6 October 2026 (Tuesday) - Charing

I’ve had a really good weekend away, but you can’t beat your own bed. I slept through till half hast eight this morning. I slipped straight back into old habits and did my usual thing of making peanut butter with marmalade on toast (and a cup of coffee) and had my usual look at the internet. Nothing had changed whilst I was away. Yet again religious nutjobs were offering absolutely anything they didn’t understand as conclusive proof of their particular brand of superstition. Yet again people were quarrelling about Lego, fish tanks, dogs, garden ponds, bands from the seventies…

I Munzed, Wordled from “habit” to “dimly” in five goes… and then the dogs came down. Dog tiddling is much easier when I can just open the back door and let them see to themselves rather than having to lead them up and take them to a park up the road.

And then I had a flashback. Gold Radio was playing “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” and I remembered my old mucker Dougal back from the seventies who really was a dedicated follower of fashion. He always had to have the right clothes and the right haircut, and would run and hide if he thought anyone he knew would see him looking anything less than his utter best.

 

I sent an email to the vicar of the church in Tredington. On Sunday we saw an ichthyosaur in the porch of the church there. That would make a good subject for an EarthCache but having wasted a *lot* of time on this sort of thing at Camber Castle in the past, I thought I’d try to get permission before I did anything else. If I’m going to fall at the first hurdle I’d rather not waste too much effort.

 

We took the dogs out. We each only needed one more Treasure to complete the latest set of Geocaching Treasures, and the closest place to do that was the geocache at the church at Charing Heath, so off we went. Finding it involved going round the church to find different bits of information. This would give us numbers with which we would do some sums and get the co-ordinated of where we needed to rummage to find the cache.

We went round the church getting all the numbers. Then we tried again until we both had numbers which agreed. I did the sums and got a location about a mile or so away which seemed to be randomly in the middle of some obscure field. So we scratched our heads, agreed there could be some ambiguity in one of the numbers and came up with a location which was only a short walk away.

We walked that short walk and came to a telegraph post. Geocaches are often at the bottom of telegraph posts, but we spent about twenty minutes rummaging round before finally giving up, sulking and getting on with our day.

 

We then went up to Longbeech Woods to walk the dogs. Again we found an empty car park. Very few people go to Longbeech Woods. We had a good walk, but a short one. “er indoors ^TM” had a new set of boots to break in. It was a shame that Treacle rolled in muck, but usually one of them rolls in something.

As we walked I thought about the geocache we didn’t find, and I had a stroke of absolute genius. Why didn’t I re-check my calculations? It was at this point that I realized that the number over which we felt there might be some ambiguity actually appeared more than once in the formula.

Whoops…

I did the sums again and with our walk walked we went back… I say “back”, “we tried another location that wasn’t at the base of a telegraph pole” would be a more precise description. Would you believe it – the geocache was there. It was a rather cute model church.

 

We came home via the co-op where we got celebratory Belgian buns. And once we’d scoffed them I cracked on in the garden. The lawn needed mowing and the pond filters needed de-gunging. I then got the ladder out and trimmed back some of the trees overhanging from not-so-nice-next-door. Back in the day before the husband completely vanished I once asked them how far across out garden they thought it was acceptable for their trees and roses to hang. He seriously felt there was nothing wrong with them reaching half- way across our garden, and told me (several times) that one day I would be grateful for that.

Today I got their trees stuff cut back up to level with the boundary about twelve feet up. I can’t get much higher than that. If any of my loyal readers have a hedge trimmer on an extendable pole…

And then suddenly it was half past four. Where had the day gone?

 

I Meowdoku-ed for a bit, and “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching last Friday’s “The Traitors”. It was rather good. 

5 October 2026 (Monday) - Cobham... And Home

I slept reasonably well… apart from a nightmare in which I was having a rather bitter argument about fish tank husbandry with some of the people with whom I went to Boys Brigade fifty years ago.

I woke shortly after seven o’clock and made toast as quietly as I could. Effectively only having one room made it difficult for the early riser (me) not to wake those who like a lie-in (“er indoors ^TM” and the dogs)

 

Whilst “er indoors ^TM” had a shower I took the dogs over the road to the park to do what dogs do. Our accommodation had been billed as having a garden in which presumably dogs could do things, but there was no garden… just a manky courtyard. But the park was close and pretty. The dogs did what was expected of them. It was a shame that Morgan did his over Treacle, but that’s dogs for you.

