Nov 13

1 November 2013 (Friday) - Delivery

For no reason that I could possibly fathom I had a terrible night's sleep. I would have thought that copious amounts of ale would have knocked me out. But I kept waking following nighmares in which I felt (very vividly) that I was falling. I wonder what that was all about...

I had the shock of my life as I went to shave. Feeling rather under the weather meant that I had the teensiest bit of a thick head. So I'd not really taken a lot of notice about how my head felt. I looked in the mirror to see it was completely bald. How did I forget that? I shaved. I had thought about doing Mo-Vember again, but decided against it. Last year I raised a couple of hundred pounds, but I *really* don't like having a furry face. One of those in the household is quite enough. Mind you many people have asked me if I was doing Mo-Vember this year; and funnily enough the vast majority of people who expressed extreme disappontment that I wasn't were people who never actually sponsored me last time. But if any of my loyal readers are fans of the face fungus, "The Man with No Alias (patent pending)" is growing a tash that can be sponsored by clicking here.

"Furry Face ^TM" was particularly quiet over brekkie. I also noticed that his ears seemed rather hot. He made himself comfortable on the sofa next to me and didn't stir when er indoors ^TM" came down. I imediately started worrying about the silly little dog.

I took "Furry Face ^TM" out for a walk and he immediately perked up. There was a slight drizzle when we got to the park. I had a plan to take a walk out past Singleton Lake, but the rain got heavier as we got to the ford (Ashford has a ford, you know), so we came back. And the rain eased up. For want of something to do I took a few videos of "Furry Face ^TM" in the park. Before I could stop him he was rolling in filth. I thought I’d video that, bat rather than just rolling in it, he started to eat it. I drew the line there, and took him home for a bath.

With a bathed dog I spent an hour doing homework, then got cross. On Wednesday I’d had a text saying that a delivery company had tried to deliver a parcel and failed. When did I want redelivery? I had to text “1” for yesterday, or “2” for today. I selected today. I then looked on the website to find the parcel was still in their office. I phoned to get through to someone in Maidstone who was utterly disinterested. She refused point-blank to give me the phone number of the delivery depot but grudgingly gave me their address. With that I had their phone number in seconds and I phoned them up. Apparently they could not post the parcel through the letterbox because that would be “fraudulent”. Apparently. I asked if they knew what the word meant, but they would not answer. Obviously they didn't. they did say that they could deliver it some time next week, or I could collect it. From Maidstone. A fifty-mile round trip. As I set off I received a text from the delivery company’s useless automated system telling me it hadn’t been possible to process my request.

I eventually got to their office and got my parcel. I told “young spotty” on the counter how useless his company was and just as I walked back to my car I thought I’d try my geo-app to see if there were any nearby geocaches. There was one not two hundred yards away. So I thought I’d find it. I did. Call me an old traditionalist, but there should be more to a cache than a soggy bit of paper in a plastic bag. Mind you the chap charged with looking after this geocache hasn’t logged on to the caching website for two years so I suspect it will only be a matter of time till this one gets archived.

As I drove home I saw that petrol was two pence per litre cheaper than in Canterbury. And that is quite cheap as petrol goes, so I filled the car. And then came home, terrorised the dog for a few minutes, and set about the household accounts. There’s no denying they could be a whole lot worse. I just wish they were a little bit better. There was a moment’s panic when I saw that no payment had been made for the house insurance. But on phoning it turns out that I only make ten annual payments for that; not twelve. That was an unexpected bonus.

I then did the last installment of my dino-course, and then slept for much of the rest of the afternoon. I *really* hate that. Why do I sleep when I have stuff to do and am wide awake most of the night?

2 November 2013 (Saturday) - Lunch, Fireworks

I think I rather over-exerted myself when going up the tree on Thursday. My right arm and stomach muscles *really* hurt. So much so that it was painful to even try to move in bed last night. I woke at silly o'clock as I so often do; then lay trying to sleep for over two hours, and was still watching DVDs before 6am.

"Earth 2" is quite watchable; the Wikipedia entry is quite revealing. The actor who played the little girl died some time ago. The actor who played the little girl's father was very active in trying to pay the medical costs ofr the girl who died. And the foxy one was apparently featured in a leaked nudey video with Miss Teen America (!)

