2 July 2020 (Thursday) - Four and a Half Miles


I slept well – when the dogs are settled, so is everyone else.
Over brekkie I watched another episode of “F is for Family” (which has improved over the last few episodes) then sparked up the lap-top. Apart from my cousin having made a cake, very little had happened on Facebook overnight; in fact the most exciting stuff on social media this morning were the “likes” and comments on the videos that "er indoors TM" had made on our dog walk yesterday. However, despite my having unsubscribed from most of the local buying and selling groups there were no end of adverts for stuff for sale locally. Facebook seems to be fast becoming a rather chaotic version of eBay
I did have some emails though. Sixty-one “found it” logs on geocaches that I’ve hidden over the last year. People are getting something from my efforts, which is something of a result.

Yesterday I established that my GPS unit “Hannah” is both accurate and precise (with less than one per cent error in fifty miles). This morning I started the “drift” test. There is a theory that the things just add distance whilst sitting still and doing nothing, so I turned it on, sat it on the windowsill (where I would get a good GPS signal) and left it whilst I went to work.

Eventually remembering where I'd parked my car I set off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing some head teacher or other who was expounding his views on how his school is going to operate for the foreseeable future. Apparently the children will be "safely apart" if not "socially distanced" but this chap openly admitted that all of his plans will fall over if anyone actually goes down with COVID-19.
Not so much planning for the future as burying his head in the sand?

There was then an interview with Lord Heseltine. He was big in government thirty years ago, and he's apparently revitalized many of the northern cities. He was asked for his opinion on how the government should repair the economy after lock-down.  He then proceeded to waste ten minutes of prime-time radio by making all sorts of unintelligible grunting noises (like many upper-class twits make) rather than speaking understandable English words.

I got to work; the new car park had opened, and the security staff were herding people about. What is it with security staff? I'm sure there must be some who are decent people and not officious little bullies, but I've yet to meet any.
I did my bit, and with my bit done I came home to an empty house. "er indoors TM" had taken the dogs out, so I fed the fish (inside and out), fed the washing machine, fed myself, and killed time until it was twelve hours after I’d set “Hannah” going.

"er indoors TM" assures me that she hadn’t been playing silly beggars. I suspected that the odometer would go up a little just leaving the thing where it was. But only a little. I was amazed to see that it thought it had travelled four and a half miles when in fact it had gone nowhere.
Interestingly that’s adding (about) a third of a mile an hour which (almost exactly) explains yesterday’s discrepancy between what “Hannah” and Google’s estimates of my journey to work.

Whilst I waited for "er indoors TM" to return I tuned into the weekly on-line geo-meet. It was good to catch up with people.
"er indoors TM" boiled up a rather god bit of scoff which we washed down with a half-way decent bottle of plonk whilst watching “Fun With Dick and Jane”’ a film I could distinctly remember as being far better than it was.

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