I did get an early night last
night, but it wasn’t a good one. Pogo and Treacle lay very close either side of
me on the bed which was very constricting and very hot. And when I came back
from visiting the loo in the small hours Pogo had something to say about being
disturbed. When I finished telling him (in no uncertain terms) who was “the
main mumma” and who was “the bi-atch” Fudge came up and wanted to be
on the bed too.
I finally dozed off half an hour
before the alarm went off.
I took the dogs out for a
tiddle, made everyone some brekkie, and as I scoffed it I had a look at the
Internet. GSAK was still playing up, which was an issue for those who hunt
Tupperware. Looking on-line it would seem to have been a world-wide issue. Fortunately
it now seems to be fixed.
The main problem with geocaching
as a hobby is that for all that it is a very high-tech hobby, those who run the
show don’t seem to be very tech-savvy. Without two or three other I.T. plugins
the hobby is incredibly unwieldy, and those at geo-HQ keep fiddling with the
software which just renders all the plugins (as well as the stuff with which
they are fiddling) unusable.
The obvious answer is to employ
some I.T. people who *are* any good.
I also saw a squabble kicking
off on Facebook on one of the local groups. People were running down Ashford
town centre as being rubbish for shopping. What with the recent closures of
Debenhams, Marks and Spencer and the pet shop they might have a point. I’ve not
been shopping in the town centre for months. But then… shopping? What is it all
about? When I go “shopping” I know what I want to buy and I can either
go to one of the larger shops around the outskirts of the town (with its own
free car park) or I can order on-line and have it delivered to wherever I
want it delivered (usually) in a day or so.
However for some people “shopping”
is a way of life. They pay a fiver to park up, then walk for five minutes to a load
of shops. They then spend the afternoon randomly buying any old things that the
shops might have in stock (and that they don’t actually need or want)
despite not actually having had any need to go “shopping” in the first
place.
I got our stuff together and got
the leads onto the dogs. We went out to the car; I opened the boot and
announced “Boot Dogs!” All three hounds immediately jumped into the car’s
boot.
We drove to Leybourne where we
met Karl, Tracey and Charlotte. Since I had the full wolf-pack it made sense
for me to drive us all to today’s adventure. There were seats for humans and a
boot for the dogs. After a few hundred yards Fudge and Treacle were in with the
humans, and Pogo was sulking.
We broke our journey at Clackett
Lane services. You can’t go wrong with McBrekkie. Whilst Karl and Tracey got
supplies, Charlotte and I sniggered at the weather forecast. Have you ever used
the BBC weather app on your phone while at Clackett Lane’s westbound services?
It thinks you are in a place called Titsey. Rather puerile, but it amused us.
As we scoffed our McBrekkie we
watched a hawk flying by whilst being mobbed by a crow. The crow was definitely
attacking the hawk. I’ve heard of this happening, but only ever seen it once
before.
With McBrekkie scoffed we set
off to Balcome. It was at this point that Pogo also abandoned the idea of “Boot
Dogs”. We got to Balcombe without any dogs in the boot, and the back seat
being rather crowded.
We arrived, parked up, and it
wasn’t long before we were off on a little wander. Today’s walk was along quiet
country lanes and across fields and footpaths. Through woods, and a mile or so
walking along the shore of the Ardingly reservoir. I did laugh at a sign at the
reservoir. Dogs aren’t allowed to go in the water as the reservoir is a source
of drinking water. It is obviously fine for fish and ducks to crap in the
water, but dogs can’t swim there. Go figure (!)
We originally planned to walk
more of the shore of the reservoir than we did. There was another series of
geocaches on the east side that we had planned to include in our walk today.
But on looking on the map we saw that they could easily be incorporated into
another geo-series which we shall walk in a couple of weeks’ time. And we
thought we’d better not walk too far today as the weather was against us.
The weather – it was odd. The
forecast had been for “showers”. One moment I was in a T-shirt feeling
rather warm; the next we would all be in waterproofs huddling under a tree
sheltering from torrential rain. For all that we have had rain before, I think
that today may well have been one of the wettest walks we’ve had. Fudge looked
like a seal on several occasions.
I
took quite a few photos as we walked today. I do that.
We had a minor episode toward
the end of the walk. When we stopped to rummage in a hedge (we do that rather
a lot) Charlotte noticed that Pogo was worrying his paw. I wondered if he’d
hurt it; I had a feel of it, and my hand came away covered in blood. He’d
somehow cut his paw somewhere. As I worried about what to do, he wandered off.
He’d clearly forgotten that he’d pranged his hoof, and he didn’t worry it again
at all. I can’t see anything wrong with it; I wonder what that was all about?
Geocache-wise, today’s was a rather
good walk. For all that the caches were mostly rather old ones, we found all of
them except one. Ironically the missing one was one of the newest. They were
all well maintained, and quite a few were rather large too. There were a couple
that had issues; we found one almost (but not quite) in the cow poo. We
replaced that one where we thought it should have been (i.e. *not* in the
cow poo). Another had the hint “footpath sign”. The footpath sign
had snapped off. I found the cache laying on the ground, so we put it back where
the sat-nav said it should be, and put the footpath sign on top of it.
There’s no denying that had I
put a load of caches along this route I would have put more, and had them
closer together, but that’s just me. We had a rather good guided walk today for
which I am very grateful.
Once back at the car we insisted
on “Boot Dogs” because they were filthy. But the didn’t have to “boot
dog” for long. We drove half a mile up the road to a rather good pub. We
sat outside for a pint; we sat in the sheltered area and it was rather pleasant
until the rain started. The rain chased those smoking all sorts of noxious
things into close proximity so we went inside the pub where the dogs barked at
pretty much everything that they possibly could.
We piled back into the car, and
drove home. As we drove the weather was just like it had been all day. Glorious
sunshine giving way to torrential rain; then after five minutes the rain
stopping.
We stopped at Leybourne to unload
passengers. I wondered if the dogs might like to “unload” as well, but
they didn’t. So we came home…
Once home the dogs had a bath,
and had their tea. All three were soon snoring. Treacle took a little longer to
settle than the others; she was clearly rather over-excited. I then cooked
myself a pizza. It was a failure; it was raw. I put it back in the oven for a bit
and incinerated it. But I ate the cinders and have learned from my mistake.
Next time I will go straight to the KFC.
"er indoors TM" will be home
from the hen weekend soon. She’s due home at three o’clock tomorrow morning. I’m
looking forward to her return before I starve to death…
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