I slept through till after eight o’clock this morning. That rarely happens. Over brekkie I peered into the Internet to see what had happened in the world. The Brexit negotiations are going more and more pear-shaped. According to official government figures more and more people are now coming to the conclusion that Brexit was a big mistake, but it is a mistake that has been made, and there is no point in harping on about it (even though that’s what I’m doing). With the final unequivocal Brexit-means Brexit deadline for an agreement having been passed (yesterday) there’s now to be a further couple of weeks talking. I wonder if it will achieve anything? There has already been four years of talking. As I said on 13 July 2016 “We've voted to leave the EU. It's time to either crap or get off the khazi”
A friend was posting on Facebook about supporting small businesses in the run up to Christmas, and he was encouraging the world and his wife to tout their wares. Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for supporting the little guy… but when they are selling petrol at ten pence a litre more than other garages, when their honey is five pounds per jar more than the corner shop, when their home-made wine tastes of vinegar and is twice the price of the stuff in Tesco… Mind you my eyes rolled at one local business. Are you too busy to write Christmas cards? Someone locally was offering to hand-write and post Christmas cards (with hand-written envelopes) for people who are too busy to write the things themselves. Really? Once you’ve farted about deciding on your festive message and sending through the names and addresses of those you can’t be bothered to send a card to, how much time have you actually saved?
I popped the leads on to the dogs, and with a car that works we drove out to Great Chart. I drove with a feeling of “what will go wrong with the car next”; I do get rather paranoid. As we drove, Floella Benjamin (of “Play School fame) was the castaway on the radio on “Desert Island Discs”. She said that her lame to fame was that before she became a TV celebrity she was the first woman employee of a British bank to be allowed to wear trousers to work.
We got to Great Chart and had a little walk. I say “little”; it was about three miles. We walked down to the river, then across the fields almost out to Ripper’s Wood, and back again. A geocache of mine had gone missing. I get the odd “DNF” (Did Not Find) report on caches from time to time, but with four consecutive didn’t-finds from hunters of Tupperware (with finds totalling over forty thousand between them) I thought I should go do something. Sure enough the cache was missing. It was soon replaced, and going there and back did make a good dog walk. But it was as well that I had a spare morning to go walking today. I’ve mentioned before that although the rules do say that it is up to the hider to sort any issues, when I go out hunting Tupperware I do my homework and ask the hider if they want any missing ones replaced.
As we walked we met other dogs. An elderly couple had a gaggle of hounds who barked and growled at my dogs who then barked and growled back. And we then all walked together with all dogs playing happily for over a mile. It was *so* good to meet other dog owners who understand what dogs are like and what dogs do. After the initial shouting, all the dogs were best of buddies. It really is a dog thing.
Also as we walked I realised my foot felt damp. There was a split in the leather of my boot; it was half an inch long. I suppose I can’t complain – my boots get some serious use and this pair have done me for over two years (I got them on 15 April 2018)
With damp dogs returned to "er indoors TM"; I drove out to Go Outdoors in Canterbury where after a little standing around waiting, the nice lady helped me sort out a new pair of boots. They weren’t cheap, but (like with most things) you get what you pay for. They come with an interesting guarantee: “… we guarantee every product for its lifetime. This is the length of time any piece of kit can be reasonably expected to keep delivering the same great performance as when it was new.” So they are guaranteed not to fall apart until such time as they do fall apart. That’s useful.
I came home to find "Daddy’s Little Angel TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" in residence. "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" had a McBurger that he didn’t want to eat and was getting very stressed because the dogs did want to eat it. If he would only have put it out of their reach, all would have been well. But he was adamant he would put it where they could get it, and then got more and more angry as the dogs tried to get it. In the end I ate it.
After an hour or so they had to make tracks; I drove them down to Folkestone, and came home to find it was nearly five o’clock. I had so much planned for today.
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