It wasn’t long before the doorbell rang and our
house guest arrived. Sadie is staying with us for a week. I’m hoping she will
settle soon… Today was very dull until Sadie arrived, and
then it became hard work… |
|
17 August 2019
(Saturday) - Early Shift
I had an early night last night; I wasn't
feeling on top form. Despite some vivid nightmares about somewhere that I
used to work (that happens rather a lot) I slept well. When I got up, three of our four resident
dogs got up with me and asked to go outside into the back garden. I thought
they all wanted a tiddle. They didn't. They all wanted to play silly beggars
in the rain. I gave then five minutes then rounded them all up. Over brekkie I watched more "Black
Mirror". Imagine if you could make a copy of yourself to use as your
personal assistant/slave. Someone who already knows all your
personal preferences. Who better to know what you want, what you like?
Wonderful for you... not so good for the copy. I then set off for work. Being International
Geocaching Day there was an e-souvenir to be had if you logged a find today.
I thought I might get a quick one on the way to work. After a detour of about
five miles I found one. It speaks volumes about the state of
Kent's road that I can travel up the A20 far quicker than I can get up the
M20 at the moment. I’ve just had a look through my diary. Since
I started hunting under rocks for Tupperware I’ve worked on every International
Geocaching Day except the one in 2014. As I drove the pundits on the radio spouted
their usual drivel. Jeremy Corbyn continued to make himself more and more
unelectable. Such a shame that he can't see it. There was also talk of the Iranian oil tanker
that the Royal Marines seized a little while ago. The thing now has
permission to sail provided it doesn't go to Syria. The Americans are up in
arms that it might go to Syria. The Iranian government have given a written
undertaking that it won't Some chap on the radio this morning suggested that
the Syrians haven't got a harbour big enough for the tanker to dock. Haven't
they? I don't know. But it keeps the politicians squabbling with each other
and distracted from doing anything else. I got to work; I considered going to the
canteen for second brekkie, but thought better of it. Instead I got on with
that which I couldn't avoid. The day wasn't bad. Once home "er
indoors TM" and I took all four (!) dogs to Orlestone Woods. We had a rather good walk; with Sadie
along, Fudge didn’t straggle anything like he usually does. We did meet some
other dogs, but that passed off mostly without incident. With the walk done "er indoors TM" boiled up a rather
good bit of dinner and we scoffed it whilst watching a couple of episodes of
“Timeless”. I say “watching”; I slept through the second one.
I’m still feeling rather grim… |
|
18 August 2019
(Sunday) - Late Shift
It *is* possible for dogs to sleep in
a tightly curled ball. Mine do this during the hours of daylight very
successfully. However at night dogs seem to have to sleep with all limbs
stretched out at odd angles, and heads and tails extended as far as is
physically possible to do so. I found myself sandwiched between Pogo and
Sadie last night, and as quickly as I would move one offending limb, so
another would be scratching up against me. I gave this until five o’clock
when I told them that they had had their sleep, and it was time for mine. I
scooped both up (one scooped easier than the other) and dumped them
both at the bottom of the bed. I then got two hours’ sleep until Treacle
kicked off barking and snarling for no reason that anyone could fathom (least
of all Treacle). I got up, looked outside and smiled. It was
raining. With a dull day on the agenda, rain suited me. Everyone else went
back to sleep. I came down, fed laundry into the washing machine and sparked
up my lap-top. Seemingly three weeks later it started working. What is it
with these Windows updates? Twice a week the laptop announces it needs an
update. The thing is unusable for an age whilst it does the update, and when
it finally finishes it is no different to how it was before. Eventually I got to have a look at the
Internet before my toast got too cold. I saw that quite a few people had been
out to that new series of geocaches that I’d hidden a few weeks ago. Most
people seemed happy with what I’d done. There were a couple of comments about
one of the hides. The GPS co-ordinates might be a bit awry on one of them.
I’ll go have a look when I get chance; it’s a shame that rather than saying “your
co-ordinates are out”, people don’t send me what they made the
co-ordinates to be. I also had a “Needs Maintenance” on
one of the caches I hid years ago. The paper inside is full. Rather than
replacing it himself someone’s asked me to go sort it out. On the one hand
according to the rules it is my responsibility to sort it out. On the other
hand I carry spare paper with me so I can do in seconds what someone else
would have to give up an hour or so to do. I spent a little while working on my new
Wherigo project. As part of it, players will have to find six film pots under
rocks. To do this they need the GPS co-ordinates of each. So for each one I
had to create a jpeg file of the co-ordinates, then turn each into a media
file for the Wherigo creator, then use the media file in the creation of an
object in the Wherigo creator. That took forty minutes. Then the doorbell rang. Once we’d calmed the
dogs (who were all going hysterical) we let in cousin Natalie. She’s
closed down her fish tank and had asked if we’d take on the last of her fish.
It wasn’t as though we don’t have space in our fish tank. I popped the new
fish into a quarantine tank with a little potassium permanganate, and whilst
that worked its wonders we took the dogs down to Orlestone
woods. We got to the woods; within minutes we had more
dog dung than dogs. We then had a good walk. Bearing in mind it had rained
overnight the walk was wet and muddy. All four dogs got filthy. But as we
walked we didn’t see another soul or dog. And (at the risk of appearing
anti-social) that was a good thing. All four dogs ran round like things
possessed; all four got caked in mud. We got back to the car just as the rain
started. Once home "er
indoors TM" bathed the dogs. Sadie didn’t like the bath.
