17 August 2012 (Friday) - Guess What I Did

It turned out that despite it being a week day there were a few of us available to get into mischief today. Five of us gathered chez moi at 9am and we set off on what was originally planned to be a geocaching extravaganza. I'd planned a route which would take us three hours to cover and would visit seventeen geocaching sites; as well as getting us a spot of McBreakfast into the bargain.

In the end it turned out that I was being rather ambitious. We ended up taking two and a half hours just to get to McBreakfast; so we abandoned the entire Sevington and Hinxhill sections of the route. We can do them at any time. But the day was still a good one. We visited ten cache sites, and only failed on two of them. And we even found a red herring(!). We got home an hour later than planned, and after a shower and a quick spot of lunch I watched a film I'd recorded about the pirate Blackbeard. It was quite good.

One of the employment agencies phoned about a potential job. A few months ago I would be rather enthusiastic about the prospect. Now, having been turned down so many times, I'm rather resigned to the fact that nothing will come of it. But hope springs eternal...

"My Boy ^TM" then arrived with Fudge. He and his posse are of to foreign parts for the weekend and so we are looking after "problem pup". He's apparently getting too excitable. I say "probably"; there's no "probably" about it. He can be excitable. I wonder if it's time to cut his goolies off. Or just walk him a lot more than he has been walked.

As "My Boy ^TM" set off I set off with Fudge. A good walk usually works wonders with him. And this morning I'd been given a really good present. A ready-made geocache. (Cheers Jose!) And on our mission this morning I'd found just the place to hide it. So I went to that place, hid it, took the GPS co-ordinates six times (to get an average), walked another two miles to wear the pup out, and came home. As Fudge slept I then logged my third geocache hide with the nice people at geocaching dot com.

"er indoors ^TM" came home and we set off to Park Farm where we met Chris. A nice walk in the evening with the dog, and we did three geocaches too...

16 August 2012 (Thursday) - A Challenge

I had something of a lie-in this morning; not emerging from my pit until gone 8am. I spent a few minutes mucking out my inboxes of hundreds of spam emails, then set about mowing the lawn. That stuff grows too quickly.

I then spent a few hours looking for a pair of trousers. I have a pair I bought recently. Quite light; ideal for a walk in the summer. Can I find them? I eventually had to give up and rough it with another pair. I needed trousers. I’ve got my legs so badly ripped and stung by geocaching in shorts recently.

A quick bite of lunch, and Lisa soon arrived for an afternoon’s geocaching. We started with one along Hornash Lane and then failed to find the one at Orlestone Church before meeting Steve in Hamstreet. Through woodlands and footpaths in the sunshine; eventually finding eleven of our twelve targets for the afternoon.

And so home where I squeezed a few volts into my phone whilst waiting for "er indoors ^TM" to return. Once she was home we popped to the Fudgery to collect the problem pup, and we took him to the warren for a walk. It was utter co-incidence that there was a geocache there that we didn't do last night. This one was tricky. At the specified point (which was rather hard to find) were directions to a bench half a mile away. Once there we got instructions for finding the actual cache. Some might say it was a waste of an hour. Me - I had a great time with great company.

On the way home we stopped off to pose for photos with a piece of local artwork as part of an on-line challenge. It was simple enough to do. I might accept more of these on-line challenges...

15 August 2012 (Wednesday) - Stuff

Yesterday I hid another geocache. It was made live by the nice people at geocaching dot com at 7.25am this morning and was found for the first time less than half an hour later. That's keen!

I then set off out to deliver catalogues of bargains to the masses. And after I'd delivered to forty houses I found an identical catalogue on someone's doorstep marked for collection. Someone else had clearly done this road a few days ago. But not just any old "someone else". This was the person for who we act as agents. This isn't the first time we've found her catalogues in areas where we had no idea she delivers.

I have all but decided to give up with doing these catalogue drops. There is absolutely no point in doing them when we are delivering to houses that have already had a very recent delivery from the very person who wants us to do drops on her behalf. We have asked her to let us know where she has delivered, and she tells us where she's been in the past. But she never lets us know when she branches out somewhere else. That most volatile of my bodily fluids is rapidly evaporating....

I then spent a little while re-vamping mankybadger dot com. I think it now looks nicer. Just as I was putting the finishing touches to it I had a message. My acquired daughter had found two geocaches already and was on her way to find my two. Did I want to go out geocaching with her?

We had a great time. In built up streets and in woodlands. Bridges and stiles. Nettles and bus stops. Robin Hood and traffic islands. We were out for four hours. We found eight caches, and gave up on three. Three of the caches were multi-staged in that the initial clue didn't lead to the actual cache, but to another clue to find the cache. We even found a trackable.