As I waited for them to rake out so a rather foxy young lady asked if she could take photos of the dogs. She seemed enthralled with them. They seemed utterly disinterested in her.

 

We went back to base, and it wasn’t then long before we were all packed. Now we were leaving I’d rather taken to where we were staying. Once we’d turned the heating down and realised that one of the kitchen worktops was on wheels (and so could be used as a table) the place was perfectly serviceable… but for two main drawbacks. The doors were heavy and would slam closed, and if a dog got caught it would have done serious damage. And the pub next door did attract the element that likes shouting profanities as loud as it can as late as it can.

But on reflection I’d probably stay there again when we next visit Cheltenham. Which we will.

 

We set the sat-nav for Cobham, and off we went. But not the motorway services at Cobham; the village. We’d seen there were a couple of adventure lab series there, and they made for a good half-hour’s walk. And (just like the ones in Cheltenham) they took us to the sort of places that aren’t mentioned in the tourist’s guide books. We saw dragons and tigers on shop roofs, a skate park that only the locals would know, a seven hundred year old cottage…

And we found The Bear where we had a very good bit of dinner. The idea was to have a light snack. Just a sandwich… the steak sandwich was huge. The beer was good. The chap behind the bar was very helpful and friendly. If every anyone wants to break up a long journey, rather than Cobham motorway services, why not try this pub instead?

 

We came home. It wasn’t long before we were unpacked. I then did all the geo-admin for the weekend’s adventure. Geocaching-wise we had quite a productive time logging finds on:

 

40 Ad-lab

4 Traditional

3 Puzzle

3 Multi

3 Earthcache

1 Wherigo

1 Virtual

 

but none were “yet another film pot under a rock”. Each one took us to somewhere unusual and interesting and quirky. A huge redwood tree, a dragon on a roof, an Italian fountain in the most obscure location, two war memorials… and we got three pirate Treasures too.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and chips, and went bowling. I hung out the first load of washing and put the undercrackers in to scrub, then watched another episode of “Lost in Space”.

I’m feeling exhausted… it’s been a busy few days.

4 October 2026 (Sunday) - Forty Years Later... In Tewksbury

The drunken shrieking from the pub next door eventually fizzled out around half past midnight. I slept a bit better last night, but Bailey had a nightmare which woke me earlier than it might have done.

I made toast… the toaster in our accommodation has two settings; “Mildly take the chill of the bread” and “INCINERATE”. The trick is to go for the most vigorous setting, watch the thing like a hawk, and pull the plug at the vital moment.

Next time I might just bring my own toaster. I know where I am with that one.

 

As I scoffed toast I tried to peruse the geo-map. I started with Tewksbury,,, and tried a few nearby villages. Everything I tried gave me the American version. You’d think it would give me options.

 

We got ourselves and the dogs together and drove off to find Irene. We all then drove out to Tewksbury where we had a rather good day. Irene had found a guided walk round the battlefield of the Battle of Tewksbury (no – I’d not heard of it either). We started with a very chilly and very foggy morning, but the fog soon lifted and the sun came out. We found our tour guide, and about thirty of us went on a two mile walk. The leader was not only very knowledgeable about the history of the area, but he was also enthusiastic and brought it all to life too. And as an added bonus the dogs behaved themselves too.

With walk walked we then took a little walk through Tewksbury. Irene knew quite a bit about the area, and knew the best pub too. We made our way to the Black Bear where we sat in the garden on the banks of the river Avon and washed down a few plates of roast beef with some rather good ales.

From there we drove to nearby Tredington where there is the fossil of an ichthyosaur in the porch of the church.

 

We came back to Chelmsford where we said our goodbyes. We’d not seen Irene for ages. It was good to catch up and we will do so again soon.

We came back to base and had a cuppa, then had a little wander up the road. We had a vague idea to go to The Swan for pudding. Instead we went to Sainsburys and got pizza and pudding and beer and took it all back to our room.

We had a rather good evening scoffing and playing on the Infinity Table. Being a Sunday there was no drunken shrieking coming from next door…

 

I took a few photos today… As ruby wedding anniversaries go it wasn’t too shabby.

 

3 October 2026 (Saturday) - Exploring Cheltenham

I stayed in bed as long as I could this morning; the sound of Treacle whimpering eventually prompted me to get up. That took some doing: the bed is very low.

