1 January 2020 (Wednesday) - New Year's Day

New Year… I suppose it is traditional to review what’s gone before. 2019 was a good year in some ways. A bad year in others. I had some rather good holidays with friends and family last year. I had a couple of bouts of sick leave (which weren’t good), and a couple of episodes which I’ve deliberately kept quiet. Here’s hoping for the future…

I woke feeling a tad grim, which wasn’t an auspicious start to the new decade. I programmed “Hannah” for the day’s adventure as I scoffed toast, then had a look at the Internet. It might be a new decade, but old habits die hard. Facebook was rather quiet (most people were still sleeping off yesterday evening) but I had an email which made me think. Geocaching HQ had sent out an email asking how I did geocaching-wise last year. I had many good times caching both in a few minutes before work, and for whole days (and longer) with friends. But in terms of numbers of finds this was my worst year ever. Purely because people aren’t going out and hiding the caches. I posted a whinge on the “Geocaching in Kent” Facebook page. It provoked a few comments, but no one could really argue with the underlying problem faced by the geocaching hobby which is that far more people like hunting for film pots hidden under rocks rather than actually putting film pots under rocks.

We got ourselves together (which was rather straightforward) and the dogs together (which took some doing) and drove up to Badlesmere where the traditional New Years Day geo-meet was taking place. Some twenty-five people and eight dogs met up and we had a rather good walk. It wasn’t *that* muddy (mostly). It was really good to catch up with friends. We walked for a couple of hours then ended up at the Red Lion in Badlesmere where we had a very tasty lunch washed down by a couple of pints of Christmas ale. (Hic!)

And I took a few photos of our adventure too.

Once home we all fell asleep in front of the telly; eventually waking in time to watch the first episode of the new season of “Doctor Who”. Had they done away with the three rather annoying hangers-on and allowed Jodie Whittaker to develop her own character (rather than doing yet another impression of Christopher Eclestone) then maybe it might have been good. As it was, it wasn’t.

We then watched the New Year Bake-Off episode which featured the cast of “Derry Girls” which was rather fun…

Not a bad day off…