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14 June 2011 (Tuesday) - Road Trip

 
I woke feeling rather exhausted after a night of very vivid dreaming. Perhaps I shouldn’t eat Monster Munch just before bed time. Over brekkie I spent a little time looking at some of the blog’s settings including font sizes and the like. I’ve also (hopefully) made the blog appear much better when viewed on mobile devices. Having said that it looks awful on my mobile, but then most stuff does. I think that when I bought my SmartPhone I actually got a DumbPhone. For all that one hears talk of “Android” and “iPhone”, having bought one I’ve never heard any mention of the Nokia N8.
I also updated the “Dates for the Diary” section of the blog – I now have stuff planned for most of the weekends over the summer. This leaves me with precious little time for fishing. Talking of which, if anyone would like to take up membership of a rather exclusive syndicate with rights to fish a private late just outside Ashford (for only twenty quid a year), please let me know.

Having spread the canvas of our mess tent out to dry and having put my tent’s carpet on the washing line I then phoned Kent Police. Whilst on a shopping mission when camping last week, ‘er indoors TM inadvertently parked where she shouldn’t and got a parking ticket from “AM Secure Services Ltd”. I phoned the Old Bill to check the validity of this parking ticket. The Old Bill neither knew nor cared and said to phone Tesco. Tesco didn’t care either. They changed their tune slightly when I told them that I was going to tell the hundreds of people at the kite festival to do their shopping elsewhere. But they still maintained it wasn’t their problem.
So in the end I phoned “AM Secure Services Ltd” themselves and told them I had some land I might like to use as a car park. I asked how they would deal with someone who wouldn’t pay the parking ticket. Eventually they said they would take the person to court, and whether or not the court ruled in favour of the parker or the ticketing company was entirely down to the whim of the presiding judge. I’ve told ‘er indoors TM that if it was me who’d had the ticket I’d let them take me to court.

And seeing as today was booked as holiday I went on a bit of a road trip. First of all to PC World to have a look-see. Since I got the new wireless modem I’ve had far fewer (i.e. hardly any) connection problems. And since I abandoned using Safari as a browser and went to Firefox instead I’ve had far fewer (i.e. hardly any) incidents of the PC freezing up. But it wouldn’t hurt to see how much replacing the PC is going to cost. And I got the answer – about five hundred quid. I then popped into the Home Brew shop to get the makings of some beer for our next trip to Teston. I expect that I shall be there again in August, but there’s no denying that following two wet camps I’m rather having a downer on the idea of camping at the moment.
Mind you not that much of a downer – I then went on to Aldi in Hythe because I’d heard they were selling self-inflating camping mattresses cheaply. They were. I picked one up for twelve quid. It still remains to be seen how much of a bargain it actually was. The last one sprung a rupture last weekend and had lasted about four years. Camping shops are doing them for about twenty five quid, so I would hope that this one will last me at least two seasons.

And then onwards. As I drove through Folkestone I saw the house that we rented for two years (Sept 84 – Apr 86) is currently up for sale. It’s listed as having four bedrooms: it had one when we rented it. I wonder what’s going on there? I’m very tempted to arrange a viewing just to be nosey.
I then popped in to the Battle of Britain museum to use their facilities. Whilst I was there I bought a souvenir bookmark – the shop was closed when I called in last year.
I then went to a car showroom in Capel – the last time I drove past they were selling motorhomes and campervans. They weren’t today. So I kept on going and eventually found the camping shop in Sturry where I had a look-see. The pet shop next door was interesting as always, and the motorhomes round the corner were cheap. Mind you they weren’t unlocked. The bloke there offered to open the one(s) I wanted to look at and stand over me, but I wasn’t keen to have this sort of pressure, so I thanked him and made my way to the motorhome showroom in Canterbury. The chap there was helpful and left me to browse. I might go back there for another look at the weekend.

And so home where I slept through the third “Alien” film. And once I awoke I folded away the last of the camping gear which I’d popped on the line this morning. I was going to then put my tent, the carpet and the mess tent away, but the lock-ups are full to the point of being overflowing already. So I need to strip them all out and re-pack them. That which needs to go away can stay in the shed for the time being: I’ll worry about it later…

Meanwhile if any of my loyal readers think I might be storing any camping gear, tents or chairs for them, could they please retrieve them by the end of the week. There is stuff in there which I know is not mine, and I do not have enough space in the garden lock-ups. That which is still unclaimed on Sunday will be either eBay-ed or taken to the tip (!)

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