One of the “features”
of my new lap-top is that it automatically backs up my data to some unknown
place on cyber-space. A good idea in theory; in practice it does that at the
expense of everything else it is supposed to be doing, so for the first
half-hour after boot-up the thing Is practically unusable. I’ve turned this “feature” off. Why do I.T. types insist
on calling such troublesome ideas “features”?
“Disadvantage” might be a better
description.
Over brekkie I read the news with a sense of “WTF”. The Secretary of State for exiting
the European Union has told the House of Lords EU select committee “I may not be able to tell you everything,
even in private hearings” when referring to the negotiations he will be
conducting on the nation’s behalf. He’s told members of parliament (on Monday afternoon) that full
transparency would not be in the country’s best interests.
Now why are all those who voted to leave the EU
because they felt that the European Parliament was forcing rules onto the UK (supposedly without our say-so) happy
with this?
"Furry
Face TM" seemed a little excitable, so I took him for a
walk round the park. On the way he tried to pick a fight with a bus, and he had
a respectable attempt at humping a Red Setter and a Labrador. I put him on the
lead as OrangeHead hove into view. She is an odd woman. When I met her when he
is on her own (as I did today) she is
polite, civil and friendly. However when surrounded by her little gang she
doesn’t even deign to acknowledge my existence. She asked if I’d seen Lynne.
Presumably Lynne is her Chunky Little Friend; I hadn’t seen any of her posse
this morning.
Once home we settled the pup in his basket, and
"er indoors TM" drove us out to Teapot Island. We’d
both taken a day off work today to go out in the canoe. We soon parked near the
water’s edge and got the canoe inflated. There was another group getting ready
to go sailing. We said hello, and I politely and jokingly told their
four-year-old (named “Bloomer” apparently)
that the golden rule of sailing was to watch out for the sharks.
Oh dear.
I didn’t know she’d spent the last few weeks in
terror of actually being on the receiving end of a shark attack in the Medway…
Leaving “Bloomer”
to her family we set off. It was a lovely day for a sail up the river; partly
because of the wonderful weather and partly because no one else was sailing up
the river. I don’t know what happened to “Bloomer”’s
crew (perhaps a shark *did* have them?)
but we only saw two other sailors all day.
We went up the river; the first half was easy
enough but suddenly something changed. Where once all really was plain sailing,
suddenly we were all over the place and spinning in circles. We eventually got
to the lock where we came ashore for a picnic, and we pulled the canoe out of
the water and we gave it a once-over. Disaster! The skeg had gone missing.
(For
those of my loyal readers who are not of a nautical disposition the skeg is a
sort of fixed rudder. For those of my loyal readers who are *really* not of a
nautical disposition, if you haven’t got a skeg then the canoe just keeps going
in circles).
The idea was that we would paddle upstream to
begin with, then paddling back to the car would be going with the current and
would be easy. Without the skeg it wasn’t as easy as it might have been. Once
we’d got back to the car I consulted my GPS unit “Hannah”; we’d done a total of five miles sailing.
A day out isn’t a day out unless we hunt for
geocaches – we found three along the river. There were others we didn’t find.
One such failure may well have been responsible for the loss of the skeg.
Mind you
I quite liked the sailing, but there is no denying that it did nothing for my
tennis elbow. There is talk of taking "Furry Face TM"
canoeing. We’ve got a life jacket for him, but I think he’d get bored, and then
do a “dog overboard” chasing ducks.
I took a few photos as we sailed. Once
home I posted them on-line as I so often do, and then once "er indoors TM"
had showered off the river water (I didn’t
bother) we drove round to McDonalds. We soon met Steve and Steve and Sarah
and Jimbo and had a rather good McDinner. "er indoors TM"
then went crafting, and the rest of us went round to visit Denver for a meeting
of the astro-committee. Lots talked about, lots planned, maybe changes, maybe
not… all good stuff.
I’m off to bed now. I’m worn out. Today was a
holiday?
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