I surfed the net for a while. Time dragged. I had an email - a new geocache had gone live only two miles away. Being rather bored I thought I might try for a First to Find. The cache description said "The cache is sneakily hidden so be sure to have a look around especially if something may look out of place or that you wouldn't expect to hold a cache", so I went along expecting not to find it. Mind you I called up the hint which basically told me where it was and what to look for. I saw the thing right away; and no one else had signed the log. First to Find. Secret geocaching ritual and happy dance too.

I came home, collected "Furry Face ^TM" and took him round the park. Some of our walks are dull; others more exciting. Today we (he) shagged three other dogs before we even got to the park, and in the time it took me to ask a steward what the one hundred or more runners were doing, Fudge disappeared.

It turned out that last Saturday a local running club started a Saturday morning run round the park. Now every Saturday anyone who wants to join in just turns up at 9am and runs a circuit of the park. There were loads of people running, from small children to pensioners. (Including one especially fit one in spandex)

Normally a fit one in spandex might have held my attention, but not today. My dog was missing. I couldn't find him anywhere. It turned out that in the twenty seconds it took me to find out what was going on, Fudge had joined in the race. After a rather worrying twenty minutes not knowing which way to go to find my dog he was brought back to me by Orangehead. She had captured him at the other end of the runners' race where he had left the race and attempted to shag the dog of her chunky little friend.

That was embarrassing. For me. "Furry Face ^TM" didn't seem at all fazed by proceedings.

The Bat arrived with Clive and we set off down to Rolvenden for a spot of lunch. The Ewe and Lamb is somewhere we've not been for a while. It was very good a few years ago, and it still is. I started off with a ppint of Cheddar cider from the hand pump. I remembered that stuff from a holiday in Weymouth. Strong stuff that looks like orange squash. The soup was wonderful, and then a plate of liver and bacon went down very well. I scoffed far too much, and slept most of the way back to Ashford. We came home via Lidls and Home Plus in torrential rain. Feeling rather replete and having a little time we thought we might grab a few moments of shut-eye.

Rather than having a few minutes of dozing we both slept for over an hour only to be woken by the door bell. Hosey had arrived to drive us to the evening's fun. We had a frantic five minutes getting ready, and then we set off to Steve and Sarah's for fireworks, We had a great time, excellent fun with friends, and such a good spread too. There was a minor hiccup when a bucket was destroyed along with the garden fence by a renegade incendiary. But that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Aparet from that fence and that bucket. They were certainly weakened in the impact.

3 November 2013 (Sunday) - Crowborough

As I shared my morning toast with my Patagonian Tripe-Hound I watched a rather lame episode of "Earth 2". For a bunch of pioneers exploring a planet twenty two light years away they are certainly finding a lot of people who seem to have got there first.

With brekkie scoffed we eventually found er indoors ^TM" wellie boots, and set off to collect the rest of our entourage. Three of us and two small dogs went to Crowborough where we played "Cluedo". A series of geocaches had been laid in which various Cluedo cards and clues had been concealed, and as well as caching we got to play Cluedo as well. I was Professor Plums. My dog was Professor No Plums (following a trip to the vet). It was a genius idea... provided you actually found all of the caches and all of the clues.

We didn't.

One cache was clearly missing (well, we couldn't find it) so when we got to the end we had half of the required co-ordinates, but the other half were rather vague. So we looked at the map, looked at where we might expect a bonus cache to be hidden, read the hint and trusted to luck. And we found that bonus cache. Even though I was prepared to abandon it.

We had one or two other "little episodes" on the way. The storms of the last week had brought down a few trees to block our way. At one point a farmer had deliberately blocked a footpath with a six feet high fence. I've emailed the chap who organised the geocache series about this; you find yourself obviously following the right route as you come to the geocache, then you are faced with a fence. You can either backtrack several hundred yards or climb the fence. We climbed it.

The mud was rather thick too. I fell on my backside twice.

With the Cluedo series done we walked around Crowborough for a bit, and then moved on to Eridge where we did an Earthcache. Or everyone else played on the rocks whilst I did geography homework (depending on your perspactive). To be fair the Earthcache was my idea. Getting one in Sussex bungs up my geo rating. I'm now a silver-level Earthcache master (!)

As always there are photos of the day on-line.

