21 October 2014 (Tuesday) - 4000

What with working at nights and at weekends, new babies being born, trips to Birmingham and dogs with slipped discs it's all been a bit much recently. So today I took a day off work; I needed a rest. As always I woke far too early and by the time "er indoors ^TM" got up three hours later I was bored senseless.

I surfed the net in boredom. I discovered this. This Saturday there's a bus trip round some of the better pubs in the Dover and Deal area. I'm rather tempted to join in; the organiser has said that everyone is welcome. If any of my loyal readers fancy a pint or two this weekend why not come along...

With "er indoors ^TM" ready we set off on the mission of the day. One of my geo-goals is to find more Wherigo geocaches than I've hidden. Wherigos take quite a bit of setting up, and they aren't at all common. I've hidden five of the things, and today we set off in pursuit of my fourth one to be found. We very nearly fell at the first hurdle as the software would not work on Samsung Android phones (neither mine nor that of "er indoors ^TM") but in a novel break with tradition the iPhone came to the rescue. We Wheri-wandered around Faversham for just over an hour discovering all sorts of places that I've never before been to, and finding out all sorts of things about the place that I never knew. We even got a couple of Munzees along the way. But eventually we came to our goal; something of a milestone geocache for me; my four thousandth find.

Whilst in Faversham we visted the home-brew shop and got the makings of some beer for Christmas, and then having spectacularly failed to find two more geocaches we set off for home. We stopped of in Badlesmere to see what the pub there was like.

I've heard bad things about the Red Lion in the past, but I was very impressed with what we experienced today. Good ale, good food... we may well just organise a mass trip out there at some point.

We came home via Eastwell church and Lidls, and then had coffee and cake as we watched an episode of "Doctor Who" that we'd recorded onto the SkyPlus box a couple of weeks ago. It was rather good.

Then, being Tuesday, the clans gathered. We drove round to Arden Drive; usually we would walk, but today we'd seen the weather go from being completely clear to torrential and back to clear in moments, and we didn't want to get caught in a downpour.

As is often the case insults were bandied, spell checkers were blamed, and it would all have been a lot easier had some of us more respect for algebra (!) I actually stayed awake for an episode of "The 100", and there was a discussion about in which film(s) Stacey (of "Gavin and Stacey") flopped them out.

And in closing today I'd like to thank my loyal readers for all the messages of support I've received recently. Over the last week or so I've been really touched by all the kind words people have sent me about my little dog.

"Furry Face ^TM" would seem to be on the mend now. After a tiddle-trip to the garden this evening he jumped over the back door step when coming in; he leaped onto my lap earlier, and he's even tackled the stairs for the first time in two weeks. We're still enforcing rest by caging him when he's unsupervised (much to his disgust) but I'm hoping that surgery is looking less and less likely.

Mind you both me and him are missing his walks...