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7 March 2018 (Wednesday) - Late Shift

Another good night… or most of the night I woke just after 6am with my CPAP machine blowing a hurricane into my nose. I heaved myself out of bed; “heaved” being the operative phrase. It is time for a diet again.
I get cross with the subject of diets. There are so many of them. Eat normally and go hungry for two days a week. Atkins. Go vegetarian. Eat granola. Slow release carbs… Everyone has a never-fail diet idea that simply doesn’t work. I’ve tried the lot. Some might work for others, but from bitter experience the only weight loss plan that works for me is calorie counting and a sense of being permanently hungry.
I got onto the scales this morning. Seventeen stone and one pound. According to the Internet I need to lose about a third of my body weight (again). So it is calorie counting for me (again)… Time to reactivate myfitnesspal dot com.

Over brekkie of jam on toast with coffee (one fifth of my day’s calorie allowance) I had a look-see at the Internet. Yesterday I posted up to one of the work-related Facebook groups I follow. What I’d said had been favourably received. Not much else had happened on Facebook.
I had an email telling me of two jobs in London; neither of which really appealed to me. And I had a glut of emails telling me someone had spent a day in Ashford finding (and not finding) my Wherigo caches. The finds told me the caches were fine; the “didn’t finds” told me I might need to do a spot of maintenance. Then I looked closer. These were all dated nine months ago. So… what looked fine might not be, and those with the issues have long been sorted. Leaving the logging for nine months was really helpful to me (he said sarcastically!)
I can’t understand why people leave it so long to sort out doing the logging of what they’ve found when hunting Tupperware. This chap had done “cut and paste” for everything he’d had to say. It is possible to automate the logging and to it all in less than two minutes.

I took the dogs round the park. We had a rather good walk; I saw OrangeHead and her posse before Fudge did so I was able to get him on his lead. He tends to join in with them if ‘m not careful. OrangeHead knows this and always keeps walking which makes it rather difficult to get Fudge back. As I was putting him on his lead, one of OrangeHead’s followers asked if he’d been naughty. I explained why he was going on the lead; OrangeHead’s expression was one of a smacked arse.
Still, if nothing else the walk burned off three hundred calories.

It was amazing how grubby I’d got on a circuit of the park. I put on clean trousers, settled the dogs and drove to the petrol station on the ring road to get petrol. I got there to find the amazingly (!) attractive grannie was without any suitors for once, but as I was walking out of the kiosk two middle aged men charged in as fast as they could. Both were clearly in a rush to get to grannie before the other. I wish I could see the attraction. 
Usually I would get a bag of Cadbury's mini eggs from the garage which I would scoff as I drove. I didn't today. That saved two hundred and twelve calories. As I drove away I remembered they sold USB cables and that I had been planning to get one from them. Woops!
I drove on to Bybrook barn garden centre to get some brindle chippings. At least I remembered something that had been on my shopping list. I got there to find the car park was blocked. There was a huge lorry filling most of it, and the rest of the car park was occupied by some rather fat people who were seemingly waddling about in random circles. I had no idea what they were doing, but it was enough to make me give up and set off westwards. I'll get my brindle chippings tomorrow.

Yesterday I'd seen a new geocache had gone live not two miles from work. This morning the First to Find was still unclaimed so I went on a little mission. I drove to an obscure housing estate in Tunbridge Wells and found a footpath. I then waded through swamp and quagmire only to be beaten to my quarry by two minutes. Still, it was good to meet up with those who'd beaten me there; it was even better that this was their first FTF.
We chatted for a bit, then I went on to get "second to find". As I walked back to my car I again met up with the people who'd got the FTF. For some inexplicable reason they were counting the planks on a bridge. Apparently there were two new geocaches in the area. The one for which I was too slow, and one involving a field puzzle in which you had to count the planks on a bridge. I hadn't known about this second cache; that was something of a bonus.
After a little mucking about, and a little more wading through mud we soon found the right bridge on which to count planks. From there it was only a short spuddle to find the hidden Tupperware, claim a joint First to Find, and do the happy dance.

There are those who don't like sharing an FTF. I was only too happy to do so today. I was glad to have someone with me. Company is always good, as is meeting new friends. The puzzle involved doing sums with the numbers of planks we counted, and despite having a degree in maths, sums isn't my strong point so having someone who can add up is a bonus.
And it is always handy to have someone nearby (just in case) when (realistically) you aren't *that* far from retirement and you are sodding about in the mud like a man half your age.

We said our goodbyes just as I realised how grubby I was. Having put on clean trousers after the morning's dog walk I was now wearing trousers that were muddier than the ones I'd taken off.
I got to work with ten minutes to spare, apologised for all the mud, and got on with my work.
Seeing how I'm on a diet I decided against having lunch, and spent most of the afternoon feeling hungry. Mind you unless I'm stuffed to the point of feeling sick, I'm always hungry. If I could stop feeling hungry i wouldn't have this weight problem.

Mind you what with all the late shifts, having dinner at half past ten in the evening probably isn’t helping maintain an ideal physique…

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