18 November 2024 (Monday) - Perry Wood

I spent most of yesterday evening asleep in front of the telly, and slept like a log last night. I woke at eight o’clock to the sound of Morgan heaving., so I leapt up and bundled him outside.
Finding myself wide awake I made toast and peered into the internet where I laughed at the Christians posting on an atheist Facebook page I follow.  That page is often amusing; today the righteous were gloating that the iniquitous sinners have only got six months left in which to repent. Apparently the world is ending next April. I had a look on Google to see if this is true; apparently some Bulgarian mystic called Baba Vanga has predicted the end of the world starting next year. She also predicted Muslim rule of Europe in 2043, the entire world going communist in 2076 and humanity being wiped out in 5079.
I must admit I’m not unduly fussed. I remember the first end of the world. It was on the first of January 1980 and had been predicted by Nostradamus. Me and my mate Douggie Small spent the day walking round Hastings looking for any signs of the world having ended, and we both had something of a sense of anticlimax about the whole thing. There’s been several end of the worlds since. Only two years after the first one I was rather disappointed that the planet Jupiter’s gravity didn’t pull the Earth apart as had been predicted by some prominent astrophysicist. Halley’s comet didn’t wipe anything out in 1986, the Rapture didn’t come in 1988 (or any time in the early 90s – there were several of these), several predicted nuclear wars and alien-instigated wipeouts failed to materialize, and by the time we got to Nostradamus’s second go in July 1999 I rather gave up on end of the worlds.
There’s a list of most of them on Wikipedia if you’re interested.
 
I had an email telling me that someone had commented on yesterday’s blog entry. People rarely do, but the option is there. However I moderate each comment before it gets published since spambots have tried to use this blog as a vehicle for their advertising. Sadly this is what happened overnight. Someone wrote “It sounds like you had a rather slow start to your day, with the early wake-up and some quiet time before heading to work. It's always a nice surprise when the roads are clear, especially on a Sunday! Sometimes those quiet mornings are a welcome break”. And then they followed this up with two adverts; one for cheap pharmaceuticals and for Rack Supported Mezzanine floors. Whatever they are.
I deleted the comment.
 
I Munzed, got Wordle on my third attempt, and took the dogs out. We drove up to Perry Wood today for a change. As we drove I listened to the pundits on the radio who talking about political advisors. Historically they have been unelected buddies of politicians and have been useful not so much to offer advice as to take the blame for unsuccessful policies. The examples of Thomas Cromwell and Dominic Cummings were given. Despite being hundreds of years apart their cases were rather similar, weren’t they?
 
The last time we went to Perry Woods I couldn’t find the place. Today I used the sat-nav and we arrived to find an empty car park. I sparked up my geo-app; there’s one geocache up there that has eluded me for some time, and over the weekend the chap who had hidden it had given me the heads-up on it and had been out to check on it himself as it hadn’t been found for three years. The chap had even put crossed sticks forming an “X” over it but I still took fifteen minutes to find it. Some people who hide geocaches want them found, and some don’t.
Having found it we then went on through the woods looking for the other three geocaches in those woods. We found one of them. We’ll go back for the other two in the spring – it was rather slippery and swampy today. I took a few photos though – Perry Wood is a rather pretty place,
 
We came home where the dogs had a warm shower. I’d rather not wash the dogs after a walk if I can get away with it though. They come home very tired but the shower/bath somehow puts them all in a very hyperactive and excitable mood which lasts for far too long.
Eventually they were asleep, and I then cleaned out the filter in the little fish pond. I need to see if I can find a very small pressure filter for that pond; the current one needs cleaning out every couple of weeks and isn’t the easiest to clean.
 
I then spent the afternoon re-writing a Wherigo cartridge. Over the last few years I’ve spent ages writing fun little GPS games only to have people using cheat software to extract the final geocache locations… and then complain that by cheating they can’t get the hints and tips that I write into them. After a couple of hours I came up with one that isn’t entirely cheat-resistant but does throw people off the scent.
 
“er indoors TM sorted dinner then set off to bowling as she does on Monday evenings. I settled on the sofa and was soon snoring underneath a pile of dogs. Who were also snoring…

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