As "er indoors TM"
scrubbed, I put the new fish into the tank; they seem to have settled in
fine. I then had a shower myself. Partly to get clean, and partly because it
is the easiest way to clean up after muddy dogs have been scrubbed. I had a cuppa, then set off towards work. As I drove to work do the weather was
changeable in the extreme. Glorious sunshine gave way to torrential rain, and
then back to sunshine on a regular ten-minute cycle. Definitely a day to be
going to work rather than going on a long walk. As always I had the radio on in the car. I caught
the end of a program about the fire that happened at York Minster a few years
ago. Those clergymen being interviewed were likening what happened at
York Minster to the relatively recent fire at Notre Dame in Paris. No
one was prepared to rule out that it might have been an act of God. Now I'm
no expert on what the Almighty might or might not do, but it strikes me that
zapping a cathedral and blasting a minster is akin to pissing on your
own chips. Surely He'd be more likely to be flinging thunderbolts at dens of
iniquity and ladies of loose morals? This was followed by Nicholas Parsons leading
another episode of "Just a Minute". I do like that
show. Nicholas Parsons is over ninety years old; I hope I'm as sprightly
as he is if I get that far. I got to work; broccoli cheese was on the
menu. Very tasty. As I scoffed I read a notice that the work's canteen has
"gone green". Rather than having individual sachets of sauce
and vinegar, there's now bottles of the stuff. The sachets were five pence
each; the bottles are "help yourself". I prefer a bottle of
vinegar rather than a sachet of the stuff. I really did begrudge
that five pence. Suitably replete I went in to work. Much as I
grumble about having to work at the weekends and nights, I don't mind it.
there is something strangely satisfying about lone working. I can
just get on with the job without being supervised in any way. Mind you the trouble with a late shift is
that I get hope so late… |
|
19 August 2019
(Monday) - So Dull
I woke in the small hours with an attack of
claustrophobia. With a dog snuggled up close on either side of me I had been
pinned in place under the duvet. I eventually thrashed myself free, and
relocated the offending pooches. I woke earlier than I might have done, but
thought I might use the time constructively. I got up and put a load of undercrackers into the washing machine, had a shave, then
sorted some toast. I scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “Black
Mirror”. This made me think. When you get blocked by someone on social
media you can’t see what they post on-line. Imagine if that could happen in
real life; other people would be completely invisible to you. Either
individuals, or humanity as a whole. The ultimate “being sent to Coventry”. As “Black Mirror” finished, so did the
washing machine. There’s something wrong with its “quick wash one hour”
setting. Today’s scrub took an hour. Last week it was still going strong
after an hour and a half. Other times see it done in forty-five minutes.
Still, my pants came out clean, which is the main thing. I set it to tumble
drier mode, and had a look at the Internet. Absolutely nothing at all had happened on
Facebook overnight. Have I been blocked by everyone? I did have quite a few “Found
It” emails from people who’d been out at the weekend finding the
geocaches I’ve hidden. One of these people had said that they liked the idea
of the puzzles on the series that I’d hidden in Hemsted
forest, and they thought they might use the idea themselves. I was pleased
about that; more series of film pots under rocks is more walks to do at the
weekends. But other than that, there were no other emails in my inbox. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were fussing about Brexit. Someone or other in authority (who should know
better) has been scaremongering by releasing (leaking) a
confidential government memo warning about possible shortages after a no-deal
Brexit. But is there need to panic? I would have thought that the
take-home message here is that someone in power is taking Brexit
seriously. Am I being vindictive in wanting to see someone being prosecuted under
the Official Secrets Act for wantonly trying to stir up panic by disclosing
confidential information? Or am I just a reactionary old git? For some inexplicable reason the radio's
sports news was delayed by ten minutes. No reason was given, but it did seem
to be a serious issue for those presenting the show. Personally I wouldn't
care if they never gave another sport bulletin ever again. Having run out of peanut butter and marmalade
I drove to Sainsburys where (for some strange reason) I bought peanut
butter and jam. And having run out of peanut butter and marmalade (my
usual sandwich filling) I bought a sandwich for lunch. Rather a dull
thing to report, but that beef and horseradish sandwich was probably one of
the highlights of what was a rather dull day. As I was shopping I saw a fellow shopper was
wearing her Tesco uniform. In Sainsburys! I asked her if Tesco was too
expensive for her; she laughed and said that Sainsburys was on her way home. Don't Tesco offer staff discounts? If I was
running Sainsbury's I'd be publicizing this as much as I could. I got to work; I did my bit. I scoffed my
beef and horseradish sandwich (which turned out to be something of a
disappointment) and had a phone call from "Daddy’s Little Angel TM"
who seemed to be in high spirits. We also had a thunderstorm which
brightened up an otherwise dull afternoon. It was during the height of the
storm that I realised that I had no coat and had left my hoodie in my car. Mind you I got back to my car without getting
wet. Just as I was nearing home I saw "er
indoors TM" walking up the road with the dogs. But by the
time I’d parked I had no idea where she’d gone, and as she doesn’t answer the
phone and as the rain was starting again I went home. "er indoors TM" eventually
returned with the dogs, boiled up some dinner and went bowling. I ironed
shirts whilst watching “Poldark”. “Poldark” turned out to be
even more of a disappointment than that beef and horseradish sandwich… |
|
20 August 2019
(Tuesday) - This n That
Another restless night. Perhaps the dogs
should sleep downstairs? Or perhaps I should? I eventually gave up trying to sleep and came
downstairs. Usually I would make sandwiches for lunch, but the peanut butter
I bought yesterday was still in the car, and I didn’t actually get any
marmalade so I just made myself jam on toast for brekkie. There are those who
would say why not make a jam sandwich for lunch, but that is crazy talk.
Home-made lunch sandwiches feature peanut butter and marmalade. Everyone
knows that. I set the washing machine loose on some
laundry, and as I scoffed toast I watched an episode of “Dark Mirror”.
A rather good tale about virtual reality. It had me hooked. I sparked up my lap-top to have a quick look
at the Internet. It was marginally more interesting than yesterday in that
people had been doing things on social media. Those who have spent ages
pleading poverty were on the way home from a two-month European road trip.
