12 August 2018 (Sunday) - Dodging the Rain

I didn’t sleep well last night. Just as I was dozing off I was woken by the sounds of Fudge being sick on the bed. He fetched up quite the mixture of semi-digested dinner, kebab, dog biscuit and chicken bones. Where had he got the chicken bones from? I managed to stop both dogs eating the pile of vomit and I cleared it up, but by then both dogs were full of energy again. Eventually everyone was settled, I then woke screaming (literally) three hours later. I wonder what that was all about?

Over brekkie I had a look at Facebook. It looked like I missed quite a good evening after I left yesterday’s geo-meet; had I known it was to be a sit-down meal I wouldn’t have taken the dogs along. It also looked like I’d also missed a chance to go get a certain geocache I’ve been hoping to get for years (one which needs ropes and stuff to get to). Had I known this was on the cards at yesterday’s open day I would have re-scheduled the cash and carry run to have got to it. No one told me about either of these…

For once the dogs ate their brekkie without problems, and I wondered what to do with the day. The plan had been to go on a long walk round the firehills between Fairlight and Hastings, but with rain forecast all day I didn’t want to go just to get soaked again. "My Boy ^TM" was “chilling” (I *hate* that expression) and Margate is (in all honesty) too far away to visit more than twice a week.

So I thought I’d go see my mummy and daddy.

I thought I’d stop off in Iden on the way to my parents’ house hoping that the geocaches there would lead us on a good dog-walk before the rain hit. My first target was one called “The Veg Hedge”. This is one which I’ve been looking at off and on for some years. It was (and still is) a two-stage multi-cache (two field puzzles to solve) so I knew it would take some effort. Also it is an old cache; traditionally the older puzzles involve a bit more walking than the newer ones.

We got to the start point; I had to find some dates from a grave. With notebook in one hand and dog leads in the other it was tricky. The obvious answer was to set the dogs loose, but I was operating under the gimlet stare of some nosey old biddy standing in the church porch. Eventually with dates obtained and sums done I set off to the next stage of this multi-cache. The next stage was (as I’d thought) some distance away. As I approached where the sat-nav said to go I was rather pleased to see a notice board. I needed one to get the next set of clues, and clearly I’d come to the right place.

With no nosey old biddies watching me I could let the dogs loose and have hands free to operate pen and notebook and sat-nav. I did the sums…. How far away ?!?! I did the sums again. It looked like a feasible point on the map albeit eight hundred yards away. But what is geocaching if not a decent dog walk. We set off, and pausing only briefly to take the wrong footpath we were soon where we were supposed to be. I looked at the given hint and within seconds a rather large ammo can was in my hands. We’d found the thing. And bearing in mind that no one else had logged a find in nearly two years I was able to claim “resuscitation” (an extremely obscure geo-thing which is only any good for bragging rights when talking to people with less resuscitations than you have).

We then walked back to the car… you could tell this was an *old* cache; anything hidden in the last five years would have had a series of half a dozen caches leading from the car to the cache and back again.

Once back at the car I opened the boot of the car so’s the hot air could escape, then rummaged under the stile by which we’d parked to get the cache which was hidden there. I could find nothing. Just as I gave up so I saw something laying on the floor. Bearing in mind this was a new cache only hidden five days ago I can’t help but wonder how long it will last if it is already laying out in the open.

I then tried to get the dogs into the car. Treacle jumped in easily enough, but Fudge wouldn’t. There was another dog nearby, and when there are other dogs nearby he tends to show off. Eventually the other dog cleared off and I was able exert some control over a rather willful Patagonian Tripe-Hound.

The plan had been to carry on hunting Tupperware round Iden, but we’d already walked getting on for a mile and a half, so we just drove off to Hastings.

I had this idea to pick up a cake from the farm shop in Icklesham. We’ve got cakes there in the past which were home-made and reasonably priced…

The farm shop in Icklesham has been knocked down and rebuilt into a poncey tea room run by a pair of idiots. They said they didn’t sell whole cakes, but as a special favour could sell me some slices of cake and wrap them up. Had I known how much they would cost I would never have bought them. Had I known how long it would have taken them to cut and wrap cake I would never have waited. But having waited nearly twenty minutes for them to cut three slices of cake I felt I had to hand over the money.

I won’t be going to that shop again.

However on the plus side mum and dad liked the cake. They seemed well; we put the world to rights for an hour or so. As I left it was starting to rain. I was pleased about that; we had been right to cancel our walk.

Bearing in mind we are hoping to do the firehills walk some time soon I popped up to North Seat to get some information for a field puzzle, and also popped into the helipad to check on the car park’s opening times.

I then stopped for geo-purposes at Pett Level and New Romney, and drove out Reading Street in the naïve hope of getting a second geo-resuscitation.

I didn’t.

But it was a good second walk for the dogs. A kilometer through pretty farmland, fox poo for Fudge to roll in, and a rather good walk back again. We didn’t find any film pots under rocks that time, but you can’t get everything.

I took a few photos as we walked today. I do that.

We came home. I fed the pond fish. Fudge fell in the pond. I then had to waste ten minutes bathing him. I gave the dogs their dinner and they both promptly fell asleep. I scoffed KFC whilst watching last week’s “Gotham”, then did the ironing whilst watching “Orange is the New Black”.

I sometimes wonder if I should take the moral high ground about that show. I’ve often banged on about “heaving bosoms” in “Jamestown” and “Poldark” but in those shows there is an element of discretion. “Orange is the New Black” regularly features rather graphic full-blown lesbian sex. As a teenager I and my mate Douggie Small once acquired a mucky video (and borrowed his grandmother’s projector to watch it).

The filth that was “Gymslip Rampage” has nothing on what Netflix puts out…