25 July 2013 (Thursday) - Cranbrook

This morning over brekkie I watched the last episode of BattleStar Galactica. It's only taken a month or so to get through that lot, and I'm feeling at something of a loose end. What series can I watch next over brekkie?

With brekkie scoffed I was in the town centre by 8.30am. The optician had texed me to remind me that I had an appointment, and had told me to be there at 8.40am. I was rather miffed to find that they didn't open the door until 8.50am, but there were enough other mardy old gits complaining that I felt I didn't need to join in. In fact by sympathising with the nice lady doing the retinal photography I think I got on their good side.

The nice lady who did my eye test was a strange one; alternately shouting and singing at me. After a bit of fiddling about it seems I have no diabetic damage to my eyes. (Just as well, as I'm not yet diabetic). My short sightedness has improved, but my close up vision has got worse. The practical upshot of all this was I need new specs. Two hundred and thirty four quid's worth of new specs. As a sweetener they threw in a free pair of prescription sunglasses. I had to watch them with that one. First of all they tried to charge me for adding polaroid lenses to the free prescription sunglasses (for an extra sixty quid). When I didn't want that they tried to add some other gimcrack for eighty nine quid. They seemed rather miffed that I told them that I would like a free pair of prescription sunglasses that was free, and didn't actually cost me anything. I had to spell out what "free" actually meant.

I collect the new bins in a fortnight.

Home again, where I collected "Furry Face ^TM". In a novel break with tradition I drove today. We collected Lisa, and then went on for HSL1. Four of us set off to Cranbrook for a walk. Regular readers of this drivel will no be surprised to find that the route of our walk was marked out by geocaches. The Cranbrook Stroll was a nice little walk through the countryside. It took us just under two hours to get round. If anyone's reading this to get the low-down on the Cranbrook Stroll, two hours is longer than you should take to get round. We didn't park in the recommended car park, we did take in two extra caches on the way, and we did stop for an extended picnic lunch.

It was a nice little walk. However, at the risk of being critical, I would suggest to those of the hand-held GPS unit wielding fraternity that you might like to take along an ordnance survey map. Without such a map the route may be a bit unclear in a couple of places.

We got back to the car, and the day was still young. We'd seen another little walk marked on the map, so went up to Angley Woods. The first cache of the series was one I knew we wouldn't find. I've been struggling with the puzzle for some time and have no idea of how to proceed. If any of my loyal readers would care to throwame home me a bone, I'd be more than grateful. But the other four caches of the series... I won't give any spoilers other than to say that until today I have only ever once given a favourite point to every cache in a series. Now I've done it twice. There weren't many caches in that series; we found four out of five. Each one was in inspired work of genius.

We then made our way homewards, stopping off as we went to pick up other caches here and there. If nothing else a certain small dog appreciated being out and about.

We got home at just the right time. My shoes were starting to rub. I bought a pair of walking shoes from Decathlon several years ago, and wore them for the first time today. They rubbed round the ankle. Longer socks next time I thought.

Next time was only an hour away. er indoors ^TM" came home and we went for a walk across the Romney Marsh. It was a really lovely evening, a really picturesque walk.

Guess which dog fell in the river...