Those who are constantly on diets were eating McMegaburgers.
There was also some petty bickering kicking off on one of the local Facebook
pages. Someone was whinging about some trivial annoyance that was happening
locally. Someone else was whinging about the constant whinging. What are
local Facebook groups for, if not for whinging? But the best bit of pettiness
on Facebook this morning was a post to the “60s and 70s Lego” page
which has caused consternation because the Lego set in question might have been
more suited to the “80s and 90s Lego” page. You wouldn’t believe how
much aggro kicked off over that one. If nothing else the Internet has given us the
ability to argue across the world. With no emails of note I got myself ready for
work. I drove to the co-op where I got a sandwich for lunch. As I paid I
found myself speechless. The woman behind the counter was shrieking *exactly*
like Terry Jones did when he played “Mrs Brown” in the "Live
Organ Transplant" sketch in Monty Python's "The Meaning of
Life". I was so amazed that when I got back to my
car I had to return to the shop as I'd forgotten the marmalade which prompted
my needing a sandwich in the first place. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the
radio were interviewing Laurie Sheck; an American
professor of literature whose student have accused
her of racism because they didn't like what the racism in the books they
were reading. The student felt that it was more appropriate to accuse the
professor who was presenting classic literature than to have a go at the
author who'd actually caused the offence. Apparently this poor professor had the
allegations hanging over her for two years without knowing
specifically what she'd been accused of. She was rather amazed to find
that she'd taken the rap for someone else's opinions. It was also mentioned on the radio that people
in their fifties who have children are far happier than those who don't *provided*
the children have left home. I can relate to that... I got to work, and spent much of the day
peering out of the window. There is a public bin a few yards out of the
window. It was full to overflowing, and at regular intervals passers-by would
drop cigarette ends into it. I was avidly waiting for the bin to burst into
flames. Needless to say it didn’t. I got home just as "er indoors TM" was setting off on a
dog walk. I joined in. We went round the park and back through the co-op
field. Amazingly we had less problems with four dogs than I would have
expected with three. We had a bottle of plonk with dinner. I
wonder if I will have a headache in the morning… |
|
21 August 2019
(Wednesday) - Stuff
It was something of a shame that on the one
night that the dogs weren’t mobbing me I barely slept. I started the night
with a nightmare in which I had (somehow) been press-ganged into the
Royal Navy of two hundred years ago and after sailing the seven seas singing
“Yo Ho Ho and a
bottle of fruit cider” I woke in a cold sweat. I dozed fitfully until one
or another dog woke me by barking from downstairs at five o’clock. I got up, put a whites wash into the washing
machine, made sandwiches (now I’ve got the ingredients) and watched an
episode of “Black Mirror”. It was rather good. We all get those phising emails – what happens if you respond to them? I then hung out the washing. For all that I’d
put a “white” load in, there was a massive load of coloured stuff in
there. Oh well… "er indoors TM"
pants didn’t go *that* pink. I then had a quick look at the Internet.
Yesterday I read one of those soppy memes on Facebook about how marvellous
the NHS is and how we should appreciate all the doctors and nurses. My piss
boiled when I read that. Yes – the doctors and nurses are wonderful. So are pharmacists, physiotherapists, transfusion practitioners, cleaners,
cooks, biomedical scientists, podiatrists, speech therapists, cardiographers,
gardeners, dieticians, porters, secretaries, med lab assistants, biochemists,
radiographers, O.D.A.s. I said as much on Facebook yesterday evening. This
morning over a hundred people had responded favorably. Mind you the ones who’d posted those soppy memes hadn’t. I had some emails – a string of “Found It” logs. More people
have been out looking for those caches I hid recently. Each has now had
nineteen finds in a week and a half. I call that something of a result. Mind
you it also shows how few series of caches are being hidden locally at the
moment for so many people to be chasing out so quickly. As I got dressed I made a point of putting my socks under Treacle’s
nose. Usually she would go running off with them; in the early morning she
just gives them a glance and goes back to sleep. As I drove up the motorway the pundits were interviewing Anthony Scaramucci. Once Donald Trump’s biggest fan he is now his harshest critic.
This morning he was suggesting that Donald Trump be removed from office on
the grounds of insanity. He also made an interesting observation that for all
that Donald Trump claims he’s cancelled his state visit to Denmark because
the Danes won’t sell Greenland to him, that isn’t why the visit has been cancelled.
The claim was made that President Trump was scheduled to give a speech at
some university where Barak Obama had recently spoken, and the feeling was
that Mr. Trump would only attract a fraction of the audience that Mr. Obama
had. I got to work; I did my bit. I had my peanut butter and marmalade
sandwich. I’ve missed those. As I was walking along one of the hospital’s corridors I heard two old
ladies loudly talking. I think these two were deaf judging by the volume at
which they conversed. As they disappeared into the restaurant one announced “Well,
he’s got this penis that he doesn't want.” Haven’t we all… I came home, and together with "er indoors TM" we took the
dogs round the park. We found an ice cream van so of course we had a 99 each.
