I was sleeping so well when I bit my tongue in my
sleep and woke up with a start at ten past three. I didn’t really get back to
sleep after that.
I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Facebook
told me it was Terry’s birthday today. I miss Terry; it’s now four years since he went. We first met nearly twenty-five
years ago through flying kites. He worked overseas a lot, and we’d only meet up
a few times a year, but the times we met were always special. Camping holidays,
beer festivals, pub crawls round London and Maidstone and Dover. He would
always come back from abroad with a bandanna for me…
I miss Terry.
And my eyes rolled when I saw some of the posts on one
of the work-related Facebook groups. Do people *seriously* ask such
basic questions about very detailed technical matters on Facebook pages rather
than asking senior colleagues or manufacturers of laboratory instrumentation?
And if Facebook is their only resource, how do they distinguish between the one
correct answer and the myriad of utterly wrong answers?
I munzed, got Wordle (haunt) on the fifth go,
and got ready for the off.
As we drove round to Dog Club Steve was doing the “Guess
the Lyrics” competition on the radio, “I stop and stare at you walking
on the shore”. No? – Peter Andre – “Mysterious Girl”. No? – Me
neither.
We got to Dog Club and realising we’d left some vital
stuff behind, I went in with the dogs and set up, and “er
indoors TM” went back to get what
we’d forgotten. I was doing fine with the dogs until they heard the barking of
their friends arriving, and all three bolted out under the gate into the car
park to meet their mates. Fortunately they were immediately captured by their
mates’ owners.
As Dog Club went on I had a little chuckle. Treacle
tiddled on the decking in the field. As the session went on pretty much every
other dog had a sniff and tiddled in the same place.
We said our goodbyes, and as we drove off Steve was
doing the mystery year competition on the radio. When did Prince Andrew get
married? 1986.
We drove up to Harrietsham where we met Karl, Tracey,
Charlotte and Jess. We went on a little walk all the way up to the top of the
Downs and back again. It was quite a long way up, but the views from the top
were spectacular. As we walked down a frankly epic hill we saw some people
coming up. I suggested that as they came past we gloated about how we were
going down and they were going up. We all chuckled, and one of them said “hello
Dave”. I didn’t recognise her… it was my very first ever trainee with whom
I worked nearly thirty years ago. We’d lost touch – it was good to have a
little catch -up.
As we walked along one of the lanes so Bailey’s lead
dropped. Her collar actually snapped from where she’d been pulling to be at the
front of our group. I managed to bodge it round her neck. We’ve got a spare
somewhere.
And as we scoffed our lunch I registered my bottle of
beer on the Untappd app. I do that when we go on our walks. It gave me a little
badge for having checked in four hundred and thirty-five bottles of beer on
that app. Which is apparently more than anyone else on my Untappd friends list
has done.
Our route was (as always) laid out for us by a
series of geocaches. A guided walk is always good; it was only a shame that so
much of this walk was on county lanes. Admittedly mostly quiet county lanes but
there was one dodgy bit where we must have had to dodge a couple of dozen cars
in the space of a few minutes. Mind you, I’m not complaining. Someone has taken
the trouble to give me a guided walk through some rather pretty countryside,
and I am very grateful for that.
I took a few photos whilst we were out.
Once home I posted them to the Internet, and saw that we’d got one or two more
geo-Treasures.
The dogs were soon snoring. Usually after Dog Club
they are fast asleep by half past ten. They were worn out but by the time we
came home today it was mid-afternoon.
And as we had a cuppa so the heavens opened. I was
glad we had that rain whilst sitting on the sofa and not while we were out.
“er indoors TM” boiled
up a very good chili which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “Transaction” – a very good ITV comedy featuring a
particularly foxy trans character…
I’ve got to go to work again tomorrow…

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