Home to find my hereditary daughter in residence with Sid. We exchanged a few insults, and then "er indoors ^TM" came home. We had planned to go for a walk and we thought we'd take Fudge. We arrived at the Fudgery to find no one home, so we did a couple more geocaches. One had a trackable, one eluded us.

We collected Fudge and went to the warren for a walk. And guess what we did. I'll give the thicker of my loyal readers a clue: it begins with "ge" and ends with "ocaching".

We found one. And this was perhaps the most interesting one ever. I found one which was just as per the description. "er indoors ^TM" found one a few yards away matching the description of what it was once like before it was reported as lost. She'd obviously found the original one. Soaking wet, totally sodden. With two trackables in a very sorry state.

It was at this point that my phone battery died, so I took this to be God's way of telling me to get a life. We played briefly on a rope swing before taking Fudge back home where the birthday girl was just about to start tea. Steak and chips. It looked nice so we left them to it.

Shortly after I got home I was told that "My Boy ^TM" proposed. (I was told shortly before the official announcement was made on Facebook). The birthday girl said "yes". I amazed myself by not crying...

14 August 2012 (Tuesday) - At A Loose End...

After a wonderful weekend away with family and friends I felt somewhat at a loose end today. With "My Boy ^TM" expecting deliveries I really needed to wait in for the postman. The firm bringing the parcel takes undelivered stuff back to Maidstone. Driving there and back is a bit of a pain so I waited about the house. I soon got bored with playing silly Facebook games, so I tried to make progress with a talk I have planned for the astro club. Tried and failed. It's a talk which is a little "out of the box", and I couldn't get the enthusiasm for it today.

Instead I did a little research. Yesterday I ranted about the future of the kite festival at Teston. Specifically the funding of future events bearing in mind that they will effectively have to be private ventures. The nice lady from Kent county council with whom I spoke at great length was absolutely adamant that the cost of public liability insurance cover would be fifty quid. She was crystal clear on the matter, and said that such insurance was obtainable at that price from http://www.insuremyevent.co.uk She said she'd looked it up herself several times. We discussed the matter in detail and she was completely convinced of the price. I had a go on their website and come up with a price of £279.19 (!) I wonder how much else I was told that wasn't quite right.

With three loads of washing on the line and drying in the sunshine I found myself gripped with boredom. So I had a little tidy-up in the front garden. Periodically I pull the weeds out from between the paving slabs and have a sweep-up and the garden looks presentable for a week or so. Whilst pootling I got into a conversation with a passing street sweeper who told me that my road is one of the cleanest in Ashford. Apparently he gets far less litter from my street than from any other. I was quite pleased to hear that.

I then wandered along the road and (looking very nonchalant) hid another geocache. I say "hid" - the thing is quite obvious really. Or that is it's obvious when you know where it is. That's two geocaches I've hidden now. I've plans for a third one. I'd like to have quite a big one; one large enough to hold trackables and things; but that would need a special location. I wonder if I might pop one in the church yard somewhere?

Being a Tuesday the clans gathered. On the way to gathering we met up with Chip and found a couple more geocaches. One of them was the little fellow pictured above. What a wonderful idea for a cache. And I came home to find an email that the cache I made today breached two of the rules of the game. I've put it all right; let's hope that the nice people at geocahing dot com agree with me...

13 August 2012 (Monday) - Reflections on Teston

Up promptly, a swift full English breakfast, tents down and away from the field by 11.30am. We've never got packed away so early before. And we were home and unpacked before 2pm. A wonderful weekend away with family and friends; and a dry camp. I can't remember the last camp when we didn't have torrential rain at some point. There's photos of the event here.

With the Teston kite festival done and dusted for another year I find myself wondering about the event's future. A lot of us went this year expecting it to be the last one. Will it be? There have been a lot of rumours and third hand disinformation all to the effect that the council want the festivals to stop. From what I think I gleaned this weekend the fact of the matter is that the county council have made it clear that they will support future kite festivals at Teston in every way except financially. Someone else has got to stump up for the event.

What financial outlay is there? The nice lady from the council says that the field hire will be two hundred and fifty quid and that the liability insurance is (apparently) about the order of fifty quid. Camping fees bring in three hundred quid. So far the event is break-even. But I am reliably assured that any such event must now have first aiders in attendance.

Is this true? We've never had them at astro club events.

Personally I have serious issues with the entire concept of "first aiders"; so much so that when my kids were smaller and went on various activities I sent instructions that the do-gooding first aiders of my acquaintance were not allowed near my offspring under any circumstances. I've personally watched the blundering incompetence of so-called first aiders, and have read that in serious emergences first aiders have historically killed more than they have cured. But if it is true that first aiders are needed for future kite festivals then I am told that the going rate for first aiders is over two hundred pounds. It seems odd that first aiders are a requirement for a kite festival which for twenty six years has never had any, and has a district general hospital less than five minutes away but what do I know....

