It was a very hot night
last night. I was rather restless, and didn't sleep well. After an
hour and a rather traumatic dream about using the toilet as a
dishwasher (what was that all about?) I woke and then dozed
fitfully for the rest of the night.
I gave up trying to sleep
shortly after 6am and watched Billie Piper doing her thing in "Secret
Diary of a Call Girl" then found an episode of "On
The Buses" on the ITV+1 channel. It's a sad fact that
despite paying nearly forty quid a month for SkyTV and despite having
nearly a thousand channels of telly, forty year old repeats of "On
The Buses" was the best (only) thing worth watching
at 7am.
I then set off for my
planned walk. A little while ago a new geo-series had been published
just the other side of Maidstone. According to Google Maps the
journey should take about forty minutes. Bearing in mind the French
have effectively stuffed up the county's road network by blockading
Calais I allowed myself over two hours and took a rather circuitous
route which took me about twenty miles out of my way to get there.
As I drove it looked as
though everyone else was following my idea of giving the motorway a
wide berth.
The French really have a
lot to answer for. I have no idea what their complaint is. I don't
really care, but whatever it is they will not get my support by
making my life seriously inconvenient. This is now five consecutive
days on which my journey has been needlessly made longer. I'm sure a
lot of other people are in the same boat. I do hope no one starts
publishing photos of the protestors because if they did aggrieved
members of the public might know with whom they might remonstrate in
the future...
Despite the best (or
worst) effort of the French I got to Eccles with a little time to
spare and so I pootled about the village collecting information for a
couple of nearby geo-field-puzzles.
Pootling took a little
longer than I expected; it was rather difficult to be inconspicuous
outside the local church when three "rather council"
young mothers were seeing who could shriek the "F"
word loudest and with most feeling. But I got all I needed to solve
the puzzles and made my way to meet up with everyone. It wasn't long
before we were all assembled and five of us (and two dogs)
soon found ourselves at the designated start point. The first cache
was a puzzle. A puzzle I couldn't solve; but the word was that you
didn't need to solve the puzzle; the cache would be obvious on
passing to the experienced tupperware-hunter. And (sure enough)
my amazing badger-senses soon located the elusive plastic.
There's no denying I'd
been in two minds about brining my dog along. It has been very hot
recently; possibly too hot for dogs? In fact as we walked one
well-meaning (I'm sure) yokel asked if the dogs were all right
on the pavement. He clearly couldn't see they were both on the grass
verges. But whilst it was warm today it wasn't as hot as it has been,
and we actually had quite heavy (albeit very warm) rain for
much of our walk.
People who'd walked this
route at the weekend had told us they took three hours to get round;
that was about as long as it took us. It was a good route; one i
would recommend. I
took a few photos whilst we were out. But not many; it's
difficult to work the camera and steer "Furry Face TM"
away from fox poo at the same time.
At the end of the walk
the ladies left us; the lads went to the pub (for a pint of pop!)
where we spent half an hour looking at a seriously difficult
geo-puzzle. We didn't solve it, but we've got a few more ideas about
thye puzzle now.
Despite the traffic chaos
I got back to Ashford in relatively good time. And then because of
the traffic chaos it took me the best part of an hour to get from
where "er indoors TM" works to
home.
Once home I did the
secret geo-on-line stuff. Much as I resent having to pay for the
third-party software which makes Hannah functional, there's no
denying that the stuff works well.
I then had a look
on-line. There is a little consternation in the astro-fraternity. It
is just possible that the astro club might be attracting a nutter.
Apparently there is someone who actually beleives all the faked Moon
landings conspiracy theory rubbish and goes out of his way to push
his views even though even the most feeble-minded simpletons laugh at
him.
I suppose that one of the
drawbacks of a democratic society and the right to free speech is
that these people are allowed to spout their twaddle. If he comes to
astro club he'll get a chance. A chance to keep his mouth shut, that
is.... I might have mentioned that for one don't beleive in a
democratic society and the right to free speech.
I had the option to go
round to see "My Boy TM" this
evening; he was having a barbie. Instead I fell asleep. I woke just
as "er indoors TM" came home. We
had a rather good bit of scoff which we devoured whilst watching
downloaded episodes of "Yonderland". I'd forgotten
how good that show was... If only it was on at 6am...
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