20 July 2021 (Sunday) - End Of The Holiday

I slept till nine o’clock this morning, and got up to an incredibly empty house. I’ve always said that we had far too many dogs, but we’ve only got one now. Pogo will be back in a few days but we’re missing him. It didn’t help when I turned on Facebook and was immediately presented with a memory – a video of Fudge playing in the river.

 

I then had a little think about my geocaching Community Celebration Event. As lockdown eases, several people (me included) have been given the opportunity to run a geocaching Community Celebration Event. This is supposed to be something special. Not just a “turn up, smile and go home” (like many geo-meets) but a proper “event”. I had an idea for a pub quiz, but that gets costly for those who support the pub, and I find it frankly embarrassing watching others make a glass of tap water last all afternoon. I had an idea for a hike, but the geo-feds said no to that in an email I received this morning. I’ve got one or two other plans, but I’m wondering if I can be bothered. The more I look into it, it seems that the idea is that I put on an epic extravaganza that lasts for (at least) two hours. However to claim the credit for attending all anyone needs to do is turn up, say “hello Dave” and then go home again. Quite a few people have said that no matter what is happening, turning up, saying “hello Dave” and then going home again is what they will do.

 

I phoned Dad to wish him a happy Father’s Day; we’d popped down with a pressie a couple of days ago. Like me, he doesn’t really go much on Father’s Day.

Bearing in mind how soaked we’d got yesterday we’d decided not to go on a major walk today, and so I found myself at something of a loose end for much of the day today. I was that bored that I got the old camping tables out of the lock-ups and gave them a once-over. Two are OK; two are salvageable. I just need several yards of elastic to fix them.

 

After a spot of lunch I put the finishing touches to my current Wheri-project whilst all the time peering out of the window. It wasn’t *that* bad outside. Maybe we could have gone out somewhere?

After a couple of hours checking and re-checking I think the Wherigo is all but finished. All I need now is an email of permission (or not) from the landowner and then I can see what the geo-feds have to say about it.

 

With the ran seeming to have completely given up on the idea of falling we took Treacle out for a short walk. We drove out to Wye from where we walked a cross-country route up to the farm shop and back again. I found a geocache on the way; er indoors ^TM” found two. Treacle found (and got) a rabbit.

I wish she hadn’t.

Mind you I think that rabbit must have been a sick one. When Pogo caught a rabbit last year it was after a prolonged chase, and he only managed to snag it when the rabbit ran head-first into a tree and knocked itself senseless. There was no major chase involved today; suddenly Treacle just had a rabbit in her mouth.

Getting the dead rabbit from her took some doing. Her recall was always the worst of all the dogs. I often felt she only came back to us because Fudge or Pogo had come back. If Pogo is going to have holidays with his mummy as a regular thing, Treacle will be on the lead a whole lot more.

 

We came home. Treacle had a bath, and I sat and listened to not-so-nice-next-door clanging on her piano. I say “clanging on her piano”; to be fair to her she’s not that bad really. She’s far better than I ever was when I took piano lessons some twenty-five years ago. But she’s nowhere near as good as you would think someone would be having practiced for two hours a day, every day, for the last twenty years.

 

And that’s my little holiday over and done with. It hasn’t been a bad break I suppose… it was a shame that over this last two weeks the weather has been (mostly) either *far* too hot or pouring hard, and for much of the time when the weather wasn’t against me I was crying about dead dogs. But there it is..

I’m back to work tomorrow. I am looking forward to it (I really am!) In years gone by I would be walking in to a guilt trip from the boss saying how much hard work it had been when I’d been on leave, whilst at the same time making it abundantly clear that he didn’t think I could be trusted to actually do the job unsupervised.

There is talk of where I used to work being merged with where I now work… If that happens I am *not* going to take the crap I took from their management (for many years). Perhaps I might retire if that happened?