And so home, and with er indoors ^TM" off out with her mates and "Furry Face ^TM fas asleep I was left home alone. Which wasn't a bad thing; I had beer to get out of the bucket and into the barrel. Never a dull moment...

4 November 2013 (Monday) - Bit Dull

In a novel break with tradition I slept surprisingly well last night; waking just minutes before the alarm was due to go off. I abluted, and had all of my toast to myself; a certain dog was still fast asleep. Yesterday's walk must have tired both of us.

My morning's "Earth 2" was entertaining viewing. In this morning's episode the brain-wiped homicidal maniac was beginning to have flashbacks. This was widely regarded not to be a good thing in a homicidal maniac.

I set off to work in dark and rain. Really dark and very heavy rain. Last night a series of geocaches had gone live in the Canterbury area. No one had gone near overnight; I had the chance for a few FTFs. But it was dark and wet. I decided against going for them. It would have been a silly thing to do.

As I drove I listened to the radio. For all that the recent cases of child abuse have been very serious, I'm not at all sure that there has been a balanced reaction to the entire debacle. It would seem that it will soon be a criminal offence for anyone who suspects someone of being a child abuse not to blow the whistle.

How ridiculous is that? In the first instance how can anyone be accused of having suspicions about someone else that they didn't voice? And in the second instance is the mere random thought that any individual might be a bit iffy grounds to ruin their life.

Meanwhile it would seem that for all the jingoistic flag wavers might protest, the UK's remaining part of the European Union saves every household about three thousand pounds every year.

Or so the latest figures from the CBI would suggest. Interestingly the pundits seemed to feel that the same survey showed that jingoistic flag wavers would be un-swayed by such arguments. Are we as a nation still so insular and parochial?

Mind you back with the insular and parochial mind-set there is a school of thought that voting for Scottish independence may be a good thing in the upcoming Scottish referendum because losing the Scottish seats in the UK Parliament would pretty much guarantee a Conservative majority in perpetuity.

Please don't let the Scots go...

5 November 2013 (Tuesday) - Gunpowder, Treason and Plop

When we first took on "Furry Face ^TM" it was on the understanding that he slept downstairs in his own bed. More often than not I wake to find he has sneaked up the stairs in the night and is asleep at the bottom of my pit. Last night I was woken twice by the thump of him falling off of the bed.

That little dog was a little bit late in stirring himself out of his (my) pit this morning; had he been about two minutes earlier he could have shared my toast. He was too late.

In the words of the old adage "you snooze, you lose".

This morning I went to work through some of the heaviest rain I think I have ever seen outside of one of our camping trips. As I drove I listened to the radio (as I do). There is consternation in Germany as apparently a hoard of stolen art treasures has come to light. During the Nazi regime apparently a lot of valuable works of art were stolen from the Jewish community and many were "lost".

From what I could determine from the news article a load of paintings have been found in a flat somewhere in Germany where the supposed owner of said flat only appears once a year or so. This chap is eighty-odd years old, has no apparent means of financial support, and is the son of one of many Nazis suspected of having stolen valuable art work during the Nazi era. The implication was that this fellow was making his living by periodically selling off paintings which he had acquired from his (now dead) father who presumably had stolen them either from the original owners or through his involvement with the Nazis.

Those gripped with righteous indignation felt that this art hoard should be returned to its rightful owners. I suppose that might at first sight seem to be the right thing to do.

However German law has a Statute of Limitations concerning incidents from the Nazi times. From what I could determine, basically once such a crime is thirty years old there is no longer any legal recompense. Personally I think that is a good thing in general.Whilst what happened in history was terrible, there comes a time when we need to move on.

However in this specific instance is it right that someone is making a living on stolen goods?

I can't help but wonder how at this remove in time would anyone ever find the rightful owners of this art? I can remember my Aunt Joan had a painting which was supposed to be worth a bob or two. It had a lady showing off a nork. But I can't remember much more about it than that; and that was from the mid 1970s. I certainly couldn't tell it from any other painting of a wanton woman. How could anyone alive today realistically remember what they or their family once owned in the 1930s and 1940s? I doubt much in the way of certifying documentation was stolen together with these art works.

