I slept like a log. Over brekkie I sparked up the lap-top as I do, and sent out a couple of birthday wishes. Judging by the lack of anything much of note on social media it would seem that I hadn’t been alone in having had something of a dull weekend. There was quite a bitter tirade on one of the Hastings Old Town Facebook pages; apparently over the weekend there had been a two-minute silence for the asylum seekers who had recently drowned, and quite a few people had posted racial hatred about it on that page. The page’s moderator had a little rant saying how shocked and surprised she was. I was tempted to point out that had she ever done any moderating of that page she wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest but thought better of commenting.
I had a quick fight with GSAK (it’s a geocaching thing) and got myself ready for this morning’s mission. Having had reports of missing geocaches in Kings Wood I found out which ones needed a look-see. And as is always the case, the two which needed my attention was one which was about as far from the car park as was possible to get on the north edge of the wood, and one which was right down on the south edge.
We went out to the car to find that winter had officially arrived. The start of winter is the first time when I have to scrape ice from the car’s windows, and that was today. With ice scraped we drove through rush hour traffic up to Kings Wood where we had a very good (if cold) walk. It would have been too cold for a proper geocaching outing with all the stopping and starting that would entail. And it would have been too cold for poor Fudge who used to dawdle at a snail’s pace. But Treacle and Pogo ran about like mad things and didn’t seem too bothered by the frost. In fact the only problem was that they were thirsty and the puddles were frozen over. But Pogo soon worked out how to stamp through the ice.
As we walked we met four and a half other groups of dog walkers, and each encounter passed off without incident. We all had a little sniff and kept going which was for the best. The half of a group of dog walkers was one chap whose dog had disappeared into the woods. I did sympathise; Fudge once vanished for an hour in those woods in pursuit of heaven only knows what.
Our plan was geo-maintenance. The cache at the north of the woods was clearly missing which was odd. It was definitely there when I walked past it two months ago. We popped a new one out. The cache at the south of the woods wasn’t missing. I found it right away which was also odd as three other people had logged that they couldn’t find it. I wonder what was going on there.
I took a few photos as we walked – it was rather pretty today. a bright winter’s day can be very pretty, if very cold.
With walk walked we came home, and within minutes both dogs were curled up and fast asleep. I then had a look at my in-box to plan our next geo-maintenance walk. Every time someone logs a “Did Not Find” on a geocache that I’ve hidden an email goes into a specific folder in my in-box so I know if there are any issues. This morning there were sixteen such emails (I’d not looked at that folder for a couple of weeks which was remiss of me!). Five of them were about the two caches I sorted today. Four were about the ones that we sorted last Thursday. Five were on ones that other people have found in the meantime (and so don’t need me to do anything). All that I have left to sort are two possible issues on my “Out In The Sticks”. Needless to say these two are at opposite sides of a six-mile circular walk. Still, never mind. I created the series with dogs in mind and sorting the issues might make for a dog walk next weekend (weather and mud permitting).
I filled a hot water bottle and went to bed for the afternoon. Why is it the bed is so cold during the daytime? When “er indoors TM” is having a kip she doesn’t realise the dogs sneak under the covers with her. They know I won’t have it though, and don’t try with me. Instead they lie on top of the duvet on either side of me and pin me down. I managed a few hours sleep, then spent half a rather claustrophobic hour being utterly unable to move.
I’m hoping “er indoors TM” will be home soon to boil up some dinner, then I’m off to the night shift.
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