Yesterday I started off by
remembering ten years ago. I shall do so again today. Ten years ago (today)
was the funeral of my old mucker Dave Morley. Dave was one of those larger-than-life
characters. Everyone in his home town knew him. He was one of those people who
made the world a better place. As teenagers we went to Boys Brigade together.
He then became head launcher for Hastings lifeboat. He bowled competitively at
county level. He was on the committee of the Winkle Club. He was secretary of
his local working men’s club. For years he’d been a leader at my old Boys
Brigade group. And he was a good mate – not just to me, but to the world at
large. He would do anything for anyone, and he died of bowel cancer when only a
shade over forty years old. His funeral was in one of the biggest churches in
Hastings, and it was standing room only. I still miss him…
I didn’t really sleep that well
last night. It was warm, and I spent much of the night trying to straighten an
uncomfortable wrinkle in the sheet only to eventually find it was Pogo’s tail.
And when I finally did nod off, the dogs sounded “Red Alert” when
next-door went out at six o’clock.
Over brekkie I did my usual look
at the Internet to see what had happened overnight… I expect that quite a bit
happened. It’s just that not everyone records it quite as monotonously as I do.
I then spent a little while fighting with a geo-puzzle, gave up, ordered a
digital camera for next-day delivery on Amazon, and got ready for the off.
"er indoors TM" and I got the
dogs and the requisite tackle into the car and we drove up to Eynesford where
we met Karl, Tracey and Charlotte. I was a tad concerned when I saw everyone
was in shorts. Was I overdressed? My trousers had removable legs… but rummaging
in the undergrowth usually involves fights with stinging nettles so I stayed
with the trousers.
We set off on out walk. Within minutes we met Wayne, Lyn
and Dave who had randomly decided to do the same walk as us. We walked
together; it was good to catch up.
Our walk was (as ever)
dictated by a series of geocaches. It started off following a country lane
along which cyclists were hurtling at speeds that I can only describe as “f…ing
stupid”. If I had ever caught either of my children flying round blind
corners of lanes at those speeds I would have confiscated their bikes and
grounded them for a month. Why on Earth do these cyclists go so ridiculously
fast when it is patently unsafe to do so?
After a mile or so the route moved onto footpaths, and
everyone was happier.
We followed the paths on a circular route back into
Eynesford and had lunch by the ford. It was a rather pretty place to have a
sandwich. It was here that Pogo had his only bark at another dog. But (to be fair to Pogo) the other dog was
clearly a malamute (or was a malamute
cross) and bearing in mind that one of those savaged poor Sid I think that
Pogo was right to raise the alarm. When you think that only a few months ago
Pogo was barking at everything, he’s come on in leaps and bounds.
It was shortly after lunch that we said goodbye to Lyn,
Wayne and Dave. We’d (nearly) walked
one of two loops of the route of geocaches. They were going on to do the
second. But it was a hot day, we were short of dog water… and a leisurely pint
or two seemed attractive. We said our goodbyes and went into the garden of the
Five Bells.
The Five Bells is… an odd pub. Bearing in mind that we
usually try to walk on a Saturday as pubs are heaving on Sunday, we arrived to
find we had the beer garden to ourselves. And there was only a couple of people
in the pub itself. It was a nice enough pub; clean and friendly. Admittedly it
didn’t serve food but was that any reason for the place to be so empty?
But we weren’t complaining. With no normal people about we
could enjoy the day without worrying about upsetting the normal people.
Mind you when we were just starting the third pint a young
couple arrived at the other end of the garden. They were very “lovey-dovey”,
and when they thought no one was looking, the young lady of the pair would
flash her “lady-dumplings” at her
boyfriend.
We stayed for another pint, but when it became clear that
she was being rather judicious in the direction in which she was flashing her “lady-dumplings” we carried on with our
walk. After all, we weren’t far from the car. I
took quite a few photos as we walked.
Geocache-wise it was a rather good walk. We found as many
caches today as we did last Sunday, but in half the distance. We found one
cache that we couldn’t find when we were hunting Tupperware in the area on 27
April 2014. We found two that I doubt will last very long; as we were doing the
secret geo-rituals we were being watched from nearby houses.
We said our goodbyes, and sent off homewards. We hadn’t been
driving more than a minute when we drove past other friends who were walking
the same geo series. We beeped and waved.
Perhaps it was the heat of the day… perhaps it was the
seven miles walk… just possibly it was the third pint, but I slept all the way
home.
Once home we fed the hounds and settled them, had a
quick scrub up, and drove round for dinner with "My Boy TM".
Cheryl boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we soon devoured and
followed up with ice cream. We talked wedding plans… a rather good evening to a
rather good day.
Unfortunately
when I got home I rather put “Trap One” through its paces. My stomach’s
not right…
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