For once the puppy slept well, and consequently so did
everyone else.
Over brekkie I had a little snigger. A friend was using
Facebook to whinge about the upcoming Black Friday deals in the shops. The
whinge went along the lines that Black Friday is an American thing; why do we
have it in the UK? It’s a sentiment I agree with, but it did seem odd coming
from someone who is so vocal in his support of all things American and keeps
telling the world that he wants to go live over there.
Pausing only briefly to whinge at "er indoors TM"
that her dogs (!) were barking at
nice-next-door and some magpies in the garden I took the dogs for a little walk
round the park. I say “little walk” –
the other day I used “Hannah” to
measure the distance of our standard round-the-park jaunt. It turned out that
walk is almost two miles. So we went for an almost two miles walk.
The walk passed off mostly without incident. As we walked I
did notice that most other dog-walkers with more than one dog seem to have
matching pairs. We met two French bulldogs, two Labradors, two Scotties. My two
seem to me in the minority in being a mismatched pair.
As usual Fudge straggled. We were almost across the co-op
field when we met Orangehead and Fudge then followed her dog all the way back
across the field that he had been so slow to traverse in the first place.
I settled the dogs and set off for work
rather earlier than I might have done. For rather complicated geo-reasons I
needed to find nine geocaches before tomorrow evening. Yesterday (following an equally complicated problem
with the staffing rota) the boss asked if I could do the late shift today,
and so this morning I had a few hours spare. I could have gone hunting
Tupperware., or I could have watched the telly.
I looked at the geo-map and saw a few
targets which wouldn't be too much of a diversion on my way to work. So off I
went...
As I drove the radio was on in the
background. After a few minutes I realised that I had no idea what the pundits
on the radio were saying. They really were going "blah blah blah" so I turned it off and put my music on
instead.
I set off to Charing. "er indoors TM"
had put three caches out there earlier in the year; they would do as a start
for my hunt. If I couldn't find them and if all else failed I could ring her up
for a hint. But I located all of them rather quickly. And so feeling rather
pleased with myself I drove up to Hollingbourne where there were (supposedly)
six caches in a loop. That would have suited me ideally had the third one not been
missing. The hint was "under flint" but there was no flint to be
seen. I found the obvious place in which I would have hidden the cache (up a
tree), but there was nothing there. I resisted the temptation to put a new
cache out for them, but I did find all the others I was hunting for, and after
a little detour to a village sign I ended my little geo-session by finding the
last part of a rather tricky puzzle (admittedly
the puzzle did need a little nudge from a friend). This was my nine
thousandth geo-find. Nine thousand finds in five and a half years; that's not a
bad rate of caching.
There are those who take the piss, but
it's not a bad old hobby. It has taken me all over the place and to all sorts
of beautiful locations. I've spent hours straining my brain on some rather
fiendish and cryptic puzzles. I've met some wonderful friends and had some
really good adventures. I've gone canoeing, tunnelling and up trees in rope and
harness. It has given me a different dog walk at least once every week.
I wonder how long it will be before I
find cache number ten thousand?
With a few minutes spare (and as it was
on my way to work) I drove to McDonalds for a celebratory dinner. There are
those who take the piss out of McDonalds, but I like the place.
And with McDinner McScoffed I went in to
the late shift. Work started quietly, but got progressively more busy. I was
rather glad when the night shift arrived to take over.
It was a shame the motorway was closed
between junctions seven and eight. It was even more of a shame that no
diversions were posted. You would have thought someone would have thought to
have directed the traffic…
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