I woke dripping in sweat and feeling like death warmed up shortly before four o’clock, so taking great care not to wake the babies I crept downstairs and sat in the garden drinking a tin of Doctor Pepper as the dawn broke. In the past when I’ve watched dawn break the birds’ dawn chorus is rather beautiful. Today it was just seagulls shrieking. I don’t know why we’ve got so many seagulls locally; the closest coast is fifteen miles away.
I went back to bed, turned on the fan, and slept rather better for a few hours.
I came downstairs for a second time, let the puppies outside, and now that it was light saw the washing that had hung outside overnight.
I made toast, sent out three birthday videos, and had a look at the Internet. It seemed that yesterday’s geo-meet wasn’t that well attended. Admittedly the location was against it, but a friend I met through geocaching had a birthday today and looking at some of the photos of memories being posted made me sit up and think. Back in the day there would be close on fifty people turning up to the monthly meets. I (and others) would suggest meeting up for a walk and we’d often get fifteen to twenty people along.
But now… has the thing run its course like scouting, snake-herding, astronomy and kite-flying? Today marks ten years since I found my first ever plastic pot under a rock (at Kingsnorth Church). Is it time to look for another silly waste of time?
I then went back out to the pond. Having pretty much established that the UV bulb was the cause of my electrical issues I unplugged everything and opened it all up. Quite a bit of stagnant water poured out of the electricals. That would be the cause of the short circuit, then.
Leaving “er indoors TM” with the dogs I drove down to World of Water at Rolvenden where I got a new pond filter. Rather smaller than the old one though: to be honest the old one was far too heavy when it came to emptying and cleaning. Hopefully the new one will be more manageable. I also looked at the pre-cast waterfall features they had. I saw the very one I wanted, but at nearly four hundred quid it can wait for another time. I shall have to save up
I brought the new filter home, and once we’d had a spot of lunch (“er indoors TM” had been baking) within a few minutes it was plumbed in and filtering like a thing possessed. I cleaned the old one and got it ready for the tip tomorrow, then had a little look at the Internet.
This morning a geocache had gone live in some woods mid-way between home and Canterbury. It still hadn’t been found by late afternoon. The temperature was cooling slightly and the dogs needed a walk, so we thought we’d try for a cheeky First To Find.
We got to the designated sport from where we had to follow a footpath for seventy paces until we found a big hole. At seventy paces (of my paces) I could see a humungous hole a few paces on… that would do. We then stood with our backs to this hole and looked in the right direction where we could see something fitting the description of that for which we were looking. And behind it was the cache. With a blank logsheet. We were First to Find – go us!
From there we had a little walk round the woods. We’d not been walking in these woods before; they were rather pretty. As we walked we met a pair of walkers coming the other way who put their dog in the lead when they saw us. My heart sinks when that happens; the etiquette is that you too put your dog on a lead so that they can all snarl at each other as they get dragged past. Whereas if off the leads things are generally much more sedate. But before we could lead them, the puppies flew up to say “hello”. I pulled out my whistle, gave it three sharp blasts, and (would you believe it) both Morgan and Bailey stopped dead, turned, and ran back to me. When the whistle training works it is incredibly impressive, and other dog owners who don’t know me stare in amazement as though I have the best trained dogs in the universe. What with the FTF and dogs doing as they were told I felt incredibly smug as we walked the rest of the way round the woods.
It was only a shame that Treacle and Bailey found chest-deep (on Treacle) stagnant mud in which they both wallowed.
We came home and as “er indoors TM” showered the mud from three dogs (Morgan wasn’t entirely spotless after the walk!) I had a look at the pond filter. Disaster… the filter box was dripping. I’ve had a little think (it hurt!) and the smaller box is possibly a tad too small for the volume of water coming from the pump. To be honest I thought this might be the case, and I’ve rigged up some guttering to collect the overflow. When I get a minute I shall get another filter box and a splitter and spread the pump output between the two boxes.
I shall ask for a day off in the week. Bet I don’t get it…
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