19 March 2020 (Thursday) - A Day Off


On Tuesday night we had a bottle of plonk and a decent helping of port. Yesterday I was feeling full of energy and raring to go. Last night I was in bed at half past ten; I slept for over eight hours and woke this morning feeling like death warmed up.
I had a bowl of granola whilst watching an episode of “Uncle” which was rather sad. Why do comedy shows insist on having upsetting episodes? I wish they didn’t. there’s quite enough misery in the world already. I watch comedy to cheer myself up, not to go on a downer.

I then had a look at the Internet. There were loads of squabbles kicking off on some of the geocaching pages. Ironically one person who was very openly demonstrating his ignorance was calling anyone who disagreed with him “retarded” and that had started quite the argument. Others were seeing “self-isolating” as being synonymous with “staying at home”, and apparently nothing spreads corona virus faster than having the likes of me walking through the countryside looking for film pots under rocks. I pointed out that we are all doing a hobby which involves finding things left out on the open for months, covered in mud and slime and moulds and suddenly everyone is hygiene crazy. A few people saw the irony.

Having been unable to get the Lego bits I wanted from the local shops I had planned to pop up to the Lego shop in Bluewater today. But coronageddon means that the Lego corporation have closed all of their shops (all around the world) for the next two weeks. I ordered what I wanted on-line from someone in Hong Kong; it will take a while to get here, but hopefully will be here before the Lego shops re-open, and (provided it actually does arrive) at half the price too.
So rather than going to Bluewater I took the dogs up to Kings Wood. A year ago I hid thirty-odd geocaches up there. I really need to do a maintenance run and replace the paper logs in all of them… but I’m not happy where the geo-art lies on the map, I’m not happy that when walking the series you have to back-track the last quarter of a mile… Bearing in mind that the series has had nearly a hundred “Found It” logs it has pretty much run its course. I thought I might just make a new series by expanding what’s there, so I had a little explore and found locations for a dozen new caches.
There are those who would say I should have stayed in the house today because of coronageddon, but I was pretty much as isolated in the woods as I was at home. We only met two other groups of dog walkers, and there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that we would all keep our distance (that was odd!) One woman was walking two large Labradors on long leads. She said that I was brave letting my dogs run. Apparently when off the leads in the woods, her dogs often return with bits of deer in their mouths. You have to wonder just what is in Kings Wood that is large enough to dismember a deer.

We had a good walk; as I drove home I noticed the rear window had steamed up. I got to test the de-mister – it worked; for which I was grateful. There was also a distinct smell of fox poo, so once home we went from being “boot dogs” to “bath dogs”.
I then popped up the shop to see if they had any milk. They had. The woman in the shop said that they had never been so busy. We all laughed about corona virus, but no one mentioned that she was wearing rubber gloves.

"er indoors TM" made cheese on toast for lunch. She ate hers in peace; I had an audience and ended up sharing mine with three dogs. The dogs *never* scrounge from "er indoors TM" but always demand my dinner.
With "er indoors TM" still working from home I got out of her way. I had intended to strim the lawn’s edges, but the rain put me off of that idea. I went upstairs and played Lego. Did you know there’s a shortage of bog roll in Lego Land as well?
My Lego world is effectively in limbo until I can sort out the roads, and it will be a while before they arrive from Hong Kong. So I fiddled. I enlarged the church’s graveyard by four graves and gave the vicar a parking space and a congregation. I then made a few more Lego cars (for when I have roads) only to find I’d run out of wheels a while ago.
I had a look for some on eBay. Having seen that the specific sets of wheels I wanted were going for a quid each (plus postage) I tried another eBay store and got eight for a fiver (including postage). It pays to shop around.

"er indoors TM" went shopping. I made a start in collating the information I gathered on this morning’s run with a view to putting out a new geo-series. After three hours I had all the co ordinates and a route sorted. Now…do I just put them as straight geocaches and have all the bitter sarcasm about “another film pot under a rock” from those who’ve not hidden a cache in years, or do I obfuscate the locations with a puzzle which will bring all the complaints about puzzles from those who seem to have no problem in obtaining the answers by one means or another?

"er indoors TM" boiled up a rather good bit of scran which we scoffed whilst watching “Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly” and “Young Sheldon”. Good stuff.

I think I might have an early night… today was a day’s leave just to use the leave rather than loose it… I’m worn out.

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