23 August 2015 (Sunday) - Back to the White Cliffs

My dog had a woofing fit at 2.20am. I settled him, and he had another at 2.45am. After he started shouting at 3.10am I brought him upstairs where it is easier to shush him. He didn't bark after that, but did keep jumping on and off the bed. Consequently I had another sleepless night.

Over brekkie I read something interesting. The BBC is to change the supplier of its weather forecasts. It's very obvious their TV, radio and website already get forecasts from different sources. The website is quite reliable; TV and radio always differ from the website. Perhaps they might start using the BBC website?

I then checked my emails.... One of the things which rather niggles me about geocaching is that whenever one finds a cache or attends a meet-up, one is expected to produce a nice little written log of the episode. Personally I do a "copy & paste" pointing people to this blog. It's not that I can't be bothered to make the effort to write nice things (sometimes I do) but I honestly feel that geocaching is a treasure hunt, not an excercise in creative writing. Not everyone is good with words. I *really* think it should be optional...

However, having written nice words (or copied and pasted trite platitudes like I do) the person who hid the cache or organised the meet gets an email to tell them that someone's done so.

Yesterday a series of eleven new caches of mine went live and I hosted a geo-meet. This morning I had two hundred emails telling me that loads of people had found caches and attended the meet. If nothing else this shows how successful yesterday's event had been. I spent much of the day being smug about that.

I popped out to my car; the public dustbin which lives fifty yards up the street had been dragged and abandoned a hundred yards down the street. Probably by the drunks going home last night. I expect that was what made "Furry Face ^TM" bark in the night.

As I was taking the bin back to where it lives our "delightful" neighbours were coming out of their house. She made her usual point of ignoring me but then did a double take when she saw I was carrying a public dustbin over my shoulder. I gave her the most sickly of smiles and kept going.

We got our gear together, got into the car, collected the crew and set off on today's geo-mission. Two weeks ago we walked along the bottom of the cliffs from Folkestone to Samphire Hoe and back; today we walked along the top of the same cliffs from Capel (East Folkestone) all the way to Dover looking for geocaches..

Because the walk was a line and not a circle there was a minor hiccup with the possibility of finding ourselves at the end of the walk and seven miles from the car. But this was easily sorted. When I first proposed the walk (a while ago) there was a lot of interest so I suggested that anyone driving down might drop their passengers at the start of the walk. Drivers would go on the the end, then all the drivers could come back in one car.

I rather hoped we'd have enough drivers willing to do this.

I dropped my passengers off on Capel and drove on to the car park in the Western Heights where Fran and Aleta were already waiting. As Mark was the last to arrive we said that as he was still in his car he could drive us all back to the start.

He seemed happy with that scheme.

Soon we were all assembled back in Capel and thirteen of us (and four dogs) went for a walk. I've mentioned before how beautiful the scenery is around the White Cliffs. As we started walking we could see the coast of France across the channel. And as we walked we went through the battle of Britain memorial. We posed for some photos there. We went past the garden of a chap with whom I used to work until he retired several years ago. He was in his garden; we had a chat. We collected clues for puzzles; we successfully hunted tupperware.

We knew it was going to rain at some point; the rain came somewhat earlier than expected. I had this plan to have lunch where I knew there were wartime tunnels that the more adventurous of our number might want to explore. Just as we arrived at the lunch stop so the heavens opened. Those who wanted to tunnel did so, and the rest of us got rather wet.

The rain only lasted for half an hour or so, but it was enough to get the grass very wet; we did get damp on the final stretch. But not that wet that it dampened our spirits. It was a really good walk with really good company, and as is usually the case I took a photo or two as we walked...

After (about) seven miles and (about) five hours we got to the car park at the Western Heights where most of the cars had been left. Aleta had space in her car to take Mark and his crew back to where we'd left his car, and so our transport plan was a total success.

We said our goodbyes, and pausing only briefly to take a photo or two of the harbour we set off home. The plan was to come home; but we took a quick detour to Samphire Hoe. After all their salted caramel ice cream isn't to be turned down lightly.

Once home I had a quick shower and with "er indoors ^TM" off bowling I found myself at something of a loose end for the evening. Normally we wouldn't be home quite so early on a summer's afternoon, but we had got rather wet whilst out.

When I'm at a loose end I usually do the laundry. It keeps me out of mischief; I don't mind ironing shirts, bandanas really do need to be ironed, and my smalls don't deal with themselves....