My piss also boiled at the news that India is sending off a mission to Mars. Most of my loyal readers might think that as an astronomical sort of fellow I would be pleased about this. Well, I suppose I am. But I've been reading an old favourite book of mine. Jem - the Making of a Utopia. In this book inter-stellar exploration and colonisation isn't done by humanity at large, but by nation states. And all that humanity does is take internecine squabbling and atomic warfare to a higher level.

If we don't make space exploration a common shared venture for all nations of the world it will just become something else for us to argue about.

And so to work. I pootled about until it was time to come home. It was nice to be able to see the fireworks at the Kent county cricket ground later in the evening. As I drove home I scoffed a curlywurly I had bought at the Cheapo bargains shop last week. I really should stop stocking the car with curlywurlies from the Cheapo Bargains shop.

And so to Queen Street where the clans gathered and having listened to the radio we watched "Merlin". My personal opinion is that Merlin could easily have Harry Potter in a fight...

6 November 2013 (Wednesday) - Out of This World

I slept well, and after a bit of brekkie (ably assisted by my dog) we went for a quick walk. The weather forecast predicted a dry spell for a couple of hours so we thought we’d get walked before the rain. As we walked a little voice called out to us. Cheryl and Lacey were on their way to school. Fudge jumped up and got Lacey all muddy.

We carried on with our walk through the park where “Furry Face ^TM “ tried to pork every dog in Ashford. I wish he wouldn’t do that.

We stopped for five minutes at the ford so I could get some information for my latest little geo-project, then carried on with our walk round Singleton lake. By now the rain had started. Somewhat earlier that predicted. By the time we got home we were both soaked.

Once home I put the washing machine to spinning the laundry I’d set washing when we went out. Rather than spinning, the machine washed it all again. I wish it wouldn’t do that.

I then did some homework, then some geo-project work. Before I knew it, it was 1pm. As a special treat for us both I went up the kebab shop for kebab and chips, “Furry Face ^TM “ likes kebab. He’s getting very fussy about what he eats, so it’s a pleasure to see him wanting to eat something. Over dinner we watched a film. “Hope and Glory” was a nostalgic British film. It looked like being the sort of film I love. It turned out to be about an hour too long. To stay awake I sorted my undercrackers whilst it played. Dull, but necessary. Most of my socks have holes, and more than one pant is lacking elastic.

Am I the only person who just puts up with substandard crackers?

As the day went on so the phone wouldn’t stop ringing from people trying to sell me rubbish. Mis-sold endowments, solar panels, computers spamming windows internet (!); you name it, I was offered it on the phone today. Despite my best efforts and endless complaints I keep getting these phone calls trying to sell me stuff.

Evening came and I set off for the reason I wasn’t at work today. A trackable is due to blast off to the International Space Station today, and anyone attending a geo-meet today got an e-souvenir. To the uninitiated that sentence probably doesn’t mean much, but it is of great importance to those who hunt plastic boxes in the woodlands.

I had this idea that organising a space-themed geo-event wouldn’t take too much doing; and volunteered to set one up. The World’s Wonder pub in Warehorne have been very good to the astro club lately; and they have dark skies too, so I approached them. They were very happy to have me organise something with them. So I did.

I had been wondering how much of a turn-out I would get for an astronomy-themed geo-meet. And seeing the dreadful weather there’s no denying that my hopes weren’t high. But I was wrong. We had an attendance beyond my wildest expectations. People travelled miles; from Sussex, from the Medway towns and even from North London. I counted over forty people.

I was so lucky to have Jason volunteer to talk; it was an excellent talk on a fascinating subject. Steve was on hand to help and assist; and we gave out astro club flyers and Stargazing Live booklets. Everyone seemed happy with what we had done.

And once home, thanks to the wonderful people at Tee-Bees dot com the trackable logging was but a work of a few minutes. Logging fifty four TBs one at a time would have taken an age.

It was a good meet. I was pleased with what I put on. But I am more pleased that I have wonderful people that I can call on to help me to do things like this…

7 November 2013 (Thursday) - An Anticlimax

I didn't realise just how much staging last night's little geo-shindig had taken out of me. I slept like a log, waking only minutes before my alarm this morning.

I got up and watched a rather lame episode of "Earth 2". The stories are getting rather shabby now. Having flown interstellar distances to a virgin planet, our heroes are finding more and more other intrepid travellers who have got there before. And the stories are getting silly. In today's story the lead character met someone whom she's hitherto nudey-sauce-romped in her dreams.

