31 August 2019 (Saturday) - To Hastings (and back)

Yesterday evening I posted a picture of Fudge to Facebook seeing how it was his birthday (or so we think; we’ve always been a tad vague about his birthday). This morning as I scoffed my toast I saw that over seventy people had clicked the “like” button. I was rather impressed with that.

I also saw that the husband of someone with whom I used to work had received a speeding ticket. This was issued by the French authorities during their recent holiday in Epervans in France. I was somewhat amazed to see this; for at least twenty years the French lorries on the M20 have been speeding and driving *incredibly* dangerously because it is common knowledge that it is not possible to issue a speeding ticket to a vehicle not registered in the UK (!) Clearly the French can issue tickets to those in Glasgow; perhaps the government’s Department of Transport might with to learn from the French government. Or is it that the UK Department of Transport issues speeding tickets which the French drivers just ignore?

I played a little Mah-jongg then (pausing only briefly to shout at the dogs to stop them barking) I took the ultra-violet lamp out of the pond filter. The pond is rather murky; I had a theory that a new lamp might sort it out. I also like taking the old lamp to the man in the shop to be sure we get the correct replacement.

We got the leads on to the dogs and went on a little mission. First of all to Wittersham for a dog walk. Narrowly avoiding being run off the road (I squealed the driver up to rate-driver dot com) we got to Wittersham where I found a geocache which boiled my piss somewhat. I’ve tried to hide caches myself only to have them turned down because they are within a hundred yards of a playpark. I’ve now found twenty-six of the things within a few yards of playparks. This one was best described as “right in the playpark”.

From the playpark we relocated to Wittersham church where (having narrowly avoided being run off the road again) we took the dogs for a little walk across the nearby fields and paths. We had a good little stroll; the dogs got to run about. They seemed to like it.

From Wittersham we took a rather circuitous route to Hastings (stopping off for five more geocaches on the way) where we called in to see my mum and dad. They seemed well; I would have liked to have stayed a tad longer, but the dogs were getting fractious, so we set off to visit mother-in-law who wasn’t home.

We came home via one more geocache and the pond shop. The nice man in the pond shop said that the ultra-violet tube needed to be changed last March. I told him it was (on the fourteenth – I keep a diary!). The nice man was rather taken aback by that. Bearing in mind that a couple of months ago the pond was crystal clear we both thought that changing the ultra-violet bulb couldn’t hurt.

I slept all the way home.

Once home I put the new bulb in place and played some more Mah-jongg. "er indoors ^TM" boiled up some rather good dinner (followed by Christmas pudding). As we scoffed we watched a film. “Dumplin”  was the tale of two “more rotund” girls and a misfit making good at an all-American beauty pageant.

It was a rather good film… being a fat lad I felt I could relate to it. No one ever intends to be a fat lad…

30 August 2019 (Friday) - A Birthday

I slept well; still worn out after a wonderful week away. Over brekkie I had a look at the Internet and rolled my eyes. A chap I used to know very well was banging on about his supposed Scottish heritage. He’s done this before. I don’t understand the Scots. If Scotland really is such a brilliant place (and it may well be) then why do those who tell me about it all live in Kent? You can’t get further away from Scotland and still live on the same island.

I also saw an album of photos of the cottage in which we’d stayed in the New Forest. Such a lovely place to have been in.

With nothing planned for today I took the dogs out. We went out to Boys Hall for a walk; again trying somewhere new. It wasn’t the best of places to walk. For all of the talk of the historic Boys Hall, realistically it is waste ground that will be turned into a housing estate some time in the next two years. As we walked I looked out for the geocaches that were over there. I found one; didn’t find two. Mind you I didn’t look *that* hard for the two I didn’t find; it is difficult to do so when supervising three dogs.

Having walked our walk we came home, and I cleaned out the fish pond’s filter. A smelly job, but one which needs doing from time to time. Best I do it at a time that suits me rather than waiting for it to bung up and find myself being forced to do it when I have better things to do.

As I cleaned and scrubbed, so Sadie yapped constantly and for no reason. She does that; it’s beginning to get on my nerves.

I then spent a little while working on my latest Wherigo project. About thirty seconds of game play took the best part of an hour to program in.

