I had a better night’s sleep last night. Much of it was down to having the dogs settling. Over brekkie I peered into the Internet. Last night I’d asked a question on one of the Facebook geocaching-related pages about the intricacies of programming a GPS unit. It is always a mistake to do anything like that . For every one person who actually has anything to say there are a dozen keyboard warriors who want to heap sarcasm and scorn safe in the knowledge they will never have to face the person with whom they are trying to strike up an argument.
There were quite a few comments about how Emma Raducanu had won the US Open (some tennis competition) overnight. I did chuckle as several of the people posting on Facebook about this were those who are regularly posting jingoistic hatred on-line. Either these people didn’t realise that Ms Raducanu came to the UK from Canada (having been born from Chinese and Romanian parents) or (like with football players) are immigrants who are good at sport exempt from being despised?
I had an email which make me choke on my coffee. It was from “William, a famous Medium and confirmed Expert Psychic”. He claimed he inherited his gifts with a great capacity to love and help others and he knows I need his help because he had precious revelations about me. If he did, he would know exactly what I think about him. Like anti-vaxxing and 5G-crackpotism, mediums and psychics are a load of crystal balls.
We got ourselves and the dogs organised and got into the “er indoors TM”-mobile and set off. I had been hoping for great things this morning. Usually when we go anywhere in the “er indoors TM”-mobile we have a running battle to keep the dogs on the back of the car. Yesterday “er indoors TM” had spent twenty-five quid on some dog pen thingy which goes on the back seat and is tied around to head rests and stuff and keeps the dogs where they are supposed to be (so the manufacturer claimed). Pogo was out of it in a matter of seconds. That was money well spent.
We got to Hadlow and soon found where we were supposed to park. Treacle then did the tiddle she’d been whinging about for some time (she will only go on grass), then together with Karl, Tracey and Charlotte we went for a little walk following (as always) the geocaches. We had a very good walk along the paths and across the fields, seeing a horse on a diet and watching a spitfire doing aerobatics. Personally I wouldn’t want to put too much strain on an eighty-year-old plane but that’s just me.
Finding that we’d made rather good time and were half way round our planned route by half past eleven I suggested a minor detour on to Dene Park. Everyone else was up for it, so we added about a mile and a half (maybe two) to our trip. I’d never been to Dene Park before; it is not unlike Orlestone Woods. I’d certainly walk the dogs there regularly if it were closer.
After an hour and twenty minutes we were back on our planned route. Narrowly avoiding a fight with a St Bernard we admired the gorilla and tiger and then found a clearing with loads of stumps which was ideal for lunch. It has to be said that our picnic lunches are one of life’s high points, but (just possibly) I’m getting too old to be sitting on the ground. It was rather good to have a seat today, even if it was just a sawn stump.
We then carried on through beautiful countryside walking alongside (and in) streams and balancing up fallen trees. We spent a few minutes admiring a little memorial which had been set up for a local chap who’d died recently. That was rather sad.
Geocache-wise the walk was something of a mixed bag as we were looking for geocaches hidden by different people. The main route was the first route put out by a chap who is relatively new to the game, and there was an obvious problem in that three consecutive hides had been archived by Geo-HQ because of some complaint about their being on private land. Were they? I somehow doubt it. If they were on the path we were walking (which they must have been) they would have been along a public footpath and hurting no one. Geocaching HQ certainly wastes no time in shooting themselves in the foot whenever the opportunity allows.
The mini-series in Dene Park were (perhaps) trickier hides. But as a stand-alone small series that works fine. We chose to make them part of a bigger walk.
We couldn’t find two caches. Both of them were “stand-alone” caches not part of any other series. One would seem to have been hidden by someone who has only logged three caches this year, and the other by someone who’s not logged a find in over a year. Neither of these look set to be maintained any time soon and will probably just be archived by the reviewers, which will be a shame. Whilst I‘m all for regularly replacing series of caches (to keep the hobby alive), some older ones need to be kept going too. Ones like these two…
After nearly nine miles we got back to our cars and said our goodbyes. Amazingly I stayed awake for the drive home. I’d taken a few photos as we walked. Once home I put them on-line whilst “er indoors TM” drove down to Folkestone to get shopping for “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”. As I fiddled about posting logs and geo-stalking the owners of the caches we didn’t find so both dogs snored. They’d had a really good walk, and were worn out.
Just as I’d finished doing all the geo admin (and writing much of today’s blog instalment) so “er indoors TM” came home. She’d come home via the KFC which was something of a result. We scoffed the KFC whilst watching this week’s episode of “Lego Masters”. Much as I like that show I struggled to stay awake.
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