5 July 2010 (Monday) - My Old Boots...

Being on a late start, I was at a loose end for an hour or so, so I thought I’d catch up with various jobs about the house. I put a dash of polish onto my walking boots. They deserved it after yesterday’s excursion. I’m very pleased with my walking boots. I bought them in Hastings Old Town back in the 1980s when I used to help with a hiking competition run by the local Boys Brigade. Whilst I can’t put an exact date on when I got the boots, I can remember wearing them whilst holding a month-old “Daddies Little Angel ^TM ” at one of the hike checkpoints in 1989, and I’d had the boots for a few years then. I’ve very little else (apart from ‘er indoors ^TM) that has lasted so well.

I also needed to review the beer requirement for next weekend. I brought home twenty bottles of beer from Teston kite festival, so I’d better get in a couple of gallons more to add to what’s left over (as well as some port) for the forthcoming festival in Brighton.

Then I thought I’d check my post. Regular readers will know this is a job I don’t do anywhere near often enough.

• I was offered up to 20Mb Broadband. That’s cheeky. They rely on people reading the 20Mb bit, and not realising the “up to” bit, only to find that 0.5Mb is “up to” 20Mb.
• The power company told me how much gas I use, and offered to help me cut down. Presumably by showing me how to run gas powered central heating on batteries?
• A letter from the kite club confirming my details: they had my email address wrong. That hopefully explains why I got no emails from them last year.
• A letter from Wyevale, advertising their national chain of garden centres. They actually suggested that when on a long journey I might call in to one of their places rather than use motorway services. A novel suggestion!
• Yet another bank statement about the defunct snake club account. How many times have I said that I must do something about that?
• My mobile phone bill. Which was much less now I’ve stopped texting Twitter with it.
• A letter from the building society asking me to vote for their board of directors. I know nothing about any of them. They might be financial whizzes, they might be total dumbos. I have no idea.
• A letter confirming my household electricals are insured against breakdown, and a letter (from the same people) advising me that they are not.

Shopping – for beer, as it seems I haven’t got enough for the weekend. Lidl’s were allegedly knocking the stuff out at a quid per bottle. I got there to find they didn’t have a single bottle of beer in the place. They’’d sold out, and as is the way with Lidl’s, they had no idea when they would be getting more. Ho-hum: such is life. I’ll just have to put my hand in my pocket and pay the going rate in Sainsburys or Tescos.

And then work. Following on from my appraisal last Friday I’m feeling rather pragmatic about the place. Whilst my appraisal last week went (very) well, I’m bored with my job. I’ve been doing the same thing for so long, and when you consider the really active weekend I’ve just had (like most of my weekends, come to that!), settling down to the dull routine comes hard. But at lunchtime we got the solar scope out again. Tim, who I’ve worked with for twenty five years, had an attachment which allowed us to bodge a camera into the telescope. A shame the clouds were so thick, really (!)

And in the meantime following on from yesterday’s wonderful day out, I’ve been exchanging messages with our native guide. If any of my loyal readers are feeling adventurous (or have a very bright torch they might lend me), we’ve planned to return to the tunnels on Sunday August 15. If anyone’s up for it, please let me know…