3 June 2019 (Monday) - New Camera

I think the rather busy weekend had taken its toll. I slept like a log last night. Mind you it was a shame that "er indoors ^TM"’s phone started coming out with a load of notification bleeps from half past four onwards.

Having been woken I tried to get back to sleep, but it wasn’t happening. I got up and made myself some brekkie. I scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “bonding”, then peered into the internet.

A row was kicking off on the Facebook geocaching pages. Someone who’s not hidden a geocache for years was banging on about what those who have hidden them should be doing. I drafted a reply… then deleted it. I had a good walk yesterday with good friends. That’s how I want to hunt Tupperware. Outside with friends doing it. Not squabbling over the Internet about it.

I sent a birthday message to "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM", then got myself ready for work.

As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about President Trump's state visit to the UK that was starting today. It has caused a *lot* of upset among the general public. The trouble is that people see him offering opinions on UK politics, and trying to buy the NHS, and interfering with the Brexit process, and calling the Duchess of Sussex "nasty". For all that he comes over as a bit of a twit, people seem to see the person, and not the office he fills. Bearing in mind that the UK has decided to comprehensively piss on its own chips by turning its back on some of its staunchest allies, openly offending the precious few that remain can't be a sensible way to proceed. (Can it?)

With a little time to spare I went to Sainsbury's for a bit of shopping. Usually that place hasn't been *too* bad. But today the assistants filling the shelves ran me over with their trollies (too busy gossiping with each other they weren't looking where they were going). And when I went to pay for my shopping, the woman on the till was too busy chattering at the other customers that she ignored my Nectar card. When I finally shoved it up her nose, she looked at it (and me) like we were the shit on her shoe and said if I wanted the points I could go to the customer services desk. Her attitude and implication was that I could get knotted for all that she cared.

So I went to the customer service desk and made great fuss of getting two and a half pence worth of Nectar points, and told the manager there exactly why I was doing so.

Probably rather petty of me... but the silly old bat had boiled my piss.

I went into work, and spent much of the day wishing I hadn't. What with a busy weekend and (probably) too much sun yesterday I wasn't on top form today. I bided my time quietly until my phone beeped. It was as well that I hadn't phoned in sick. Yesterday I ordered a new camera on Amazon, and I was amazed to find that (for once) Amazon actually delivered on their promise of next day delivery. I walked the few yards to the Amazon locker at work to get my parcel, then went back and carried on biding my time until I could go home

Once home I walked the dogs up to the co-op field where Fudge was sick. As he was throwing up a dog the size of a rhinoceros came bounding up. Fudge was busy being sick, Treacle was terrified, and Pogo protected his pack. The idiot woman running after the dog tried to bleat on that he was friendly. I pointed out that he might be, but my dogs were terrified. She didn’t take the hint, but after a little while she took offence, and then went and terrorised other dogs who had been hitherto minding their own business.

We came home. "er indoors ^TM" boiled up a rather good bit of dinner. Once we’d got it scoffed she went bowling, and I settled in for a marathon ironing session. As I ironed I watched last week’s “Jamestown” (which is going just a little bit new-age-hippy), and then I watched the first episode of “Gentleman Jack” which seems to have promise.

I then had a go with my new camera… the pictures aren’t all that good. Perhaps I need to fiddle with it?

2 June 2019 (Sunday) - Eynesford

Yesterday I started off by remembering ten years ago. I shall do so again today. Ten years ago (today) was the funeral of my old mucker Dave Morley. Dave was one of those larger-than-life characters. Everyone in his home town knew him. He was one of those people who made the world a better place. As teenagers we went to Boys Brigade together. He then became head launcher for Hastings lifeboat. He bowled competitively at county level. He was on the committee of the Winkle Club. He was secretary of his local working men’s club. For years he’d been a leader at my old Boys Brigade group. And he was a good mate – not just to me, but to the world at large. He would do anything for anyone, and he died of bowel cancer when only a shade over forty years old. His funeral was in one of the biggest churches in Hastings, and it was standing room only. I still miss him…

I didn’t really sleep that well last night. It was warm, and I spent much of the night trying to straighten an uncomfortable wrinkle in the sheet only to eventually find it was Pogo’s tail. And when I finally did nod off, the dogs sounded “Red Alert” when next-door went out at six o’clock.

