8 December 2018 (Saturday) - Ruckinge Woods


Fudge dossed down next to me on my bed last night and grumbled and growled at pretty much everything seemingly constantly. Fortunately he went downstairs at some point in the small hours and I got *some* sleep.

As I scoffed my brekkie "er indoors TM" went to move her car; round the corner is restricted parking. She was gone for less than a minute and the dogs went hysterical and would not be consoled. When I leave for work in the morning no-one bats an eyelid.

I was rather disappointed when I looked at the Internet this morning, Yesterday I unearthed a motorcycling jacket that once belonged to "My Boy TM" and a baby-carrying rucksack that we were going to use to lug "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" about in. Neither has been used for years, so I put them up on various Facebook selling sites. So far there is no interest in them. I was hoping someone might want them.
On the other hand, the article I wrote about stomatocytes had received over seventy “likes”.
And then I saw something which boiled my piss. I saw a video someone had posted. It featured a small dog yapping at an alligator. In the end the alligator killed the dog. I reported the video to the Facebook feds; they replied within minutes saying that the video didn’t breach their “community standards”.
I’ve complained about other things that haven’t breached their “community standards”. If gratuitous videos of oral sex or an alligator killing a dog, or a pack of hounds ripping a fox apart or race hate doesn’t breach Facebook’s standards, I can’t help but wonder what does. I’ve asked them; I doubt they will reply.Much as I like Facebook, it ain’t perfect.

Seeing that the weather was rather bright outside, and bearing in mind the forecast said it wouldn’t last we took the dogs out. Five new geocaches had gone live near Ruckinge in the week so we thought they might form the basis of a walk. And being nearby would give us a short drive for Pogo to get used to the car. He tends to “blow” on longer drives.
We parked up and had a rather good wander through the woods. It wasn’t *that* muddy really… it could have been a lot worse. As we walked we saw several squirrels. Treacle only saw one, but what she missed in numbers she made up for in enthusiasm. She really put her heart and soul into chasing it; a shame she’d not noticed that the thing had gone up the first tree it had seen and she was chasing shadows.
Geocache-wise… (engaging “rant mode”…) I’m sorry. I can’t recommend the series we walked today. It was put out by a scout group. That in itself tells you all you need to know. It has been my experience that scout groups put out caches for their geocaching badge with no experience of the hobby whatsoever and then loose interest *very* quickly. You really do need to look for scout caches pretty much right away because by the time they need any maintenance, the scouts are all off doing their wig-spotting badge or world domination badge, and the geocaching badge is but a happy memory.
There were some really well-made hides in Ruckinge woods; but they would have been better suited for an urban environment. You *don’t* put something the size of your thumbnail where something the size of a suitcase would be preferable. There were only five caches along a route which could easily have had twelve. And the route was a straight line; there and back again. Two minutes looking at the map might have devised a circular walk with a designated parking area.
Isn’t that all very negative of me? The last time I ran down a scout group’s geocaching efforts I was told I should go help them do it properly. I can’t say I’m keen to get involved; once they get their hooks into you, they never let go (I was a scout leader for thirteen years… my son was eight when I started – he was twenty-one when I got out).

I took a few photos while we walked. Once home I posted them up on-line as I scoffed a Belgian bun for lunch. We got Belgian buns from the co-op today; they do the best ones.
I then messed about with my Lego train layout to find out just how big a table I need for it. I’ll need one which is a metre deep by two metres long. Rather than buying one it might be cheaper to bodge it with a plank of wood from B&Q. I used to make snake vivariums… how hard can it be?

After a plate of sausage and chips "er indoors TM" went off to film night. I settled down in front of the telly with the dogs who eventually stopped looking for "er indoors TM" and went to sleep.
I quite like this Netflix.. 

No comments:

Post a Comment