27 May 2012 (Sunday) - Back to Bethersden

A lie-in would have been nice. But "My Boy ^TM" started getting his fishing gear at 6am. I'm reliably informed he did it quietly. But once he'd spent half an hour cluttering about I couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up and had a look on the Internet. I couldn't believe social networking this morning: was I really the only person who didn't watch the Euro-vision Song Contest last night? It's exactly the same thing every year, and it was looking tired ten years ago. And everyone still tunes in to it. What's the attraction?

I got the washing out on to the new washing line I put up the other day, and we set off to Bethersden for a walk. I'd originally invited forty people along, but what with prior arrangements, moving houses, bereavements, bad backs, exams, girlfriends announcing they would never walk again in their lives, forgetting to invite people, still being drunk from last night, hay fever and one thing and another there was quite a high drop-out rate. But eight of us and a dog met up at Bethersden church and set off. This was a walk we did at the beginning of the month and it was very wet underfoot then. Today the ground had really dried out. We had a really good wander. Through the airstrip, past the reindeer and wallabies, and through the fields and woods back to where we'd left the cars. Four and a bit miles; two and a bit hours. A lovely way to spend a day. And having left the cars by the pub we had a crafty pint with our pic-nic before going back home again.

A quick round-up of the catalogues we didn't get yesterday, and then home. Then I got cross. Having finally got some batteries into my USB binoculars/camera today. I took loads of close-up photos with it, and got home to find that it's not recognised by Windows 7. I spent quite a bit of time downloading drivers and mucking about; all to no avail. If anyone has a PC that runs on Windows XP that I can dump to, I would be grateful....