Sid kept me awake last night; when he stays with us he
trots up and down the stairs to the attic room and the sound of his claws on
the wooden stairs is rather loud. We really should sort out a carpet on those
stairs; I got a quote from the carpet shop months ago.
I made toast and peered into the Internet. Other than the series
of geocaches across the White Cliffs from Folkestone to Dover having been
adopted (deliberately to wind me up?), nothing much had happened
overnight. I had over seventy “Found It” logs on my geocaches in Kings
Wood and “out in the sticks”; people seem to like those series. I’ve not
had that many finds on my geo-series in Hemsted Forest recently, but it has
been out a year and has had a hundred finds. Realistically it is reaching the
end of its life; I suppose I should vaguely start thinking about replacing it
in the next few months. But not just yet.
"er indoors TM" got up and
opened all her birthday cards. She seemed happy with her birthday pressie. I’d
bought her socks. I’ve always thought that socks are something of a crap
pressie, but it is what she said she wanted. And at close on a tenner per sock
(yes – per sock!) these aren’t any old socks.
"Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
came downstairs, had a frozen yogurt for his brekkie, and announced that Sid
was the best-behaved dog because he doesn’t want a slap (!) He then fed
as many dog biscuits as he could to the dogs in a scientific experiment to find
out which one would be sick first, then had the cheek to tell Treacle she was a
fat lump.
I spent a little more time working on my current geo-jigsaw-puzzle,
then "My Boy TM" and Cheryl arrived and the four of
us went out. First to Mote Park where we walked round the lake. Some of us
admired the views, some of us had a recce at the fishing potential. For all
that the place has quite a reputation for being *the* place to go
fishing, I wasn’t impressed with what I saw. With no car parking within half a
mile, and all the normal people sailing past in pleasure boats I can’t say I’ll
be going fishing there any time soon.
From there we drove down to Leeds Castle where we’d booked
a session on the Segways. Leeds Castle Segway
Tours gave us a rather good afternoon. We started off with a little
instructional session. Among other things we were told that you should either
be on the Segway or off of it. You must not have one foot on and one foot off because
that will make the thing spin in a circle. Some old chap immediately stood with
one foot on and one foot off, his Segway span in a circle, he went flying and
there was quite a lot of blood.
There was a brief hiatus whilst a surgical face mask was
bodged into a makeshift bandage and was wrapped round his knee, and the
instruction continued. But the surgical face mask bandage wasn’t up to the job,
the blood continued to flow, and the instruction session stopped whilst a first
aid kit was brandished.
We then set of Segway-ing around the grounds of Leeds
Castle. We pootled off along the paths that the normal people use, then the
nice lady pressed the button that turned off “training mode” and we went
onto the open parkland where we got up to speeds of up to twelve miles per hour
each. It doesn’t sound much, but when you are on the Segway it certainly feels zoomy-whizz.
And again when we all pulled up (after a particularly zoomy bit) three
more people came tumbling off because they hadn’t heeded the instructions.
With Segways segwayed we drove for ten minutes to the Toby
carvery where we scoffed a rather good dinner (which featured a surprise
visit from father-in-law), then came home for a spot of pudding.
It
was a shame that "Daddy’s Little Angel TM" and "Stormageddon
- Bringer of Destruction TM" had made quite such a mess of the
house whilst we’d been out, but eventually they sorted their carnage. "Stormageddon
- Bringer of Destruction TM" had his bath, and with "Daddy’s
Little Angel TM" off visiting her mates we scoffed the last
of the birthday cake that "My Boy TM" had left.
I think I might have caught too much sun today… You can see photos of it here…
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