I had a shave once the water had run long enough for the warm stuff to come through, and then I used my lap-top to tune in to Radio Ashford. Steve’s “Guess the Lyrics” competition today was “And I’ll have all the love I need to keep me satisfied”. I had no idea either. It was “Can’t Get By Without You” by the Real Thing.

I had a go at Munzing; there’s not many locally. I Wordled. Starting with “hovel” I got to “peeve” in four goes.

I Meowdoku-ed, and after an hour’s listening to everyone else snoring I put the kettle on.

Steve then did the Mystery Year on the radio – Mambo Number 5? – I knew that one. 1999.

 

We brekkied, then got ready for the off. The plan was to walk though Cheltenham looking for Earthcaches and geocaches as we went going as far as Irene’s flat, and then to come back doing the ad-lab caches. And that’s what we did. We started off with a geology lesson at Cheltenham Minster where we met one of the normal people. He came over and without so much as a “by your leave” made an epic fuss of the dogs… then had the right hump when they started jumping up at them. And then he flipped Bailey over to see if she was a boy or girl.

Why is it that no one else meets this sort of idiot?

 

We then carried on past all sorts of statues and memorials and went through several rather pretty parks. At our furthest point we turned from “geo-mode” to “ad-lab mode” and had an equally good wander back. On the way we stopped off at Harry Cook’s Free House where we had a rather good bit of dinner, and once we’d done the last ad-lab we found ourselves opposite the Swan where we’d been yesterday so we had a crafty pint of mild.

 

We came back to base. We recharged our phones, and had a cuppa and a cake. I sent the Earthcache answers to those who pass judgement on that sort of thing, and we went for another walk. We went up to the park just up the road and followed another ad-lab series, We found a rather pretty pond, and a boules court, and on the way back to base found a rather impressive redwood tree.

As I waited with the dogs outside Sainsburys for “er indoors ^TM” to get some shopping, a passing normal person remarked on how well the dogs were behaving and asked what the trick was to have them sitting so nicely. The obvious answer was to walk them for eight and a half miles, but saying so would have appeared sarcastic so I just smiled sweetly.

 

We came back to base where the dogs had their dinner and we had ours. We got a take-out from the German Kebab Shop. It was rather good… even if you only got half the amount that you get from the kebab shop at home.

As we scoffed so the dogs snored; they’d been worn out by their super-walk today. And as we scoffed we played a few rounds of “Ticket to Ride” on the Infinity Table. We had a few beers, and cracked open a bottle of cherry liqueur which had been in the cupboard at home for years. It was dreadful…

 

I took several photos today…

 

And in closing, yesterday I was rather critical about the place we are staying in. It’s probably not *that* bad… but it is certainly leaves room for improvement.

There’s a hallway, a bathroom and a bedroom with a kitchen in an alcove. It’s poky; certainly not big enough for all of us

There’s no light switch for the hallway. The light comes on automatically when you go into it from the front door or the bedroom, but not from the bathroom.

There’s a decent sized telly, but what’s the point of having a wall mounted telly of the only seat is underneath the telly.

The kitchen is… there’s three tea-spoons. There’s complimentary coffee pods, but nowhere to put the machine into which they go (which is stored in a cupboard).

Billed as “dog friendly” the doors are far too heavy and would kill any one of our three if one closed on them, and they slam with the slightest provocation.

It’s not unlike the bedsits that were popular forty years ago, but with two of us and three dogs, space is at a premium.

On reflection we decided that moving just for one day is too much arse ache. I shall just content myself with giving the place a one-star review on every review site there is…

It really isn’t helped by the noise of the “council element” in the pub next door… 

 

2 October 2026 (Friday) - Off to Cheltenham

It’s Friday, the bin lorry woke me as it crashed up the road at six o’clock. I got up, make toast and had a look at the Internet. Two of my Facebook friends had birthdays today. One with whom I work. One with whom I used to work fifteen or more years ago. I sent them birthday wishes and then rolled my eyes at some nonsensical posting about how I should repent and “Pwaise De Laawd” because only “De Lawwd” could save me. As an ex-Steward of the Methodist Church I know quite a bit more about religious things than many of those posting on Facebook seem to; again what I needed to be saved from was “De Lawwd”’s temper. Back in the day I used to go to bible study club. Every Thursday evening we’d go round to Mervyn’s house and read various bits out of the bible all of which basically said that god loved us all very much, but if we didn’t do what god said, then we’d face eternal punishment. It never fails to amaze me how so many people don’t see the contradiction here.

