4 January 2018 (Friday) - Pikey Lane


Another night spent fighting for a share of the duvet… still, being on a late shift meant that I got to have something of a lie-in when "er indoors TM" got up, and when she got up the dogs went with her.
I came downstairs to be greeted by Fudge and Pogo. Treacle was running round with the wrapper of her breakfast in her mouth; clearly very pleased with herself.

I spent a little while looking at the geo-map over brekkie planning a little adventure before work. I’ve taken to looking for caches which are up for resuscitation; over a year since they were last found. There are a *lot* which seem to be missing. I’m not keen to waste my time when ten other people have already said they can’t find it. And there’s quite a few up trees and in rivers in which very few people have shown any interest. But bearing in mind that new resuscitatable caches appear all the time, I keep looking.

I got the leads on the dogs, and we went on something of a disastrous dog walk. Treacle was crapping as though she was practicing to crap for England at the next Olympics. We walked out usual route in reverse in an attempt to avoid OrangeHead’s posse. We got as far as the co-op field where I realised Pogo and Treacle had the wrong collars on. As I swapped them over OrangeHead and her Chunky Little Friend came past (running late). And exactly that which I planned to avoid happened. Fudge ran off with her gang. He ignored all my calls. OrangeHead didn’t try to shoo him away until she was nearly at the road several hundred yards away. It was only then that he thought to look around to see where we were. I marched him (and the other two) straight home. Having been about an hour later than usual going for our walk I really didn’t have time for Fudge to be constantly trying to join another group. I was fuming; Fudge knew he’d done wrong.

My car was covered in ice when I got to it. Still iced up at mid-morning; that's cold. As I drove to work "Women's Hour" was on the radio. Some rather aggressive woman was banging on about how her mission in life was to promote the position of women in the legal professions; especially as barristers. It was pointed out to her that there are actually more women barristers than men, but that didn't deter her at all. She seemed to think that being on maternity leave was a bar to being promoted and had this idea that people on maternity leave should be eligible for promotions and get them, even though they are on extended leave. I wonder how that might work in practice (!)
I listened to her rantings for a while, but when the show turned to dead babies (as it so often does) I turned it off.

I drove out to the geo-target I'd set myself. Perhaps I should have looked at the area in Google Street-View before I'd left home; I did take a little while to find somewhere to park the car. I say "park the car" - "abandon by roadside" might have been a better description of how I left it. I soon found the footpath from the road to the cache. It started well, and got overgrown. I scrambled through a thicket, I ignored the footpath diversion sign, I climbed over a fence, and soon saw my prey from twenty yards away. It amazes me how cleverly concealed film pots can go missing after a week or so, but this was a rather large sandwich box which hadn't been found in eighteen months and it was just laying on the ground out in the open.
I did the top-secret geo-rituals, then hid the thing (rather than leaving laying on the floor) and braved my way back to my car.
I headed in the vague direction of work. I found another geocache. I also found the wonderfully-named "Pikey Lane". Who would want to live there? Presumably people pay good money to do so?

From Pikey Lane it was a short drive to work where I amazed myself at how quickly I found a parking space. I then went to the canteen for a rather good bit of cottage pie. The works canteen is rather good. I then did my bit at work. The late shift was surprisingly busy; I was glad when the night shift turned up.

​I do like having the morning before the late shift to do what I want, but it does make for a late finish…

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