A rather tawdry premise which was dragged out over forty minutes.

As I watched the telly I shared my toast with my dog. He is rather lazy at toast time; it seems to be as much as he can do to open his mouth for me to put the toast in. I suppose that for him toast time is still at least two hours before breakfast time. In his world it is still the middle of the night.

Bearing in mind the dreadful weather lately I had a good drive to work this morning. As I drove I listened to the radio. There was a lot of unmemorable hot air, but one article made me sit up and take notice. It turns out that the Prime Minister was felt to have been evasive at yesterday's Prime Minister's questions. The deputy chief whip of the Labour party told the world about this via Twitter.

Am I alone in feeling that here is something fundamentally wrong for a leading politician to be communicating to the world in the way that a teenager would tell his cronies an item of the utmost trivia?

Personally I dislike Twitter...

And so to work. I did my bit. Perhaps not as much as I might have done, or as enthusiastically. Today was not so much dull as something of an anticlimax after last night's successful geo-astro-bash.

As I drove home I listened to the radio. There was an interview with the president of the court which considers complaints brought against the intelligence agencies. It could have been riveting. It wasn't. It was rather dull.

I drove home via Park Farm where I dropped off "Dobbie". "Dobbie" is a rather huge Dobsonian telescope which has been in the back of my car since Monday night. The idea was to have done stargazing with it yesterday, but the weather was against telescoping. Much as it is a good piece of kit it takes up space I don't have, and was glad to foist it back on to Denver.

Once home I popped the lead on to "Furry Face ^TM" and took him out. A new geocache had gone live during the day in honour of "National Church Micro Day". We couldn't find it. To be honest we didn't try that hard. I look suspicious enough when hunting out plastic boxes; let alone doing it in the dark on a playing field..

8 November 2013 (Friday) - Tears, Videos

I slept through until 7.30am this morning. I was very pleased about that. I checked out the news over brekkie. As always the day’s news boiled my piss. Apparently the NHS spends £700 on negligence cover for every birth that takes place. This is a sad indictment of our society. Heath care professionals do their best every day only to be hounded by ambulance-chasing scum who pounce on every trivial mistake in the hope of extorting compensation.

And these news agencies wonder why hospitals the length of the country face staff shortages. Who would want to work in a place where the most insignificant honest mistake is blown out of all proportion and emblazoned over the national press? Not that I’m in any way bitter…

I put “Furry Face ^TM “ ‘s lead on him and we went for a walk. Sometimes our walks are dull. Today’s was anything but dull.

At one point it was just a tad emotional. As we walked round by the lake I saw he was kicking up the grass. He does that after pooping; he’d peeled one out whilst I wasn’t looking. I went to clear up his mess, and there was loads of fresh blood in the recently-laid dog poo. I looked at my dog, looked at the blood and felt sick at the thought of him being ill. Up came brekkie. And then the thought that he was pooing blood really struck home. I started blubbing like a small girl. After five minutes of tears, snot and being frankly pathetic I thought I’d better clear up the offending poo. And then I realised there was no blood at all. The bright red colour was an autumnal leaf that the silly dog had kicked onto the poo.

I felt a little bit daft.

We carried on into the park where we met Orangehead and her chunky little friend. The last time we met Fudge expressed his love for chunky little friend’s dog in the way that only a saucy small dog can. He couldn’t do that today; there were several other dogs on that dog’s back already; all getting rather jiggy. Both Orangehead and her chunky little friend seemed rather alarmed at this; as did the owners of the jiggy dogs who were desperately trying to pull them off.

In the distance I could see a cyclist. We often see an old mucker cycling through the park in the mornings. It looked like our geo-buddy so I pointed at him and shouted “Attack!” Little “Furry Face ^TM “ set off at the cyclist in attack mode at top speed; woofing like a thing possessed.

Imagine the embarrassment when we realised the cyclist wasn’t who we thought it was; and was just some random passer-by whom we had terrified. Oh we did laugh. Eventually.

Whilst we were out I went for that geocache I didn’t find last night. Daylight is such a help for seeing things, and I found it after a couple of minutes. And I added this cache to a private list of mine.

