7 February 2022 (Monday) - On the Dull Side

I woke feeling a bit iffy, but what could I do? Sulk or get on with it. I actually did a bit of both, and as I did  I made some toast and peered into the Internet. It was still there. Facebook was rather dull today; like me, hardly anyone had seemed to have done much over the weekend. Mind you one group of friends had gone out geocaching round the series of caches I’d hidden in Brook some time ago, and had seemed to have liked what I’d done there.

There was a minor argument kicking off on-line about which local vet is cheapest for removing dog teeth; I remember “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM” having to get quotes from local vets when Sid had dental work done. Needing a lot of teeth out, various vets were quoting between five hundred quid and two thousand quid for the same job. Having a poorly animal really makes you realise just how marvellous the NHS is, doesn’t it?

There was also a plea for help on one of the pug-related Facebook groups I follow; someone had taken on a pug seemingly unaware of how much vets cost, and was trying to crowdfund a seriously prolonged stay in dog hospital. Bearing in mind that as a day case Fudge would run up bills of hundreds of pounds, this woman had some fundraising to do.

 

I then commented to “er indoors ^TM” that I was going to t-a-k-e the d-o-g-s for a w-a-l-k to the p-a-r-k and Pogo’s ears pricked up. It sounds daft, but that dog really has learned to spell.

We went for a w-a-l-k to the p-a-r-k and had a rather good time. Pogo played “catch” with his ball and Treacle carried hers, and although other dogs barked at us, we didn’t bark at any other dogs. We did bark at a roll of carpet that some woman in Christchurch Road was having delivered, but I suppose it deserved to be barked at.

As I walked I did think it something of a shame that we didn’t have this glorious weather yesterday…

 

Once home I made a cuppa and had a bit of out-of-date Christmas cake, then set up a virtual dog pack. You can have virtual dogs in Munzee which go fetch things for you. So I’ve now got three virtual dogs. Bearing in mind pretty much everything in Munzee begins with the letter “Q” (Qrates, Qrowbars, Qrew…), I’ve got Qudge, Qreacle and Qogo. I’m not entirely sure what benefit this will be to my scanning of bar codes stuck to lamp posts, but we will find out.

I read the official Munzee page about Rovers (as they are known) but I didn’t understand a word of it so I asked about them on the Munzee Clan’s Facebook page, and was given a link to that official Munzee page. Ho hum… Fortunately other people chipped in too

I unleashed Qreacle and Qogo this morning but decided to keep Qudge with me for now. Qugo was unleashed very near where a Munsee-ing friend works. I’m hoping she will do something with him… though I have absolutely no idea what.

 

And with a few minutes to spare I had a look at another GPS-based silly game and started sorting out my DNFs. Every time someone logs a “Found It” on one of my geocaches I smile because the thing is obviously still there, However every time someone logs a “Did Not Find” I sigh a little. Did they not find it because they are new to the game and don’t know what they are looking for, was it because they simply didn’t see it, or was the thing actually missing? I have a folder in my in-box into which “Did Not Find” messages automatically go. There were quite a few emails in that folder today… there were twelve geocaches of mine that had been reported to be problematical. Eight of them had “Found It” logs after the “Did Not Find” so I knew those were OK. But there were four which might be missing.

One is in Hemstead Forest. Getting to the cache from the car park involves traversing a sea of mud.

One is on the Greensand Way and (when I last saw it) was cable tied head height in a tree.

Two are in the arse end of nowhere at opposite ends of a walk I’ve appropriately named “Out In The Sticks”.

I’ll have a look-see over the next few weeks. If nothing else this will give me some dog walks.

 

One of the main reasons I never wanted dogs was that I have got far too attached to them, and I *seriously* dislike leaving them unattended for any period of time. But when we’d come back from our w-a-l-k earlier both had gone straight to sleep, and both were still snoring an hour and a half later as I set off to work.

Pausing only briefly to cap some Points of Interest (which were actually rather dull) I made my way to the petrol station at Sainsburys. I got petrol, and wasn't overly impressed with their choice of sandwiches. I picked up the only one that didn't make me go "YUK!" and then had a major argument with the woman on the till who wanted me to get a different sandwich as all the others were cheaper. She wouldn't be told that I would rather have "non-yuk" than "cheap".

I then headed west through the -hursts and the -dens (and through half a dozen sets of road works) to the late shift. I seem to be doing quite a few of these at the moment. 

I got to work... I did my bit.  At tea break I checked on my virtual dogs. Qreacle had been picked up and taken for a walk. It speaks volumes about my dull life that this was far and away the most exciting thing that happened today...