I slept like a log again but
woke up feeling rather unsettled. What *have* I achieved with my life? I
narrowly avoided something of an existential crisis by reminding myself that my
fifty-odd years haven’t been entirely wasted, I had a cuppa and snapped out of
it. A *lot* of people have these existential crises from time to time. Mind
you, judging by the attention-seeking I read on Facebook this morning (and
most mornings) I don’t think everyone snaps out of it as readily as I did.
We got ourselves together and
went out. We did have a vague plan to go to a geocaching mega-event today. The Geo-lympix
was taking place. I’d seen on Facebook that it had kicked off last night with a
torchlit procession. But with a two-hundred miles and five hours round trip I
found myself asking
“what is there for the day visitor”?
And when I say: “what is there”, (not wishing to sound rude or flippant) I
couldn’t help but wonder what *actually*
was there for the day visitor as opposed to what was intended for the people
who were resident and camping out? I’ve been to five geocaching mega-events and
each has effectively been intended for geocachers who thought they had joined
the caravan club. Earlier in the year we went to the French Mega. We had the
most excellent road trip, but the actual mega event itself was rather pitiful.
It really was half a dozen stalls of people selling stuff and some broken lab
caches. I *really* didn’t want to
spend over half the day driving just to go to somewhere selling stuff I didn’t
want to buy. I’d asked friends about the geo-lympix thing, but with no one
having a good word for it we decided against going.
Instead we drove out to Margate.
We
arrived just as "Daddy’s Little Angel TM" and
"Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" were
going out. They wanted to take the bus to town. "er indoors TM"
went upstairs to help with housework, and I got in the way in the shop. There
was a seemingly constant stream of punters coming and going (which was probably for the best). To
help promote sales I tidied the crisps; a job which took far longer than you might
think it would.
The
most recent fruit of my loin returned and Sam went to get supplies. Once he had
returned from his errands we all took the dogs for a little wander along the
promenade. I
took some photos. We did tell "Stormageddon - Bringer of
Destruction TM" *not*
to go on to the beach. It was as well that I had my camera poised. He went from
being ten yards from the water’s edge to being arse-deep in the sea in the
blink of an eye. He didn’t like it very much and ran like a scalded cat. I
didn’t *quite* piss myself laughing,
but it could have ended badly had those waves had any more force.
Hopefully
he might listen when given advice in the future but somehow I doubt it. It is a
truly wise person who learns from other’s mistakes without having to learn them
for themself.
We came home; on the way we stopped off to check a geocache
that "er indoors TM" had hidden some time ago. The
thing had reports that the last four people who tried to search it out couldn’t
find it. Admittedly it was broken, but I found it laying on the floor in plain
sight within seconds.
Once home we had a cuppa and a cold cross bun, and as "er
indoors TM" had a doze I looked at the household accounts.
I’m nowhere near as impecunious as I thought I would be only a few short years
ago. And whilst not exactly having money to burn, I’ve certainly got money to
tiddle up a wall (in moderation).
We
had had a vague plan to go out this evening. We’d had an invite to a party in Folkestone,
but by the time we’d got there and paid an entrance fee (!) we would have spent twenty quid before we’d done anything. So
instead "er
indoors TM" boiled up a rather good curry and we
activated Netflix. “Gnome Alone” was worth
the monthly Netflix fee itself…
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