Whilst this cache is not in a playpark, there is a playpark a little way away. Not especially close, but closer than one was to a cache I had turned down because the playpark was too close. I’ve now found a dozen caches with playparks nearby. Mind you I saw on Facebook last night that ‘er indoors ^TM found a cache on a roundabout last night; and that is supposed to be a “no-no” as well. I realise there are rules about placing geocaches; there have to be.

If only there was consistency in the application of those rules.

We came home and I had a spot of lunch. As I scoffed I watched a film. The film of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” was rubbish; totally unlike the mini-series I watched a while ago. And after that I watched “Kill List”. Billed as a very gory horror film it was strange. It started off with a couple of wannabe gangsters and went all psychedelic. And at the point where the plot was completely lost they ran the end credits.

What with all that’s been going on in my life I’ve rather forgotten to do my annual video compilation of blog pix for a while. So here’s a selection of what’s happened over the last two (or so) years.

And before anyone starts bleating about breaches of copyright all of this content is freely available on line. All of it was either put up by me, or freely obtained with one mouse click…

9 November 2013 (Saturday) - Rye Bonfire Parade

More often than not I am up before 7am on a Saturday morning; I watch Martin going to the cafe for his brekkie. Today I wasn't up till gone 8am. I shared my toast with "Furry Face ^TM" and checked out social media. Not much was going on. And so with my toast scoffed I took my dog for a walk. Bearing in mind the shambles that we've made of recent walks round the park (and the fact that the runners would be out in force) we didn't go to the park. We went round Frog's Island instead. "Furry Face ^TM" barked at every single vehicle on every single road as we went; he seemed rather excited. Through no fault of his own he seemed to have put the fear of God up a passing Eastern European lady who screamed when she saw him from twenty yards away and then used her boyfriend as a human shield to protect herself from the dog. "Furry Face ^TM" ignored this silly lady entirely; but that didn't abate her terror.

Whilst we were out I did an informal maintenance check on my "Badger's Caches" series of geocaches. One of them was missing. On yesterday's walk I found that one of my "Fudge's Follies" caches had also gone missing. I've ordered replacements from eBay and will have a serious cache maintenance session sometime over the next week or so.

We came home fully expecting to crack on with the day. When we left for our walk er indoors ^TM" had been given instructions to be raring to go by the time we returned. We returned to find she'd gone back to bed. WHich was probably for the best. Within minutes of coming home the rain started. Really heavy rain which put paid to any plans involving being out and about. Which was a shame. Instead we did some dull shopping. To Matalan for some new trousers. Matalan had pretty much the same stuff we saw the other day at the MacArthur Glen outlet centre at a fraction of the price. And on to Tesco for various bits and bobs including cream cakes for dinner.

We scoofed the cream cackes whilst catching up with all sorts of stuff we'd recorded onto the Sky Plus box. We are now up to date with"Trollied" and "Downton Abbey".

Some of the clans gathered and three cars full of us set off to Rye. After a little mucking about en route we all eventually found Rye. Some went to the chip shop. Ably assisted by the Rear Admiral i found so many of my favourite pubs in Rye had shut down, but we eventually got a pint of rather grim Harveys and a second pint of not especially good Doombar from the Old Bell. Suitably refreshed we met up with those who'd taken the coach down, and we made sufficient noise to scare the normal people until the bonfire procession came past. An excellent procession; and following that we (eventuallly) reconvened by the bonfire site where we watched the conflagration and the pyrotechnics.

Rye bonfire parade has always been one of the highlights of my year, and was again this year. It's only a shame that the bonfire season is now over again for another year.

10 November 2013 (Sunday) - Essex

For many years I would go down to the Rye Bonfire Parade at about 2pm for a pre-parade drinkie; and be utterly wazzled by 4pm. Consequently the day after Rye Bonfire Parade was usually spent with a headache. Despite only having had four beers yesterday I continued the tradition of starting the day with a headache.

We had an early start today. Since the evenings are drawing in we thought that it might be a sensible idea to start our weekend expeditions earlier to make the most of the daylight; especially if we are going any major distance. And today we went quite some way. Three of us (and two small dogs) drove for over an hour and a half to the Wat Tyler Country Park where we were joined by an Essex Boy. Six of us then did a Wherigo.

