21 January 2025 (Tuesday) - An Afternoon in Canterbury

There was actual news on Facebook this morning (as opposed to the usual drivel). There were reports of an escaped pig on the Romney Marsh. Apparently he’s been on the loose since the weekend and whilst amiable enough seems to be enjoying freedom. People seem happy enough to watch him; no one seems to want to try to catch him.
Someone claimed that the wild boar in the area (that have been there since an escape following the storm of 1987) have interbred with domestic pigs and now look like spotted pigs. I *think* I’ve seen boar in the distance at Orlestone before, but could be wrong.
People were squabbling on one of the Star Trek fan pages; a squabble easily settled by actually watching the TV show,
And then my piss boiled. Someone had been round Kings Wood at the weekend looking for the geocaches I’d hidden there. That someone wasn’t as complementary about my efforts as they might have been. But then I suppose they probably don’t realise how much effort goes in to creating a geocache as despite having found over twelve thousand of the things she’s not actually hidden a single one herself.
 
I munzed, Wordled, and as the dogs scoffed brekkie I got ready for the off. I loaded the dogs into the car, and I brought along the humane mouse trap; we’d caught a mouse.
As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were talking about the recent murders in Stockport. From what I can work out, some crackpot ran amok. The Prime Minister was saying all sorts of things, but I can’t help but wonder if bringing back the noose would sort it out? Hang ‘em high and leave the corpse hanging where anyone else inclined to do the same can see it. Harsh? Perhaps. But I’ve mentioned before that as a lad at school lI lived in terror of the headmaster. If you went too far you got two strokes of the cane. One boy had a sore arse for a day, and seven hundred boys behaved themselves for a year.
 
With plans for later in the day I didn’t have that long for a dog walk, so we went to Orlestone. You never know – we might have seen another wild boar.
We didn’t.
But despite the mud (and there was a lot of it) we had a good walk round. We didn’t see anyone else at all while we walked, but forty minutes dog walking uses up one hundred and forty calories. And we released the mouse into the wild as well. There are those who say I should have smacked it, but as Darcie would say “he’s so cute”.
 
We came home, and after a cuppa I set off to Folkestone. I arrived at the abode of “Daddies’ Little Angel TM and Darcie WaaWaa TM immediately told me to go away. As we walked to the car so I tried to jolly littlun up. “Don’t talk to me!” she announced, and when we got out of the car at Canterbury she told me that I couldn’t come and I had to stay in the car. We went to Subway where I was told to sit at another table. She had the right hump with me for no reason that we could fathom.
But…
We’d gone to Canterbury so that “Daddies’ Little Angel TM could take her driving theory test. As she went in to the test centre and I started babysitting duties, Darcie WaaWaa TM’s attitude changed completely. We had a great time. We went to the Beaney Museum and looked at Bagpuss and the Clangers and stuffed birds. Littlun was particularly taken by a stuffed lion.
 
After far longer than I thought we would ever manage in the museum we wandered back to find the most recent fruit of my loin. And as we walked so I slowed right down to earwig on a rather interesting conversation between what I can only describe as “two scratters”. One was an incredibly fat young male scratter with a frankly ridiculous beard that came up to the underside of (but not past) his chin. The other was a rather scruffy looking woman who seemed almost but not quite old enough to be his mother. I wish I’d recorded the conversation (ranting) She was shrieking about their not going to McDonalds. They were never going to McDonalds. She’d only mentioned McDonalds as it was the only way she could get him out of her house. But now that he was out of her house, he didn’t live there anymore. His home was now (apparently) one of the benches in Canterbury High Street. She screeched that his calling her a slag whilst at the bus stop was crossing the line. I would have liked to ask his calling her a slag at the train station or chip shop was acceptable, but it was at that point that “Daddies’ Little Angel TM returned and I was ordered away.
 
We went back to Folkestone. The most recent fruit of my loin had another errand to run, so I had more babysitting. But seeing that littlun was fast asleep I just drove her to Ramsgate and back whilst she slept to pass the time.
 
I came home, and after a little farting about I managed to connect the step counter on my watch to the MyFitnessPal app. Having done so it says that having walked twelve thousand steps today means I am allowed to scoff a thousand extra calories. In layman’s terms a thousand extra calories is about two thirds of the sub I scoffed for lunch.
 
“er indoors TM boiled up a really good diet dinner which we devoured whilst watching more “Junior Bake Off”. And with that scoffed I loaded up the dishwasher. Because the thing now has a functional power supply.
It is so good to be able to walk round the house without stepping over power cables running all over the place.

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