With no alarm set I slept through till five past eight this morning. I came downstairs (hotly followed by three dogs), and Sid then tried to go the way from which we had all gone. Sid then watched Fudge, Treacle and Pogo race into the garden with a “WTF do you want to go out there for?” expression. Despite frog-marching him outside he didn’t “do” anything. Sometimes I despair over Sid. Short of picking him up and squeezing there’s not a lot I can do to get him to “go” outside.
Again he sulked when he then wasn’t allowed anywhere with a carpet.
Pausing only briefly to work out where "er indoors TM" had hidden the jam I made myself some toast, then peered into the internet as I scoffed it. This morning things were relatively peaceful. No immoral young ladies were brandishing their chests, no one was quarrelling about the price of Lego. Some chap was asking if anyone would sell him a dalek at far below the going rate, but no one was taking the bait. I did have an email telling me about a new geocache that I could possibly have gone for (had I been on a core shift at Maidstone today). But I expect the bloke up the road had already been there. Back in the day I used to try to get one “First to Find” on a geocache a month. But with one local hunter of Tupperware who really does drop everything and run the very second a new one is released, and another seemingly scouring the countryside hunting out all likely locations hoping to find them before they are released, much of the enjoyment has been sucked out of what was once a fun game. Much the same happened with the astro club, and the snake club. Such a shame.
I got the leads on to the dog and we went out for a walk. The plan was to drive out to Great Chart, but what with an ambulance coming round the corner I had to turn left where I should have turned right. Autopilot kicked in, and we ended up at Orlestone Woods. Over the summer that was our go-to place for a walk, but after the unpleasantness of September 29th and the subsequent waste of police time on October 7th I have been reluctant to go back there. But we arrived to find an empty car park. No one else was there. What could possibly go wrong this time?
As it happened nothing did go wrong (apart from Fudge rolling in something foul). We met a couple of other dog walkers. One lot arrived after us; another had parked on one of the lanes which go round the edge of the woods. I’ve seen their car parked before. I can’t help but wonder why they would park on a narrow lane when there is a perfectly good car park nearby, but what do I know?
Both groups of dog walkers said hello; both mentioned that we’d not been to the woods for a while. I mentioned our encounter with the autistic walkers (and subsequent attack on the dogs). One chap said that he’d had something similar happen to him a while back. I wonder if it was the same people that I’d met?
We came home. There was an “episode” as we parked when a rather huge dog saw us (from inside his house) and started throwing itself at the window in an attempt to get at us. We didn’t hang around. I got the dogs in, got changed and set off to work, and after half a mile I did a U-turn. Brookfield Road (the main road heading west out of Ashford) was closed. I followed a rather epic queue of traffic back the way I'd come.
I eventually navigated my way to Sainsbury's where I got petrol, and having forgotten to bring lunch I got a sandwich too. The woman on the till had me scan in all of my purchases myself, seemingly oblivious to the fact that in doing so she was making herself demonstrably redundant. No one operates the tills in many stores; it won't be long before she too is out of work.
With enough petrol to get to work I headed for Tunbridge Wells. I had a pang of guilt as I drove past the family-owned petrol station in Biddenden. There were all sorts of signs up about how we should support the little shops and small businesses. But I did a few sums in my head. The petrol that I'd bought from Sainsbury's would be over a fiver more expensive from them (to say nothing of getting a sandwich). I'm all for supporting the little people, but charity begins at home (sorry!)
I nearly got to Goudhurst when I found myself in another rather epic queue of traffic. And nothing was coming down the road the other way. Was the road blocked at the church again? Sure enough yet another juggernaut had ignored all the signs and got itself wedged in the tight bend in the road. Fortunately I was able to take a minor diversion through some incredibly narrow lanes, and it wasn't *that* long before I was in the works car park. Pausing only briefly to deploy a Munzee in the general vicinity I scoffed lunch and had a look at the Internet via my phone. One of the local Facebook groups had just published a notice about Brookfield Road being closed. As I said last Sunday, back in the day you would know in advance about road closures.
Work was work; but hard work. What with the vagaries of my shift pattern I rarely work more than three days without a break. Doing five consecutive days (like everyone else does) has come as something of a shock this week…
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