I scoffed all of mine. "er indoors TM"
intended to share hers with the dogs. Had Fudge not scoffed the lot in one
bite she might have done so. The walk was a bit of a disaster. It would
have gone better had Fudge not tried to pork a passing precious-hound, or if
Pogo hadn’t shouted at another passing precious-hound. This is *exactly* the reason why I
prefer walking the dogs round Kings Wood or Orlestone
wood. The dog owners there know what dogs are like, and what dogs do. You
don’t get the element which thinks a dog is a delicate child and has to be
protected at all costs from every other dog. Not that I ever wanted a dog… |
|
22 August 2019
(Thursday) - Sulking Dog
Some nights I sleep like a log even though restless dogs are stomping
all over me. Other nights I see every hour even though the entire wolf-pack
is settled and snoring. There’s no reason to it that I can fathom. Finding myself again awake far earlier than I needed to be, I watched
another episode of “Black Mirror”. Imagine that rather than dying you
could upload yourself into a virtual 1980s where (together with everyone
else that could afford it) you could pretend to be happy for ever. As I watched the telly Fudge marched into the
living room, gave me a filthy look and took himself to his basket. He then
sulked at me. I have no idea what had upset him, but he had the hump and
completely blanked me as I tried to fuss him. I then spent a little while reading a Facebook page. ‼️Ashford & Surrounding
Areas Crime Page‼️ is frankly terrifying. The amount of crimes that would seem to
go in Ashford are amazing… *if* they really happen. Much of what is
posted is frankly unbelievable, and much of the rest is people reporting
teenagers who’ve committed the crime of walking down the street in broad
daylight. I went to see Fudge in his basket – he was
still sulking and continued to sulk despite my best efforts. Eventually I left him sulking and set off to
work. When he has a moody, there is nothing that you can do with him. A bit
like a recalcitrant teenager, really. As I drove up the motorway the pundits
on the radio were talking about Donald Trump's bungled attempt to buy
Greenland. It was alleged that the whole thing has given the Chinese
ideas, and that they have now put in a better offer. This has apparently
gone down like a lead balloon in Washington
My shift pattern is such that I work early,
late, nights, weekends... today was my seventh consecutive day at work and I
was feeling it. I did work… I came home, collected Pogo and
drove him out to Margate where he’s now having a little holiday with "Daddy’s
Little Angel TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of
Destruction TM". I came home again; "er indoors TM" and I took Sadie round
to Brian and Rachel’s where she’s now having a little holiday as well. I’ve packed my bags. Hopefully my little
holiday starts tomorrow…. |
|
23 August 2019
(Friday) - Off to the New Forest
Having farmed out two dogs I had been hoping
for a good night. However Treacle expanded to take the bed space of three
dogs. Over brekkie I sent out some birthday wishes,
then woke everyone else up. With the last of the packing done we set off on
our holiday. What with glorious weather forecast, the
police had been warning of five million more cars than usual being on the
roads today, so we thought that an early start to beat the masses might be in
order. We left home shortly after six o’clock, and made very good time. So
much so that even stopping at Fleet services for a tiddle (that took half
an hour) we got to our destination in two and a half hours. As we drove we were messaging Karl and Tracey
to say where we were. However messages as to where they were weren’t
forthcoming. I would say where we were, and get a reply of “OK”, or “Excellent”.
Were they ahead of us or behind? It turned out that they’d come down last
night, but having made incredibly good time we got to where we’d arranged to
meet ten minutes ahead of them. I didn’t gloat much. We started our little holiday with a walk
round Linford Bottom. The woods there were rather beautiful. The dogs spuddled in the rivers and streams, the humans hunted for
little Tupperware boxes. A rather good walk. We then relocated to the Elm
Tree where we had a sandwich and a pint or two (three) of their rather
good Elm Tree ale. Hic! Suitably replete we went shopping. First of
all to the Ringwood brewery for supplies. I took a selfie there and posted it
to Facebook. It got over twenty “likes”; including one from the
brewery itself. From there we went into Ringwood. Charlotte
and I had been detailed to walk the dogs to some local geocaches whilst
everyone else went to Sainsbury’s. We walked the dogs to one geocache, then
walked the dogs to the café where we had a pineapple and grapefruit smoothie
each, then walked the dogs on to the ice cream stall for ice creams. I slept all the way back to our holiday
cottage in Redlynch. We got to our cottage; it was rather grand.
We unpacked and explored. But time was running away from us. A quick change,
and we went over the road to the
Kings’ Head. A couple of pints, a rather good dinner, then back to base.
We got out the Blockus, and spent a rather good
hour wantonly trying to ensure that everyone else lost. Have you ever played Blokus? It’s not enough to win; everyone else must lose. I
took a few photos today… I’m hoping I’ll sleep well… |
|
24 August 2019
(Saturday) - New Forest Day Two
You never sleep properly on the first night in
a new bed. Especially when one dog is taking up most of the available space,
and the other is clattering round the house for no other reason than because
he can. As Karl and Tracey prepared a rather good
brekkie this morning, I had a little look around our cottage trying to find
fault. The place was so good that I felt I had to find something that the
owners hadn’t provided. After an hour’s seriously struggling I gave up.
They’d provided pretty much everything anyone might possibly want. So instead
I just retrieved the stream of other people’s shoes that Treacle was
stealing. Brekkie was rather good; you can’t beat the
Full English. And with mustard from the Ringwood brewery (20% abv!)
