18 September 2020 (Friday) - Rostered Day Off

I was woken by the noise of the bin men as they came crashing up the street shortly after six o’clock. The local bin men certainly take the attitude that if they are up and about, then so should everyone else be. "er indoors TM" leapt out of bed in panic; she’d forgotten to put out the recycling. I heaved my carcass out of my pit. I really ached. I blame re-planting that monkey-puzzle tree yesterday.

 

I made myself some brekkie and as I scoffed it I peered into the Internet. Bitter and nasty arguments were kicking off on Facebook on the Geocaching UK page, the Adult Fans of Lego page, the Doctor Who in the 70s page, several pages about Jack Russells, the Kent Carp Talk page and several pages about Ashford. If nothing else, the Internet has given people the ability to squabble to their heart’s content.

As I waded through the squabbles I saw something that made me think. Brexit has (supposedly) already cost more than the International Space Station cost. So much for saving three hundred and fifty million quid per day…

 

We took the dogs down to Orlestone Woods. It is a little way away, but after a ten-minute drive (nine, actually) the dogs can jump out of the boot of the car and run, walk and straggle for as long as we can spare. We had a good wander today; we only met two other people, and the meetings passed off without episode. Fudge did try playing “dog piggy backs” with some mutt ten times his size, but three blasts of the whistle had him come running.

 

We came home; "er indoors TM" got on with working from home. I drove up to Whelan’s. As we’d driven back from the woods the pundits on the radio had been talking about a return to national lock-down so I thought I’d get a decent stone tree-pot (for the palm) before the nation shut down.

I drove to Whelan’s got the pot (and a few other things), deployed a Munzee, and even found a geocache whilst I was at it. Mind you there’s no denying that I’d forgotten just how far away Whelan’s is. A round trip was over two hours.

 

Once home I had a cuppa then unloaded the car. Fortunately Martin was walking past and offered to help with the heavy lifting. We had another cuppa with him and chatted for a while; it was good to catch up. I suppose in these days of coronageddon perhaps we shouldn’t have done so, but there it is.

Martin went off shopping, and I spent a couple of hours in the garden. I re-potted our palm tree out of the pot I broke on Wednesday and into its new one, re-located the stone bench by the pond, painted our digging dog ornament, put out the ornaments I’d bought from Whelans and generally tided up. The garden looks better than it did now that I’ve had a little tidy-up, but I’m no fan of gardening. Today after fifty quid and two hours of back-breaking effort the garden looked pretty much the same as it usually does.

I stopped after two hours; my back was playing up. But there is still more to do. I need to have a look at the rockery area behind the pond, and having found a water pump in the shed I’ve plans for another water feature (you can never have too many of those!) I’m thinking of another Whelan’s trip in the near future.

 

I collapsed onto the sofa and geo-jigsawed for an hour or so until "er indoors TM" boiled up some fish and chips.

I’ve got an early start tomorrow – I think an early night might be a plan…

 

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