Feeling peckish I popped up the road to get a sandwich. As I was in the shop some “delightful lady” was demanding to know how she was expected to live on what the government gave her. Judging by what she was buying I would suppose that the government would expect her to spend less dole money on tins of lager, but that would only be a guess.

As I scoffed my sandwich I watched an episode of “Black Mirror”, then cracked on with an hour’s worth or ironing before doing a little more work on the Wheri-project. I actually did loads of work but actually achieved very little. That’s how these Wherigos work.

"er indoors ^TM" came home and boiled up an incredibly good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “Timeless”. I played a little Mah-jongg whilst "er indoors ^TM" had a look-see at what Netflix has to offer. There’s a *lot* of stuff on there.

Oh – and it’s my dog’s ninth birthday today. Did I ever mention that I never wanted a dog?

29 August 2019 (Thursday) - Back to Reality

I slept like a log last night. For all that I grumble about them, "er indoors ^TM"’s blackout curtains do help me sleep. So did having had an incredible week away. For all that it was good to be home, and "er indoors ^TM" did have to go in to work today, I might have stayed on for another day in the New Forest (mightn’t I?)

But having spent a week generating laundry I made a start dealing with it. A week’s worth of sweaty T-shirts went into the wash.

I then had a little look at the Internet as I scoffed toast. There was a very nasty squabble kicking off on the national geocaching Facebook page. A couple of months ago was the national meet-up in Aberdeen. As an attraction for this meet-up the organisers had paid for someone to bring a duplicate of a can of beans that had been in the first ever geocache (some people are easily entertained!). They’d paid for this (and the chap who owns the can of beans) to be flown all the way from America. The idea was that you would look at this can of beans, and once you’d tiddled your pants in uncontrollable excitement, you’d sign a piece of paper to say you’d seen it. After the event was all over, the can-owner went back to America only to find he’d left the bit of paper (with all the signatures) behind, so he emailed the event’s organiser to ask for his list of signatures to be forwarded to him in the USA. However everyone else has emailed in with all of their petty trivialities, and this email was but one in a pile of over three thousand.

Because the list of signatures wasn’t returned instantly, the chap in America then posted up all over the Internet claiming that this insignificant scrap of paper had been stolen, and the entire issue has been blown out of all proportion in Tupperware-hunting circles all over the world.

Apparently this bloke had done this sort of thing before.

You *really* couldn’t make this up, could you?

More and more I’m moving out of the social side of geocaching (and any hobby come to that). It doesn’t need to be one big argument, does it?

Once Fudge had been hand-fed his brekkie (piece by piece) I hung the washing out, put more in to scrub, and we went for a little walk. Getting fed up with walking in the same old places, today we took a little stroll along the river up by Little Burton Farm. As we walked we saw quite a few people fishing in the river. I say “fishing”. There are various ways to fish, each of which are as different to each other as throwing darts is to throwing javelins. It was crystal clear that the three people we saw today hadn’t the faintest idea of what they were doing.

As we walked we met other dog walkers, and played nicely. That was something of a result.

We came home. I hung out the second load of washing and set the third lot to scrub, then mowed the lawn. It took some mowing. I then chopped back the roses and clematis from “not-so-nice-next-door”, hung out the third load of washing and put the fourth load in.

Over a spot of lunch I watched the last episode of “Poldark”. The series seemed to have been left open. Will they make more? I hope so.

I then set the washing machine loose on my pants whilst I ironed shirts.

With shirts ironed I had a look at the household accounts as I do every month. They aren’t bad; they could be a lot better. But they aren’t bad really. I just want to have a *lot* more money. I don’t need it; I just want it.

Mind you, I had a minor result with the car’s insurance. The insurance company had sent in the quote for next year’s policy. Ninety quid more than I am paying at the moment. So I phoned them and asked if I *really* had to go through the farce of phoning around for other quotes. They laughed and knocked thirty quid off of the price that I was already paying. I was rather pleased about that.

"er indoors ^TM" came home, and we had a rather good bit of steak and chips for dinner. As we scoffed we watched the three episodes of “Dad’s Army” that have been re-made. I must admit that my hopes weren’t high about this re-make, but it wasn’t too bad at all. Far better than that frankly awful film that was made a few years ago.

Today was really dull compared with the last week…