It was a shame that Treacle had to suck the duvet quite so
noisily last night. It would have been rather sweet had she not kept me awake
for quite so long.
I made myself some toast and peered into the Internet. “Khadija
Bou” had sent me a friend request on Facebook. I have no idea who “Khadija
Bou” is, but at least (unlike many other unsolicited friend requests I
get on Facebook) she had kept her clothes on.
And talking of Facebook, my professional body has a
Facebook page. Probably ninety per cent of the posts on there are from
wannabe-blood-testers who have got the hump because they have spent several
years (and several thousand pounds) obtaining utterly unsuitable
qualifications. Last night I suggested that the professional body had a pinned
post on that Facebook page telling wannabe-blood-testers what degrees are
acceptable and what degrees aren’t. To be honest it is the sort of thing that
you can find out for yourself in a few minutes on Google, but most people seem
to prefer spending several years (and several thousand pounds) obtaining
utterly unsuitable qualifications and then grumbling about it afterwards
This morning I was amazed to see that nearly sixty people
had clicked the “like” button on my comment. I wonder if these were all
people who had already spent several years (and several thousand pounds)
obtaining utterly unsuitable qualifications.
I also saw that the company that makes our GPS units has
been the victim of a
cyber-attack.
The hackers “…have had access to all their stored data. This could include
personal data… location data, GPS Tracks etc for Geocachers..”. Well,
they’ve had access to mine right from the start as I post it up on Facebook
every time I go out. And talking of which…
We got ourselves and the dogs organised and set off on our
weekend mission. As we drove up the radio we listened to Radio Ashford. The
woman on the radio was (as usual) breathing so heavily into the
microphone it was as though she was gasping for air. She’s been doing this for
some time; you really would think that the big-wigs at the radio station would
have had a word with her by now.
We got to the car park at Lullingstone Country Park and the
dogs immediately started screaming in excitement. I wish they wouldn’t but it
shows they have come to expect a good day after a long drive. The chap in the
car next to us gave us some odd looks as they shouted..
Karl, Tracey and Charlotte soon arrived and we messed about
getting parking tickets. Karl had the somewhat traditional idea of putting
money onto the ticket machine but I tried to pay using my phone. To cut a long
story short in the end Karl put some money into the machine for me, and (pausing
only briefly to look at a frog) we were soon on our way. Our route took us
along the river where we watched some trout swimming about. I was convinced
there were pike there, but I didn’t see any.
After a while the route turned up and across a hil, and we
got the most beautiful views of the Eynesford valley, and we caught up with
some fellow hunters of Tupperware. We chatted for a bit, then they moved on
whilst we stopped for a picnic lunch. Cheese rolls, a couple of bottles of ale,
overlooking a beautiful view with good company. Not too shabby at all.
I took a few photos as we walked
Geocache-wise this was a good walk. Some of the hides were
trickier than others. A couple were missing and (with permission) we
replaced them.
We knew the weather would be against us, and the
intermittent drizzle of the day turned to heavy rain just as we started the
drive home.
We came home to emails which caused offence and upset, but
also to several (lots of) messages of support. Earlier this week "er
indoors TM" had hidden a load of geocaches locally. They
went live this morning whilst we were out. A friend who went to try to be first
to find them said that he’d not been first. Someone had seen that the old
caches on the route had slowly been archived and had gone out in the week,
spent a day hunting under every single rock and bush and had found most of them
before they went live. Whilst that isn’t against the letter of the law, it
certainly is against the spirit of the law.
Perhaps somewhat trivial in the great scheme of things,but
being first to find a geocache is a big thing in some circles. It was also
pointed out to us that the new series of geocaches that had gone live late
yesterday afternoon had all been found. The “First to Find” on each of
those caches had gone to the besties of the people who had hidden the caches. Are
people really so desperate for a first to find that they either scrubble under
any old rock on the off-chance that they might find an as-yet unpublished
cache, or they get their mates to put one out for them? The general consensus
was that there are those of us who contribute to the hobby of rummaging for
film pots under rocks, and there are those who take from it. I’m wondering if I
should stop being quite so generous.
"er indoors TM" boiled up a very
good bit of dinner, then we joined in with the weekly Zoom quiz. We had a very
good session – the questions strained my brain somewhat but with rounds
including languages, flags, history & politics, nature, sci-fi books and
food and drink there was something for everyone. I managed fourth place (with
which I was pleased), and I discovered I now have a new favourite bird –
the thrush. Purely because its Latin name is “Turdus philomelos”.
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