Wherigos are a rather obscure kind of geocache which involves a lot of playing with a specialist app on your phone. There aren't many about locally; and most (all) of those which are to be found within twenty miles have been created by me. I really wanted to do a Wherigo, so we went to Essex to do one.

"The Devil's Porridge" was a very interesting insight into the explosives factories that used to exist along the south Essex coast. The style of the narrative in the Wherigo cartridge certainly brought the ghosts of the past to life. I especially liked the building with differing brickwork at either end because one half of it had been blown up. I was rather expecting to have seen more of the explosive works; it was amazing how much of it had gone and had returned to nature over the intervening years. In several places we had to force our way through brambles. My nose still bears the scars.

And as a Wherigo builder myself (!) it was an experience to actually do a Wherigo adventure. It would have been nice to have seen more of the Wherigo functionality used; but it was an excellent Wherigo; one I can thoroughly recommend.

We then completely failed to find a supposedly easy roadside geocache, and there was an embarrassing five minutes spent with my arm stuck in a hole in a tree. We then moved on to a Church micro where, as well as finding a geocache, I got a First to Find. Or "First to Munzee". I don't know if being first has as much kudos with Munzees as it does with geocaches, but I still felt rather smug.

Stopping only briefly to find a disabled geocache and to look at some chalk, we made our way round to Hadleigh castle where we had a rather good picnic. And, suitably refreshed, we wandered down and along a circular route of a couple of miles where we found several more geocaches. And also found we'd walked straight past one or two others.

Our early start paid dividends; we got back to the cars just as it was getting dark. We didn't find as many caches as we sonetimes do. In fact we only found fourteen today. (And three munzees) But those fourteen were rather special for anyone who hunts tupperware. A Wherigo; three Earthcaches, a difficulty level five cache. And a "First to Find" Munzee as well. As "My Boy ^TM" would say... "not too shabby".

As is often the case I took a few photos of the day.

I slept much of the way home; as did my dog. Once home I took that little dog into the shower where I hosed the mud from him. He then went straight to his basket where he snored soundly for the rest of the evening.

We watched the last episode in the current series of "Downton Abbey". Today they were gearing up for the village fete. I do like that show. It's a shame it's now finished for another year.

11 November 2013 (Monday) - Dull

I think my little dog was rather worn out by yesterday's walk; he slept right through the morning's toast time. As I left for work this morning my heart sank. The house next door is up for sale. I suppose that having new neighbours could be a good thing; it need not necessarily be bad.

It's just a shame we are losing the decent ones; it's just my luck that we are keeping "nutty noodle and the pianist".

I set off to work facing a very bright morning; a great improvement on last week. The sky was gloriously red, and there was even a rainbow. As I'd gone to bed last night I'd seen frost on the cars; there had been a thaw overnight. I was pleased about that.

I wasn't pleased about my fellow motorisits though. there was some twit who came up behind me just as I left Beaver Road and this chap was directly behind me all the way to Windcheap. He seemed to try to drive at a steady forty five miles per hour. At the strectches of the A28 when you can speed up he lagged a long way back; at the parts where the speed limit is 40mph he would be inches from my rear bumper.

Fortunately I lost him when I stopped off for the makings of some lunch at Morrisons. Mossisons was the same as ever; I had a plan to buy armpit-squirt there. It has doubled in price since my last visit. I shall eke out my remaining tin until their next buy-one-get-one-free offer, and hope my pits don't whiff too much in the meantime.

I went to work, did my bit, and came home again. As I left for home I got the news that a new geocache had gone live on my way home. I went for a First to Find but it was very dark and the rain was very heavy. There is only so much messing about one can do in a country lane in the dark in a monsoon. So I gave up and came home where I watched episodes of "South Park" until bed time.

Some days are *so* dull...

12 November 2013 (Tuesday) - Fleas, FTF...

I was woken at 4.30am by the snoring of a small dog. "Furry Face ^TM" had crept upstairs during the night and made myself comfortable with his chin on my shoulder and his beak pushed into in my left ear. I didn't bother trying to get back to sleep and got up. I came"Merlin" downstairs to find the lights on our router were flashing like things possessed. I glanced out of the window and saw the lights were on next door. I have a sneaking suspicion that "nutty noodle next door" has worked out our wireless router's password; hence the frantically flashing lights at the most obscure times. I pulled the plug on the router for ten minutes just in case.

