12 October 2013 (Saturday) - Pluckley

Last night's rain was terrible. I looked oout to a very bright morning as I scoffed my brekkie. Whilst "Furry Face TM" woofed at a world which was doing nothing to offend him I worked on my latest project. Once it's ready I shall tell the world what it is. But not yet. I'm mysterious like that(!)

Chris arrived, and we set off to Singleton for the rest of our party, and then it was on to Pluckley for a geo-walk for four of us and two small dogs. The Pluckley Plod is one of the county's better geo-walks; but then I might be a little biased in thinking this. We set off along Chris's stretch of the walk. Starting at the Dering Arms we went cross country alons some rather pretty footpaths, then up through several orchards. It was sad to see how few apples were on the trees compared to how many apples were laying on the floor. Surely they should have been picked by now? Having said that it was obvious that it was apple picking time as there were many empty apple crates stacked about waiting to be filled. Interestingly the crates were all labelled differently; some Gala, some Golden Delicious. And all labelled as produce of South Africa.

We walked down through an orchard of plum trees (is "orchard" the right word?) and came to the Swan pub in Little Chart. It was lunchtime so we thought we might eat our sandwiches in the pub's beer garden and have a pint. We found both the beer garden and the pub were empty. That's not "not many people" - that's "completely empty - no one there at all". I went to get a couple of pints (etc) to have with our sandwiches which we were planning to eat at the far end of the garden. The sour harridan behind the bar told me they were running a pub, not a picnic site.
We took our money elsewhere; and I would advise all my loyal readers to do the same.

It was shortly on from here that I thought that "Furry Face TM" might like a run off of the lead. Will I never learn? I let him off the lead; he ran about a bit, rolled in fox poo, saw a pheasant and was off like a bullet out of a gun. I eventually captured him fifteen minutes later several hundred yards away, wrapped in brambles and stuck in a river.
He went straight back on the lead after that.

With dog captured we carried on our walk. After the excitement of hunting down an errant tripe-hound the rest of the walk was relatively uneventful. We got back to the car after five hours walking; a good stroll. And so home where "Furry Face TM" had his bath. Such is the penalty for fox poo. I then checked my emails. earlier in the week I hid two Wherigo caches. A Wherigo cache involves downloading a package, playing a GPS adventure on your phone, and finding a cache. Neither of these two Wherigo caches had been found despite there having been over twenty downloads. Either people haven't got round to them yet, or there is a problem with them. I do hope not; both worked well in field trials.
 
Saturday night found me "home alone". er indoors TM" was off out watching films; and seemingly the rest of the universe was out on the beer in Folkestone. I settled down with my dog (who was snoring after his walk) and watched "American Beauty"; a fiilm I'd been recommended some time ago. It was really good. How many other gems are still waiting my discovery...?


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