13 October 2014 (Monday) - Off to Birmingham

I came down to find my little dog had had a little accident on the carpet overnight. He also seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. He seemed to be chirping up last night; this morning he seemed rather ill. He was struggling to hobble about. I went off to work with a heavy heart and spent the morning worrying about the little pup.

I would have come home for him at lunch time, but I was under orders to go to a course in Birmingham tomorrow. Rather than rushing up i nthe morning I'd arranged to go up this afternoon and take my time. The fact that there were two webcam caches on the way was neither here nor there(!)

The first webcam cache was in Banbury. I'd never been there before, and was rather dubious about the place. A Welshman I once met had told me that he's been to Banbury on a day trip and had been beaten up by the locals. I arrived, parked up, and was told by the parking attendant that no parking fees were applicable that late in the day. I thought that was very nice, pootled off to do the webcam thing, and came back to find my car had been imprisoned inside a load of parking barriers. This same parking attendant then started blustering about the car park space being needed for a fun fair. I ignored him and dragged enough barriers out of the way so that I could drive out, and I drove out; giving the chap the "V" sign as I went.

The next webcam cache was at the Student Union at Warwick University. Other than students swarming and torrential rain, this one went mostly uneventfully.

I then made my way to the guest house I had booked some months ago. In all honesty these two webcam caches had only added half an hour to my journey, but despite road works and delays a journey billed as being one of three hours took just over five hours.

I got to the Highworth Guest House, What can I say.... It's rather basic, but I knew that before I started. What I didn't know was that the promised dedicated parking simply doesn't exist. The advertised Sky TV features a range of satellite channels but not the Sky ones. The (rather small) towel in my room was still damp from the room's previous occupant. The wi-fi's functioning was was sporadic at best.

Despite a rather poor grasp of spoken English the landlady offered to cook me up an evening meal, and I scoffed a rather good plate of home made curry. I then went for a little stroll despite the rain. There was a geocache not two hundred yards from the guest house, and it would be daft not to have gone for it.

"er indoors ^TM" phoned. She had taken a very ill little dog to the vets. The bad back was much worse than they thought as he seems to have lost the use of his back legs. The vet was now suspecting a slipped disc, and this meant referral to a specialist vet in Surrey. "My Boy ^TM" drove "er indoors ^TM" and "Furry Face ^TM" to this vet whilst I was stuck in Birmingham watching the latest new thing on the telly; "Gotham".

I've only seen the first episode so far, but "Gotham" seems quite good so far. It does seem rather overloaded with references thatt may well fly over the heads of people who haven't read every single Batman comic book, but perhaps that's why I liked it

With Gotham watched the phone rang. The dog spinal specialist had given "Furry Face ^TM" a once-over. He has a grade two spinal injury but given rest there is an eighty-five percent chance of recovery without surgery. Mind you "rest" means enforced rest. And lots of it. The poor pup is to be locked in a dog-crate for six weeks and only allowed out for tiddles, poops, scof and cuddles.

He'll go stir-crazy..