8 November 2020 (Sunday) - Not Working

The original plan for today had me working this morning. I think that by doing Friday night rather than the shifts on Friday (late) and today (morning), I got the better end of the deal. I got up about half an hour after I would have started working, let out those dogs that wanted to be let out, and made some toast.

As I scoffed it I peered into the Internet. I saw a friend had posted a link about the possible closure of Downe Scout Campsite. There is a campaign to raise two million pounds to save the place from closure. As an ex-scout leader myself I can’t help but wonder that if the Scout Association charged a sensible fee for the use of its facilities (rather than effectively giving them away) then they wouldn’t be in this predicament. When I was a cub scout leader we charged one pound fifty pence for a two-hour evening. Pretty much all the children did three or four other activities every week which cost over five pounds per hour. We used to offer a week at cub camp for twenty quid. A seven-day residential cub camp was cheaper than one working day’s child care. All the parents couldn’t believe how cheap scouting was. As leaders we used to bend over backwards to subsidise people who were far wealthier than we were.
There was also quite a few people who were whinging about the fireworks that had been set off yesterday; many people had very frightened and upset pets last night. Whilst I sympathise, t
here is something odd this year – my hounds have had the odd bark or two at fireworks, but generally they weren’t at all bothered whereas in the past they have been barking constantly.
If I knew why I’d tell everyone.
And finally it would seem that the American election finally has a result. Trump is out, Biden is in. Now the endless lawsuits begin.
As an outsider looking in I’m reminded of the referendum we had here in the UK about whether or not to leave the European Union four years ago. Feelings ran very high, and when the “leave” side won by a narrow margin, although the referendum had a result, there was a lot of upset and bad feeling that is still very evident four years later. I suspect American society will be very divided after this.

And there were quite a few posts about today being Remembrance Sunday. Such a shame that the majority of people were posting about “less” we forget….

While "er indoors TM" scoffed her brekkie I went into the garden and raked up more fallen leaves. I got enough of the things; I deliberately didn’t give the job my best shot as there will be loads more to rake in a few days. There always is at this time of year. I’ve never raked leaves in previous years; instead every spring I find myself faced with a rather epic and rather yukky clean-up operation. I’m hoping next year’s garden spring clean might be a little less intensive.

 

"er indoors TM" had an errand to run in New Romney, so we settled Sid and all drove down there. And with our usual Sunday walk being cancelled due to Lockdown II we took the dogs for a run on the beach. I wasn’t sure if dogs were allowed there; a passing elderly couple gave me an evil glare as they walked past. I checked with other dog walkers – dogs were fine on the beach; that elderly couple just wished they weren’t. As we walked Pogo found (and rolled in) what looked like half of a dead fish. We watched canoeists getting stuck in the mud. Fudge ran out to help them and got stuck himself. He got free eventually; I didn’t have to go rescue him, for which I was grateful. We played throwing stones into the water. We all had a swim.

I took a few photos as we walked along the shore. We’d originally thought of walking along some footpaths from Old Romney church but had decided against that idea as the long grass would get the dogs wet. Instead we had three hounds all dripping sea water and covered in sand.

 

We went back to my car where we did our trick of “boot dogs” and came home where we did “bath dogs”, and it wasn’t long before they were all snoring. With a little time on my hands I played Lego. Years ago Jose got me the Lego Krusty Krab set. I finally put the thing together today. I had a vague plan to see what it looked like, then cannibalise it to build a generic shop in my Lego town. But once it was made I decided that it could go into Lego world as it was. I’m not sure about Mr Krab’s patty-mobile, but the café itself looks rather good. You can see photos of my Lego world by clicking here.

 

"er indoors TM" boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching this week’s episode of “Taskmaster” (which was rather fun) and a re-run of “Red Dwarf – The Promised Land” (which wasn’t). Not that I don’t like “Red Dwarf”…

To be honest I liked it when it first came out over thirty years ago, but in the intervening years the jokes have been done to death. The writers really should have learned from “Fawlty Towers” and stopped when on a high…

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