But my religious days were forty years ago. Been there, done that. I go on social media to be social, and see what my friends are getting up to. It’s such a shame that I just seem to be presented with nonsensical bollox.

I Munzed, and Wordled. Starting with “today” I got it on the fourth go with “usury” as that was the only word I could think of that had the letter “u” but not in the second place.

 

I went upstairs, made loads of noise, and once everyone else was up I got on with the packing. It wasn’t *that* long before we were off on our way.

 

We made good time to Cobham where once tiddled we wandered round the car park. Treacle had been whinging on the way up, and after twenty-five minutes she eventually dumped. As we walked round waiting for that to emerge we did a couple of geocaching adventure labs. Did you know there’s a garden and huge fish pond round the back of Cobham services? No – we didn’t either.

 

From there we drove on the Cheltenham where we found the place we’d booked. We just dumped our stuff into the hallway of our flat and moved on.

Big mistake !!!

 

We wandered down the road thinking we might have a pint. We found “The Swan” which had a rather good beer menu. Irene soon joined us; it was good to catch up. We had another pint. And another. And seeing the place specialised in curries we had a very good bit of dinner.

We then had a little walk through Cheltenham to make sure Irene got home safely then we came back to our base.

 

Perhaps I got off on the wrong foot with the place because we came in to find it was hotter than the summer’s heatwave, and once we finally turned off the heating and forced the windows open, the world’s worst Bavarian Oompah band was leading the Oktoberfest in the ale house next door.

I tried looking round for alternate accommodation, but it was rather late and these days everything is “book on-line” and I needed to speak to someone to ensure we weren’t going to move to somewhere equally crappy, if not crappier (if that was even possible). “er indoors ^TM” insisted that it was too much arse-ache to move to another place; I was all for going home, but the dreadful music from next door eventually stopped.

It’s not quite as hot as it was, but the place is poky… I’ll see if I can find somewhere better tomorrow…

1 October 2026 (Thursday) - How Far?

I woke in the middle of the night, said “White Rabbits, White Rabbits, White Rabbits” and went back to sleep. My mother was adamant that having said that as the first thing you say on the first day of the month brings you luck. Does it? Of course it doesn’t, but these superstitions persist, don’t they?

 

I made toast and rolled my eyes at the tripe and drivel that was on social media this morning. Some religious crackpot was spamming one of the work-related Facebook groups I follow.

And my piss boiled when I read that the local hospital has issued an apology about “avoidable stillbirths”. It has been claimed that eight babies died unnecessarily. Did they? I don’t know. 

It’s the thing at the moment in public bodies to have a duty of candour, which is all very well. No one should cover up mistakes, but publicly flaunting them can be rather counterproductive. No one goes to work in a hospital planning to stuff up someone’ else’s life. When these mistakes happen the ones responsible are up before the professional regulator and that never ends well.

And I’ll make the observation that public opinion is fickle. The same keyboard warriors who were baying for blood this morning were the same ones who were on the same Facebook pages last week grumbling about how there’s not enough staff to run as many hospital services as they’d like. And a few short years ago they were all on the doorstep every Thursday night clapping like demented sealions in praise of hospital workers.

 

I got the leads onto the dogs and we went up to the woods. As we walked we met the nice Forestry England man. The dogs were pleased to see him, and as he fussed them so they got mud up his trousers and Morgan then tiddled on his tyres. And we found an ant hill. A huge one. It must have been about four feet high.

We walked five miles; I was rather tired at the end. Once back at the car I had a little nosey. I’ve joined Forestry England for the free car parking. And to get that I have to display their badge in my car window. I couldn’t see another badge in any of the dozen other cars parked there. Are they all RingGo-ing, or just not paying?

 

We came home. I made myself a cuppa and saw I had an email. Back in January I joined the “You vs The Year 2026” challenge in which I had to walk one thousand and twenty-six kilometres (an odd number?) during the course of the year. I logged my first kilometre on the second of January and completed it today. That was nine months; I wonder if the challenge counter will keep going to the end of the year. I also wonder why the challenge was in kilometres when the challenge website’s mapping app records my walks in miles.

 

I chucked everyone out of our Munzee Guild in readiness for next month’s Guild Games. Back in the day Munzee had a monthly “Clan War”. Now we have “Guild Games” as that is more politically correct (you couldn’t make this up, could you?) I then Munzed, and had a look at Wordle. Starting with “white” was a better start than some I’ve made. “Tiara” was a little bit more helpful, and I got it on the third go with “ritzy” for the simple reason that Karl had mentioned that it was a stupid word.