So it would seem that the kite festival is under funded to the tune of a couple of hundred quid. How can the deficit be addressed. We are told that there are legal reasons why a burger van can't be brought along to rake in some cash to subsidise the festival. There's already an ice cream van there who has dibs on non-cooked food which might have given us an income. Kite traders don't come to the event any more because it's not profitable, so we can't sting them for a pitch fee.

But despite what looks like a dire financial proposition the Kent Kite Fliers have taken on the event, and seem confident that they can run the festival. Can they? There are those who feel they don't understand what they have taken on. That might be true. But I for one feel that I admire them for having a go. They seem to be employing my personal outlook on life that idiot enthusiasm can always triumph over common sense. It usually does. And if I can do anything to help future festivals, I'm only too happy to help.

Meanwhile back in reality once we were home and had the gear packed away, "My Boy ^TM" came to visit. He had a confession to make. During our absence Fudge had been swimming in the Koi pond. I'm told no harm had been done. I hope not.

Regular readers of this drivel may recall that the "My Boy ^TM"- mobile blew up a week or so ago. He was planning to acquire its replacement this afternoon, and with insurance details sorted we drove down to Folkestone with him to collect the vehicle. It seems a good car, as cars go. He's happy with it, and I suppose that's all that matters...

12 August 2012 (Sunday) - Teston Kite Festival

Again I heard someone's phone alarm going off at 6.30am. Someone's phone has the same alarm tune as mine, and someone has not turned the thing off. I got up and chatted with those who were already awake, and as I abluted so everyone else got up. Again we had an early brekkie. And with little wind four of us went on a very quick geocache hunt. We found two, and we found a couple of other geocachers too.

Back to camp where Sarah and Steve had arrived to visit. We sat and chatted and dozed before playing with the solar scope, and then having another go with the kites; the wind was beginning to pick up. At mid-afternoon all the kiters gathered for the traditional photograph of all the Testonians. Eventually a photo was obtained, and we carried on with the kites. I had an entertaining five minutes with some normal people who were quite taken with my pyro-fish kite, and we played with Chinese dragons too.

And all too soon the afternoon was over, and most people were going home. Not everyone stays overnight; most people go home, and it was sad to say goodbye to so many friends. With everyone else packing up I spent a couple of hours tidying away banners and things that could easily be tidied away before we had a rather nice tea of fajitas and a couple of rounds of Blokus.

"er indoors ^TM" was expected back from the National Convention of Candle-Floggers at about 10.30pm, so we sat and chatted about crime, punishment and fidolatory until she finally arrived shortly after midnight. By this point the port was all gone, so we had some amaretto instead...

11 August 2012 (Saturday) - Teston Kite Festival

Another early brekkie. Early brekkie is such a good idea: we get so much more done with the day. In a novel break with tradition the wind was blowing, so I got a kite out. The wind stopped. I put the kite away. The wind started from a different direction. I tried a different kite. I mucked about trying different kites for over an hour before giving up in disgust. In the end young Morgan (who was visiting) did better with the kite than I did.

We had a rather good lump of melon with lunch, and just as I was scoffing my bread and cheese we had a flying visit from an ex-Teston warden to tell us that there was a meeting at 5.30pm to discuss the future of the Teston kite festivals. That was worrying. The new wardens came round collecting camping fees; I asked them what the meeting was all about; they said that the council would no longer run the event and that the council was looking for someone else to take it on. The implication being that the kite club who were currently seen to be running the event weren't actually running it at all and wouldn't be running it in future.

As the afternoon wore on I was asked my opinion on the matter from many different people. Would I take the event on? I wasn't keen to do so, but if no-one else would do so, then I would (with a little help from my friends). Fortunately for my nerves we hosted Rhiannon's birthday tea during the afternoon. Chocolate cake and party rings were shared by loads of friends. Good times !

Finally 5.30pm arrived. Everyone convened for the meeting and a disgruntled council ex-employee made an announcement which turned out to be factually at odds with what the wardens had told me during the afternoon. The chap who had been thought to be the event organiser seemed to be rather miffed at the fact that the meeting had been called, and he said that things would carry on regardless next year. He did seem rather reticent about some of the details of some people's concerns and worries, but the meeting ended amicably with the promise that next year we will have two kite festivals at Teston. I've told the organiser that I will do anything and everything I can to help; from here on in all we can do is to await developments.

Whilst we had our meeting "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" had been sailing downstream in a rubber dingy. We got a phone call from her to say she and her crew (Sabrina and Sid the dog) had arrived on the shores of Yalding (some ten miles downstream), and would we drive out to fetch them?

Tea was nice - stir fry is always good. I am reliably informed that it is better when all the ingredients are added, but I scoffed it just the same. And with the tea stuff cleared away we drank beer and port until the stars came out...