Over brekkie I did my usual look at the Internet to see what had happened overnight… I expect that quite a bit happened. It’s just that not everyone records it quite as monotonously as I do. I then spent a little while fighting with a geo-puzzle, gave up, ordered a digital camera for next-day delivery on Amazon, and got ready for the off.

"er indoors ^TM" and I got the dogs and the requisite tackle into the car and we drove up to Eynesford where we met Karl, Tracey and Charlotte. I was a tad concerned when I saw everyone was in shorts. Was I overdressed? My trousers had removable legs… but rummaging in the undergrowth usually involves fights with stinging nettles so I stayed with the trousers.

We set off on out walk. Within minutes we met Wayne, Lyn and Dave who had randomly decided to do the same walk as us. We walked together; it was good to catch up.

Our walk was (as ever) dictated by a series of geocaches. It started off following a country lane along which cyclists were hurtling at speeds that I can only describe as “f…ing stupid”. If I had ever caught either of my children flying round blind corners of lanes at those speeds I would have confiscated their bikes and grounded them for a month. Why on Earth do these cyclists go so ridiculously fast when it is patently unsafe to do so?

After a mile or so the route moved onto footpaths, and everyone was happier.

We followed the paths on a circular route back into Eynesford and had lunch by the ford. It was a rather pretty place to have a sandwich. It was here that Pogo had his only bark at another dog. But (to be fair to Pogo) the other dog was clearly a malamute (or was a malamute cross) and bearing in mind that one of those savaged poor Sid I think that Pogo was right to raise the alarm. When you think that only a few months ago Pogo was barking at everything, he’s come on in leaps and bounds.

It was shortly after lunch that we said goodbye to Lyn, Wayne and Dave. We’d (nearly) walked one of two loops of the route of geocaches. They were going on to do the second. But it was a hot day, we were short of dog water… and a leisurely pint or two seemed attractive. We said our goodbyes and went into the garden of the Five Bells.

The Five Bells is… an odd pub. Bearing in mind that we usually try to walk on a Saturday as pubs are heaving on Sunday, we arrived to find we had the beer garden to ourselves. And there was only a couple of people in the pub itself. It was a nice enough pub; clean and friendly. Admittedly it didn’t serve food but was that any reason for the place to be so empty?

But we weren’t complaining. With no normal people about we could enjoy the day without worrying about upsetting the normal people.

Mind you when we were just starting the third pint a young couple arrived at the other end of the garden. They were very “lovey-dovey”, and when they thought no one was looking, the young lady of the pair would flash her “lady-dumplings” at her boyfriend.

We stayed for another pint, but when it became clear that she was being rather judicious in the direction in which she was flashing her “lady-dumplings” we carried on with our walk. After all, we weren’t far from the car. I took quite a few photos as we walked.

Geocache-wise it was a rather good walk. We found as many caches today as we did last Sunday, but in half the distance. We found one cache that we couldn’t find when we were hunting Tupperware in the area on 27 April 2014. We found two that I doubt will last very long; as we were doing the secret geo-rituals we were being watched from nearby houses.

We said our goodbyes, and sent off homewards. We hadn’t been driving more than a minute when we drove past other friends who were walking the same geo series. We beeped and waved.

Perhaps it was the heat of the day… perhaps it was the seven miles walk… just possibly it was the third pint, but I slept all the way home.

Once home we fed the hounds and settled them, had a quick scrub up, and drove round for dinner with "My Boy ^TM". Cheryl boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we soon devoured and followed up with ice cream. We talked wedding plans… a rather good evening to a rather good day.

Unfortunately when I got home I rather put “Trap One” through its paces. My stomach’s not right…

1 June 2019 (Saturday) - Rather Busy

Today is something of an anniversary… I’ve been meticulously recording the trivia of my life for twelve and a half years. When I started I said it was for the edification of generations yet unborn, but so far "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM" (who was minus eight when it all started) seems singularly unimpressed.

I started off writing my rubbish on a Yahoo site, but Yahoo 360 closed down after a couple of years. So ten years ago (to the day) I moved to Google’s “Blogspot” and the rest is history. Or my rather hagiographed (look it up) version of it. I was going to say that on the whole it’s not been a bad ten years, but I’ve been rather selective in what history I’ve recorded. There’s no denying that some of those years weren’t quite what they might have been, and that I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy (and I can be a rather nasty and vindictive old git when I fall out with someone). But I think I’ve ended these ten years in a better place than where I started them.