who could ask for more? We got ourselves organised and set off out. Our
first port of call was an Earthcache which was a little lesson about the
geology of a rancid swamp somewhere in the back of beyond. We got there,
watched the dogs spuddle in some rather foul water,
and came away. From here we walked up the road to the
Royal Oak in Fritham. It’s a tiny little place;
you order the beer and take it outside to the garden. Mind you they did have
ale straight from the barrel – and six barrels. It was here that we met up
with Matt and Glen; we knew they would be passing so we’d arranged a little
meet-up. It was good to sit and chat in the sunshine. As we drank so the dogs both had a bowl of
ice cream each. Some of the passing normal people looked at this and looked
at us. If they were jealous I’d have bought them an ice cream too. It wasn’t a bad pub, but I was rather
surprised at the staff who were openly discussing (taking the piss out of
and being rude about) their customers in front of other customers. After four pints it was time to move on. Matt
and Glen had to be in Brighton; we had some geocaches to find. We drove down
to Stoney Cross where we had a rather frustrating afternoon. A cache there
had been marked as in need of maintenance. The chap who’d hidden it wasn’t
able to sort it, so we’d offered to go lend a hand. We got there to find the
thing was fine. We then went on a little stroll. There was a
series of ten caches which we thought might make for a good little walk for
the dogs. As we walked we saw stags and deer, horses and donkeys, and even
wild boar. Geocache-wise we found all the caches – all well maintained with
very accurate co-ordinates. But as for a good little walk… To my mind a series of geocaches are
numbered. You go from 1 to 2 to 3 along well-marked footpaths. Today we went
from one cache to the other following the arrow of the GPS through hedgerows
and thickets; over hills and through streams. If there was a logical sensible
route from one cache to the next it eluded us. We got back to the car and was amazed to find
we’d only covered two and a half miles; it felt live six or seven. This wasn’t a series of caches. It was ten
caches (good ones) which had been given numbers which implied a sequence
that wasn’t there. We came home; after a quick shower we cracked
open the box of beer we’d got at the brewery yesterday. We then sat outside
in the garden and had a rather good dinner of pizza as the dogs barked at
everyone and everything. Eventually we gave up sitting outside; the gardener
arrived and the dogs really couldn’t cope with having her about. We came in; as Fudge snored we played Blokus, then Mouse Trap. Mouse Trap was a classic game;
it has been modernised. In the new version of Mouse Trap you pull the flush
of a toilet to randomly activate one of three traps (none of which
actually work). We gave it twenty minutes then played Buckaroo. I took quite
a few photos today… |
|
25 August 2019
(Sunday) - New Forest Day Three
I slept rather better last night; I was woken
by the sound of a dog heaving. Fortunately I was quick enough to hoik Fudge to somewhere where dog sick could be easily
cleared up. I took him outside for some fresh air;
Treacle joined us. Fudge had a tiddle; Treacle went to get her stick (she
brought a *huge* one back after yesterday’s walk) and she then took
umbrage when I wouldn’t let her bring it into the cottage. Being up earlier than I might have been I
spent a few minutes sorting out the answers for the Earthcache we went to
find yesterday. The people who’d set the thing had been in touch overnight
and had been good enough to give us one or two tips of local knowledge. Which
pubs to visit, and which beer to try. That’s why I love the ancient and noble
art of looking for film pots under rocks; you get to find all the stuff that
the tourists don’t (and not just the film pots). As I typed out the Earthcache answers Treacle
was constantly walking past showing off all the shoes she’d stolen. I find it
best to ignore her; she rarely chews them – she just likes to show off. But I
did get involved when she started chomping on the pieces of “Buckaroo”
from last night – how did she get those? As we pootled about getting ready for brekkie
I could hear a frantic barking outside. Some silly old bat was standing at
the gate with her dog deliberately provoking our dogs. I came out to round up
our pups and she gave me the most filthy glare. She then made a point of
standing at the gate with her dog for a few more minutes. We waited for her
to clear off before letting the dogs out again. On the one hand we wanted the to enjoy the garden; on the other hand we didn’t want
some silly old bat intentionally winding them up. Brekkie was fun; we had an interesting
discussion on exactly what one does with the butter knife. I found out (by
trial and error) how to do it properly. And with brekkie scoffed we drove out to the Godshill enclosure for a little walk. Beautiful scenery,
a wonderful place to be; if a tad hot. As always our route was directed by a
series of geocaches, and today’s route was a pleasure (unlike the chore
which was yesterday’s). About half way round we stopped off for a
crafty half at a pub. We arrived to find that the Horse and Groom in Fordingbridge was staging a beer festival. I was rather
pleased about this, but was rather disappointed to see what their beer
selection was, Their “beer festival” featured six ales; all but one of
which were so common that they are regularly available in the high street
supermarket “Iceland”. The idea of a beer festival is that you get to
sample the more obscure beers; “Pedigree” and “Hobgoblin” have
no place in a beer festival. The pub’s bar had a better selection of ale. It was here that I mistakenly let a herd of
donkeys into the pub’s beer garden. It didn’t take me *that* long to
chivvy them out again. We came home via Tesco. As well as shopping,
we needed (“needed” - not “wanted””) Baileys, Tia Maria and port.
Tesco had none of them. They suggested we try the local garage who had port,
and who suggested we went back to Tesco for the Tia Maria and Baileys. As we then drove home we picked up a
hitch-hiker. He was hoping to get to the village up the road from where we
are staying. It was a hot day, and he was walking a long road. We couldn’t
leave him. As luck would have it he asked to be dropped at a shop where we
got some Tia Maria, and there was a geocache right outside the shop too.
Result! Once back at base we had a pint or two, and a
rather good dinner which we ate outside in the garden. As we scoffed we
watched the bats flying overhead, and as the night fell we went from
bat-watching to stargazing. We peered at the stars, we chatted… the evening
was only marred by Fudge throwing up. Three times. I
took one or two photos today as well… |
|
26 August 2019
(Monday) New Forest Day Four
The dogs slept well last night, and as is
usually the case, when they sleep well, so does everyone else. I woke feeling amazingly chipper bearing in
mind that yesterday I shifted a gallon of ale and made a serious dent in a
bottle of port. When I’m at home, half a bottle of wine leaves me feeling
like death warmed up but when on holiday something is very different. It was
the same when I was in Turkey earlier in the year. Why is it that I can drink
to my heart’s content when on holiday? As everyone else was still snoring this
morning I emptied the dishwasher, made a cuppa and had a little look at the
Internet. I had loads of “likes” and comments about the photos I’ve
shared on Facebook over the last couple of days; I did chuckle when I realised
that the facial recognition software had tried its best but got the wrong
family member. I then found myself faced with a moral
dilemma (albeit an incredibly trivial one). Someone who was new to the
art of rummaging in the undergrowth for broken film pots had asked a question
on a geocaching forum. Some people had offered sage advice. You might think
that would have been a kind thing to have done, but several of those offering
the advice haven’t rummaged in the undergrowth for over a year. I considered
offering a warning to the newbies about being careful about who you listen
to… but decided that was an argument I couldn’t be bothered to have. The same
happens on websites about fishing. The most vociferous people on those forums
haven’t been near a lake in years. I used to find the same when I was in the
astronomy club, and when I kept snakes. I’m sure it is also true of baking,
stamp collecting and pro-celebrity arm-wrestling. These days hobbies are
dual-purpose things. You can enjoy them by either doing them or by talking
about them. The dogs woke; I took them out for their
morning tiddles. As I pootled round the garden I
saw what Fudge had sicked up yesterday. You’ve
never seen quite so much dog-honk. It wasn’t the heat, or the excitement that
had made him ill yesterday; he had just eaten *far* too much. I programmed “Hannah” for the day, and
we set about brekkie. Brekkie was rather good. We then drove out to East Tytherley.
