26 May 2019 (Sunday) - Ardingly


I think I slept well. I had a vague recollection of one dog standing on my head overnight. Mind you I did wake to find that "er indoors TM", Treacle and Pogo had all decamped to the attic bedroom. Something must have kicked off overnight.

As I looked at Facebook over brekkie I couldn’t believe my eyes. Some bloke in Ashford was having a new kitchen fitted. He was offering the handles from the old units up for sale. For ten quid. Ten quid?!  I would have chucked them straight into the bin. If anyone *really* wanted them I would have given them away. Mind you I suppose he’s lost nothing by advertising the stuff, and stands to gain a tenner.
I also saw I’d missed quite a few events yesterday. If I’d realised that yesterday wasn’t going to be quite so dull I could have re-arranged my working schedule. “Access All Areas” had been playing at Lyminge yesterday. There had been mutterings about this some months ago, but I’d forgotten all about it.
There had also been what looked like a rather fun duck race organised by the Sussex geocachers yesterday. I’d completely missed that. Perhaps I’m being paranoid, but it seems to me that more and more these days the social side of geocaching is becoming a rather closely-guarded secret. Yesterday’s duck race. Two giga-events in Germany recently… I’m feeling rather left out.

"er indoors TM" and I got the dogs together, and we set off to Ardingly. I would have gone via the motorway, but "er indoors TM" said to take the direct route. Fifteen minutes longer, but fifteen miles shorter. We got to Ardingly to find that Karl and Tracey were already in the car park. But no Charlotte. She was feeling under the weather. It was a shame she wasn’t along – she has a way with the dogs. Dog-wrangling is always a large part of our weekend walks.
Talking of the dogs – they were rather well behaved today (if we gloss over whichever one had the stinky bum). Treacle had her trademark huge stick, and Pogo only barked at one other dog. He was really good with the sheep and horses. Mind you there was a bit of an episode by Ardingly reservoir. One of the normal people was trying to keep their dog away from ours as it had just had a fight with another dog. Having come off worst in the tussle, Fudge then porked him. That can’t have done much for the poor mutt’s self-esteem.

As we walked we saw pigs and buzzards, and the largest herd of wild deer I think I’ve ever seen. There must have been over fifty of them. We also saw *loads* of scarecrows in Ardingly. I think they were having some sort of scarecrow festival?

As usual our route was dictated by the local geocaches. We did three separate loops of caches and picked up a few odd ones that were on our way. We found all but one of our targets; the one we didn’t find mentioned about being hidden in ivy. We didn’t find an ivy-covered tree. We found a freshly-cut stump.
But those we did find were all in good repair. Mind you… we found thirty-eight and they were rather spaced out. There was probably space for ninety. But I’m not complaining; we had a rather good walk of fourteen miles today. I took quite a few photos.
It was only a shame that Pogo was sick on the way home…

No comments:

Post a Comment