I had my orders last
night. "My Boy TM" had instructed
me to get his various foul fishing baits out of the freezer and put
them in the bath to defrost so he could collect the quietly this
morning at 7.30am. I love the first fruit of my loin dearly, and will
not hear a word said against him. But there is no denying that
"quietly" is not one of his more developed skills.
Sure enough he came home
with the full force of an atom bomb at 7.45am. I'm sure my loyal
readers in America and the Far East heard him.
We got up, dressed, had
brekkie, and got ready for the off. Fudge was getting over-excited as
he does when he knows we are going out. And then (for Fudge)
it all went terribly wrong.
On the last few walks
we've done Fudge has got very wet. And very cold. By the time we got
back to the car on our last half-dozen walks he's been shivering. So
yesterday we bought him a coat. I thought it was a nice coat. Fudge
didn't. It was clear that he hated it. He stopped jumping about. All
the excitement left him. Normally at walkies time he bolts to the
door. This time he looked at the open door with disdain, and wasn't
interested in going out. He had to be dragged.
And once in the car,
rather than being his usual excitable self, he sat on my lap pretty
much motionless. If ever a dog exuded an aura of sulkiness Fudge
certainly did this morning. Rather than greeting the rest of our
group with mad-keen enthusiasm (as would be usual) he looked
up, then went back to his sulk.
We made our way to Otham
and having parked the car we set off on a little stroll. The Otham
Ramble is a guided walk of twenty geocaches along a seven mile
circular route. Fields and bridges, footpaths and woods, lanes and
roads. It exemplifies what I like about geocaching; it's a guided
walk around some beautiful countryside where I would never have gone.
We had a wonderful time on a bright November day. It was a bit damp
underfoot; positively swampy in places, but it was a good day to be
out. We saw hot air balloons and biplanes. As the day went on the
temperatures rose, and we even took Fudge's coat off. He liked that,
and promptly set off in pursuit of a fox he'd seen.
As well as the seven mile
ramble we took a little detour to fit in a Church micro. We stopped
off at the seventh cache on the route for lunch. For all that we are
in mid-November it was a glorious day. So much so that as I sat in
front of the telly in the evening my face was glowing: I caught the
sun.
If any of my loyal
readers are wondering about this whole geocaching lark, or just want
a walk with some rather spectacular scenery, the Otham Ramble would
be the ideal thing. And, as always, there are photos
of the outing on-line.
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