For once we had a really good
night. No fidgeting, grumbling barking or scrapping. I was *so* grateful
for that.
Over toast I had a look at
Facebook. Quite a few people were posting about having had Burns night
celebrations last night. A couple of local pubs were advertising Burns night
events tonight. I can’t understand this obsession with Scotland that so many
people in my circles seem to have. Living less than ten miles from the coast as
I do, it is difficult to get much further from Scotland whilst staying on the
same island. If Scotland is so wonderful, why live so far from the place?
And on a less grumbling note
Facebook sent me a message – I’ve been on Facebook for twelve years now. What
did I ever do before I was on that website? And talking of Facebook I had a
message. An ex-cub had commented on the same Ashford-related group as I had,
and he had got in touch with me. He’s nearly thirty now – was it really
nineteen years since we went to
Canada together?
With a few minutes spare I tried
to log on to my bank account. In order to do so I have to use a little gadget to
generate a security number. I told the bank I thought it was a stupid idea
years ago, and today the thing didn’t work at all. I wasted twenty minutes as the
nice lady at the bank helped me install an app on my phone which would generate
that security number. Eventually I got to see my bank statement, and I had a
look at my accounts. Could be better… could be a lot worse.
We settled the dogs and went
out. First of all to the post office where I had a parcel to collect (Lego
roof tiles), then on to Tesco’s cash machine for money. As I withdrew cash
the cheeky machine asked if I was going to buy anything from Tesco today.
Pausing only briefly in
Winchelsea for geocachical reasons we were soon at the Queen’s Head Inn in
Icklesham where we met Mum and Dad and brother. Today was dad’s birthday.
Rather than buying him a pressie that he doesn’t want we thought he might like
dinner. He did. As did we all. It was good to catch up – should do it more
often. I took
a few photos, (but not that many) and then slept most of the
way home.
We came home to mayhem. One of
the dogs had pulled the bin out of the kitchen cupboard. There was mess strewn
everywhere. We cleared the mess and wondered who was to blame. The most likely
suspect is Treacle as she’s often had the living room bin over, but it could have
been Pogo. (It couldn’t have been Fudge; he can do no wrong.)
The dogs needed a walk; we drove
down to Aldington where we had a go at a geocache there. To find it we had to
solve a puzzle based on the war memorial. We didn’t so much “solve it”
as “blag it”, but eventually we found it. And after five minutes
fighting we extracted it from its hidey-hole and did the secret geo-rituals.
I’ve now found all the caches within five miles of home (except two which
aren’t there and are up for archiving). There are now only five that I
haven’t found within seven miles of home.
We then walked the dogs round
the village green; after all that was why we’d gone out. The weather wasn’t
good though. The dogs don’t seem to mind, but I’m getting too old to be cold
and wet.
Once home we had a cuppa to warm
us up, and I carried on looking at the household accounts. I need to think
about the breakdown policy on the washing machine. We have this policy that
when the thing packs up, the nice man comes out and fixes it. Which is all very
well all the time the thing is breaking down. But bearing in mind it didn’t
break once last year, that was over two hundred quid down the toilet. I’m
tempted to cancel the policy and put the money aside each month, and when the
thing finally gives up the ghost, get a new one. I could also do with
downgrading my mobile phone contract, and seriously reconsidering my dentist
standing order.
The six-monthly payment for Viz
magazine was taken this month; that’s one thing I’m not cancelling.
As I pondered which policies to
cancel and which to continue I kept sniggering at Pogo’s stomach which was
making rather impressive gurgling noises while he slept.
I then went upstairs to unpack
the Lego parcel I’d collected earlier. Pogo came with me, and once we were at
the top of the stairs he was sick. I thought his stomach had been gurgling.
After a rather big dinner we
weren’t feeling hungry so we had some pancakes whilst watching this week’s episode
of “Hunted”. Some of the contestants on that show really are stupid. And
then I went up to the attic and played Lego for a while. It was all going
rather well until all three dogs came up together to help me…
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