A terrible night; I suspect
Treacle had taken her bone to the bed and was guarding it. She had two rather
serious squabbles with Pogo during the night in which poor Pogo had done little
more than move in his sleep.
I gave up trying to sleep and
went downstairs a couple of hours earlier than had intended and found Fudge
asleep on the sofa; he knew where to go for a bit of peace. As I scoffed my
toast I read something that made me roll my eyes. There is a serious
outbreak of measles in Portland; an area well known for its
anti-vaccination sentiments. In extreme conditions measles can cause blindness,
encephalitis, severe diarrhoea and all sorts of secondary infections which have
been known to be fatal.
Peter J.
Hotez, (professor of paediatrics and dean of the National School of Tropical
Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston) was quoted as saying “This
is something I’ve predicted for a while now. It’s really awful and really
tragic and totally preventable.”
Why would anyone not vaccinate
their child? Apparently prominent people in the anti-vaccination brigade are
asking what we did before vaccinations. The answer is simple; we watched
children die.
(And these people are allowed
to vote… but that’s another rant.)
I went down the road to the
dentist; I was only ten minutes late being seen. Today’s appointment was with
the hygienist. She basically gave my gob an incredibly good clean out prior to
the dentist herself having a rummage next week. The hygienist was good,
professional, and looked as though she wouldn’t be out of place as a member of
my grand-daughter’s gang. I’m getting old.
I then drove round to Brookfield café where I’d
arranged to meet "My
Boy TM" for a spot of brekkie. The place was full so we
went round to The Forge where we couldn’t even get into the car park. They were
queuing out the door at Rocky’s café too. Why was every café in Ashford so busy
this morning? We thought we might try the French Connection, but they’d stopped
doing brekkie by the time we got there.
So
we had McDonalds.
From McDonalds we went to B&Q. I needed some
more boxes for Lego, and the first fruit of my loin wanted shelving. He’s got
this plan to chuck out all the rubbish in the cupboard under his stairs and
keep his fishing gear in there. I can’t see Cheryl standing for that, and I am
now in something of a dilemma. Not only will she unleash a can of whoop-ass on "My Boy TM"
when she finds out about it, I too will be in the firing line for helping him.
Realistically I should squeal him up; if only for self-preservation.
I fussed Rolo for a bit, then
left them to it. I came home and collected the dogs. Despite the drizzle it was
time for a walk, and I had a little hike in mind. Just recently I’ve been
hunting out all the geocaches which are relatively close to home. With only two
left that are within five miles I thought I might get one of those two.
I must admit that I didn’t
expect to find today’s geo-target. Three years ago the Brabourne scouts put out
fifteen geocaches. Like all geocaches put out by scout groups they weren’t
maintained. Of the original fifteen, twelve have been archived because the
person who put them out has lost interest. On 22 August last year I took Fudge
and Treacle out to look for two of these. Although I found them, at the time I
said “One was thirty yards away from where it should have been, the other
forty yards away.” One of the caches within five miles of home was put out
by this scout group. Bearing in mind that the things aren’t maintained and that
(from experience) I know that the GPS skills of the hider are rubbish,
my hopes of a find weren’t high.
We drove out to Brabourne, we
walked for a kilometre across fields and woods, I rummaged unsuccessfully in a
hedgerow and we came home again. The dogs had a good walk, Pogo had another car
ride… it was good to get out.
Once home I wrote a “needs
archiving” log. I toyed with the idea of contacting the Geocaching
Association of Great Britain to suggest that they formally contact the Scout
Association to ask them to withdraw the geocaching badge. Having been a scout
leader myself I know exactly how the geocaching badge would have been done; at
the time it was “this month’ fad” and by now would be a very distant
memory. But I decided not to push it; it would just be another argument.
Instead I played Lego for a
while. I intended to sort the job lots I’d bought into the boxes I’d bought,
but I didn’t. I built a Lego church; “St. Gutsache’s”
"er indoors TM" boiled up fish
cakes and chips, and we scoffed it whilst watching the latest episode of Star
Trek. Much as I quite like Star Trek:
Discovery, USS Discovery (NCC 1031)
is probably the ugliest space ship in sci-fi.
And then we watched yesterday’s
episode of “The Orville” which featured the actors who played the
doctors in Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise. After a
shaky start “The Orville” has improved beyond all recognition.
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