As I opened the curtains at quarter to seven this morning I
saw some chap pushing a child in a push-chair up the road. As he went he was
swigging from a can of lager. I like a drop myself, but I did think that he was
being a bit keen.
I watched an episode of “Trailer Park Boys” then
sparked up my lap-top to see what I’d missed overnight. As is so often the case
I hadn’t missed much. All talk of coronageddon on social media was now very
obviously completely out the window and very much yesterday’s news as everyone
is now swarming together in protest marches and campaigning for racial
equality. An admirable sentiment; such a shame that everyone has to swarm
together in mobs to express it. These protest marches amaze me; I know of
people who go on them not out of any heart-felt feelings or convictions, but
because it is something of an adventure to do.
With no emails at all I kicked "er indoors TM"
and the dogs out of their pits and we got read for the off.
There was a minor delay before we could start driving. The
dogs would not settle in the car; eventually "er indoors TM"
located the remains of some chips that "Stormageddon - Bringer of
Destruction TM" had managed to drop under the driver’s
seat.
We set off up the motorway listening to Steve on Radio
Ashford for as far as the signal held out (to about Lenham), and it
wasn’t long before we were at where we’d arranged to meet. It took a little longer
to find somewhere to park though; seemingly everyone was out in force today.
We met Karl, Tracey and Charlotte and set off on a little
walk. About six months ago they put out a series of geocaches in the nearby
woods, and today a maintenance check was in order, so we thought we’d come
along for the walk. There used to be a series of caches in those woods which I
walked on 22 May 2013. Over the years pretty much everyone who hunts Tupperware
had found those ones, and when the opportunity arose, our pals archived them
and replaced them.
I wish more people would do that with these series of
geo-walks.
When the old series was finally archived it was being found
once a month or so. When a series of caches gets that few visits it is a sign
that everyone who is active in the hobby has done it, and it is time to clear
the map to make space for new. The new series has had more finds in the last
six months than the old series had in its last two years.
I’ve got three larger series of geocaches active. I fully
intend to replace two of them in the next few months and the third within the
year.
There were a *lot* of people out walking today; we
met far more people than we usually do when out. We met a few other dogs and
Pogo was well-behaved. He came when called when we met horses and bike-riders.
He totally ignored the donkeys. It was a shame he had to bark at the cows, but
you can’t have everything.
As we went we met “William” - a fourteen year old wire-haired dachshund who
(to the disgust of his mummy) seemed to be quite happy eating the horse
poo that he found on the ground. We also saw a rather unmoral young lady airing
her “puppies” (to the delight of her paramour). She put her “puppies”
away rather quickly when she saw us coming(!)
We had a good walk though. Monkdown woods had no stiles or
fields of animals to traverse. The dogs ran off their leads for most of the
way. And we had a very good picnic lunch at the bottom of a large meadow. As we
scoffed (and downed a couple of pints) we chatted with a couple of “normal
people” who were photographing flowers. Those little pink things were
orchids…? One lives and learns; I always thought orchids were big things. We
chuckled as the cyclist came down the hill announcing their brakes didn’t work.
Everyone was enjoying their own way to spend the day.
I took a few photos as we walked.
Despite the BBC’s weather app assuring us there was only a
one per cent chance of rain we got caught in a downpour, but it quickly passed.
We didn’t get *that* wet. Something odd has happened to weather
forecasting over the last couple of years; it has certainly got a lot less
reliable.
We got back to the cars; we said our goodbyes, and I slept
most of the way home.
Once home I strained my brain to the limit (and beyond)
on a geo-puzzle. If any of my loyal readers fancy a challenge, click here and see how well you do. Mind you I did have
just the teensiest bit of help.
"er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner which we devoured whilst watching Joe Lycett (the twenty-first
century’s version of Esther Rantzen) before tuning in to the Sunday night
Zoom meeting.
I think I caught the sun today…
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