So… enough of this reflective twaddle.

I slept for over eight hours last night. That was something of a result; it was a shame that "er indoors ^TM" had forgotten to turn off her alarm. I got up and made myself some toast. I shared the crusts with Fudge (who wasn’t even born ten years ago) and I had a little look at the Internet. Not much had happened overnight, but I did have a message that “Aslam” hd left a comment on my blog post from a couple of days ago. He started well by saying “Your blog really nice. Its sound really good. I am very time read your blog. Thanks for the sharing this blog with us. Keep it up” but he then went on to piss on his chips by trying to advertise his “best seo company in India” by posting a link which made my anti-virus software have a little fit.

So I deleted his missive, and phoned the mobile phone people. If I want to use the Internet on my phone whilst I am away on my upcoming jolly, they will charge me six quid per day. They will only charge me for the days that I use roaming data… but six quid a day is a tad steep.

The phone call might have gone better had I been able to understand more than half of what the nice lady had been saying.

"er indoors ^TM" set off on a mission to post birthday cards and get new tyres. I fed laundry to the washing machine and went out into the garden. The lawn needed mowing, edging stones needed straightening. The bottom of the fence panel at the end of the garden has broken. I looked at it for a bit, decided that the hole was nowhere near big enough for a dog to get through, and so thought I’ll worry about that later. I contented myself with running out the hose pipe and topping up the fish pond.

I came in to find the washing machine had given up the ghost with my smalls. For all that it said it had finished, the thing was still full of water. I set it to the spin cycle. After quite a bit of fighting with the machine I eventually flooded the kitchen. "er indoors ^TM" insists we use “colour catcher” things and all they do is get into the works and block up the pump that empties the drum. I finally untangled the pump even if I did have to use the dogs’ bedding to contain the floodwaters (again).

The dogs needed a walk. I’d had reports that some of my geocaches out on the Godinton series had gone missing. I had this idea that going for a walk to replace them might tire the dogs out so they would sleep this evening, so we drove out to the Godinton estate and had a rather good wander about. My geo-series around Godinton isn’t as dog-friendly as my one in Kings Wood, but it isn’t a bad stroll. It’s just a shame that what with all the sheep the dogs can’t be off the leads as much as they might be. In the end it turned out that three caches were missing. I soon replaced them.

As we walked back past the river we hoped to let the dogs have a spuddle. However there was a bunch of lads there fishing. I say “fishing” - I’ve never seen anyone use a spinner with a float before. Let alone having the spinner baited with bread. They told me they were fishing for pike. Have you ever seen a pike? They things have razor-sharp teeth, and mouths big enough to take your entire hand. Heaven only knows what tey would have done had they caught a pike.

I offered them a few pointers which they seemed to take with good grace, then one of the lads cast his tackle into the river… and missed. Now I’ve been fishing (on and off) for over fifty years. I’ve seen good fishermen and I’ve seen bad fishermen. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone quite as crap as these lads today. "My Boy ^TM" used to go fishing on his on at their age; he would have known what to do with a pike. It was good that these lads were fishing, and not lurking round street corners menacing the public. But they needed some help. Hopefully I’ve taught them something.

We came home, and I had another little set-to with the washing machine’s waste trap. I *think* the thing is sorted now.

Matt arrived, we settled the dogs, and drove off to Whitstable. We were soon in the Twelve taps where we met up with Steve and Julie, and Jose and Maria (and Enrique). After a quick pint of stout we went next door to the theatre where we’d got tickets to see “Little Shop of Horrors”. The theatre was packed. It was a really good show. And well priced too. Tickets were a fraction of the cost we’ve paid elsewhere. And the refreshments – a bottle of lemonade costing over three quid elsewhere was only one pound fifty. And the pots of ice cream that other places charge a fiver for were being knocked out at two quid. Bargain.

It was really good to have such a good night with old friends. We really should meet up more often.

And as we were leaving the theatre I met someone with whom I used to work over thirty years ago. "er indoors ^TM" and his wife were pregnant together; we went to the same ante-natal classes.

I shall program “Hannah” and then go to bed… it’s been a busy old day today…