I *had* missed something on the
Internet last night. A squabble had kicked off (on one of the geocaching
pages) which I missed entirely. From what I could work out there had been a
rather bitter exchange about going out hunting for Tupperware in the dark.
This isn’t a new squabble…
It is obvious to me that going out
hunting geocaches in hedgerows and woods in the dark is far more dangerous than
doing it in broad daylight, but for some the call of being First to Find is too
strong to resist.
I’ve seen First to Find logs signed at
half past midnight on December days on caches on Wye downs. If anyone was to
fall over up there on a December night they would be dead from exposure before
anyone found them. On 1 September 2015 (together with Gordon) Fudge and
I walked a new series of geocaches which had gone live the previous night.
Someone else had been that desperate to be first that they had been out in the
fields and woods from quarter to eleven at night until four o’clock the
following morning. I can remember slipping in the mud several times in broad
daylight…
"er indoors TM" and I got the
dogs organised and we drove down to Orlestone Woods where we had a good walk.
We usually have good walks there. The dogs can run (or straggle) off of
their leads, and most of the times when we meet other dogs pass off without “episode”.
We met one other dog today – I wouldn’t say that we had an “episode” but
Pogo did play chase with that dog rather vigorously.
We did chuckle when we walked past the
swamp – it was there that Pogo and Treacle caught a rabbit a few weeks ago.
Every time we walk past they get very over-excited. They obviously remember the
place and associate it with rabbit. Fortunately for the lagomorphic population
there were no such problems today, but Fudge did shout at a squirrel which was
watching him from the safety of a tree.
We came home where I had planned to mow
the lawn but it was still wet from the overnight rain. So I ironed shirts for
half an hour, then took Fudge to the vet. It was time for his regular blood
test for his ongoing kidney problems.
As always he didn’t want to go. He dug
his heels in when we turned of the path to go into the vet’s car park, and he
was pulling away all the time we were waiting. I had to carry him into the
consulting room. The nice vet gave him a once-over and quizzed me about how he
had been keeping. She seemed happy with him; he’s lost a bit more weight (he’s
now only nine point seven kilogrammes) but he looks healthy. Or so the vet
told me. He looks like a bag of skin and bones to me, but I’m used to seeing
him looking like a little barrel.
He had the right sulk when the vet
picked him up and carried him into the back room where they took the blood
sample.
We came home (a hundred and fifty
quid lighter), and I then went up the road to the corner shop. For all that
they have put up Perspex shielding round the counter and have all the staff
wearing gloves, they had four people packed like sardines behind the counter.
Along the same lines I probably saw a
dozen people all wearing face masks but with their noses hanging out today.
Some people *really* don’t
understand how personal protective equipment works, do they?
I got home just as the vet phoned.
Fudge’s creatinine was one hundred and thirty-three last time; it has gone up
to one hundred and forty-four. His SDMA has gone up from seventeen to
twenty-seven. Together with his physical condition the vet says he is still in
stage II kidney failure, and we should keep an eye on him and do the bloods
again in six months’ time.
I took myself off to bed where I slept
for a couple of hours. Trying to sleep before the night shift is never easy but
I had a go. I then spent an hour playing “Cookie Jam”, and hopefully "er
indoors TM" will boil up a bit of dinner before I go to
work…
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