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14 September 2014 (Sunday) - Alkham

I woke feeling rather rough this morning, and as I shared my toast with "Furry Face TM" I watched "Toddlers and Tiaras". That program is such an eye-opener; in many ways it's got to be a form of child abuse. So many of the kiddies don't want to do the pageant thing; they make no secret that they feel they are being forced into it by their parents.

We rounded up most of the usual suspects and set off on our Sunday Geo-walk. We didn't go very far today; just down to the Alkham Valley which is just outside Folkestone. We did a short walk of about three miles, then relocated for lunch and another short stroll
As we walked the weather wasn't too hot; in fact we had a few drops of rain over lunchtime. As we walked we had some good views, but surprisingly not as many as you might think. Even the top of the Alkham valley is lower than other nearby hills. There was a particularly unsettling bit when we searched for one cache in a church graveyard.... it *was* a church graveyard, but the church itself has been turned into a private house. I didn't feel especially comfortable in what might have been a graveyard or might equally have been someone's garden.
And talking of churches, one of the caches was at Alkham church, so we popped in to be nosy. There was a little notice inside claiming that the running costs of the church were fifty quid per day. Per day!!! How can it possibly cost that much too run a church?
But it all added to the experience of the day; and we saw a buzzard and "Furry Face TM" tracked a pheasant.

As for the geo-bit; we found most of the caches we went for; we couldn't find two. We were pretty sure both of them had gone. I've since found that one of them was there all along and we actually missed it. Still, that's what this silly game is all about.
We were somewhat misled by the D/T settings on some of the hides; a cache at the top of a hill which has you gasping for air is more than a 2/5 terrain. And on others the given cache sizes were confusing; something labeled "small" should still be large enough to fit more than just the paper log into. But that is just being picky; we had a good walk. And that is what the Sunday walk is all about.
And (as I do) I took a few photos whilst we were out.

Once home I did the geo-admin work, and found that one of today's caches had been a minor milestone for me; my three thousand nine hundredth cache. I really should give some thought to doing something special for a four thousandth cache. And after a really good bit of dinner "er indoors TM" set off to bowling.
I phoned the mobile phone company and had a whinge. "Everything Everywhere" is actually "Nothing in most places". After a minor kerfuffle I got through to someone who spoke English who explained to me that it wasn't possible to get a mobile broadband signal outside of a built-up area. I asked him how Vodafone seems to achieve this; he then changed his tack and said I had no agreement with EE; my agreement was with the shop who sold me the phone. I shall have to find five minutes to get to the shop and complain to them.
In the meantime I would suggest that any of my loyal readers who want to have a mobile phone that gets an Internet signal might bear my experiences in mind.

I then sorted out more laundry (my undercrackers) and watched "Starship Troopers 2". I'd not seen that film before; it's arguably the worst film 'Ive ever seen.



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