I was rather later to bed last night than I might have
been. There was talk all over social media last night about the Northern Lights
being visible in the South East so I went out into the garden, and they were. I
took a few photos.
This morning loads of people had posted photos of what
they’d seen last night. At the risk of appearing to be an old misery-guts I
don’t know what I was expecting from the Northern Lights, but I was expecting
more than what I saw. Having often considered going on one of these trips
specifically to see the aurora I’m glad I didn’t spend hundreds of pounds.
Perhaps they are more impressive closer to the pole? I suppose having been
waiting for over fifty years to see the lights, they were never going to live
up to my expectations.
It would seem that no one had done much else other than
look at the northern lights overnight as there was very little else on social
media this morning. Mind you I still had seemingly endless adverts for escorted
holidays on my Facebook feed. Since we went away a couple of weeks ago I’m
being bombarded with adverts for holidays. One caught my eye; an
overland tour round Africa. Pretty much all of Africa. Starting at the end of
this month you can tour all round from Morocco to Egypt via Cape Town. It is
billed as a “singles” holiday with a target age range of eighteen to
eighty and is a tour lasting forty-seven weeks. It only costs ten thousand
pounds. I would ask who could go on holiday for a year, but I suppose enough
people must do that sort of thing to make it worth the company’s while running
them.
I Munzed, got Wordle on the sixth attempt, and took the
dogs to the woods. As we walked we met several dogs in the depths of the woods
still on their leads. One chap commented that my dogs weren’t on leads. I replied
that he was correct and that they weren’t. He then told me that my dogs were
running loose. I pointed out that the reason for that was that they weren’t on
their leads. As this bloke glared at me I whistled and walked off with all
three dogs following me.
We came home. Surprisingly all three dogs were clean. No
muck or mud. No need for a bath. So, leaving the dogs with “er indoors TM”,
I set off to Canterbury. Having taken far too much money with us to Uzbekistan
I had quite a few American dollars to change up. I could have changed it up in
any one of several places but having changed it into pounds I wanted to put those
pounds into my bank account. And seeing how forward-thinking and switched-on my
bank is (!), I had to go to the Canterbury branch to do that. At first
sight I was rather miffed at how much commission they were charging, but from
what I could see on-line, pretty much everyone doing currency conversions was
wanting a comparable bung.
With dollars converted and in my account I then asked about
the Uzbek money I’ve got left over. The nice bank man asked his boss… it turns
out that my bank doesn’t deal in Uzbek Soms, but they said that the bureau de
change in the High Street might. I couldn’t get there though – the High Street
was cordoned off. Apparently there had been a murder.
Instead, I went to the Post Office where (sadly) all
the competent staff had gone for a break and left the village idiot in command.
In a rather condescending tone she asked what I wanted. I explained that I
wanted to exchange Uzbek soms for pounds sterling. She arrogantly announced
that she could easily do that, and snatched my wad of soms with a flourish. She
then looked at them. And looked again. And asked what they were supposed to be.
I told her that, to the best of my knowledge, they were supposed to be Uzbek
soms. She asked where they came from. I replied Uzbekistan (leaving off the
“dur!”). She fiddled with her computer, and again asked where they came
from.
We went through this four times, after which she told me (rather
arrogantly) that she’d been through the “H” section on her computer
four times, and there is no such country as Uzbekistan. I took my wad of soms
back and told her that I would take my custom to somewhere that can spell “Uzbekistan”.
Sadly it turns out that there isn’t anywhere that I can
really take my custom (and soms). I’ve found a couple of places that
will change them to pounds, but they want ridiculous amounts of commission.
I’ve got about twenty quid’s worth of soms; if any of my loyal readers are
going on holiday, let me know…
From Canterbury I drove out to Staple. This weekend sees
international EarthCache Day. Anyone logging an Earthcache gets a special
souvenir.
To the uninitiated, an Earthcache is effectively an unholy
combination of a geocache and your geology homework, and having found over a
hundred of the things, there’s not many unfound ones left within spitting
distance. In fact when I checked the geo-map there was only one within twenty
miles of home. Fortunately that one was in the general direction of Canterbury.
Now that I’ve logged that one, my closest unfound EarthCache is in the general
vicinity of “er indoors TM” grandmother’s old house
near Bexhill.
With EarthCaching done I got out the pressure washer again
and had another blat at the area just outside the back door. Really I should do
it more often than I do. Little and often, rather than waiting till it gets amazingly
filthy and then having to seriously scrub. After all, that pressure washer does
generate quite a lot of really dirty water, and I always make the schoolboy
error of using the pressure washer to unblock the drain… which sprays muck
everywhere.
I then bionically burned the garden path. I must admit I’m
quite pleased with that bionic burner. Provided I remember to wave it round
once every few weeks it is making a far better job of controlling the weeds
than getting on my hands and knees and pulling ever did.
“er indoors TM” boiled up fish
and chips and we scoffed it whilst watching the final of “Bake Off: The
Professionals”. That series was rather good, but I was rather distracted by
one of the presenters whose skull appeared to be one size too big for her head.
I wonder what we’ll watch next…
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