27 July 2014 (Sunday) - Pooh Bridge (Virtually!)

Despite a good load of ale having been sunk last night, a hot humid night interspersed by "Furry Face TM" having woofing fits put paid to having much in the way of sleep. I gave up shortly before 6am and came downstairs to find my dog in his basket, wide awake, looking suitably subdued.
Over a spot of brekkie I watched "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo". I've not seen that show for a while. Today Uncle Poodle was visiting. Uncle Poodle is gay, and apparently anyone who is gay is called "Uncle Poodle" by Honey Boo Boo. It turned out to be a term of endearment, which was nice for Uncle Poodle.One lives and learns.
I then spent a little while working on the membership survey for the astro club; these things take ages to compile.

We then set off to collect Suzy (and entourage) and we drove off to deepest Sussex where we soon met Dave. We found Pooh Corner (you know - as in Winnie the Pooh) and walked down to the actual bridge where (nearly a hundred years ago) A.A. Milne and Christopher Robin first played Pooh Sticks. I say "the actual bridge" - it looks like a new bridge to me; but the location is where it all actually started. Needless to say we played Pooh Sticks ourselves, and "Furry Face TM" upset the normal people by jumping in the river and grabbing their Pooh Sticks as they floated underneath Pooh Bridge.
As we walked I learned the difference between sessile and English oaks, we saw pheasants and partridges, we had a really good walk. After six miles we were nearly back at the start. We had lunch, looked at the clock, looked at the map, and organised another six mile hike. We then followed a disused railway line, found a nice lady fast asleep on a footbridge, and even exchanged pleasantries with two nice ladies who had matching bicycles (to go with their comfortable shoes!). I did wonder what term of endearment Honey Boo Boo would have had for these two - Auntie Poodle perhaps? But the highlight of the afternoon's stroll had to be our visit to the charming village of Balls Green. What a wonderful name for a place!

It was a warm day; we had regular water stops for the dogs, and we even had a pub stop for ourselves. A pint of Thatcher's Gold went down very nicely. For all that I make a lot of noise about ale, you can't beat a cold cider on a hot afternoon. We had a really good walk; it burned off (about) one thousand seven hundred calories, and we even found thirty six geocaches on what was a really good amble. We even found a virtual geocache, and for those of my loyal readers who roll their eyes at the entire concept of hunting plastic boxes, a virtual geocache is slightly more rare than rocking horse poo; there are only three of the things in both Kent and East Sussex combined. I've now found all three.
I even remembered to take some photos this time...

At the end of our walk we saw the village shop was open; we had ice creams. Even the dogs had some. We said our goodbyes and set off on our seperate ways home. For all that I kept nodding off in the car I couldn't help but notice that the closer we got to home, the wetter the roads were. Once home I went to get my washing in; it was dripping wet. We'd had a glorious day in Sussex; it seemed to have rained hard for much of the day in Ashford.
It didn't take long to pop the washing through the spin drier and hang it round the house. Mind you for all that it apparently rained today, it didn't top up the fish pond much so I ran the hose pipe out and left that running for a couple of hours. The pond's much fuller now; I shall put that hose pipe away tomorrow; it's all wet now...


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