12 July 2023 (Wednesday) - In The Back of Beyond

I slept through till when “er indoors ^TM” went for a tiddle at half past four. I then lay awake for half an hour before I too went to the loo. Whilst I was up, I uploaded yesterday’s photos which went up straight away, then went back to bed for three more hours. Bailey eventually woke me by trampling my chest and licking my nose. I could take a hint, so I took her outside. 

It wasn’t long before we were all up. We had a rather good al-fresco brekkie, then set off on a walk. There was a series of geocaches only three quarters of a mile up the road, so it would make for an easy day. Or so we thought.
We had a very good walk along quiet country lanes and across fields following well-marked footpaths. Sadly geocaching-wise was a different story. The series of caches we were following had been put out over ten years ago, had been replaced and changed in the intervening years, and today bore little relation to the original. The difficulty and terrain ratings seriously need updating; it speaks volumes that we had three resuscitation caches today (being the first to find it in over a year). I have often said that when hiding geocaches, some people want the things found, and some don’t….

It was only a shame that whilst spending perhaps too long looking for a more elusive cache that the dogs got bored and went wading in a swamp. 

After six miles and fourteen thousand steps we were back at base. Dogs got bathed (whether they liked it or not), a pint was enjoyed in the garden, and t hen the rain started. The rain had been forecast so we couldn’t really squabble. We adjourned inside to carry on with the jigsaw. The jigsaw is a thousand piece one which lives in the holiday cottage. We’d found a note inside it from previous occupants of the cottage saying they’d given up after four days, so the girls were seeing it as a challenge to get the thing done before we go home.
As we jigsaw-ed so the sun came out.

Rather than eating in, we all had a wash and brush up, and drove a mile down the road to the Rumburgh Buck where they serve a rather good drop of mild. As we perused the menus for dinner so “er indoors ^TM” spotted something; a rather large tick had embedded itself in Bailey’s neck. Fortunately Karl had a tick removal tool and as I held poor Bailey in a grip of iron so we conducted surgery to get the thing out. It was soon thrown on the paving slab and stamped on; it was gross. 

After the excitement we had a rather good bit of dinner al-fresco. Fortunately there was a shelter in which we scoffed as the forecast thunderstorm hit half way through dinner. Personally, I thought it was rather fun.
And with our scoff scoffed we went back to base where (once all checked for more ticks) the dogs had their dinner, and we finished the jigsaw. I saw “we” as I fully intend to share in the glory and bragging rights even though my contribution was somewhat less than that of others(!) 

As always I took a few photos today. And had another relatively early night. I’m finding being on holiday rather tiring; but not as much as the dogs are. For three dogs who sleep most of every day they haven’t stopped all week and are noticeably beginning to flag.