Not a lot was happening in the Internet this morning so I
got myself and the dogs organized and we set off for our morning walk.
As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the
“schools falling down” scandal. There was an interview with a head
teacher who said that despite numerous requests he’s had no information
whatsoever from the Department of Education about what was happening with his (collapsed)
school. However he’d read the newspapers in which it had been claimed that the
government would pay to rebuild schools, but it was up to the schools
themselves to fund alternate arrangements for teaching the kids whilst the
re-build happened. Where the schools are going to get money to pay for
alternate accommodation, and to organize school dinners was anyone’s guess.
They then wheeled on the Education Secretary who basically
refused to actually say anything at all. But (to be fair to her) she
said that bearing in mind that two schools have had ceilings collapse when
surveyors said all was fine, she wanted to get a good idea of the scale of the
problem… She said she’d have answers by the end of the week.
I wonder if she will have?
We got to Kings Wood and went on a little mission. Over the
weekend I’d had reports that four of my geocaches there were missing. So I went
out with four spare pots in my pocket, and (sure enough) they were all
missing.
I must admit that I chose Kings Wood for somewhere to put
geocaches as replacing them can be done during a dog walk. And I am fully aware
that replacing missing geocaches is the responsibility of the person who hid
the thing. But is it really so much to ask that people carry a few spare
plastic pots in their rucksack when they go walking? It takes less time to
replace a missing cache than it does to tell me about it. But this is an
argument that has been done to death… There are those who contriblute to any
hobby and thos who take. As Oliver Hardy once remarked “Twas ever thus”.
We had a good walk. We kept to the narrower paths which
were under the trees as much as we could be; Treacle’s been sick a few times
over the last few days – I think she might have had too much sun on Saturday.
Dogs are a worry.
We came home; I got pastries from the corner shop. I then
sparked up the lap-top and told the geo-world that I’d replaced the missing
caches.
After four hours asleep (that’s not bad for an
afternoon!) I woke up. I came downstairs, and the dogs were all rather
excitable; they know when it is time to feed the pond fish. “Feeding the
Fish” has become something of a ritual; I pootle about whilst the dogs get
more and more worked up until I announce “I’m going to feed the fish” at
which point they all sprint down the garden to the pond in the desperate hope that
some of the fish food will fall on the side of the pond where they can get it.
Some usually does.
And so off to another night shift. Back in the day things
were very different. Night shifts were rather lucrative; if rather arduous.
People would do the night shifts up until their thirtieth birthday at which
point they gave up and the youngsters coming in to the job would take over.
These days people don’t seem to start doing the job until
they are over thirty…
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