29 September 2025 (Monday) - A Walk, Gardening, Geo-Meet

I stood on the scales this morning. I’ve lost three pounds this month – two and a half stone since the beginning of the year. That’s a result.
I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. It was still there. I saw that My Boy TM had shared an advert to his Facebook feed. A friend of his was selling his bivvy. A “bivvy” is a small tent used when fishing. You can get something which is virtually identical on Amazon brand new for twenty quid, but that would be a “tent”. A “bivvy” might look exactly the same to the uninitiated, but second-hand ones change hands for a hundred and fifty quid. You *really* don’t want to ask what a new one costs.
As I’ve said before, fishing isn’t a cheap hobby these days.
 
I Munzed… with one day to go we still haven’t hit out final target. And I got Wordle (civil) on the third attempt.
Bearing in mind the debacle of yesterday’s traffic I checked the traffic map. Yesterday one lane of the dual carriageways on the way to the woods was closed off for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Google said the roads were clear today, so I believed it and took the dogs out.
 
We went up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about downloading people to the cloud where they would live forever. As the radio show went on it became very clear that no one really knew what “downloading people to the cloud” actually meant; let alone how you might go about it.
We got to the woods; we had a good walk. My birdsong app told me that coal tits and goldcrest are now rare, and siskins are now uncommon. They weren’t the last time I detected any of them. And we saw deer; a herd of half a dozen who stood and watched us. The dogs watched them; it was only when the deer ran off that the dogs tried to chase them; and it was a half-hearted chase at best.
 
We came home for a cuppa, then I had a little look in the garden. I strimmed the edges and mowed the lawn. I cut back the jungle which was flowing over the fence. And I made a start at the bald spot on the lawn. Underneath the garden table is quite a large bald area which doesn’t look good. So I moved the table out of the way. The bald spot was rock hard so I got the drill out and drilled a few dozen holes into it. Hopefully rain and dew will get in and soften it all up and it will re-seed itself. Or it won’t…
I then bionically burned the sunburst pattern up by the pond. The weeds keep growing through it. I might lift the lot and put more anti-weed membrane there. And I replaced the battery in the garden clock. It had lasted six months; I was rather pleased with that, but to be honest I have no idea if that is good or bad.
 
I came I for a late lunch. But the time I sorted myself some peanut butter and marmalade it was after two o’clock. Despite supposedly being on leave I did some CPD, then played the bots at chess.
Suddenly the afternoon was all but gone. I stood up and loudly announced that I was going to “FEED THE FISH””. Dogs went from snoring to charging down the garden in the blink of an eye.
 
We had a quick pizza, then popped down to Folkestone for the geo-meet. It was a shame that Treacle felt the need to scoff the organiser’s chips, but there it is. Or was. It was a surprisingly well-attended meet-up; turning up gave us a Treasure and a Souvenir. It would have been good to have stayed longer, but “er indoors TM had bowling.
She dropped me and the dogs home then went off to bowling. I sorted the dog’s dinners then cracked on with ironing shirts whilst watching the last episode of “Years and Years”. If you get a chance, do give it a watch. Bear in mind it was written in 2018 and predicted COVID, the rise of Reform UK, Trumpism…

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