Over brekkie I read
something on the Internet which
made me think. Salford City Council have banned people from
swearing in parts of the city. There is an on the spot fine of a
hundred quid for the foul-mouthed. On the one hand it is a flagrant
breach of human rights. On the other hand I swear too much mysself
and am getting rather sick of the torrents of profanities which seem
to surround me. There is a particular f..! person f..! whose f..!
every f..! other f..! is f..! the f..! F-f..! word. Literally
f..!every f..! second f..! word f..! he f..! says f..! is f..! the
f..! F-f..! word. I must admit I don't like it very much. Perhaps
this might curb his excesses. Perhaps not.
There was then a
discussion on Facebok about which was the better of two local
gastro-pubs. Both seem to have peeople queueing up to get in. One
seems to rely on the reputation garnered from the fact a national
celebrity drinks in their bar. The other does very good food but
vastly over-priced. Am I wrong to seriously prefer McDonalds over
both of them?
I popped the lead onto my
dog and we went for a walk. Being on a rostered day off I had time to
myself and so I decided to do some geo-maintenance. For all that I go
hunting down Tupperware as a hobby, it doesn’t hide itself. People
have to hide the caches. And having hidden them, the hider is then
responsible for the upkeep of the box… for all that you can upkeep
a plastic box hidden under a rock.
Some people maintain
their caches well; others not at all. Some check on them on a weekly
(or even daily) basis. Some make a point of never checking at
all. I suppose I am somewhat lax in my geo-maintenance. I honestly
don’t think it is unreasonable to expect people hunting the boxes
to do any required maintenance as they walk round. Like I do. But
that’s just me…
Over the Christmas
holidays I put out a load of caches round Great Chart. I’d had
reports that several of the caches needed a little TLC so today I
went to have a look-see. Some had gone missing as the result of hedge
cutting and floods. And some were perfectly fine. But it was as well
that I walked round. Many of the ones that were fine wouldn’t have
been so for long. For a geocache to work it neds to be somewhat
concealed; not sitting out in the open, bold as brass, visible from
twenty yards away.
But, as I always say, the
whole point of this geo-lark is to have a decent guided walk. And we
had a good walk. It was a tad muddy in places. Fudge didn’t
*actually* have to swim but it came close. As we walked we met
friendly horses and saw blue tits and heard the woodpeckers. We
walked for just under two hours; it is an ideal walk… but it will
be better when it dries out a little.
We came home and a
certain Patagonian Tripe-Hound had a bath. I then watched last
night’s “Extant” over a spot of lunch. The show is
clearly building up to next week’s grand finale. Mush as I’ve
liked it I shall be glad when it is all over; it is becoming clear
that the plot wasn’t really thought through.
I then sparked up the PC
and put up the
photos I took whilst we walked then did the monthly accounts. I
had something of an annual tally-up. Every month I put a ton of cash
into what I call the “Household Account”. It is from this
account that I pay all the monthly household bills (council tax,
gas, leccie, water, internet etc). I put a little more into the
account every month than I need to; the idea being that should any
unforeseen emergencies arise then I have some emergency cash. This
comes in handy when (for example) the garden fence collapses.
Being the end of the financial year I thought I’d see how the
account had fared over the year. There is fifty quid less in the
account than there was a year ago. Fifty quid over the year… that’s
not bad.
Similarly I put money
aside to pay for car insurance, road tax and car services. At the end
of the financial year this account was actually twelve quid up on
what it was a year ago. I was rather pleased about that.
I thought about mowing
the lawn and hacking back next door's clematis and generally doing
gardening. But I thought better of the idea. Instead I set the
washing machine loose on my smalls and watched something I'd recorded
onto the SkyPlus box. "God
Bless America" was a rather odd film in which a
middle-aged man and a young girl go off across America killing anyone
they don't like. Whilst I could seriously identify with the lead
character the film certainly made me appreciate the UK's policy of
not letting the likes of me have a gun.
I then spent a littlle
while looking at the map making vague plans in the West Country until
"er indoors TM" came home. She
boiled up a rather good bit of scran, then as we devoured it we
watched Jack Black in "School of Rock". Not too
shabby at all....
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