As we drove the nice lady on the radio was talking about what you might do with
left over Christmas cake. Left over Christmas cake? At August bank holiday?
Apparently the stuff fries well? Fried Christmas cake? – one lives and
learns. We got to the church at East Tytherley and solved a little puzzle based on a war grave
before setting off on a little stroll. Although it was a hot day, much of the
walk was in the shade of trees, and unlike the walk of a couple of days ago
we found ourselves following clearly marked paths from one point to the next.
And we even found a couple of ammo cans as well. Ammo cans are good things to
find when rummaging in the undergrowth. Mind you one of the geocaches we found was
disgusting. Some idiot had put a fruit salad sweeting in the container (which
is against the rules) and it had melted and sticky slime had gone
everywhere. Yuk! With walk walked we got back to the cars and
had a little picnic. We had found a rather nice spot in front of the church
by a giant redwood. It was rather beautiful. Within a few minutes someone
drove up, made great show of checking the oil in a container outside the
church, and then came over and chatted. It was rather obvious that he was the
church warden and he was investigating claims that the lower orders were setting
up camp on the church green. Five minutes after he went another car drove
up to us, circled round (whilst the driver watched us like a hawk) and
then went away again. Having picnicked at the church we had definitely
worried the locals. The plan had us then visiting a local pub
that had been recommended to us, but there wasn’t much parking there. In fact
there was only parking for one car, so we found the geocache that had been
put out as an advert for the place, and came back to base where we sat in the
garden and drank beer and Pimms and played Jenga. Dinner was particularly good, and with it
scoffed Karl popped over the road to the pub to book a table for tomorrow. I
went along in case he got lost or needed backup. Once there we had a pint and
a port, and came back to find Blokus was in full
swing. Not a bad way to spend the bank holiday. As
always there were photos. |
|
27 August 2019 (Tuesday)
- New Forest Day Five
When we came back from our little walk
yesterday Fudge took himself straight to bed, and looked at us in amazement
when we didn’t go to bed ourselves. He slept like a log last night; I found
him crashed exactly where he was when I went to bed last night. Treacle
however was a different story. As I went to bed I saw her fast asleep on the
dog blanket on Charlotte’s bed. At two o’clock she dabbed and dabbed at me. I
thought she wanted a tiddle; she just wanted to play. I eventually dozed off
and got up just before seven o’clock. I made myself a cuppa. I’ve done this
successfully for the last few mornings; today as I poured it, the kettle
decided to spit boiling water everywhere. I’d never seen anything like it. It
spat water vigorously and violently as though it was a living thing. As I waited for everyone else to spring into
action I had a look at the Internet. They’ve got one down here in the New
Forest, but it doesn’t work quite as well as the one at home. Bearing in mind
that yesterday was a bank holiday I had been hoping to see what people had
been getting up to. I saw two sets of photos that people had posted, and an
endless stream of adverts for rubbish I would never want to buy. And I was
again plagued by ad advert asking me to spend good money to go on a course to
learn the difference between blessings and curses. Religious nuts wind me up.
They walk down the road and find a fifty-pence piece and call it a blessing.
They then tread in a dog turd and call it a curse. And these people are
allowed to vote and do jury service. I took the dogs outside where we didn’t bark
*that* much. I went on a turd-hunt round the garden and didn’t find
any. I didn’t think there would be any, but you never know what those dogs do
when you aren’t watching them like a hawk. Mind you I did find several sticks
(Treacle has amassed quite a collection) and I found the broccoli
stalk that Fudge has been chomping on. I left them all for now. I programmed “Hannah” for the day’s
excursions. For such a supposedly high-tech hobby, the GPS units seem to run
on software which is ten years behind the times (at best). I’d use my
phone for hunting Tupperware if the GPS didn’t have the one overriding
advantage that it comes on a lanyard which I can hang round my neck. We had a rather good brekkie; you can’t beat
a Full English. As we scoffed the nice man from the Environment Agency
arrived to do something with the well in the garden (as nice men from the
Environment Agency do). We watched him lower a probe down, and wind it
all back. I’d been looking forward to his visit all week, and was rather
disappointed. But he did say that the well in the garden was thirty-three
metres deep. That’s rather impressive. Having scoffed we then drove out to East
Martin. Bearing in mind the heat of the last few days and the weather
forecast we’d planned a shorter walk for today. Within half a mile we were
sheltering from the rain under a tree, and seeing how they’d got it utterly
wrong, the BBC’s weather app had changed its predictions to coincide with
reality. We considered our options. We could abandon
our walk, or we could hope for the best. We hoped for the best, and the rain
soon cleared. The temperature remained rather lower than predicted, and we
had a good walk. It was a shame that Fudge had to run off after a pheasant (twice),
but if he doesn’t chase the F-birds, who will? We soon retrieved him; it only
wasted ten minutes. Quite a quick retrieval bearing in mind some of his
previous episodes. Once back at the car we drove out to the
Compasses; a rather nice pub. It was a shame that the locals in the bar gave
the distinct impression that you were intruding in their living room, but
locals do that in pubs all over the place. We then went on to find another
pub actually in the New Forest so we could see all the horses doing their
thing. A five-minute drive took about half an hour as “Psycho Dobbin and
his Equine Associates” wandered up the middle of the roads with no regard
for their own safety. And where there were no horses, “Insane Buttercup
and her Bovine Compatriots” got in the way as best they could. We found the Alice Lisle; to be fair to the
place it isn’t a bad pub. It was a shame that we had to get to the bar a few
seconds after such a “delightful” family. Does the entire tribe need
to go up to the bar to order drinks? Especially as not one was allowed any
choice but was given what mother said they would have. Pausing only briefly not to crash into a cow
we came back to base, had a quick shower, then went over to the pub just over
the road. We’d had dinner there a few days ago, and it was good. It was good
again. The mixed grill was too much for me, but I shared it with Fudge and
Treacle. The crème brule was good too; I didn’t
share that. We came back to base, broke out the Blokus and after doing the worst I’ve ever done (my
new tactic didn’t work) I went to bed. I had been falling asleep over the
board. I was worn out. But not too worn out to take
a few photos. |
|
28 August 2019
(Wednesday) - New Forest Day Six
I had a relatively early night last night. I didn’t
like going to bed before everyone else, but I was falling asleep. It was
rather annoying that I was wide awake and up and about an hour before anyone
else this morning. Oh well… if nothing else it gave me chance to post up the
photos I took yesterday. I then had a little look at the Internet.
