My piss boiled as I scoffed my brekkie. A rather huge
project has just been completed in Wingham (about
twenty miles away) to install otter-proof fencing around two huge lakes.
Otters can destroy the carp population in any lake, and this fencing will
protect the carp from them. However the fencing has been paid for (in part) by a grant from the Angling
Improvement Fund. This fund is
administered by the Angling Trust on behalf of the Environment Agency, with the
money coming from fishing licence sales. The lakes themselves belong to Wingham
fisheries who charge over eight hundred pounds for a year’s fishing.
So…the money I spend on my fishing licence is being used to
subsidise a fishery I will never be able to afford to fish in, whilst the lakes
us peasants fish in get sod all.
I’ve emailed a formal complaint to the Environment Agency.
The automated reply says they will respond within ten working days. Ten of
their working days are fourteen of mine… I wonder what they will say.
With brekkie scoffed Cliff popped in for a few minutes. It
was good to catch up. "er indoors TM" then popped
to the outlet centre on an errand and I refereed the dogs who were playing tug
o’ war with pretty much anything they could get hold of.
"er indoors TM" returned, and we
all set off to Hoath. Rather than meeting Karl, Tracy and Charlotte at Hoath,
we managed to catch up on the motorway.
Regular readers of this drivel may recall we walked round
Hoath over the summer. We had a good walk; and with that walk done we looked at
carrying on along the lanes, but it was far too hot then.
It wasn’t too hot today.
Today was an ideal walk for wandering round the lanes. All
on tarmac meant we wouldn’t get smothered in mud (for once). We had a good stroll. We saw sheep. Not many… how many
sheep do you need to have a flock? Personally I don’t think four is enough. We
saw pigs, we heard skylarks, we climbed trees, we found pubs.
The first pub was a result. It was perhaps a tad early in
the route, but it was a cold day. The
Gate in Chislet is a wonderful place. There was a roaring log fire to warm
us, and a choice of ales straight from the barrel. One of which was the
Whitstable brewery’s oyster stout. We had two pints of that.
The second pub wasn’t too shabby either – you don’t see
Deuchar’s IPA in many places.
Geocache-wise it was an odd experience. Usually when we go
out hunting Tupperware we follow a series of caches laid out in an order (numbered #1, #2, etc) put out by one
person. When caching like this you soon get a feel for the sort of thing you
are hunting, and where that person might hide things, and what that person had
bought in bulk from the geocaching shop.
Today we cobbled together a walk along various lanes
picking up caches seemingly put out at random. We managed a good walk, but by
its very nature today’s caching was somewhat random. Some caches were hidden
well with good hints and accurate GPS co-ordinates. Some were laying broken on
the roadside. Some were found despite no clues being given whatsoever, some
were found by pot luck (one was forty yards
out on the GPS), and some were clearly missing. But I’m not complaining; as
long as people put these things out I have somewhere to walk my dogs at the
weekends.
We didn’t get all the caches in the area… by a wonderful
stroke of fortune we could make a similar walk collecting a dozen or so starting
from The Gate in Chislet…
We came home; "er indoors TM" drove
and I slept. I
took several photos as we walked. With "er indoors TM"
out on a mission this evening I posted them up on Facebook (as I do) and then watched last week’s
episode of “Peaky Blinders” as my
dogs snored. I liked the first three seasons; the fourth is a bit lame. Which
is a shame.
The SkyPlus box has recorded today’s episode of
Thunderbirds; I shall watch that in a minute…
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