6 June 2021 (Sunday) - Bit Dull Really

I did snigger when I took Sid out into the garden this morning. Not-so-nice-next-door was lurking on the other side of the fence and when she realised we were outside so she increased her volume incredibly. Sid didn’t react – he’s all but deaf. (Pogo and Treacle would have kicked off, but they were fast asleep). As we went back inside so she went quiet again. I’m sure she’s done this before recently. Am I being paranoid, or has she really taken to lurking behind the fence trying to provoke a reaction from the dogs?

As I scoffed my toast I saw that the friend request (on Facebook) from Scratchleyu Saidmagomed was still active. The Facebook Feds don’t move with any alacrity to deal with the iniquity of those promoting wanton nudey prod games, do they?

 

Not much else had happened on Facebook overnight so I spent a while solving geo-puzzles. I’d found a few to solve, but the were let down by rather ambiguous formulae. (Have you ever been let down by an ambiguous formula? – it can be something of a disappointment). For example what is the answer to 5*4-2+1? I’ve got a degree in maths and so I know what I think it should be, but few people have ever heard of the mnemonic "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" (parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction) and so in this case the answer could be 19, 11, -2, 15, or pretty much anything at all. Or what is meant by 6-4/2? Is that (6-4)/2 or 6-(4/2). The answer here could be either 1 or 4. Perhaps not the most important issue in the world, but when you are dependent on getting the sums right for geo-purposes this is the difference between doing the happy dance and rummaging in someone’s back garden.

Unfortunately it has been my experience that trying to explain the error of the ways of the puzzle-setter is tantamount to asking for a fight, so I just tried various permutations until I got the green light from the geo-checker until my nerves could stand no more.

 

I ran round the garden with the lawn mower, then rescued a bee. The poor thing had fallen into some water in one of the buckets in the garden. Using a spoon I fished it out, then offered it some sugary water (that’s what all the books say to do). It slurped the sugary water, then flew off. I saw that as a minor result.

 

 er indoors TM” and I then took the dogs out for a little walk. Usually we’d go on a geocaching extravaganza at the weekend, but the chief dog-wrangler had other things to do today.

We didn’t go very far, and I didn’t take any photos today. We just walked through some woods and along some lanes, and then came home where we washed the mud and stagnant pond water off of the dogs. And with dogs walked our phoned beeped. Charlotte (chief dog wrangler)’s “other things to do” today had been a karate grading, and she’d passed. She’s now got a black belt at karate. I’m rather impressed at that.

 

We had croissants and coffee, then I made a start on my next water feature. Not much of a start but I got the timber painted. You’d be surprised how long it takes to get timber painted; especially when dogs are trying to “help” by sitting on whatever it is you are trying to use.

 

er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “Ade in Britain” in which Adrian Edmondson was in Cheshire making cheese and making jam and charming worms. If anyone else was presenting the show it would be dire in the extreme, but he somehow brings it to life.

Whilst er indoors TM” tuned into a Zoom meeting, I had a little look at my new Wherigo project. It is pretty much ready to go… but for it to go live, other geocaches have to go. There are those who peruse the geo-map, see the old ones go, and then go out looking for the new ones to claim the First to Find before they are published. You would be amazed at just how much offence such a seemingly insignificant thing like that has caused in the past. Whilst it is (arguably) within the strict interpretation of the rules, it certainly isn’t within the spirit of the rules. I shall hold off on removing the old geocaches until the last minute, and once the new ones are in place I shall visit them until publication. If there is any shenanigans I shall blow what is a rather trivial matter out of all proportion on the geocaching websites. Probably...

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