Over a bit of toast I watched a rather dire episode of "Earth 2". Why do all series start so good and end up so lame? "Furry Face ^TM" came downstairs ten minutes too late for toast. I was glad he was up though. Being the twelfth of the month it was time to apply his anti-flea treatment. The stuff seems to work as I've not found a flea on him for months. I de-scaled the washing machine as well;

Fudge's de-fleaing and the washing machine's de-scaling is something of a double act in our household.

And so to work. Last night I rather gave up trying to find a new geocache. As it was on the way to work I tried again this morning. It's amazing what a little bit of daylight and the lack of torrential rain can do; you find entire footpaths that you can't see in the dark. Pausing only briefly to fall over in the mud twice I soon had the cache in hand. First to find. Happy dance.

I carried on to work; listening to the radio. The talk was of the disaster in the Philippines, and of the aid being sent by various countries. I have grumbled about the bad weather we've had recently. Listening to the horror stories on the radio made me feel somewhat more grateful for my lot in life.

Once at work I did my bit, and then came home again. Last night I had exhausted my stash of curly-wurlies so I stopped off at the sweetie shop for some white Maltesers. And the I joined the throng at Arden Drive where we watched "Merlin". Or that is everyone else watched "Merlin". I fell asleep...

13 November 2013 (Wednesday) - Movies, Lurgy, Beer

I had a worse night than usual; and that is saying something. I woke at silly o’clock feeling ill, and didn’t get any better as the night wore on. I finally gave up trying to sleep and was watching telly at 5am.

I was walking my dog by 7.30am; I was so bored. It was a very cold morning. We went through the town centre as I had a parcel to collect. I took “Furry Face ^TM “ into the collection office with me; there were no signs saying I couldn’t. And with dog walked we came home again where I spent an hour or so doing laundry and homework.

The plan had been to do something of a road trip today, but I wasn’t feeling one hundred per cent, and as I was debating whether or not to stick with the road trip plan the phone beeped. Cheryl had a driving lesson planned and Lacey was off school with the same lurgy I seem to have. Would I sit with her during the driving lesson? Of course! Fudge and I wnet round, and whilst driving lessons got driven, Lacey and I watched movies. “Thumbelina” and “The Cat in the Hat”. And after two movies we had bacon sarnies. Very tasty.

I then came home and spent an hour or so attacking the ironing whilst watching a documentary about John Le Mesurier. I’m basically a nosey person, and I do like biographies. And with the ironing done the Rear Admiral arrived and we set off to Folkestone where we met Steve at the Firkin for a pint of ale. It was a very nice pint, so we were cheeky and had another. And another.

Things got very vague…

14 November 2013 (Thursday) - Yonderland, Crackanory

I woke feeling rather grim. I'm sure I don't know why that might have been. I had a shave and some brekkie, and went back to bed. I managed to lie in bed until 9am before "Furry Face ^TM" licked me awake. I got up for a second time and took my dog for a walk. Today's mission was geocache maintenance. Over the last year I've hiddedn one or two of the things in the local area, and last week I noticed that two had gone misssing. So today I had a concerted maintenance mission. In all I visited eleven cache sites, replaced what needed replacing, hid what wasn't hid well, and generally made good for the winter.

With a couple of hours constructively passed I came home, and over a cream cacke I played with html programming and coding. html is something I can do after a fashion. I'm self-taught, and can bodge my way through, but I could do better. Perhaps I might see if Coursera do anything on htlm writing. I then looked at my social calendar for the next month or so and popped in one or to more events.

A few days ago I recorded the film "Bronson" onto the SkyPlus box. I watched it this afternoon; I quite liked it. And then I got a meessage that Saturday's planned geo-walk goes past six puzzle geocaches. I spent an hour puzzle solving. I have no idea if I got the right answers, but the co-ordinates I came up with are all along footpaths (which is a good sign).

er indoors ^TM" came home and we had a curry whilsst watching "Yonderland

"; the latest fantasy series on Sky One. It has promise, but has a little too much sarcasm toward the fantasy genre for it not to alienate its target viewers.

And then we watched another new show "Crackanory" whicch also shows promise...