I slept through till four o’clock, but after that I
couldn’t really breathe any more whilst laying down. I tried to sleep, but lay
dozing whilst struggling for air. Perhaps I should get another polypectomy (nasal re-bore) but I’m loathe to go
through the surgery only to have the problem come back again after a few sort
months (like it did last time).
Over brekkie I had a look at the Internet. There was a
notification of a vacancy for which I might apply in Guys hospital. Must admit
I’m not keen on anything involving trains to get to work. And I had a request
to chum up via LinkedIn from someone I’ve never met.
LinkedIn is crap. It’s *supposed*
to be about building a professional network. What can I possibly have in common
with someone who is cabin crew for British Airways? He’s apparently got a “third” connection to me, which means he
is an associate of a friend of a friend. But this is what LinkedIn is all
about; when I clicked the “People You Might
Know” link I got told about hundreds of people of whom I had never heard. And
when I looked at my profile I saw I’d been endorsed for all sorts of skills by
people who really don’t know how good (or
not) I am at all sorts of professional activities.
Meanwhile on Facebook people I *do* know (who I *really*
thought were good and decent and better than that) were posting up racist
hate-provoking stuff. To all those who really would send them all back on the
next banana boat, let me pose a dilemma (one
I had to answer for myself on several occasions). You are on a recruitment
panel to appoint someone to a responsible position. You have six applicants.
Not one is a UK resident. You re-advertise again and again in all sorts of
places. No UK residents apply.
What do you do?
I went outside to scrape the ice from the car. As I scraped
so nice-next-door was scraping their car too. She said hello; I tried not to
giggle. Whenever I see her, all I can think of are the screams she makes when “performing the dirty deed”.
With the ice scraped I got the dogs, and we drove out to
Great Chart. A few weeks ago I’d planned a little walk with some geocaches
along the way; today was time to hide the caches. The series is intended to
give people something to do on the morning before the meet I’m running in a
couple of weeks’ time. If I had any time off work closer to that meet I would
have put them out then.
Me and my dogs had a relatively good walk…. Relatively. It
started badly. In December I planned the route, and things were different then.
Fifty yards into the walk we met with disaster. We went to cross a stile to
follow a marked right of way. We found our way blocked by a slavering dog which
was the size of a large horse. After it had snarled at us for two minutes a
woman walked up. “I suppose you want to
walk across the footpath?” she asked. I said I did; after all it was a
public right of way. She conceded it was a public right of way, but she wished
it wasn’t. It went across her field, and it was a nuisance having people on her
land. I made a point of making her drag her dog away so we could pass, but at
the end of our walk I came back and had to hurriedly re-organise the route.
Unfortunately now there is far more road walking than I would like, but I’m not
sure what else I could do.
But the rest of the walk went well. The dogs were off the
leads for just under half of the walk. There was a dodgy five minutes when
Fudge got onto the wrong side of a fence, and then a dodgier five minutes when
we got him back and Treacle went there instead.
Mind you there is no denying that dog walks were better
when it was just me and Fudge. Treacle pulls like a train every step of the
way.
I took a few photos of the scenery and the
dogs
as we walked, and after two hours and three miles we were back at the car.
We came home. As I pulled up outside my house so the idiot
who had been following also pulled up. On seeing us get out of the car they
reversed, then carried on down the road. *So
many* people do that; they are so close behind me that they cannot see what
is going on ahead.
The dogs had a little bath; both had grungy tummies.
I settled the hounds and drove into town. I had a little
discussion with a tattoo artist, then got petrol. In the past I’ve commented
about the (apparently) sexy grannie
at the cheapo petrol station on the ring road. She was on duty today and was
excelling the expectations of even her staunchest supporters.
I pulled up at the only vacant pump. Every other pump had a
car at it; no one was filling their cars, everyone was in the kiosk. When I
went into the kiosk to pay I was shepherded through the masses at the till and
I got to pay right away. No one else was in a hurry to get away. Everyone wanted
to hang around the supposedly fit grannie.
I still can’t see the attraction.
I came home again and had a spot of lunch whilst watched an
episode of “The Good Place”, then
turned my sights to the geo-admin required for the new series of geocaches I’d hidden
this morning. That took a while.
It is amazing how long it takes to prepare a little
geo-walk. Every weekend I take it for granted that there will be a series of
geocaches for me to walk. But take the “Worten Wander” series. A couple of
hours poring over a map to come up with the route. Three hours on a provisional
recce. Another three hours creating the cache web pages. An hour or so putting
caches together. Two hours putting caches out. Half an hour submitting
finalised cache pages…
This isn’t news to me; this is the sixth series of caches
I’ve put out. But you forget just how much effort is involved.
My phone rang. It was the nice tattoo artist. He had
something to show me (result!); we
arranged for me to have a look tomorrow.
I got a bucket of water and sloshed the windows of my car,
I gave the dogs a little walk round the local roads, I set the dishwasher loose
on the crockery, and set the washing machine having a go at a woollen
wash.
Time for a break… I made myself a cup of coffee and put “Plebs” on Netflix. Until the next
episode comes out on Friday I’ve seen all the episodes of “The Good Place”
My phone beeped. There was consternation on the geocaching
pages about the politics of who had been chosen to organise the UK-wide 2020
mega-meet. Quite a bit of nastiness and bitterness… Over the years I’ve done so
many hobbies. Ale drinking and oil painting, astronomy and kite-flying.
Reptile-keeping and cub scouts. No matter what I do, there is always someone
trying to suck the fun out of it.
My phone beeped again. All those geocaches had been
published. Less than an hour after I pressed the final button. Can’t be bad at
all… It didn’t take long for the “found
it” emails to come in. Not all the FTFs went to the same finder, but the
first “First to Find” was timed only thirty-five
minutes after the things were published. I spent quite a bit of time pressing
the “refresh” button on my email
gizmo to see that people had actually found all that I’d hidden. I was pleased
to see finds registered on all but the puzzle one. Mind you the puzzle
isn’t something that could easily be worked out whilst walking.
"er indoors TM" boiled up a
pizza, and then (being Tuesday) the
clans gathered at Matt’s. Having eaten far too many sweeties we watched an
episode of “Mars” hen put the world
to rights.
It was good to catch up this evening…
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