Quite a few people seemed to have liked the photos I’ve been posting up
recently. With a heavy heart I did my packing, then
with everyone up and about we had the last brekkie of our holiday. There was
a minor episode when the toaster tried to take Jessica’s head off with a
slice of Hovis; I didn’t laugh much. Mainly because she would have bashed me
up if I had. As we scoffed we heard a noise outside. It
was the dustmen. I grabbed the bin bag, and as I walked out with it so the
bin men looked at me and drove away down the road a little way. I walked down
after them; as I got close so they again looked at me and drove further away. I would *really* like to be able to be
equally helpful to them some day. We drove up to Barford Down. For our last day
in the area we thought we’d so a relatively short-ish
walk. We had a rather mixed walk. There were some really good views and we
saw some deer but there were some very poorly marked paths which didn’t help
us. Geocache-wise I’ve never found so many large
ammo can caches ion a single series. But by the same token I’ve never found
so few caches over such a great distance. With caches being about half a mile
apart (on average) there could have been at least twenty-five more
caches along the route. And (in some places) more caches would have
been useful if only to guide our way. I
took a few photos whilst we walked. With walk walked we went back to base. We had
a light lunch, loaded up the car, said our goodbyes and drove home. Despite
rather heavy traffic in places we made good time home. Just as we pulled up we had a message. When
would we be collecting Sadie? We unloaded the car, "er indoors TM" collected Sadie; I got
KFC for dinner. We both came home, and once Treacle and Sadie had had a fight
we had dinner whilst watching the first episode of the new season of “Bake
Off”. I’d like to go back to the New Forest… |
|
29 August 2019
(Thursday) - Back to Reality
I slept like a log last night. For all that I
grumble about them, "er indoors TM"’s
blackout curtains do help me sleep. So did having had an incredible week
away. For all that it was good to be home, and "er
indoors TM" did have to go in to work today, I might have
stayed on for another day in the New Forest (mightn’t I?) But having spent a week generating laundry I
made a start dealing with it. A week’s worth of sweaty T-shirts went into the
wash. I then had a little look at the Internet as I
scoffed toast. There was a very nasty squabble kicking off on the national
geocaching Facebook page. A couple of months ago was the national meet-up in
Aberdeen. As an attraction for this meet-up the organisers had paid for
someone to bring a duplicate of a can of beans that had been in the first
ever geocache (some people are easily entertained!). They’d paid for
this (and the chap who owns the can of beans) to be flown all the way
from America. The idea was that you would look at this can of beans, and once
you’d tiddled your pants in uncontrollable
excitement, you’d sign a piece of paper to say you’d seen it. After the event
was all over, the can-owner went back to America only to find he’d left the
bit of paper (with all the signatures) behind, so he emailed the
event’s organiser to ask for his list of signatures to be forwarded to him in
the USA. However everyone else has emailed in with all of their petty
trivialities, and this email was but one in a pile of over three thousand. Because the list of signatures wasn’t
returned instantly, the chap in America then posted up all over the Internet
claiming that this insignificant scrap of paper had been stolen, and the
entire issue has been blown out of all proportion in Tupperware-hunting
circles all over the world. Apparently this bloke had done this sort of
thing before. You *really* couldn’t make this up,
could you? More and more I’m moving out of the social
side of geocaching (and any hobby come to that). It doesn’t need to be
one big argument, does it? Once Fudge had been hand-fed his brekkie (piece
by piece) I hung the washing out, put more in to scrub, and we went for a
little walk. Getting fed up with walking in the same old places, today we
took a little stroll along the river up by Little Burton Farm. As we walked
we saw quite a few people fishing in the river. I say “fishing”. There
are various ways to fish, each of which are as different to each other as
throwing darts is to throwing javelins. It was crystal clear that the three
people we saw today hadn’t the faintest idea of what they were doing. As we walked we met other dog walkers, and played
nicely. That was something of a result. We came home. I hung out the second load of
washing and set the third lot to scrub, then mowed the lawn. It took some
mowing. I then chopped back the roses and clematis from “not-so-nice-next-door”,
hung out the third load of washing and put the fourth load in. Over a spot of lunch I watched the last
episode of “Poldark”. The series seemed to have been left open. Will
they make more? I hope so. I then set the washing machine loose on my
pants whilst I ironed shirts. With shirts ironed I had a look at the
household accounts as I do every month. They aren’t bad; they could be a lot
better. But they aren’t bad really. I just want to have a *lot* more
money. I don’t need it; I just want it. Mind you, I had a minor result with the car’s
insurance. The insurance company had sent in the quote for next year’s
policy. Ninety quid more than I am paying at the moment. So I phoned them and
asked if I *really* had to go through the farce of phoning around for
other quotes. They laughed and knocked thirty quid off of the price that I
was already paying. I was rather pleased about that. "er indoors TM" came home, and
we had a rather good bit of steak and chips for dinner. As we scoffed we
watched the three episodes of “Dad’s Army” that have
been re-made. I must admit that my hopes weren’t high about this re-make,
but it wasn’t too bad at all. Far better than that frankly awful film that
