I woke early (as I hoped I
might), and after watching an episode of “Santa Clarita Diet” I
persuaded Fudge to eat his brekkie. With "er indoors TM" taking "Stormageddon
- Bringer of Destruction TM" off to visit relatives today, I
thought I was well off out of it.
Fudge and I drove up the motorway. As I drove “Farmer’s Hour” was on the radio. They
were discussing invasive species in Britain’s waterways and lakes, and were
making great show about how anglers should disinfect their nets. Whilst it is
probably worth doing, I get sick of the emphasis which s put on this. Has no
one ever thought about ducks flying from lake to lake and river to river? Your
average duck will transfer far more biological contamination far faster (and therefore in a far more viable condition)
that I ever will.
We got to junction four of the motorway and soon met up
with Karl, Tracey and Charlotte, and we decamped into their car. It wasn’t long
before we were at Pease Pottage services for another spot of brekkie. And with
second brekkie scoffed we drove a couple of miles up the road to the village of
Colgate where we went for a little walk.
We had a
rather good walk along (mostly) well-marked footpaths and lanes. There
were a few more hills that I would have liked, but there were some rather
spectacular views to be seen. And some rather special houses too. How on Earth
do people get to live in houses like some of the ones we saw today? There was
one such house – we estimated that the three cars parked on the drive alone
cost over a quarter of a million pounds.
As we walked
we saw small rodents and large deer. We saw kestrels and buzzards. We saw
friendly cows and lazy bulls. We saw some pine cones which had been gnawed in
different directions depending on whether they had been scoffed by a left-handed or right-handed
squirrel. We had a picnic under a rather precariously-leaning tree.
And the
weather – we really did have four seasons in one day. I caught the sun and
sweated, and I got rather cold too. There were blue skies, and there was rain
and even hail. The weather would go from not a cloud in the sky to heavy rain
and back again in ten minutes.
Geocache-wise
it was a rather good walk. Even though we did half a loop of caches, and then
went to do another loop, then went back to the first loop again, our route was
well marked. We only really had any problems with one cache, and that was one
for which we took a diversion and wasn’t really part of the main part of what
we were doing anyway.
And we found
an ammo can too.
We found
fifty caches. I must admit I thought they were (perhaps) spaced out just
a tad too far apart? There was (arguably) space for eighty, if not more.
But that’s just me being picky. We walked two rather good (and well-maintained)
series. Someone had clearly taken a lot of time and had gone to a lot of
trouble to prepare the walk for us, for which I am very grateful.
We walked for
about fourteen miles; in a novel break with tradition Fudge only ran amok once,
and that wasn’t for very long. I
took a few photos as we walked. We’d walked in some rather beautiful places
today.
Once back at
the car we took off boots, and drove for two minutes to the pub up the road. It
was a shame I was driving today as I’d never before seen “firsty ferret”
on the hand pump. We sat down, and had a well-deserved shandy (or I did at
any rate!)
We went back
to the car to find that the heavens had opened whilst we’d been in the pub. And
they opened again a couple of times as we drove back home.
I came home
to find "Stormageddon
- Bringer of Destruction TM" doing artwork. Having made his
pictures, he then used his grandmother’s best glittery sticky tapes to stick
them to the walls. Oh well – the living room walls needed painting anyway.
We then had a
rather good bit of dinner. Well, I thought it was good. "Stormageddon -
Bringer of Destruction TM" had asked for mince with red
peppers and pasta. Having been served with what he’d asked for, he took one
mouthful and announced he didn’t like it.
We then watched
videos of dogs being frightened by cucumbers (it’s actually a thing – look on
You-Tube) before he went to bed probably two hours later than he might have
done.
I hope he don’t
get up too early tomorrow morning…
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