I slept better than I often do, but was still wide
awake at five o’clock. Rather than laying in bed I got up and watched another
episode of “The Man In The High Castle”. I realise that they were quite
up on rocketry, but if the Axis powers really had won the second world war,
would they have had Concord-style supersonic planes in the early 1960s?
I then had my usual peer into the Internet. It was
still there. The usual drivel and squabbles abounded. I saw I’d been awarded a
“Top Fan” badge for having clicked Facebook’s “like” button on a
few photos on a dachshund page I follow. On a more serious note someone had
posted the results of their blood test to one of the work-related Facebook
groups I follow… This happens quite a bit. In some parts of the world it seems
you can pay to get blood tests done and then go around asking what the results
mean, and asking for quotes to sort out whatever the blood test had shown… I
suppose that it isn’t entirely unlike what happened when Fudge was diagnosed
with chronic kidney failure several years ago.
At first glance it seemed that today’s customer had
both acute leukaemia and thalassaemia minor, but there were plenty of people
queueing up to offer their sage advice and were suggesting everything from “piles”
through to “died three weeks ago”.
Be very careful when asking for medical (or any)
advice on-line. The less someone knows, the more confident and forceful they
are with their opinion. Leaving aside the (rather major) point that a
professional blood tester doesn’t offer diagnoses (that’s what doctors do),
am I being hopelessly idealistic in preferring to have a “patient”
rather than a “customer”? And am I being hopelessly idealistic in
preferring that whoever used their professional judgement to ask for the blood
test would deliver the bad news rather than having someone wonder if a blood
test might tell them what was wrong with them (and then go onto Facebook to
have random strangers explain the results to them)?
I Munzed. I Wordled from “drain” through “clade”
to realise that “shady” was probably the only word which would fit… It
wasn’t “shady”. I tried random gibberish until I got it right with “toady”.
Is that even a word?
We got ourselves together. The plan was to go straight
to today’s adventure from Dog Club, so there was quite a bit to get together.
As I got bottles of cider in from the fridge in the shed I thought I could
smell turds… suddenly gripped by panic I had a look down the drain. The water
level was back where it should be… but there was quite a bit of “toilet
things” floating there. It probably needs a few flushes.
As I fiddled about so Steve was doing the “Guess
the Lyrics” competition on the radio. “I’m dancing on the white house
lawn”? I had no idea either. It was
“Life is a Minestrone” by 10cc.
We drove round to Repton and Dog Club where we had a
rather good session even if attendance was down somewhat. I blame the early
drizzle.
From there we went out t Barham where we met Karl and
Tracey. We went for a little geo-walk. Last year a series of puzzle geocaches
went out all based on the “Harry Potter” books. The puzzles were fun,
and the final geocache were all excellent; some involved well thought out field
puzzles. In over sixteen thousand finds this series is probably the best series
I’ve ever walked. The only criticism I could make would be that at nine miles
it was a tad long; maybe two shorter loops might have been more manageable for
an old git like me.
We walked nine miles over six hours, and with walk
walked we retired to the Duke
of Cumberland where
we had a rather good bit of dinner washed down by a few pints of very good ale…
We came home to a minor disaster in the small fish
pond. I shall deal with that in the morning.
In the meantime, here’s some photos of today.
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