was made a few years ago. Today was really dull compared with the last
week… |
|
30 August 2019
(Friday) - A Birthday
I slept well; still worn out after a
wonderful week away. Over brekkie I had a look at the Internet and rolled my
eyes. A chap I used to know very well was banging on about his supposed
Scottish heritage. He’s done this before. I don’t understand the Scots. If
Scotland really is such a brilliant place (and it may well be) then
why do those who tell me about it all live in Kent? You can’t get further
away from Scotland and still live on the same island. I also saw an album of photos of the cottage
in which we’d stayed in the New Forest. Such a lovely place to have been in. With nothing planned for today I took the
dogs out. We went out to Boys Hall for a walk; again trying somewhere new. It
wasn’t the best of places to walk. For all of the talk of the historic Boys
Hall, realistically it is waste ground that will be turned into a housing
estate some time in the next two years. As we
walked I looked out for the geocaches that were over there. I found one;
didn’t find two. Mind you I didn’t look *that* hard for the two I
didn’t find; it is difficult to do so when supervising three dogs. Having walked our walk we came home, and I
cleaned out the fish pond’s filter. A smelly job, but one which needs doing
from time to time. Best I do it at a time that suits me rather than waiting
for it to bung up and find myself being forced to do it when I have better
things to do. As I cleaned and scrubbed, so Sadie yapped constantly
and for no reason. She does that; it’s beginning to get on my nerves. I then spent a little while working on my
latest Wherigo project. About thirty seconds of game play took the best part
of an hour to program in. Feeling peckish I popped up the road to get a
sandwich. As I was in the shop some “delightful lady” was demanding to
know how she was expected to live on what the government gave her. Judging by
what she was buying I would suppose that the government would expect her to
spend less dole money on tins of lager, but that would only be a guess. As I scoffed my sandwich I watched an episode
of “Black Mirror”, then cracked on with an hour’s worth or ironing
before doing a little more work on the Wheri-project.
I actually did loads of work but actually achieved very little. That’s how
these Wherigos work. "er indoors TM" came home and
boiled up an incredibly good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “Timeless”.
I played a little Mah-jongg whilst "er
indoors TM" had a look-see at what Netflix has to offer.
There’s a *lot* of stuff on there. Oh – and it’s my dog’s ninth birthday today.
Did I ever mention that I never wanted a dog? |
|
31 August 2019
(Saturday) - To Hastings (and back)
Yesterday evening I posted a picture of Fudge
to Facebook seeing how it was his birthday (or so we think; we’ve always
been a tad vague about his birthday). This morning as I scoffed my toast
I saw that over seventy people had clicked the “like” button. I was
rather impressed with that. I also saw that the husband of someone with
whom I used to work had received a speeding ticket. This was issued by the
French authorities during their recent holiday in Epervans
in France. I was somewhat amazed to see this; for at least twenty years the
French lorries on the M20 have been speeding and driving *incredibly*
dangerously because it is common knowledge that it is not possible to issue a
speeding ticket to a vehicle not registered in the UK (!) Clearly the
French can issue tickets to those in Glasgow; perhaps the government’s
Department of Transport might with to learn from the French government. Or is
it that the UK Department of Transport issues speeding tickets which the
French drivers just ignore? I played a little Mah-jongg then (pausing
only briefly to shout at the dogs to stop them barking) I took the
ultra-violet lamp out of the pond filter. The pond is rather murky; I had a
theory that a new lamp might sort it out. I also like taking the old lamp to
the man in the shop to be sure we get the correct replacement. We got the leads on to the dogs and went on a
little mission. First of all to Wittersham for a
dog walk. Narrowly avoiding being run off the road (I squealed the driver
up to rate-driver dot com) we got to Wittersham
where I found a geocache which boiled my piss somewhat. I’ve tried to hide
caches myself only to have them turned down because they are within a hundred
yards of a playpark. I’ve now found twenty-six of the things within a few
yards of playparks. This one was best described as “right in the playpark”. From the playpark we relocated to Wittersham church where (having narrowly avoided being
run off the road again) we took the dogs for a little walk across the
nearby fields and paths. We had a good little stroll; the dogs got to run
about. They seemed to like it. From Wittersham we
took a rather circuitous route to Hastings (stopping off for five more
geocaches on the way) where we called in to see my mum and dad. They
seemed well; I would have liked to have stayed a tad longer, but the dogs
were getting fractious, so we set off to visit mother-in-law who wasn’t home. We came home via one more geocache and the
pond shop. The nice man in the pond shop said that the ultra-violet tube
needed to be changed last March. I told him it was (on the fourteenth – I
keep a diary!). The nice man was rather taken aback by that. Bearing in
mind that a couple of months ago the pond was crystal clear we both thought
that changing the ultra-violet bulb couldn’t hurt. I slept all the way home. Once home I put the new bulb in place and
played some more Mah-jongg. "er indoors TM"
boiled up some rather good dinner (followed by Christmas pudding). As
we scoffed we watched a film. “Dumplin”
was the tale of two “more rotund” girls and a misfit making good
at an all-American beauty pageant. It was a rather good film… being a fat lad I
felt I could relate to it. No one ever intends to be a fat lad… |