 

I spent a little while fiddling with the geocaching map and Meowdoku, and fell asleep with Bailey snuggling up to me. I woke after a while and did “FEED THE FISH” to Treacle’s obvious delight.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good chili which we washed down with a bottle of the red stuff, and once that was gone we set about the amaretto. As we scoffed and swilled we watched more “Lego Masters” and then the first episode of the ne series of “Celebrity Traitors”. I say “celebrity”; I knew Romesh Ranganathan and Rob Beckett by name. There was someone off of Eastenders (from years ago),  him off of “Sewing Bee”, and someone I thought was Moxey off of "Auf Weidersehn Pet", but wasn’t. The other twenty could have been absolutely anyone. It was rather entertaining though.

 

The plan was to have done my packing this evening… I’ll do it in the morning, eh?

30 September 2026 (Wednesday) - World Postcard Day

I went to the loo at half past four and noticed all the lights on next door. She always gets up silly-early. I went back to bed where I fought a minor battle with some small dogs to eventually secure a small strip down the side of the bed. I eventually got back to sleep.

I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. Someone was claiming that NASA had inadvertently provided incontrovertible proof of the bible’s account of the crucifixion of Jesus… or that is incontrovertible to those who can’t tell the difference between the sun and the moon. It never fails to amaze me how  truly stupid are so keen to show off their stupidity.

And I saw an old colleague had died. Like me, he too fell foul of a management who did the dirty on him. I can’t pretend I was best of mates with him; I’d not seen him in twenty years, but in later life he became a bailiff for a local fishing club, and when checking “My Boy ^TM”’s fishing licence he remembered me and asked after me.

I Munzed. We reached our Munzee Guild monthly target today… I thought some in our team had left it a tad late, but we got there. I Wordled. Starting with “light” which gave me the “i”. “Minor” helped a bit more, and “wiper” got me closer still. “Cider” had me marking time, and I got it with “river” on the last attempt.

As I Wordled so Bailey sat with me on the sofa, and she ate all of her brekkie, which was a result.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. Yesterday I finished my audiobook of “Day of the Triffids”. I’ve now started “The Chrysalids” by the same author. I first read this book at school which (along with many others) our English teacher did his level best to kill stone dead by insisting that we tried to pretend that various parts of the storyline were allegorical of things that they weren’t.

 

We got to the woods where the drizzle eased up, and we walked our usual circuit round the woods. The foragers were out in force, but yet again they were scouring the area within sight of the car park which had already been picked clean. There’s loads of mushrooms and chestnuts to be had deeper in the woods, but few people ever go there.

As we walked the dogs wallowed in puddles and rolled (rather impressively) in fox poo.

We came home for baths.

 

I made us both a cuppa, and after I’d had a fight with the software I wrote up some CPD. When I find anything interesting at work I make a few notes in a draft email, then use those notes for when I write things up properly. However every link I tried to open from the draft email went through some security protocol which was probably a wonder of technology in every way but one. That one being that it didn’t actually open the link. Copying and pasting directly into the browser did though.

I then fought with some geo-puzzles in the Cheltenham area. There weren’t many, and those that there were strained my brain somewhat. So I tried my trick of feeding the puzzle into Microsoft CoPilot, and the right answers came out. Eventually. It was interesting that asking the same question gave two different answers.

I got the ironing board out and set about that which I’ve been washing over the last few days. As I ironed I watched a couple of episodes of “Lost in Space” (the recent Netflix remake, not the original).

 

Pausing only briefly to drop Pogo back with “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” we drove on to Kearsney Abbey where a dozen or so fellow geocachers were meeting up in honour of World Postcard Day. After a little while we realised that the constant dripping on our heads was from the trees above; it had actually stopped raining. So we came out from under the trees, stood in the open and began to dry out.

It was rather good to catch up with like-minded friends.

On the way home we stopped off to pick up a geocache in Alkham which qualified for one of the new geocaching Treasures, and seeing we were the first people to have found that one in over a year it was a resuscitation too, which gave us bragging rights.

 

We came home. Having been out for the evening we got KFC for dinner, and we scoffed it whilst watching last night’s episode of “Bake Off”. The irritating one got the heave-ho, which was a result as far as I’m concerned.