Every time I moved in the night I woke in pain. I overdid the
physical effort building the planter box yesterday.
I got up just after seven o’clock and (hoping to miss the
traffic) took the dogs straight to the woods for a walk. There were only
two other cars in the car park at Orlestone which was probably for the best.
We had a good walk exploring the lower end of the woods; I don’t
like to let Morgan get anywhere near the roads at the top. He only needs to
chase one squirrel…
As we walked in the depths of the woods we heard a commotion. About
fifty yards from us was a woman with two dogs. Both on leads; both about twice
the size of the woman. She was shrieking at the dogs to stop dragging her
about. Morgan and Bailey ran up to make nuisances of themselves, so I blew the
whistle and they came straight back to me. “Why can’t you do that?” the
woman screamed in desperation at her dogs. We turned round and back-tracked a
few hundred yards before taking a bit of a detour; we wanted to keep our
distance from that lot. We ended up walking further, but sometimes you need to
avoid the normal people.
As we walked back towards the car park we saw another woman with
her dog. Again the pups ran up to make nuisances of themselves, and again they
came back to the sound of the whistle.
We got back to the car, did “boot dogs”, and my watch told
me I’d already surpassed my daily step goal of six thousand steps…
Had I? When I got my new SmartWatch at Christmas I activated the
step counter thingy out of interest, but in retrospect I think I activated it
on the unspoken understanding that it was reliable. Yesterday it claimed I
walked just under seven thousand steps; on Saturday it said over twelve
thousand. Seriously? I don’t think I did very much different physically on
either day.
As we drove home I had a wry smile. The pundits on the radio were
talking about a scientific study done of sets of identical twins. One of each
set of twins ate normally, the other followed a “healthy eating” diet.
Each set of twins apparently ended up the same weight, but the ones on the “healthy
eating” diet all claimed to be constantly hungry.
We got home, had a late brekkie and I checked out the Internet. I
had two friend requests on Facebook from what I think were young
ladies. It is rather difficult to be sure these days. Neither looked to be the
sort of young lady I’d want to bring home to meet my mother, so I deleted both
requests.
With a bit of time on my hands I went out to the car and pumped up
the tyres. As we’d driven to the woods earlier the low pressure alarm had come
up. Last year I was pumping them up every month; this is the first time I’ve
had to do it this year.
And then I took the puppies to the vets. Mind you, at eighteen
months old they are hardly puppies anymore. Even if Bailey only weighs three
point eight kilograms. Morgan is chunkier at eight point two. The vet gave them
each a once over. She could find nothing wrong with Morgan's back leg (the
one he does the "hop" on), but Bailey needs her teeth brushing;
whether she likes it or not.
Leaving the pups with “er indoors TM” I set off on a rather
circuitous journey to work. First of all via the petrol station. I went to the
Ashford one rather than Aylesford as the warning light had come on and I didn't
want to chance being stuck in slow moving traffic on the motorway.
From there I went to Dobbies car park and had a little stroll up
and down Munzing as I went. I deployed a Golden Carrot and got two Qrates;
there's never a dull moment in Munzee. As I was there I had a little look at
the pond stuff in Dobbies. I've always found the staff of their aquatic section
to be very helpful, but their pond
plants were rather expensive. A water lily in Bybrook barn costs me twelve
quid; Dobbies want twenty-two quid for the same thing. Their pond marginals
were twice the price I paid at the weekend. And the pond filter I got a few
weeks ago was (literally) hundreds of quid more in Dobbies. It certainly
pays to shop around.
I set off to work up the motorway; I was right to have got petrol
earlier. I was only stuck in traffic for a few minutes but it could have been
more.
As I waited for the traffic to move I remembered sitting in a
traffic queue some years ago with my Fudge dog sitting on the passenger seat (he
always sat up front with me) and I had a little melt-down.
They don't happen as often as they did, but I still miss that silly
dog.
By the time I got to work I was worn out and rather fancied an
afternoon with my feet up staring at the telly rather than doing work.
I really shouldn't do so much before a late shift…
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