For some time I've been
planning to put out a geocache or two near where I go tunnel-ratting.
I've been having serious problems contacting the landowner. No one at
Network Rail will reply to me. A couple of weeks ago someone else put
out a series of caches in the general area so I asked them who their
contact for permission was. As I checked my emails over brekkie this
morning I got this reply "Hi David, sorry, can't help you
with that I'm afraid. Obviously Network Rail will be your starting
point, but having dealt with their H&S people before, I wish you
success :("
How do I interpret that?
Would it cause physical pain to give the name of a contact? I
suspect that this reply means that the person who put these caches
out has done what everyone else does and just put the caches out
without any permission. Or the chap's just being awkward. I wonder
which.
I scrounged a lift up to
town; I had one or two bits to do. First of all I popped into the
charity shop. I decided I would chase them for a refund for the shelf
that they broke when delivering the unit last Wednesday. Any
reservations I might have had evaporated when I spoke with the chap
at the till. He oh-so-politely suggested that I hadn’t actually
bought anything from them ever, and was rather taken aback when I
produced the receipt. He even more politely hinted that there was
nothing wrong with the unit that was delivered, and was rather
shocked that I challenged him to ring the delivery people; even more
shocked when he saw their phone number on my mobile, and was utterly
devastated when the delivery chap immediately confessed to having
broken the shelf. Notwithstanding his utter defeat he attempted
sarcasm by asking how much of a refund I wanted, and found himself
speechless when I presented the bill from the glazier.
As I left the shop he was
blathering platitudes about how people try to con them out of money
on a regular basis.
I then went round to the
pound shop to get some magnetic key holders (I use them as
geocaches). Not only had the pound shop sold out, they told me
that they don’t do them any more. That’s a pain. They were fifty
pence each in the pound shop and are two quid each on eBay. I then
trolled round all the cheapo-bargain shops in Ashford but couldn’t
find any that sold magnetic keyholders.
In the geocachical world
opinion is divided on the use of magnetic keyholders as geocaches.
There are those that dislike them because they are cheap, easy to
hide, easy to find and easy to replace. Personally I love them for
exactly those reasons.
And so home to collect
"Furry Face TM" and to go for our
walk. We went down to Park Farm. I’d had reports that two of my
caches there had gone missing. I replaced one with my last magnetic
key holder, and the other one is going to be somewhat trickier to
replace. “Eye-Spy beginning with Y” was a yogurt drink
container (Yazoo). I say “was” – it’s gone missing.
Despite having washed the thing out thoroughly with boiling water I
had received reports that it was a tad whiffy. I need to find
something else beginning with the letter “Y”.
Whilst we were out Fudge
was really well behaved, being off the lead and coming back when
called. He was a perfect angel right up to the point where he found
the biggest pile of fox poo you ever did see and having smeared most
of it over himself he ate what was left over.
Home again where I washed
the fox poo from my dog and put laundry onto the line. I then did the
monthly accounts. I’m rather skint this month. I blame spending too
much last month; we did go out rather a lot, I did buy far too much
lego railway, and I think I spent too much on a geocache project that
(so far) hardly anyone has tried to find.
I checked my phone’s
answer machine. Whilst we were out I’d had a message from a Mr
Syrett. It was with reference to Chelsea; he'd like to speak to Mark,
and (apparently) I have his phone number. The message didn’t
make it clear whose phone number I had; but presumably it was either
Mr Syrett’s or Mark’s.
I then did the last of my
on-line psychology lectures. There is still a little bit to be done
with the assessments, and we’ve been promised a
“thank-you-and-goodnight” video. To stop boredom and to keep the
brain working I’ve signed up for another course – “Introduction
to Mathematical Philosophy” which might be interesting.
Time will tell. If nothing else, it’s free…
And then being at a loose
end I played Candy Crush Saga for half an hour (or so)
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