6 March 2022 (Sunday) - Meopham

Some nights I lay awake unable to get to sleep. Other nights (like last night) there is an endless commotion of dogs falling off the bed, dogs crying to get on the bed, of snoring,  of stomping about the bed, of quarrelling with whoever it is you’ve just stomped on… why can’t everyone just find a bit of bed and sleep quietly? It that so much to ask?

 

I again gave up the battle of trying to sleep, made toast and peered into the Internet; what with early morning Munzing missions, I’ve not done that for a few days, and hadn’t really missed much. Since the flurry of photos of children dressed as their favourite TV character for World Book Day (last Thursday) very few people had put much up on Facebook at all, which was a shame. I’m nosey and like to see what other people are doing. Pretty much everything on Facebook this morning was the same picture of a fish posted to all the fishing groups, the same picture of a recently deceased dog posted to all the dog groups, the same picture of Lego for sale posted to all the Lego groups…

I read an email about a geo-meet planned in a few weeks’ time in Seaford, had a little look at the Munzee map (to plan a possible little mission for mid-week), capped the Tree House, and then kicked everyone else out of their pit. Why should they be asleep when they’d kept me awake for most of the night?

 

It wasn’t long before we were on our way up the M20 (Munz-ing as we went), and were soon in Meopham where met up with Karl Tracey, Charlotte and some random old biddy who had latched on to us in the mistaken belief that we were the local chapter of the Ramblers. (Do I look like a Rambler?)

We sent her up the road to some other group that looked like they were going for a walk. Were they The Ramblers? I have no idea, but whoever they were, they took the old biddy with them in the opposite direction to the one in which we were going, and that was seen as something as a result by all concerned. (Well… by me at least).

 

With the normal people out of the way we set off on our walk. Pausing only briefly to rummage very suspiciously round the flag pole at the nearest windmill, we were soon out of the village and following paths and lanes as we love to do whenever we can. As we walked we met some very friendly horses who really didn’t deserve the reaction they got from Treacle. We saw a garden pond undergoing some serious maintenance; I say “garden pond”; the island in the middle of this garden pond was bigger than my garden pond, and I stood for five minutes in frank admiration and jealousy of what everyone else probably saw as a rather large hole in the ground.

We had our picnic lunch as we do; for some reason we seemed to find it hard work to sit down on the ground today, and I for one certainly struggled to get up again. What was that all about?

Bearing in mind how warm it had been when we walked round Kings Wood a few short weeks ago, it was really cold today. The fields were waterlogged in many places, and the footpaths were quagmires. But we made the most of it.

 

As always our route was laid out for us by a series of geocaches. Billed as a walk of five miles, “Hannah” measured it at just over seven and a half miles. It was a good walk but…

There is always a “but”, isn’t there?

The only criticism I could really level against this geo-series is that we did find some of the hides rather tricky. That isn’t a bad thing, but the most difficult ones weren’t where I would have put them. One was overlooked by a house, one was in a busy suburban area and one was on a (admittedly quiet) country lane. Personally I would have put the harder hides out in the countryside along a footpath where you can spend an age rummaging in the undergrowth. But I am just being picky here; it was a good walk across some beautiful scenery. I am very grateful that someone has taken the time and put in a lot of effort to give us a really good guided walk.

 

Mind you I must admit that it was with something of a sense of relief that I got back to the car; the elastic in my undercrackers had given out rather early in the walk and had made for a rather uncomfortable day. Have you ever tried climbing over a broken stile with your pants south of your chuff? It isn’t something I would recommend.

We said our goodbyes, and Munzed all the way home. It was something of a novelty for me not to sleep after a walk.

 

Once home “er indoors TM” scrubbed the dogs whilst I uploaded photos to show the world what we’d been up to today. I took a few photos as we walked (as I do), and today my camera took them as .jpg files which my laptop understands, not .huic files (like it did last time) which my laptop does not.

Once “er indoors TM” had scrubbed the dogs, I then scrubbed the bath.

 

Both dogs are snoring, and I am reliably dinner won’t be long…

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